by John Irving
“You told her we were lovers. Is that it?” Ruth asked Wim.
“Well, weren’t we—in a way?” Wim replied slyly. “I mean, we slept in the same bed together. You let me do certain things . . .”
“We never had sex, Harriët,” Ruth said to the uncomprehending wife.
“I told you—she doesn’t understand English,” Wim said.
“ Tell her, damn it!” Ruth said.
“I’ve told her my own version,” Wim replied, smiling at Ruth. Claiming to have had sex with Ruth Cole had evidently given Wim some sort of power over Harriët with an umlaut. Her downcast appearance gave Harriët a suicidal aura.
“Listen to me, Harriët—we were never lovers,” Ruth tried again. “I’ve not had sex with your husband—he’s lying.”
“You need your Dutch translator,” Wim told Ruth; he was openly laughing at her now.
That was when Harry Hoekstra spoke to Ruth. She’d been completely unaware that he’d followed her into the hotel lobby, as he had every morning. “I can translate for you,” Harry told Ruth. “Just tell me what you want to say.”
“Oh, it’s you, Harry!” Ruth said, as if she’d known him for years and he was her best friend. It wasn’t only from the mere mention of Harry the cop at the bookstore that she knew his name; she also remembered it from the newspaper account of Rooie’s murder. Besides, she’d written his name (taking pains to spell it properly) on the envelope that had contained her eyewitness account.
“Hello, Ruth,” Harry said.
“Tell her I never had sex with her lying husband,” Ruth said to Harry, who began to speak in Dutch to Harriët—much to Harriët’s surprise. “Tell her I let her husband masturbate beside me—that was all,” Ruth said. “And he beat off again when he thought I was asleep.”
As Harry went on translating, Harriët seemed cheered. She handed the baby to Wim; she said something in Dutch to her husband as she started to leave. When Wim followed her, Harriët said something more.
“She said, ‘You hold the baby—he’s wet,’” Harry translated for Ruth. “Then she asked him: ‘Why did you want me to meet her?’ ”
As the couple with their baby were leaving the hotel, Wim said something plaintive-sounding to his angry wife. “The husband said, ‘I was in her book!’ ” Harry translated.
Once Wim and his wife and baby were gone, Ruth was left alone with Harry in the lobby—except for a half-dozen Japanese businessmen standing at the registration desk, where they’d been mesmerized by the translation exercise they’d overheard. What they’d comprehended of it was unclear, but they stared in awe at Ruth and Harry— as if they’d just witnessed an example of cultural differences that would be hard to explain to the rest of Japan.
“So . . . you’re still following me,” Ruth said slowly to her cop. “Do you mind telling me what I’ve done?”
“I think you know what you’ve done. It’s not too bad,” Harry told her. “Let’s take a little walk.”
Ruth looked at her watch. “I have an interview here in forty-five minutes,” she said.
“We’ll be back in time,” Harry replied. “It’s just a short walk.”
“A walk where ?” Ruth asked him, but she thought she knew.
They left their gym bags with the concierge. Instinctively, Ruth took hold of Harry’s arm as they turned onto the Stoofsteeg. It was still early enough in the morning for the two fat women from Ghana to be working there.
“That’s her, Harry—you got her,” one of them said.
“That’s her, all right,” the other prostitute agreed.
“Remember them ?” Harry asked Ruth. She still held his arm as they crossed the canal onto the Oudezijds Achterburgwal.
“Yes,” she answered in a small voice.
She’d showered and washed her hair at the gym. Her hair was a little wet, and she was aware that her cotton T-shirt was not quite warm enough for the weather; she’d dressed only for the walk back to her hotel from the Rokin.
They turned onto the Barndesteeg, where the young, moon-faced Thai prostitute stood shivering in her open doorway in an orange slip; she’d grown heavier in the past five years.
“Remember her ?” Harry asked Ruth.
“Yes,” Ruth answered again.
“That’s the one,” the Thai told Harry. “All she want to do is watch.”
The transvestite from Ecuador had left the Gordijnensteeg for a window on the Bloedstraat. Ruth instantly recalled the feel of his baseball-size breasts. But this time there was something so obviously male about him that Ruth couldn’t believe she’d ever thought he was a woman.
“I told you she had nice breasts,” the transvestite said to Harry. “It took you long enough to find her.”
“I stopped looking for a few years,” Harry replied.
“Am I under arrest?” Ruth whispered to Harry.
“Of course not!” Harry told her. “We’re just taking a little walk.”
It was a fast walk—Ruth was no longer cold. Harry was the first man she’d ever been with who walked faster than she did; she almost had to jog to keep up with him. When they turned onto the Warmoesstraat, a man in the doorway of the police station called after Harry—Harry and the man soon were shouting back and forth to each other in Dutch. Ruth had no idea if they were talking about her or not. She guessed not, because Harry never so much as slowed his pace during the short conversation.
The man in the doorway of the police station was Harry’s old friend Nico Jansen.
“Hey, Harry!” Jansen had called. “Is this how you’re going to spend your retirement, walking around with your girlfriend in your old place of business?”
“She’s not my girlfriend, Nico,” Harry had called back. “She’s my witness !”
“Holy shit—you found her!” Nico had shouted. “What are you going to do with her?”
“Maybe marry her,” Harry had replied.
Harry held her hand across the Damrak, and Ruth took his arm again when they crossed the canal over the Singel. They weren’t far from the Bergstraat when she got up the nerve to say something to him.
“You missed one,” Ruth told Harry. “There was another woman I talked to—I mean, back in the district.”
“Yes, I know—on the Slapersteeg,” Harry said. “She was a Jamaican. But she got into some trouble. She’s gone back to Jamaica.”
“Oh,” Ruth replied.
On the Bergstraat, the curtain was drawn across the window to Rooie’s room; although it was only midmorning, Anneke Smeets was with a customer. Harry and Ruth waited on the street.
“How did you cut your finger?” Harry asked her. “Was it on some glass?”
Ruth started to tell him the story, then interrupted herself. “But the scar is so small! How did you see it?” He explained that the scar showed up very clearly on a fingerprint, and that—in addition to the Polaroid print coater—she’d touched one of Rooie’s shoes, and the doorknob, and a water bottle in the gym.
“Oh,” Ruth said. As she went on with the story of how she’d cut herself—“It was the summer when I was four”—she showed him her right index finger with the tiny scar. In order to see it, he had to hold her hand steady in both his hands—she was trembling.
Harry Hoekstra had small, square fingers; he wore no rings. There was almost no hair on the backs of his smooth, muscular hands.
“You’re not going to arrest me?” Ruth asked again.
“Of course not!” Harry told her. “I just wanted to congratulate you. You were a very good witness.”
“I could have saved her if I’d done something,” Ruth said, “but I was too afraid to move. I might have made a run for it, or I could have tried hitting him—with the standing lamp, maybe. But I did nothing. I was too afraid to move—I couldn’t move, ” she repeated.
“You’re lucky you didn’t move,” Harry told her. “He would have killed you both—at least he would have tried to. He was a murderer— he killed eight prostitutes. He didn’t kill all of
them as easily as he killed Rooie, either. And if he’d killed you, we wouldn’t have had a witness.”
“I don’t know,” Ruth said.
“ I know,” Harry told her. “You did the right thing. You stayed alive. You were a witness. Besides, he almost heard you—he said there was a moment when he heard something . You must have moved a little.”
It made the hairs on the backs of Ruth’s arms stand up to remember how the moleman had thought he’d heard her—he had heard her!
“You talked to him?” Ruth asked quietly.
“Just before he died, yes,” Harry said. “Believe me. It’s a good thing you were afraid.”
The door to Rooie’s room opened, and an ashamed-looking man glanced furtively at them before he entered the street. It took Anneke Smeets a few more minutes to pull herself together. Harry and Ruth waited until she’d positioned herself in her window. As soon as she saw them, Anneke opened her door.
“My witness is feeling guilty,” Harry explained to Anneke in Dutch. “She thinks she might have saved Rooie, if she hadn’t been too afraid to leave the closet.”
“The only way your witness could have saved Rooie was to be her customer, ” Anneke replied, also in Dutch. “I mean, she should have been the customer instead of the customer Rooie chose.”
“I know what you mean,” Harry said, but he saw no reason to translate any of this for Ruth.
“I thought you were retired, Harry,” Anneke said to him. “How come you’re still working?”
“I’m not working,” Harry told Anneke. Ruth couldn’t even guess what they were talking about.
On their way back to the hotel, Ruth observed: “She’s put on a lot of weight, that girl.”
“Food is better for you than heroin,” Harry replied.
“Did you know Rooie?” Ruth asked.
“Rooie was a friend of mine,” Harry told her. “Once we were going to take a trip together, to Paris, but it never happened.”
“Did you ever have sex with her?” Ruth dared to ask him.
“No. But I wanted to!” Harry admitted.
They crossed the Warmoesstraat again and re-entered the red-light district by the old church. Only a few days earlier, the South American prostitutes had been sunning themselves, but now only one woman was standing in her open doorway. Because of the cooler weather, she’d wrapped a long shawl around her shoulders, yet anyone could see that she wore nothing but a bra and a pair of panties underneath. The prostitute was from Colombia, and she spoke the creative English that had become de Wallen ’s principal language.
“Holy Mother, Harry! Are you arrestin’ dot woman?” the Colombian called.
“We’re just taking a little walk,” Harry said.
“You said me you was retired !” the prostitute called after them.
“I am retired!” Harry called back to her. Ruth let go of his arm.
“You’re retired,” Ruth said to him in the voice she used for reading aloud.
“That’s right,” the ex-cop answered. “After forty years . . .”
“You didn’t tell me you were retired,” Ruth said.
“You didn’t ask,” the former Sergeant Hoekstra replied.
“If it’s not as a cop that you’ve been interrogating me, in exactly what capacity have you been interrogating me?” Ruth asked him. “Just what authority do you have?”
“No authority,” Harry said happily. “And I haven’t been interrogating you. We’ve just been taking a little walk.”
“You’re retired,” Ruth repeated. “You look too young to be retired. How old are you, anyway?”
“I’m fifty-eight.”
It made the hair stand up on the backs of her arms again, because it was the same age Allan had been when he died; yet Harry had struck her as much younger. Harry didn’t look fifty, and Ruth already knew he was very fit.
“You tricked me,” Ruth said.
“In the wardrobe closet, when you were looking through the curtain,” Harry began, “was it as a writer that you were interested, or as a woman—or both?”
“Both,” Ruth answered. “You’re still interrogating me.”
“My point is: it was as a cop that I first followed you,” Harry told her. “Later, it was as a cop and as a man that I was interested in you.”
“As a man ? Are you trying to pick me up?” Ruth asked him.
“It was as a reader, too,” Harry continued, ignoring her question. “I’ve read everything you’ve written.”
“But how did you know I was the witness?”
“ ‘It was a room all in red, which the stained-glass lamp shade made redder,’ ” Harry quoted to her, from her new novel. “ ‘I was so nervous that I wasn’t of much use,’ ” he continued. “ ‘I couldn’t even help the prostitute turn the shoes toes-out. I picked up only one of the shoes, and I promptly dropped it.’ ”
“Okay, okay,” Ruth said.
“Your fingerprints were on only one of Rooie’s shoes,” Harry added.
They were back at the hotel when Ruth asked him: “ Now what are you going to do with me?”
Harry looked surprised. “I don’t have a plan,” he admitted.
In the lobby, Ruth easily spotted the journalist who would conduct her last interview in Amsterdam. After that she had a free afternoon; she was going to take Graham to the zoo. She’d made a tentative date to have an early dinner with Maarten and Sylvia before leaving for Paris in the morning.
“Do you like the zoo?” Ruth asked Harry. “Have you ever been to Paris?”
In Paris, Harry chose the Hôtel Duc de Saint-Simon; he had read too much about it not to stay there. And he’d once imagined being there with Rooie, which he confessed to Ruth. Harry found that he could tell Ruth everything—even that he’d bought the cross of Lorraine (which he’d given her) for very little money, and that he’d originally bought it for a prostitute who hanged herself. Ruth told him that she loved the cross all the more because of the story. (She would wear the cross every day and night they were in Paris.)
Their last night in Amsterdam, Harry had shown her his apartment in the west of the city. Ruth was amazed at how many books he had, and that he liked to cook, and shop for food, and build a fire in his bedroom at night—even when it was warm enough to sleep with the window open.
They lay in bed together with the firelight flickering on the bookshelves. The outside air stirred the curtain; the breeze was both mild and cool. Harry asked about her bigger, stronger right arm, and she told him everything about her history with the sport of squash, which included her penchant for bad boyfriends—the story of Scott Saunders; the story of what kind of man her father was, and how he died.
Harry showed her his Dutch edition of De muis achter het behang . The Mouse Crawling Between the Walls had been his favorite book as a child— before his English was good enough to permit him to read almost every author who wasn’t Dutch in English. He’d read A Sound Like Someone Trying Not to Make a Sound in Dutch, too. In bed, Harry read the Dutch translation aloud to her, and she recited it in English for him—from memory. (Ruth knew everything about the moleman by heart.)
When Ruth told Harry the story of her mother and Eddie O’Hare, it didn’t surprise her that Harry had read all the Margaret McDermid mysteries—she’d assumed that crime fiction was the only fiction that cops ever read—but it astonished her that Harry had read everything by Eddie O’Hare, too.
“You’ve read my whole family!” Ruth told him.
“Is everyone you know a writer ?” Harry asked her.
That night, in the west of Amsterdam, she fell asleep with her head on Harry’s chest—all the while remembering how he’d played so naturally with Graham at the zoo. First they’d imitated the expressions of the animals, and the sounds the birds made; then they’d described what was different about each creature’s smell. But even with her head on Harry’s chest, Ruth woke up when it was still dark; she wanted to be back in her own bed before Graham woke up in Amanda’s room.
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br /> In Paris, it was not a long walk from Harry’s hotel on the rue de Saint-Simon to where Ruth was officially staying—at the Lutetia on the boulevard Raspail. In the courtyard of the Duc de Saint-Simon, someone turned on a garden hose early every morning; the sound of the water woke her and Harry. They would quietly get dressed, and Harry would walk with her to her hotel.
While Ruth was interviewed nonstop in the lobby of the Lutetia, Harry would walk Graham to the playground in the Luxembourg gardens, giving Amanda the mornings off—to shop, or to explore on her own; to go to the Louvre, which she did twice, or the Tuileries or Notre-Dame or the Eiffel Tower. After all, the justification for Amanda missing two weeks of school was that accompanying Ruth Cole on a book tour would be educational. (As for what Amanda thought of Ruth staying out all night, Ruth hoped that this was also “educational.”)
Not only did Ruth find her French interviewers very agreeable, in part because they’d all read all her books—and in part because the French journalists didn’t think it strange (or unnatural or bizarre) that Ruth Cole’s main character was a woman who’d been persuaded to watch a prostitute with her customer—but Ruth also felt that Graham had never been in safer hands than when he was with Harry. (Graham’s only complaint about Harry was that, if Harry was a policeman, where was his gun?)
It was a warm, damp evening when Ruth and Harry passed by the red awning and the white stone façade of the Hôtel du Quai Voltaire. There was no one in the tiny café-bar; and on the plaque outside, beside the wrought-iron lamp, the short list of the famous guests who’d stayed in the hotel did not make mention of Ted Cole’s name.
“What do you want to do, now that you’re retired?” Ruth asked the former Sergeant Hoekstra.
“I’d like to marry a rich woman,” Harry said.
“Am I rich enough?” Ruth asked him. “Isn’t this better than being in Paris with a prostitute?”