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I nod.
“And you’ve been looking all this time?”
I nod again. In some way, I have.
“And do you think he’s been looking for you?”
“I don’t know.” And I don’t. Just because he tried to find me a year ago doesn’t me he wants to find me now. Or wants me to find him.
“But you must know,” he replies. And for a minute I think he’s reprimanding me that I ought to know, but then he picks up the phone and makes a call. When he’s done, he turns to me. “You must know,” he repeats. “Go to window two in the billing office now. They cannot release his chart, but I have instructed them to release his address.”
“They have it? They have his address?”
“They have an address. Go collect it now. And then find him.” He looks at me again. “No matter what, you must know.”
I walk out of the hospital, past where the cancer patients are taking their chemotherapy treatments in the late afternoon sun. The printout with Willem’s address is clenched in my fist. I haven’t looked at it yet. I tell Wren that I need a moment alone and make my way toward the old hospital walls.
I sit down on a bench alongside the quadrangle of grass, between the old brick buildings. Bees dance between the flower bushes, and children play—there’s so much life in these old hospital walls. I look at the paper in my hand. It could have any address. He could be anywhere in the world. How far am I willing to take this?
I think of Willem, beaten—beaten!—and still trying to find me. I take a deep breath. The smell of fresh-cut grass mingles with pollen and the fumes from trucks idling on the street. I look at the birthmark on my wrist.
I open the paper, not sure where I’m going next, only sure that I’m going.
Thirty-four
AUGUST
Utrecht, Holland
My guidebook has all of two pages on Utrecht, so I expect it to be tiny or ugly or industrial, but it turns out to be a gorgeous, twisting medieval city full of gabled row houses and canals with houseboats, and tiny little alley streets that look like they might house humans or might house dolls. There aren’t many youth hostels, but when I turn up at the only one I can afford, I learn that before it was a hostel, it was a squat. And I get that sense, almost like a radar communicating from some secret part of the world just to me: Yes, this is where you’re meant to be.
The guys at the youth hostel are friendly and helpful and speak perfect English, just like Willem did. One of them even looks like him—that same angular face, those puffy red lips. I actually ask him if he knows Willem; he doesn’t and when I explain that he looks like someone I’m looking for, he laughs and says he and half of Holland. He gives me a map of Utrecht and shows me how to get to the address the hospital gave me, a few kilometers from here, and suggests I rent a bike.
I opt for the bus. The house is out of the center, in an area full of record stores, ethnic restaurants with meat turning on spits, and graffiti. After a couple of wrong turns, I find the street, opposite some railroad tracks, on which sits an abandoned freight car, almost completely graffitied over. Right across the street is a skinny town house, which according to my printout, is the last known address of Willem de Ruiter.
I have to push my way past six bikes locked to the front rail to get to the door, which is painted electric blue. I hesitate before pressing the doorbell, which looks like an eyeball. I feel strangely calm as I press. I hear the ring. Then the heavy clump of feet. I’ve only known Willem for a day, but I recognize that those are not his footsteps. His would be lighter, somehow. A pretty, tall girl with a long brown braid opens the door.
“Hi. Do you speak English?” I ask.
“Yes, of course,” she answers.
“I’m looking for Willem de Ruiter. I’m told he lives here.” I hold up the piece of paper as if in proof.
Somehow I knew he wasn’t here. Maybe because I wasn’t nervous enough. So when her expression doesn’t register, I’m not all that surprised. “I don’t know him. I’m just renting here for the summer,” she says. “I’m sorry.” She starts to close the door.
By now, I’ve learned no or sorry or I can’t help you—these are opening offers. “Is there someone else here who might know him?”
“Saskia,” she calls. From the top of a stairway so narrow it looks like a ladder, a girl appears. She climbs down. She has blond hair and rosy cheeks and blue eyes, and there’s something vaguely farm-fresh about her, as though she just this minute finished riding a horse or plowing a field, even though her hair is cut in spikes and she’s dressed in a woven black sweater that is anything but traditional.
Once again I explain that I’m looking for Willem de Ruiter. Then, even though she doesn’t know me, Saskia invites me in and offers me a cup of coffee or tea.
The three of us sit down at a messy wooden table, piled high with stacks of magazines and envelopes. There are clothes strewn everywhere. It’s clear a lot of people live here. But apparently not Willem.
“He never really lived here,” Saskia explains after she serves me tea and chocolates.
“But you know him?” I ask.
