The Light of Amsterdam (46 page)

 

The pilot had already warned them about the weather and when they came out of the plane they were greeted by rain and wind that made some of the Indians shriek and squeal and everyone hurried the short distance to the terminal building, some people holding newspapers over their heads. They went up a flight of steps and along a narrow corridor when suddenly they ground to a halt. A voice was speaking to them but he couldn't catch the words. People were looking at each other asking what was happening as three men in white shirts appeared, each shaven-headed, each a physical echo of the other and with authority stamped across their wide brows. They were coming down the line of passengers and directing them to stand in single file against the wall using slow deliberate gestures with their hands as if they were controlling nervous cattle. They had a kind of basic uniform but he wasn't sure if they were police or customs officers. They weren't smiling.

‘Son, take those earphones off please,' one said to Jack, the ‘please' mitigated by the irritated tone of voice.

He approached with impatience written over his face because Jack, not having heard him, had failed to respond. Before the shaven-headed man could come any closer he took them out of his son's ears himself and then they were being addressed by another of the white shirts. They were to stand still and stay in line facing the front. It would only take a few minutes and then they would be able to go. But there was still no explanation of what was about to happen and so they stood there passive and nervous in the face of this assertive authority. A dog appeared – a nondescript-looking thing, with a pug-ugly face and its tail wagging excitedly as if it had been let out to play after being cooped up too long. He realised it was a dog trained to sniff out drugs and felt a little angry that they were being subjected to this indiscriminate inspection. There were old people and children as well as whatever potential drug mules.

‘Welcome home,' he said to Jack but was immediately instructed to stop talking by the first white shirt.

The dog was making its way along the line. People angled themselves out of position to watch its progress. It was getting closer. He wondered if they'd had some tip-off about the flight. And then suddenly it was rushing round their legs and barking insistently, its tail oscillating in a spasm of excitement. Barking and barking, especially at Jack. He put his hand on his son's shoulder – the time when he'd run off and been on his own. Please God he hadn't bought stuff.

‘Jack? Tell me you haven't.'

‘Stop talking.'

‘No I haven't,' and his son's tone of hurt anger made him believe him.

It had to be the smoke from the concert, the smoke from the bar that had now identified them as drug dealers in the tiny olfactory brain of the dog. All heads were turned towards his son. The eyes of the white shirts were narrowing into slits of accusation and enforcement. And then Jack looked down at the dog that was barking and scampering round his feet and started to bark back, quietly at first but then with more enthusiasm. The dog was going crazy. It looked as if it was thinking of biting.

‘Please, Jack, don't.'

‘Stop that!'

But he didn't stop and the second white shirt who had just shouted was approaching him with aggressive intent. People were fanning forward out of the line to get a better look. There was the sound of someone laughing. And then he stood closer to his son, his outstretched arm shielding him as he looked down at the little Cerberus whose job it was to guard this underworld, and suddenly despite all the warnings, the restraining voices in his head, he too was barking. Every good reason in the world to stop and at worst
Midnight Express
already screening in his head, at best the imagined indignities of a full body search in some strip-lit cell, but he had no choice because in that moment he knew that love was the price that had to be paid for bringing a child into the world. And because he understood that now, he was barking at the dog, barking at the shirts, barking at the darkness of the underworld, his voice and his son's imperfect echoes of each other before they finally submitted, together, to the silence.

A Note on the Author

David Park has written seven books, most recently the hugely acclaimed
The Truth Commissioner
which was awarded the Christopher Ewart Biggs Memorial Prize. He was the winner of the Authors' Club First Novel Award, the Bass Ireland Arts Award for Literature and thrice winner of the University of Ulster's McCrea Literary Award. In 2008 he received the American Ireland Fund Literary Award for his contribution to Irish literature. He lives in County Down, Northern Ireland, with his wife and two children.

By the Same Author

Swallowing the Sun

The Big Snow

Stone Kingdoms

The Rye Man

The Healing

Oranges from Spain

The Truth Commissioner

Copyright © 2012 by David Park

 

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Published by Bloomsbury USA, New York

 

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

 

Park, David, 1953–
The light of Amsterdam / David Park. — 1st U.S. ed.
p. cm.
1. Middle-aged persons—Northern Ireland—Belfast—Fiction. 2. Mid-life crisis—Fiction.
3. Middle-aged persons—Travel—Netherlands—Amsterdam—Fiction.
I. Title.
PR6066.A577L54 2012
823'.914—dc22
2011042341
First U.S. Edition 2012
This electronic edition published in November 2012
ISBN: 978-1-60819-758-3 (e-book)
www.bloomsburyusa.com