A Widow for One Year (59 page)

What if the older woman writer felt that the younger man was insufficiently attracted to her? What if he seemed almost indifferent to having sex with her? Of course he
did
it. And it was clear to her that he
could
do it all day and all night; yet he always left her with the feeling that he never got very excited. What if he made her feel so self-conscious about her sexual attractiveness that she never entirely dared to show
her
excitement (lest she make a fool of herself )? This would be a boy quite different from Wim in
that
regard—an utterly superior sort of boy. Not as much of a slave to sex as the older woman writer would have liked . . .

But when they watch the prostitute together, the young man very slowly, very deliberately, lets the older woman know that he’s
really
aroused. And he gets
her
so aroused that she can scarcely keep still in the wardrobe closet; she can’t wait for the prostitute’s customer to be gone. And when the customer leaves, the older woman has to have the young man right there, on the prostitute’s bed, with the prostitute watching her with a kind of bored contempt. The prostitute might touch the woman writer’s face, or her feet—or even her breasts. And the woman writer is so consumed by the passion of the moment that she can do nothing but let everything happen.

“I’ve got it,” Ruth said aloud. Neither Wim nor the prostitute knew what she was talking about.

“Got what? What’s it going to be?” the prostitute asked. The shameless woman had her hand in Wim’s lap. “Touch my breasts. Go on, touch them,” the prostitute told the boy. Wim looked uncertainly at Ruth, like a child seeking his mother’s permission. Then he put a tentative hand on one of the prostitute’s small, firm breasts. He withdrew his hand the instant he touched her, as if her skin were unnaturally cold or unnaturally hot. The prostitute laughed. It was like a man’s laugh, harsh and deep.

“What’s wrong with you?” Ruth asked Wim.

“
You
touch them!” the boy said. The prostitute turned invitingly to Ruth.

“No, thank you,” Ruth told her. “Breasts are not miracles to me.”

“
These
are,” the prostitute told her. “Go on—touch them.”

The novelist may have known her story, but her curiosity—if nothing else—was aroused. She put a careful hand on the woman’s nearest breast. It was as hard as a flexed biceps muscle, or a fist. It was as if the woman had a baseball under her skin. (Her breasts were no bigger than baseballs.)

The prostitute patted the V of her panties. “You want to see what I’ve got?” The disconcerted boy looked beseechingly at Ruth, but this time it was not her permission to touch the prostitute that he wanted.

“Can we go now?” Wim asked Ruth.

As they were groping their way down the dark stairs, Ruth asked the prostitute where she or he was from.

“Ecuador,” the prostitute informed them.

They turned onto the Bloedstraat, where there were more of the Ecuadoran men in the windows and in the doorways, but these prostitutes were bigger and more obviously male than the pretty one had been.

“How’s your hard-on?” Ruth asked Wim.

“Still there,” the young man told her.

Ruth felt she didn’t need him anymore. Now that she knew what she wanted to happen, she was bored with his company; for the story she had in mind, he was the wrong boy, anyway. Yet the question remained of
where
the older woman writer and her young man would feel most at ease about approaching a prostitute. Maybe
not
in the redlight district . . .

Ruth herself had been more comfortable in the more prosperous part of town. It wouldn’t hurt to walk with Wim on the Korsjespoortsteeg and on the Bergstraat. (The idea of letting Rooie have a look at the beautiful boy struck Ruth as a kind of perverse provocation.)

They needed to pass by Rooie’s window on the Bergstraat twice. The first time Rooie’s curtain was drawn; she must have been with a customer. When they circled the Bergstraat a second time, Rooie was in her window. The prostitute showed no signs of recognizing Ruth—she just stared at Wim—and Ruth neither nodded nor waved; she didn’t even smile. All Ruth did was ask Wim—casually, in passing—“What do you think of
her
?”

“Too old,” the young man said.

Ruth felt
certain
that she was through with him. But although she had dinner plans for that evening, Wim told her that he would be waiting for her after dinner at the taxi stand on the Kattengat, opposite her hotel.

“Shouldn’t you be in school?” she asked him. “What about your classes in Utrecht?”

“But I want to see you again,” he pleaded.

She warned him that she would be too tired for him to spend the night. She needed to sleep—to
really
sleep.

“I’ll just meet you at the taxi stand, then,” Wim told her. He looked like a beaten dog who wanted to be beaten again. Ruth couldn’t have known then how glad she would be to see him waiting for her later. She had no idea that she was
not
through with him.

Ruth met Maarten at a gym on the Rokin that he’d told her about; she wanted to see if it would be a good place for the woman writer and her young man to meet. It was perfect, meaning it wasn’t too fancy. There were a number of serious weight lifters. The young man Ruth was thinking of—a much cooler, more detached young man than Wim— would be a devoted bodybuilder.

Ruth told Maarten and Sylvia that she’d “virtually spent the night” with that devoted young admirer of hers. He’d been useful; Ruth had persuaded him to “interview” a couple of prostitutes in
de Wallen
with her.

“But how did you ever get rid of him?” Sylvia asked.

Ruth confessed that she wasn’t
finally
rid of Wim. When she said he’d be waiting for her after dinner, both Maarten and Sylvia laughed. Now, if they took her to her hotel after dinner, Ruth wouldn’t have to explain Wim to them. Ruth reflected that everything she’d wanted had fallen into place. All that remained was for her to visit with Rooie again. Hadn’t Rooie been the one to tell her that
anything
could happen?

In lieu of lunch, Ruth went with Maarten and Sylvia to a signing at a bookstore on the Spui. She ate a banana and drank a small bottle of mineral water. Afterward, she would have most of the afternoon to herself—to see Rooie. Ruth’s only concern was that she didn’t know when Rooie left her window to pick up her daughter from school.

There was an episode at the book-signing that Ruth might have taken as an omen that she should
not
see Rooie again. A woman Ruth’s age arrived with a shopping bag—evidently a reader who’d brought her entire library to be autographed. But in addition to the Dutch
and
English editions of Ruth’s three novels, the contents of the shopping bag also included the Dutch translations of Ted Cole’s world-famous books for children.

“I’m sorry—I don’t sign my father’s books,” Ruth said to her. “They’re
his
books. I didn’t write them. I shouldn’t sign them.” The woman looked so stunned that Maarten repeated in Dutch what Ruth had said.

“But they’re for my children!” the woman said to Ruth.

Oh, why not just do what she wants? Ruth thought. It’s easier to do what everyone wants. Besides, as Ruth signed her father’s books, she felt that
one
of them was hers. There it was: the book she had inspired.
A Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make a Sound
.

“Say it in Dutch for me,” Ruth asked Maarten.

“It’s god-awful in Dutch,” he told her.

“Say it anyway,” she asked him.

“Het geluid van iemand die geen geluid probeert te maken.”
Even in Dutch, the title gave Ruth the shivers.

She should have taken it as a sign, but she looked at her watch instead. What was she worrying about? There were fewer than a dozen people still standing in line. Ruth would have plenty of time to see Rooie.

The Moleman

By midafternoon at that time of year, only small patches of sunlight lingered on the Bergstraat; Rooie’s room was in the shade. Rooie was smoking. “I do it when I get bored,” the prostitute told Ruth, gesturing with her cigarette as Ruth came inside.

“I brought you a book—it’s something else to do when you get bored,” Ruth said. She’d brought an English edition of
Not for Children
. Rooie’s English was so excellent that a Dutch translation would have been insulting. Ruth intended to inscribe her novel, but she’d not yet written anything in the book—not even her signature—because she didn’t know how to spell Rooie’s name.

Rooie took the novel from her. She turned it over, paying close attention to Ruth’s jacket photo. Then she put the book down on the table by the door, where she kept her keys. “Thanks,” the prostitute said. “But you’ll still have to pay me.”

Ruth unzipped her purse and peered into her wallet. She needed to let her eyes adjust to the dim light; she couldn’t read the denominations on the bills.

Rooie had already sat down on the towel in the middle of her bed. She had forgotten to draw the window curtains, possibly because she’d presumed that she
wouldn’t
be having sex with Ruth. There was a matter-of-factness about Rooie today that suggested that she had given up the idea of trying to seduce Ruth. The prostitute had become resigned to the fact that all Ruth wanted to do was
talk
.

“That was a darling boy I saw you with,” Rooie told Ruth. “Is he your boyfriend or your son?”

“He’s neither,” Ruth replied. “He’s not young enough to be my son. Not unless I had him when I was fourteen or fifteen.”

“It wouldn’t be the first time someone had a baby at that age,” Rooie said. Remembering the open curtains, she got up from the bed. “He was young enough to be
my
son,” the prostitute added. She was closing the window curtains when something or someone out on the Bergstraat caught her eye. Rooie closed the curtains only three quarters of the way. Before she moved to the outside door, the prostitute turned to Ruth and whispered: “Just a minute . . .” She opened the door a crack.

Ruth had not yet sat down in the blow-job chair; she was standing in the darkened room, with one hand on the armrest of the chair, when she heard a man’s voice speaking English out on the street.

“Should I come back later? Should I wait?” the man asked Rooie. He spoke English with an accent that Ruth couldn’t quite place.

“Just a minute,” Rooie told him. She closed the door. She closed the curtains the rest of the way.

“Do you want me to leave? I can come back later . . .” Ruth whispered, but Rooie was standing beside her, covering her mouth with her hand.

“How’s this for perfect timing?” (The prostitute also whispered.) “Help me turn the shoes.” Rooie knelt by the wardrobe closet, turning the shoes from toes-in to toes-out. Ruth stood, frozen, by the blow-job chair. Her eyes had not adjusted to the weak light; she still couldn’t see well enough to count out Rooie’s money.

“You can pay me later,” Rooie said. “Hurry up and help me. He looks nervous—maybe it’s his first time. He won’t wait all day.”

Ruth knelt beside the prostitute; her hands were shaking and she dropped the first shoe she picked up. “Let me do it,” Rooie responded crossly. “Just get in the closet. And
don’t move
! You can move your eyes,” the prostitute added. “Nothing but your eyes.”

Rooie arranged the shoes on either side of Ruth’s feet. Ruth could have stopped her; she could have raised her voice, but she didn’t even whisper. Ruth later thought—for about four or five years—that she hadn’t spoken up because she was afraid that Rooie would be disappointed in her. It was like responding to a childhood dare. One day Ruth would realize that being afraid you’ll look like a coward is the worst reason for doing anything.

Ruth instantly regretted that she’d not unzipped her jacket; it was stifling in the wardrobe closet, but Rooie had already admitted her customer to the small red room. Ruth didn’t dare move; besides, the zipper would have made a sound.

The man seemed disconcerted by all the mirrors. Ruth had only the briefest glimpse of his face before she deliberately looked away. She didn’t
want
to see his face; there was something inappropriately bland about it. Ruth watched Rooie instead.

The prostitute removed her bra; today it was black. She was about to remove her black panties, but the man stopped her. “It’s not necessary,” he said. Rooie appeared to be disappointed. (Probably for
my
benefit, thought Ruth.)

“It costs the same, whether you look or touch,” Rooie told the blandfaced man. “Seventy-five guilders.” But her customer apparently knew what it cost—he had the money in his hand. He’d been carrying the bills in his overcoat pocket; he must have taken the money out of his wallet before he came into the room.

“No touching—just looking,” the man said. For the first time, Ruth thought that he spoke English with a German-sounding accent. When Rooie reached for his crotch, he sidestepped her hand; he didn’t let her touch him.

He was bald and smooth-faced with an egg-shaped head and a nondescript body—not very big. His clothing was nondescript, too. The charcoal-gray trousers of his suit were loose-fitting, even baggy, but the pants were crisply pressed. The black overcoat had a bulky appearance, as if it were a size too large. The top button of his white shirt was unbuttoned, and he’d loosened his tie.

“What do you do?” Rooie asked him.

“Security systems,” the man mumbled. “SAS,” Ruth thought he added—she couldn’t be sure. Did he mean the airline? “It’s a good business,” Ruth heard him say. “Lie on your side, please,” he told Rooie.

Rooie curled herself up on the bed like a little girl, facing him. She drew her knees up to her breasts, hugging herself, as if she were cold, and gazing at the man with a coquettish smile.

The man stood over her, looking down. He’d dropped his heavylooking briefcase in the blow-job chair, where Ruth could no longer see it. It was a misshapen leather briefcase of the kind a professor or a schoolteacher might carry.