was hosting on Christmas Day. Was Pippa in California still? I imagined her tumbling over in a hotel bed and reaching sleepily for the telephone, eyes still closed, Theo is that you, is something wrong?
Better a fine and talk our way out of it in case we are stopped.
I felt ill. To present myself at the consulate (or whatever) for a round of interviews and paperwork was asking for far more trouble than I needed. I hadn’t put a time limit on waiting, on how long I would wait, and yet any movement—random movement, senseless movement, insect-buzzing-around-a-jar movement—seemed preferable to being cooped up in the room even one minute more, seeing shadow people out of the corner of my eye.
Another huge Tiffany ad in the Tribune, bringing me Season’s Greetings. Then on the opposite page a different ad, for digital cameras, scrawled in artsy letters and signed Joan Miró:
You can look at a picture for a week and never think of it again. You can also look at a picture for a second and think of it all your life
Centraal Station. European Union, no passport control at the borders. Any train, anywhere. I pictured myself riding in aimless circles through Europe: Rhine falls and Tyrolean passes, cinematic tunnels and snowstorms.
Sometimes it’s about playing a poor hand well, I remembered my dad saying drowsily, half asleep on the couch.
Staring at the telephone, lightheaded with fever, I sat very still and tried to think. Boris, at lunch, had spoken of taking the train from Amsterdam to Antwerp (and Frankfurt: I didn’t want to go anywhere near Germany) but, also, to Paris. If I went to a consulate in Paris to apply for a new passport: maybe less likelihood of connection with the Martin stuff. But there was no getting away from the fact that the Chinese kid was an eyewitness. For all I knew I was on every law-enforcement computer in Europe.
I went to the bathroom to splash water on my face. Too many mirrors. I switched off the water and reached for a towel to pat my face dry. Methodical actions, one by one. It was after nightfall when my mood always darkened, when I began to be afraid. Glass of water. Aspirin for my fever. That too always began to climb after dark. Simple actions. I was working myself up and I knew it. I didn’t know what warrants Boris had out on him but though it was worrying to think he’d been arrested, I was a lot more worried that Sascha’s people had sent someone else after him. But this was yet another thought I could not allow myself to follow.
ii.
THE NEXT DAY—CHRISTMAS Eve—I forced myself to eat a huge room-service breakfast even though I didn’t want it, and threw away the newspaper without looking at it since I was afraid if I saw the words Overtoom or Moord one more time there was no way I could make myself do what I had to. After I’d eaten, stolidly, I gathered the week’s accumulation of newspapers on and around my bed and rolled them up and put them in the trash basket; retrieved from the cupboard my bleach-rotted shirt and—after checking to see the bag was tied tight—slipped it into another bag from the Asian market (leaving it open, for carrying ease, also in case I happened to spot a helpful brick). Then, after turning up my coat collar and tying my scarf over it, I turned around the sign for the chambermaid, and left.
The weather was rotten, which helped. Wet sleet, blowing in sideways, drizzled over the canal. I walked for about twenty minutes—sneezing, miserable, chilled—until I happened upon a rubbish bin on a particularly deserted corner with no cars or foot traffic, no shops, only blind-looking houses shuttered tight against the wind.
Quickly I shoved the shirt in and walked on, with a burst of exhilaration that sped me four or five streets along very rapidly, despite chattering teeth. My feet were wet; the soles of my shoes were too thin for the cobblestones and I was very cold. When did they pick up the garbage? No matter.
Unless—I shook my head to clear it—the Asian market. The plastic bag had the name of the Asian market on it. Only a few blocks from my hotel. But it was ridiculous to think this way and I tried to reason myself out of it. Who had seen me? No one.
Charlie: Affirmative. Delta: I am proceeding with Difficulty.
Stop it. Stop it.