At that precise moment, how many eulogies were being read around the world? How many people were burying their children, parents, lovers, husbands, wives, friends? All because of one man. One sick man.
Theo’s legs trembled, forcing him to lean on the lectern for support. Summoning his last reserves of strength, he turned to the photo.
“Dear Hans, my friend, my brother. Thank you for being a part of my life. Wherever you are, I hope you’re happy and riding a shiny new bike.”
2.
THE FUNCTION ROOM WAS A WASH OF GREY, LIKE the rest of the crematorium. A floor-to-ceiling window framed a view of rhododendrons in summer bloom. At the serving table, Theo poured himself some coffee—ten drops of milk, no sugar. The waitress brought out a lemon cake. The spongy dessert, gleaming with a glazing of sugar, looked rather appealing to a body suffering from the twin effects of sleep deprivation and red-wine hangover.
So he took a paper plate and stood in line. When his turn came, the waitress sneezed into her palm, then proceeded to pick up the knife in her germ-infested hand and cut the cake. Theo put his plate down in disgust and walked away.
He weaved through the murmur of low voices, ducking glances that might draw him into small talk. Mathias was under the skylight, bald, muscular frame clad in a tight gingham shirt. When Theo arrived, he was busy eying a curvy brunette at the next table. She held his gaze, raising her cheek in a half smile before turning away.
Everyone had their own way of coping with grief. For Mathias, it was sex. Sometimes Theo envied this ability to find simple answers. Because for him they were never easy. The more he tried to reach for them, the further they seemed to slip from his grasp.
“Did Hans really sell the bike we bought him?” Mathias asked.
Theo nodded. Both men turned instinctively to the empty third chair at the table, because the last time they were together, it had been the three of them: Hans’s leaving drinks at a bar in Jordaan. Theo left early as he had to finish a report, a tree-killing fee-justification exercise that no one was going to read. How he wished he’d stayed longer that night.
“Nice speech, by the way,” Mathias remarked. “Very heartfelt.”
“You know, I wrote one for myself, too,” Theo said.
“Wrote what?”
“A eulogy.”
Mathias raised an eyebrow. “A eulogy for yourself. What on earth for? I hope you don’t have plans to die soon.”
“It’s an exercise in perspective. Something like this forces you to take stock of your own life. Here’s what I wrote about me: Theo van Aartsen was a nerd who led a rather unremarkable life,” Theo said, regurgitating from memory. “He was born on August 7, 1981 to Paula and Cornelis, both struggling artists, but inherited none of their creative talents. As a teenager, he was better at reading balance sheets than members of the opposite sex. He had a small share portfolio before he lost his virginity at the ripe old age of eighteen. He bought his first property not long after. At university, his friends called him ‘Bank’ because he gave them money for beer and cigarettes. After graduating, he went to work for a finance company, where he continued to pile on the assets. His investment strategies might have preserved some old ladies’ pensions, but apart from that, there’s not much more to say about him. So let’s bury him and enjoy some coffee and cake.”
“Don’t worry,” Mathias said. “I’ll make you sound better than that. I’ll lie if I have to. But the point of life is not to leave a nice-sounding eulogy.”
“Then what is the goddamn point? There’s got to be something to live for. If nothing else, a belief in justice and goodness. A man goes to India to administer lifesaving vaccines and next moment, he’s blown to pieces by a crazed lunatic. Where’s the justice in that? Is everything just random? If you happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time like Hans—tough. What’s the point of anything: virtue, morality, duty, love, friendship? What’s the point of living if we’re at the mercy of a roulette wheel? Are we better off jumping off a cliff and finishing it on our terms?”
“The point of life is to do what makes you happy. Hans died while doing something that made him happy. I’d rather remember this than the horrible thing that happened to him.”
Once again, they glanced at that empty seat as if expecting Hans to return any moment and occupy it. The wistful silence that filled the space between them was shattered by the arrival of a voice.
“Ah! There you are. I’ve been looking everywhere for you.”
Theo stiffened reflexively upon seeing Mara. Between a sheer jaw and high forehead, her long, lean face was marked by a spiky nose, sharp yellow eyes and thin lips. Her straw-colored hair was tied back, further accentuating her unfriendly features.
“You people. Is nothing sacred to you?” She leaned in, pushing a vintage-store smell into his space. Theo held his breath.
“What do you mean?” She was one of those left-wing agitators, always angry about something, bankers being the flavor of the month.
“Don’t get cute with me, Theo,” she snapped. “You know perfectly well what I mean. Afterlife Dollars.”
He blinked.
“Have you been living in a cave? It’s all over the internet. The guy who killed Hans wasn’t some nutjob wanting to fuck seventy-two virgins. He wasn’t brainwashed by crazy jihadis, but bankers intent on profit. Bankers like you.” Her long, outstretched finger pointed accusingly as if he were personally responsible for Hans’s death.
Suddenly, there was a loud noise outside, a sharp audio feedback followed by some indistinct shouting. Mara hissed and stormed toward the exit as if she knew what this was about. Intrigued, Theo followed her.
The shouting grew louder as he crossed the garden and approached the circular driveway. The source of disturbance was outside the gate: thirty-odd men in orange shirts on the pavement, waving flags with the emblem of a raised fist and the initials “NT.” Nederlandse Trots—Dutch pride.
A small, reedy figure stood on a milk crate to address the boisterous gathering, his pink rottweiler face familiar because it had been on TV a lot recently: Charles Barbour. A failed punk rocker turned preacher of hate.
“Yet another terrorist attack,” Charles rasped into a megaphone. “How many more must die before our politicians wake up to this cancer called Islam? Enough’s enough. If politicians aren’t willing to do something, then we will. We’ll show the Turks where they can stuff their sharia.”
Theo inhaled sharply as the Orange Shirts broke into applause. How dare these goons hijack his friend’s funeral for their twisted agenda? One that was against everything Hans had stood for. He saw Mara march off to confront them, propelled no doubt by the same outrage.
“What’s wrong with you people? This is a funeral. Take your racist nonsense elsewhere!” she yelled.
The Dutch Pride leader dropped his megaphone and turned to her, glassy eyes wandering up and down her body in a way that made Theo’s flesh crawl.
“Listen, sweetheart …”
“Don’t call me sweetheart. Do you guys have a permit to be here?”
The mass of orange behind Charles tightened, like a fist closing: bodies straightened, chests puffed. The short ones made themselves taller, the tall ones put on their mean faces, a bunch of hooligans getting ready to do what they did best: bully, intimidate. But Mara stood her ground, arms folded firmly across her chest, earning Theo’s admiration for the first time since he’d known her.
“Seems like we’ve got off on the wrong foot here,” Charles said. “I’m not your enemy. Your enemy is out there building mosques in Osdorp and Bos en Lommer. If we don’t stop them, blondies like you are going to end up in a harem.”
“That’s right,” an Orange Shirt behind him cackled. “You’ll be wearing a burqa and eating kebabs for breakfast.”
“Maybe she likes kebabs. Do you like kebabs, sweetheart?”
The remark triggered a wave of laughter amongst the Orange Shirts.
“Go get typhus,” Mara huffed, g
iving them the middle finger, which only encouraged them to pass more sleazy comments.
She walked away from their taunts, dialing a number on her brick phone. She stopped beside Theo.
“They’re here … Yes, the Nazis,” she whispered into the phone. “Ooster-park … How soon can you get here? One hour? No, no. Make it sooner. Good … We’ll show these bastards.”
Theo walked off in disgust. What was wrong with the world? Weren’t the dead entitled to peace anymore?
SOUTH OF THE canal district, past the scaffolded facade of Rijksmuseum, the streets became wider, the elms taller, buildings grander: turn-of-the-century red terraces, high ceilings and large windows with curtains drawn, perhaps out of some deep-seated Calvinistic ethic of nothing to hide, or that age-old desire to show off one’s wealth.
Theo’s apartment occupied the first two floors of one such building, which overlooked the poplars girdling the perimeter of Vondelpark. As soon as he walked through the door, the neighbor’s handbag dog welcomed him with a string of snippy barks. It belonged to an octogenarian who wore flowery dresses and a cloche hat: old money looking askance on new.
Inside the living room, the late-afternoon sun highlighted the clean lines of the furniture acquired for a small fortune in a shop in Copenhagen. A cream sofa with matching armchair; grey coffee table; a long, looping bookshelf affixed to the wall. The stereo was a plain white dome also of Danish make, while the TV that hung on the wall broke ranks with the Scandinavian theme by being German.
He went upstairs to the bedroom and opened the doors of the sliding wardrobe. The down lights came on automatically, illuminating a row of identical grey jackets hanging neatly on a rail. He removed the one he was wearing and inserted it in their midst, then slid his brogues onto the bottom shelf, a monochromatic row of tan, precise and well-ordered, like a shop display.
He proceeded to unbutton his shirt, starting at the cuffs, when a luminous object on the white floor caught his eye. An earplug. He let out a sigh and picked it up. No matter how much he’d tried to cleanse the house of her presence, he always found something. A throbbing ache filled his chest as he squeezed the spongy bullet-shaped object in his hand, the pain from being dumped and the pain of losing a friend merging into a single mass.
After wallowing in sadness for a few moments, he flung the earplug into the bin and rolled up his sleeves. There was a new purpose in his stride as he marched down the staircase to the kitchen. He fetched a pair of rubber gloves from under the sink and snapped them on. Armed with a duster, he went from room to room, wiping every surface: shelves, tabletops and undersides, tops of doors, windowsills, skirting boards, bannisters. The tip of his tongue slid between his lips as he wiped the blinds, left to right, one slat at a time. In the living room, he stood on a chair and carefully cleaned the chandelier.
After he finished dusting, he vacuumed the house with the same fastidiousness, crouching to get under the furniture. Then he turned his attention to the kitchen. Beads of sweat gathered on his forehead as he wiped the chrome bench and appliances till they were spotless mirrors. He got down on his knees and examined the floorboards, alert for milk stains that shone only from certain angles.
In the bathroom, he scrubbed the toilet and flushed with a closed lid to prevent drops of water swirling in the bowl from splashing on the seat. He placed a fresh box of matches in a ceramic tray on the windowsill, a whiff of phosphorous to chase the odors away.
He rearranged things in the living room, fussing over the placement of vases, books, photo frames, artworks, candle stands and cushions—an inch this way, an inch that—enough self-awareness to recognize that all this cleaning and tidying were his fight against an existential chaos, an attempt to impose order when the universe was reminding him that there wasn’t any.
When he was finally done, he opened a bottle of red wine. He sat on his expensive Danish couch and turned on his expensive German television. As the light faded and darkness seeped into the room, he sipped wine and watched the Friday football game, bathed in the glow from the TV. After a while, he set the glass down on the floor next to the empty bottle. Suddenly, inexplicably, he burst into tears. He cried silently, allowing the pain to sluice out of him, then went upstairs. Inside his study, he logged in to his computer and typed in a search for Afterlife Dollars.
3.
THE RAIN FINALLY CLEARED ON SATURDAY AND the sun washed the crooked, gabled buildings, bringing cheer to a city suffering from a weather-influenced bipolar disorder. On the lawns of Rembrandtplein, Theo passed an army of sunbathers, feeling severely overdressed in his polo shirt and cotton pants. At the end of the square, he crossed the road and stopped in the shade of a chocolate-colored art deco building. A large, garish sign stared down on him.
“BANK OF ETERNITY.”
The tinted door opened with a whoosh, and a man attired in office clothes emerged from the bank. His callow face beamed as soon as he saw Theo.
“Hey, remember me? Sam. You interviewed me for a summer job last year?”
Theo studied the man closely: medium build, spiky blond hair, game-show-host grin.
“I’m sorry.” He’d seen so many candidates that their faces were all a blur.
“It’s okay,” Sam said, shrugging off his disappointment. “You guys did me a favor, ’cause the job I’ve got right now is awesome. Trainee to chief afterlife consultant in just one year. Made a cool 200k in commissions alone. If I worked for you, bet I’d still be fetching your dry cleaning.” He snorted.
“You work here?”
“Want a tour?”
Theo hesitated.
“Come on, don’t be shy,” Sam insisted.
They walked through the door and stepped into the cool air of the bank. The lady behind the reception desk greeted them with a shallow smile.
“People come here expecting some kind of oriental mumbo jumbo. But as you can see, we’re just like any other bank,” Sam said.
Theo’s eyes swept the premises. It did look like any other bank: teller counters, ticket machine, pens on chains.
“And that’s my team, right there.” Sam gestured to four men in red jackets behind the service desks. “You’re looking at the first stop in the assembly line of eternal happiness. Every day, we help people achieve their ultimate dream. I can’t tell you how good that feels,” he said, high on the company Kool-Aid.
“Is it always this busy?” Theo asked, referring to the thirty-odd people in the waiting area, most of them lost in their smartphones.
“This is nothing. You should have been here last week.”
Theo narrowed his eyes. “You mean after the Mumbai blasts?”
Sam averted his gaze and pointed to the big-screen TV on the wall. “Our new commercial!”
Theo turned to look. Much like a soft-drink ad, it started off with a group of young people having fun at a pool party: men and women genetically bred to be beautiful—perfect skin, perfect hair, perfect teeth, perfect everything. They all wore white, not a drop of sweat as they ground their hips in slow motion to some kind of doof-doof beat. The DJ was a strange hybrid of biblical prophet and modern-day emcee, with long hair; flowing robe; tattoos on the forearm; one hand tweaking the mixer, the other making the sign of the devil horns.
As the music hit a crescendo, the camera moved behind the DJ. He spread his arms wide, palms facing the sun, his silhouette a perfect cross.
“Happiness, now and forever,” said the caption.
“Is that what heaven’s like? Ibiza?” Theo scowled.
“It can be Ibiza. It can be Rodeo Drive. It can be Disneyland. Whatever you want it to be,” Sam said with a glazed look in his eyes.
“And what if I don’t have any money? What happens then?”
“What happens when you don’t have money in this world?”
“So you’re saying the Mumbai suicide bomber—a terrorist—will be shaking his butt at a pool party, because he’s got Afterlife Dollars. And my buddy Hans, an honest social worker, will be r
otting in some fucking ghetto. What sense does that make?”
Keep it down, Sam gestured with a tight smile, wary of the glances from customers in the waiting area. But Theo didn’t care how loud he was being. All he could think of was the coffin containing his friend’s remains.
“I’m not much of a believer in the afterlife. But all that Sunday school stuff … good guys being rewarded in heaven, bad guys roasting in hell, keeps us in line. Now you’re saying, ‘Forget all that. Here’s a moral blank check. Go ahead: steal, rape, murder, commit genocide. As long as you have the money, we’ll let you in.’ Do you realize the dangers of encouraging this line of thinking? No, you don’t, as long as you get your commission. You may as well stand outside a school and sell heroin to kids, because that’s what you are … fucking lowlife scum.” Theo stormed out.
THE CAFE WAS in a pen-nib shaped building in Prinsengracht. Despite the lunchtime bustle, Theo managed to secure a prized canal-side table.
The waitress, a petite brunette with a stud in her nose and cigarette tucked behind her ear, arrived with his order of pinot gris.
A nervy Theo took a large gulp of his drink. His heart was still running after the visit to Bank of Eternity, and he needed it to settle before Valerie got there. Their first meeting since the bitter breakup.
Ten minutes later, she arrived, clad in a pastel-blue shirt and her trademark white jeans. His heart convulsed. As he rose to greet her, he noticed he wasn’t the only one looking at her. She had a face that could be on a magazine cover: high cheekbones, full lips, ski-slope nose, movie-star sunglasses. A flick of her head threw her long, dark hair over her shoulders.
The force of habit nearly compelled him to lean in for a kiss. But he checked himself and she didn’t make a move, either. They sat down, the space between them filled with an awkward silence. She hadn’t even said goodbye. One day, he came home from work and she was gone.
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