Bella Italia (3 page)

“First, a shower,” Hans said when they returned to the mobile home.

“Me first,” Niels said as he stored his bike under the canopy.

“I don’t think so, gentlemen.” Petra locked her bike and opened the front door.

“Ladies first, my boy,” Hans said. “You may as well start getting used to that now,”

He followed his son’s example and took a seat on one of the fold-out chairs and put both of his hands on the table, which made the unsteady table wobble slightly. “So, what do you want to do later?”

“Play cards.”

Before Hans had a chance to respond, his son’s attention was focused completely by the two boys who passed by on their rental bikes. They stopped in front of Thijs’s mobile home.

“Isn’t that … ?”

“Conor and Mats,” Niels added. “They’re coming to pick up Thijs.”

Hans nodded. During the breaks in between the swimming matches, they boys talked among themselves a lot.

The mobile home’s door opened and Thijs came out. When he got on his bike, his parents came down the steps. They said something to Thijs that Niels didn’t understand.

The three boys stopped in front of Hans and Niels’s mobile home and said hello. Thijs smiled at Niels. “You want to come with us?”

Niels gave his father a pleading look.

“Where are you guys going?” Hans wanted to know.

“You know, all over the campground. Tonight is the singing competition semifinals for kids. During the intermission, we go and play games in the Cave.”

“The Cave?” Hans asked.

“Yeah, it’s where all the games for kids are.”

“Cool!” Niels said. “Can I go too, Dad?”

“Maybe tomorrow. I need to discuss it with your mother first.”

Niels let out a heavy sigh of disappointment and frustration. He gave his new friends a fleeting look. Thijs gauged the situation quickly, said good-bye, and rode off. Conor and Mats followed suit. Even though they didn’t understand Dutch, they had caught the gist of the conversation.

When Petra came out a little while later, she found a sulking Niels and a slightly uncomfortable Hans.

“Why don’t you go and shower first?” Hans said.

“I don’t really feel like it anymore.” Continuing to sulk, Niels stared straight ahead.

“Well, then I may not feel like playing cards later, either.”

Niels chose the lesser of two evils, though it was clear he was not happy about it. He got up and entered the mobile home, with a very agitated expression on his face.

“I will explain in just a second,” Hans said to Petra. “I’ll be right back.”

He got up and walked over to Thijs’s parents, who were outside of their mobile home. “Hi there, I’m Hans Kolwijn. We already met your son Thijs this morning.”

Thijs’s father also sat in a fold-out chair. He had an average-to-slightly-heavyset build and red hair. He wore a blue button-up shirt with short sleeves and jogging pants. There was a beer on the table next to him. He shook Hans’s hand.

“Berry Heuting. I’m Thijs’s father.” He nodded in the direction of the mobile home, where a blond woman appeared in the doorway. She wore a sleeveless white shirt and matching shorts. “That’s Marion, my wife.”

Hans also shook the woman’s hand and quickly got to the point. “Thijs stopped over at our place just now. He told us that he and his friends were going to ride their bikes all over the campground and he asked if my son, Niels, could come along.” He made a helpless hand gesture to clarify his position. “It kind of took me off guard. My wife was taking a shower, the boys were in a hurry, and Niels really wanted to go. I had to make a split-second decision, which my son wasn’t exactly happy with.”

Berry grinned. “I can only imagine. As long as you give those little monkeys what they want, all is well, but God forbid you ever say no. Then there is hell to pay.”

“Well, we don’t really have that problem with our Thijs.” Marion added from inside the mobile home.

Berry grinned mockingly. “That’s because we always give him what he wants.” He took a sip of beer.

“So, what can I do for you?”

“Well, I really just came by to find out if you know what they’re up to out there?”

Berry shrugged his shoulders. “They wander around the campground. Just like you or I would have done when we were their age.”

“Tonight they’re going to the kids’ singing contest first,” Marion added. “After that they will go to the Cave.”

“That’s the arcade, the place where they have all the games for the kids,” Hans responded. “I heard that from Thijs. So what time do they come home?”

“Around eleven o’clock,” Berry answered. “One day it starts a little earlier and the next day a little later. So we try to be flexible with it. If it gets to be too late, then I just call him on his cell phone.”

Hans had more questions, but could see that Niels was back outside from the corner of his eye.

“Thanks for the information, guys, but I need to get back.”

“You sure you don’t want a beer?” Berry asked.

Hans waved it away. “Maybe next time.”

“Why don’t you come by with your wife tomorrow and let Niels go along with the boys?” Marion suggested. “Then we can all have a drink together.”

Hans wished them a good night and walked back to their mobile home, where Niels had joined Petra out on the terrace in the meantime.

Niels looked at him suspiciously. “What were you doing over there?”

“Just saying hello, Colonel,” he answered, saluting him. “Where are the playing cards—you still wanted to play, right?”

“I’ll go and get them,” Petra said.

“Great, then I will take a quick shower. What game are we playing anyway?”

“Toepen,” Niels decided.

“Nice, I’m really good at that game.” He rubbed his hands together competitively. “I’m going to crush you both.”

“I don’t think so,” Niels answered.

Hans was pleased to see that a careful smile appeared on his son’s face again.

“Are we going to get back on time, Dad?”

Hans let out a heavy sigh. Niels had asked the same question about three times during the past hour.

“Yes, Niels,” he answered, slightly agitated. “We’re going to get there on time, but this is the last time were going to discuss it. If you ask me again, I’m going to pull the car over and take a two-hour nap on the side of the road.” He glanced quickly at his son in the rearview mirror.

“Don’t worry so much,” Petra shushed.

“Okay, sorry.”

“What did you enjoy the most today, son? And do me a favor and don’t say the new watch.”

“The gondola,” Niels answered, after giving it some thought.

“Well, that’s good considering what we paid for it.” Hans said. “Eighty euro for thirty minutes of floating around on a Venice canal. Those guys are raking it in.”

He looked at Niels in his rearview mirror again. Their eyes met.

“But it was actually really fun. What did you really think of the Golden Book?”

“Hmm, not very exciting, but it was beautiful. I did think that all those pigeons on that Marco Van Basten Square were very cool. It was incredible how many pigeons there were, and they looked like flying poop machines.”

Hans and Petra laughed. “You renamed Piazza San Marco into …” Hans laughed. “Just goes to show you what a great Dutch soccer player can achieve.”

At seven o’clock sharp, Hans parked the car next to their mobile home. They agreed that this time Niels could shower first. Tonight would be his first night out with his friends.

For Italian standards, the night began early. Just after seven thirty, Thijs, Conor, and Mats showed up.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” Hans said, welcoming them. He assumed that the boys must speak some sort of mishmash of English to one another. Apparently, they understood him perfectly, as all three returned his greeting in English.

Niels came out and greeted his friends with a casual nod as he grabbed his bike.

“Hey, tiger,” Hans said. “You remember our deal, right?”

Niels tapped on his brand-new watch, which he wore loosely around his wrist. “Home before ten thirty.” Then he got on his bike. “Bye.”

“Bye, bye,” Hans said to the group as they departed. He smiled broadly on the outside, but on the inside he worried about the fact that Niels would be out all night.

“Why don’t you take a load off?” Petra said. She knew him well enough to know exactly how he felt right now.

Hans sat down across from her. “Okay, so now I get to worry for three hours straight.” Hans sighed. “I keep wondering if this is all such a good idea. I mean, this way we can’t keep an eye on him at all.”

Petra stroked the back of his hand, which he had put on the table, with her fingertips. “There is no sense in sitting around worrying all night. We talked about this before we left, and we both agreed that this is the way we would do it. I know it’s difficult, but you have to let go. At home you never worry when he plays over at a friend’s house.”

Hans nodded meekly. “Yes, I know. But this is not a house. These are new surroundings, which we don’t know at all. It’s a huge campground—they could get lost.”

Petra chuckled. “It’s funny how things can go.”

Hans looked at her inquisitively. Not understanding her.

“I mean, shouldn’t it be me reacting the way you are? You know … being the worried mother and all.”

“So what you’re really trying to say is that I’m a wimp?”

“Yeah, well, kind of. No, seriously, that’s not what I meant. On the contrary, this kind of a reaction says a lot about you and really speaks to your character. You’re concerned. But you can’t control everything. They told us when and where they were going; we have to learn to trust him. If we don’t, he will start to do things behind our back.” She took her hand off the table slowly and raised her eyebrows. “So? Am I wrong or right?”

“No, you are absolutely right. You never told me that you could read minds before.”

She gave him a wink. “It’s my hidden talent. Tomorrow I will reveal all the deep and dark sexual desires you’ve been hiding away all these years.”

She saw how her comment brought on a slight smile.

“Would you like a beer, worrywart?”

He shook his head. “Not yet, maybe later.”

Hans got up from his chair at exactly nine p.m. Even though they had discussed it extensively last night, he walked to the door, opening it hesitantly, and stopped.

“Just go ahead,” Petra said, determined.

“So you think that …”

“I don’t think anything. Just do what you think is best.”

He nodded and stepped outside and started walking. From the corner of his eye he could see that Berry and Marion were looking at him from their terrace. To be polite he raised his hand to greet them and took a right. Their next-door neighbors were young people from Germany. They were also out on their terrace. Their baby, who cried a lot during the day, was sleeping inside. He nodded at them and kept walking.

At the end of the road he took another right. About a hundred yards farther, he took a left at the intersection and strolled casually along a few tents, most of which were sealed hermetically. Except for the last tent in the row, where a man sat in front on a small fold out-chair. He was drinking a bottle of beer and seemed to be enjoying himself. When Hans made eye contact, the man gave him a friendly smile.

Hans took a right at the next intersection. On this path he could hear the sound of music in the distance. It was cheerful music, something made to please a broad audience.

It steadily became more crowded. Couples, people with small children, young people intimately entwined and walking arm in arm, and small groups of rowdy boys. The atmosphere was fun and jovial. He stopped at the swimming pool entrance. He needed to take a moment to take it all in and get a good overview. He then continued at a steady pace toward a group of adults standing by the stage. He stood right behind them as if he was also interested in whatever was happening on stage.

Slowly he gazed across the crowd. He was roughly in the middle of the square, located directly in front of the Olympic pool. A boy, about ten years old, was on stage. He was dressed like a pirate and waved his sword around to the beat of the music. A group of adults and children right in front of the stage cheered him on enthusiastically.
Probably friends and family
, he thought.

The music stopped and the show’s host thanked the boy and announced the next act. It was a girl about the same age. She was also dressed as a pirate. He panned the crowd again and discovered Niels. He was standing next to the outside bar with his friends, tapping his foot to the beat.

Comforted by the thought that he knew where his son was and that he was having a good time and everything seemed safe, he returned to the entrance. When he got there, he turned around one more time.

The road he took was named Corso Lago di Garda and was four times wider than all the other roads. It was the main artery of the park and ran from the swimming pool to the rear exit, close to Lake Garda.

Before he reached the rear entrance, where the guard stood faithfully at his post to check if the hordes of people who wanted to enter were wearing the correct wristbands, he took a right. The Cave was located next to one of the three restaurants that were spread out across the park. It was a big hall, and when he walked in he was hit by a wall of sound. The place was full of video games and almost every station was taken. The ages of the visitors ranged from six to sixty. To his delight, there were no slot machines. He turned around and went home satisfied.

Once he arrived at the turn on to Viale Bardolino, he saw that Petra had joined Berry and Marion on their terrace. He hesitated. He wasn’t sure he was in the mood for that now. But by the time he got to his own mobile home, Petra got up, making the decision easy for him. She said good-bye to Thijs’s parents and walked toward him.

“So, Sherlock,” she said, laughing, “was the investigation successful?”

“I came to the conclusion that our son is a perfect gentleman and is having a wonderful time.”

She winked at him and opened the door to the mobile home. “I hope that you can relax now. Have a beer.”