You would need to be very very careful with this person, long as you live.”
Cold hands, cold feet. Snackbar, Supermarkt, spotlit pyramids of fruit and candy, Verkoop Gestart!
“Your life—your freedom—resting on a stranger’s loyalty? In that case? Yes. Worry. Absolutely. You would be in very big trouble. But—no one knows of this thing but us. Not even Gyuri!”
Unable to speak, I shook my head vigorously at this, trying to catch my breath.
“Who? China Boy?” Boris made a disgusted noise. “Who’s he going to tell? He is underage and not here legally. He does not speak any proper language.”
“Boris”—leaning forward slightly; I felt like I was going to pass out—“he’s got the painting.”
“Ah.” Boris grimaced with pain. “That is gone, I’m afraid.”
“What?”
“For good, maybe. I am sick over that—sick in my heart. Because, I hate to say it—Woo, Goo, what’s his name? After what he saw—? All he will think about is himself. Scared to death! People dead! Deportation! He does not want to be involved. Forget about the picture. He has no idea of its true value. And if he finds himself in any kind of fix with the cops? Rather than spend one day in jail even? All he will want is to get rid of it. So—” he shrugged woozily—“let’s hope he does get away, the little shit. Otherwise very good chance the ptitsa will end up thrown in canal—burned.”
Streetlights glinting off the hoods of parked cars. I felt disincarnate, cut loose from myself. How it would feel to be back in my body again I couldn’t imagine. We were back in the old city, cobblestone rattle, nocturne monochrome straight out of Aert van der Neer with the seventeenth century pressing close on either side and silver coins dancing on black canal water.
“Ach, this is closed,” groaned Boris, jerking to a stop again, backing up the car, “we must find another way.”
“Do you know where we are?”
“Yes—of course,” said Boris, with a sort of scary disconnected cheerfulness. “That’s your canal over there. The Herengracht.”
“Which canal?”
“Amsterdam is an easy city to get around,” Boris said, as if I hadn’t spoken. “In the old city all you have to do is follow the canals until—Oh, God, they closed this off too.”
Tonal gradations. Weirdly enlivened darks. The small ghostly moon above the bell gables was so tiny it looked like the moon of a different planet, hazed and occult, spooky clouds lit with just the barest tinge of blue and brown.
“Don’t worry, this happens all the time. They are always building something here. Big construction messes. All this—I think is for a new subway line or something. Everyone is annoyed by it. Many accusations of fraud, yah yah. Same in every city, no?” His voice was so blurry he sounded drunk. “Roadwork everywhere, politicians getting rich? That is why everyone rides a bike, it is quicker, only, I am sorry, I am not riding a bicycle anywhere one week before Christmas. Oh no—” narrow bridge, dead halt behind a line of cars—“are we moving?”
“I—” We were stopped on a pedestrian footbridge. Visible pink drops on the rain-splashed windows. People walking back and forth not a foot away.
“Get out of the car and look. Oh, hang on,” he said impatiently before I could pull myself together; throwing the car into Park, getting out himself. I saw his floodlit back in the headlights, formal and staged-looking amidst billows of exhaust.
“Van,” he said, throwing himself back in the car. Slamming the door. Taking a deep breath, bracing his arms out straight against the steering wheel.
“What is he doing?” Glancing side to side, panicked, half expecting some random pedestrian to notice the bloodstains, rush at the car, bang at the windows, throw open the door.
“How should I know? There are too many cars in this fucking city. Look,” said Boris—sweating and pale in the lurid tail lights of the car in front of us; more cars had pulled up behind, we were trapped—“who knows how long we will be here. We are only few blocks from your hotel. Better you should get out and walk.”
“I—” Was it the lights of the car in front of us that made the water drops on the windshield look quite so red?
He made an impatient flicking movement of the hand. “Potter, just go,” he said. “I don’t know what is going on with this van up here. I’m afraid the traffic police will show up. Better for us both if we are not together just now. Herengracht—you cannot miss