The old lady seemed about to collapse, and a moment later Lisa was on her other side, propping her up. The woman looked up at her gratefully and managed to right herself.
Lisa looked back. The houseboat was already far behind them, and the distance was steadily increasing.
For the remainder of the cruise, her cell phone burned in her pocket. She wanted to call Timo, just to hear his voice and tell him she loved him, but each time she thought she might be able to slip out to the back deck, someone ordered a drink or suddenly needed to know what tram to take from the Central Station to the Leidseplein.
She let Arno help the passengers disembark by himself. That was against the rules, but Wim was nowhere to be seen. When she told Arno she had to make an important call, he merely shrugged.
Timo didn’t pick up. “Sorry I missed you,” she told his voice mail. “I was helping an old lady into the bathroom. With all the old folks on board, sometimes I feel more like a nurse than a server.” She dropped her voice to a whisper: “You look really sweet when you’re asleep. I’ll see you next time around!”
The candlelight cruise was not her favorite. It was harder to work in the dark, especially back in the kitchen. And the passengers were more critical, more impatient. During the day, no one complained if they had to share a table with another couple, but in the evenings there were often people who refused to sit with strangers. Sometimes they even left the boat and demanded their money back. Then of course there were always a few who took the forty-euro “all you can drink” offer seriously, and there was nothing to be done about that: “all you can drink” did, in fact, mean all you can drink.
The electric candles were on the tables, and the dishes of beer nuts had been distributed. When Wim closed the cabin door and Arno picked up his microphone to welcome the passengers, she took one last look at her celclass="underline" nothing from Timo. She stuffed it back in her pocket and asked the first couple what they wanted to drink. By the time she got back to her service cart, she’d already forgotten their order.
The weather had worsened. Arno had to turn up the sound system to be heard over the rain, and it was so windy the waves on the Oosterdok shook the boat from side to side. With two bottles of wine in her hands, it was hard for Lisa to negotiate the aisle without bumping into the tables on either side. Arno recounted the legend of the Skinny Bridge: a couple that kissed on or under it would stay together forever. A minute later, as the bow of the Princess Beatrix swept beneath the bridge, dozens of phones and cameras clicked off selfies of smooching tourists. Lisa couldn’t find it within herself to smile at the sight.
She was thinking of Timo. And, strangely, of Stefan.
It hadn’t ended well for them. But there had been nothing left of their relationship, other than the fact that they still slept in the same bed. Stefan had withdrawn into himself, barely spoke to her. Apart from the occasional mechanical sex, there was no intimacy between them. No wonder she had fallen so hard for someone new.
It hadn’t taken Stefan long to notice that she had metamorphosed into a new and reenergized version of herself, a Lisa who spent more and more time away from their apartment, who when she was home seemed to be constantly hunched over her phone texting. In retrospect, she realized why she had behaved so recklessly: without being consciously aware of it, she had wanted her affair to come to light as soon as possible. Which was precisely what had happened.
The cruise had another hour to go. Lisa walked up and down the aisle with plates of Dutch cheese cut into cubes and dotted with mustard. Passengers nudged each other and oohed and aahed over the toothpicks topped with red-white-and-blue paper flags.
“This is canal?” asked an older Japanese gentleman, pointing at the dark water outside the window.
“No sir, this is the Amstel River. We will turn into the canals very soon.” She looked ahead to orient herself. In the distance, the red neon letters of the Koninklijk Theater Carré were visible. She explained their route: first they would sail past the Carré and the Amstel Hotel, then they would turn around and retrace their path, go back under the Skinny Bridge, and then turn left into the Herengracht, the most elegant of the city’s three main canals. “Ten minutes, sir, maximum, until we’re there.” The man nodded politely and translated the explanation for his wife. Satisfied with her own professionalism, Lisa moved on.
There hadn’t been an explosion, more of an implosion. A change came over Stefan, subtle but inescapable, definitive. She knew she’d have to say goodbye to their little studio, the first place she had ever lived with a man. She felt guilty, miserable, but beneath all of that was excitement at the realization that she would now be able to bring her growing relationship with Timo out of hiding.
The Princess Beatrix passed beneath the Skinny Bridge. A young Italian couple sitting near her service cart struggled to take a kissing selfie. The volume of the conversations of those passengers who’d by this point downed three or four alcoholic beverages swelled.
Lisa snuck her phone from her pocket and checked the screen. No calls, no messages, nothing.
She looked at her watch. Quarter to nine. A little longer, and they would reach the houseboat.
As she served the next table, a memory welled up inside her. In her mind’s eye, she saw Stefan’s angry face. She was on her way to the elevator, a box of clothing and textbooks in her arms, and he stood in the apartment’s doorway, watching her go. He took a step toward her, leaned closer, and she would never forget the single sentence he whispered in her ear: “You haven’t seen the last of me.”
White wine flowed over the rim of the glass, and the passengers sitting at the table jerked away from the spill.
“I’m sorry,” she cried. “I’m so sorry!”
She whipped a dishtowel from her apron pocket and dropped to her knees. When she’d cleaned up the mess, she apologized yet again and shot a glance out the window.
Fifty yards.
It was raining hard. She hid herself away in the narrow passage leading to the restroom. The boat slowed, the passengers looked around excitedly, figuring out where to stand for the best possible shot of the Seven Bridges. They were nearing the houseboat. In the darkness, it looked like a black shoebox, with thick cables mooring it to the embankment.
In the flickering blue light of Timo’s TV, she could make out the outline of his bookshelves, then the painting on the side wall.
Then the couch.
She couldn’t believe what she saw: Timo’s arm hanging off the edge, his head bent slightly to one side — it was all the same. Timo was lying in exactly the same position she’d seen him in four hours earlier.
Four hours.
The only thing that stopped her from screaming was the fact that, at that moment, a girl tapped her on the shoulder and said, “Would you mind taking a picture of us? With the bridges in the background?” Lisa stared at her for two full seconds, as if the girl had appeared out of some other dimension, before taking the proffered cell phone. She clicked off three shots, numb, and managed a weak smile as she handed the phone back, but the moment she turned away, fear overwhelmed her. She felt it accelerate her heartbeat and breath, and her hands trembled so badly she had to clasp them together to stop the shaking. She was afraid her legs would give out beneath her, and she held tightly to the handle of the door leading out to the back deck to keep herself upright. She peered out the window at the houseboat, already far behind them, and for just an instant considered diving into the water and swimming back. But for what purpose? To say a last goodbye?