A Widow for One Year

by John Irving

  Finally they found a Thai prostitute in a basement room on the Barndesteeg. She was a heavyset young woman with flabby breasts and a potbelly, but she had an amazing moon-shaped face, a lush mouth, and wide, beautiful eyes. At first her English seemed passable, as she led them through a warren of underground rooms where a virtual village of Thai women regarded them with the utmost curiosity.

  “We’re just here to talk to her,” Wim said unconvincingly.

  The solid prostitute led them to a dimly lit room with nothing in it but a double bed that was covered by an orange and black bedspread of a roaring tiger. The center of the bedspread, which was the tiger’s open mouth, was partially covered by a green towel that was bleach-stained in spots, and slightly wrinkled—as if the heavyset prostitute had only moments ago been lying on it.

  All the rooms off the underground hall were partitioned by walls that didn’t reach the ceiling; the light from other, more brightly lit rooms crept over these thin partitions. The surrounding walls trembled when the prostitute lowered a bamboo curtain that covered the doorway; under the curtain, Ruth could see the bare feet of the other prostitutes padding past in the hall.

  “Which one of you will watch?” the Thai woman asked.

  “No, that’s not what we want,” Ruth told her. “We want to ask you about what experiences you’ve had with couples paying you to watch you with a customer.” There was nowhere in the room where anyone could be hidden, so Ruth asked: “And how would you do it? Where would you put someone who wanted to watch?”

  The thickset Thai undressed. She wore a sleeveless orange sheath of some thin, slinky material. It had a zipper down the back, which she undid very quickly; she slipped her shoulders out of the straps and wriggled the dress down over her hips to the floor. She was naked before Ruth could say another word. “You can sit on this side of the bed,” the prostitute told Ruth, “and I lie down with him on the other side.”

  “No . . .” Ruth began again.

  “Or you could stand, anywhere you want,” the Thai told her.

  “What if we both want to watch?” Wim asked, but this only further confused the prostitute.

  “You both want to watch?” the solid woman asked.

  “Not exactly,” Ruth said. “ If we both wanted to watch, how would you arrange that?”

  The naked woman sighed. She lay down on the towel on her back; she took up the whole towel. “Which one wants to watch first?” the prostitute asked. “It should cost a little more, I think . . .” Ruth had already paid her fifty guilders.

  The big Thai opened her arms to them, beseechingly. “You want both to do and watch?” she asked them.

  “No, no!” Ruth scolded her. “I just want to know if anyone has ever watched you before, and how they watched you.”

  The perplexed prostitute pointed toward the top of the wall. “ Somebody watching us now —is that how you want to do it?” Ruth and Wim looked at the partition that served as a partial wall on the near side of the double bed. Near the ceiling, the face of a smaller, older Thai woman grinned down at them.

  “My God!” Wim said.

  “This isn’t working,” Ruth announced. “It’s a language problem.” She told the prostitute that she could keep the money; they’d seen all they wanted.

  “No watching, no doing?” the prostitute asked. “What is wrong?”

  Ruth and Wim were navigating the narrow hall with the naked woman following them—she was asking them if she was too fat, if that was what was wrong—when the smaller, older Thai prostitute, the woman who’d been grinning down at them, blocked their exit from the hall.

  “You want something different ?” she asked Wim; she touched his lips with her fingers, and the boy drew back from her. The little, older woman winked at Ruth. “ You know what this boy likes, I bet,” she said, fondling Wim’s crotch. “Oooh!” the small Thai cried. “He got a beeeg one—he wants something, all right!” Wim, in a panic to protect himself, covered his crotch with one hand and his mouth with the other.

  “We’re leaving now,” Ruth said firmly. “I’ve already paid.” The little prostitute’s clawlike hand was reaching for Ruth’s breast when the big, naked Thai who was following behind them pushed her way between Ruth and the aggressive older whore.

  “She is our very best sadist,” the heavyset prostitute explained to Ruth. “ That’s not what you want, is it?”

  “No,” Ruth said; she felt Wim at her side, like a clinging child.

  The bigger prostitute said something in Thai to the smaller one, who backed into an unlit room. Ruth and Wim could still see her; she was sticking her tongue out at them as they hurried along the hall toward the welcome daylight.

  “You had an erection ?” Ruth asked Wim, when they were safely on the street again.

  “Yes,” the boy confessed.

  What wouldn’t give the boy a hard-on? Ruth wondered. And the little goat had squirted twice the night before! Were there men who ever had enough? But it occurred to Ruth that her mother must have liked Eddie O’Hare’s amorous attention. The concept of sixty times had new meaning.

  It was one of the South American prostitutes on the Gordijnensteeg who said to Wim: “Half-price for you with your mother.” At least her English was good. And because it was better than her Dutch, Ruth did the talking.

  “I’m not his mother, and we just want to talk with you—just talk,” Ruth said.

  “It costs the same, whatever you do,” the prostitute said. She was wearing a sarong with a matching demi-bra—a floral pattern meant to represent tropical vegetation. She was tall and slender, her skin a kind of coffee-with-cream color, and although her high forehead and pronounced cheekbones gave her face an exotic aspect, there was something too prominent about the bones in her face.

  She led Wim and Ruth upstairs to a corner room; the curtains were sheer, and the light from outside gave the sparsely furnished room a rural atmosphere. Even the bed, which had a pine headboard and a quilted bedspread, had the look of something one would find in the spare bedroom of a farmhouse. Yet dead-center in the queen-size bed was the expected towel. No bidet, no sink—no place to hide, either.

  To one side of the bed were two straight-backed wooden chairs— the only place to put one’s clothes. The exotic prostitute removed her bra, which she put on the seat of one chair, and she unwrapped her sarong; she was wearing nothing but a pair of black panties when she sat on the towel. She patted the bed on either side of her, inviting Wim and Ruth to join her.

  “You don’t have to undress,” Ruth told her. “We’re just talking with you.”

  “Whatever you want,” the exotic woman replied.

  Ruth sat on the edge of the bed beside her. Wim, who was less cautious, plopped himself down a little closer to the prostitute than Ruth liked. He probably already has a hard-on! Ruth was thinking. That instant it became clear to her what should happen in her story.

  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.