But soon the streets just turned into streets, and the boats just more boats as the rain gave the water goosebumps and she stumped along with Scully coming alone behind like a lame horse. Billie’s collar filled with drizzle and her jeans were wet from brushing the fenders of parked cars, and she began to wonder if saving him was too much for her. The long skinny houses started to look like racks of burnt toast. The sky was misty with rain, a sky that could never hold sun or moon or stars.
Now and then someone emerged from a hatch to pull in washing or hoik a bucket of dirty water over the side or just puff a cigar with a Christmas drink in their hand, and Billie ran toward them with the photo from Scully’s wallet. The black-and-white, cut down and crooked. It was the three of them but she couldn’t look. She just held it out to them as Scully hung back in shame. It burnt her hand, that photo, but she stopped caring. Today was Jesus’ birthday and she had his hands; she felt holes burning there but couldn’t look for fear of seeing Her in the picture. If Billie laid eyes on that face with its smooth chin and black wing of hair and beautiful faraway eyes, she knew all her love, all her strength would break. Pee would run down her legs and her hands catch fire and she would turn to stone herself and be a statue by the water. So she ignored the acid sting in her hands and held up the photo to people with pink cheeks and Christmas smiles.
The houseboat people looked at the photo and then at Billie and her father in their rumpled clothes and busted faces and shook their heads sadly. Sometimes they brought out soup or pressed money into Billie’s hand, but no one knew the face and Billie felt bad about her relief each time.
On and on it went through streets and canals with the hugest names while the drizzle fell and her lips cracked and her hands burned up. All the time she waited for him to give up, praying for him to give up, telling him inside her head to wear down and quit at last, but when she looked back he shooed her on without hardly looking up at her and Billie kept going to gangplanks, stepping over ropes and tapping on windows. Every shake of the head, every flat expression was a relief. No, not here, no, no, no, she wasn’t here. Billie was afraid that if they kept at it long enough someone’s face would brighten horribly and recognize the face. That’d be it. That would kill her. She just didn’t know what she would do.
On a corner, surrounded by green posts with rolls on the end like men’s dicks, she saw the closed-up shop with the posters of Greece and Hawaii and big jumbo jets in it. On the wall was a blackboard with long words and prices. A travel place. She felt the money against her leg and walked on like she’d never seen it. Next door was a SNACKBAR with a menu on the window. Sate-saus, Knoflook-saus, Oorlog, Koffie, Thee, Melk. It was closed as well. Everything was closed.
Church clocks bonged and rattled and Billie went on, just going and going while the light slowly went out of the sky and the air went so cold it felt like Coke going down your neck. And then suddenly it was dark and they were standing out on a little bridge looking at the still water and the moons the streetlights made in it.
‘Nothing,’ said Scully.
‘No,’ she said.
People had begun to come back out into the streets. Their bikes whirred past, their bells tinkled, they called and laughed and sang.
‘Scully, it’s cold.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Let’s… let’s go somewhere.’
‘Yeah.’
He just stood there looking into the water, his mittens on the green rail of the bridge, until she took him by the sleeve and steered him into a narrow street where the windows were lit and cosy-looking. The first place she came to, she pushed him in and followed, smelling food and smoke and beer. There was sand on the floor and music and hissing radiators on the walls.
Billie followed her father to the big wooden bar and climbed up on a stool beside him.
‘He’ll have a beer, I spose,’ she murmured at the barman. ‘And one hot chocolate. Chocolat chaud?’
The barman straightened. His eyes were enormous. His glasses were thick as ashtrays. Up on the bar he put a balloony glass of beer with Duvel written on the side and plenty of fluff hanging off the top. Billie put her chin in her hands and watched Scully looking at himself in the bar mirror.
‘You have a bad day, huh?’ said the barman.
Billie nodded.
‘He is okay?’ he said, inclining his head toward Scully.
Billie shrugged. Scully gulped down his beer and pushed his glass forward again.
‘You be careful for that stuff, man,’ said the barman kindly. ‘They don’t call him the Devil for nothing. You watch him, kid.’
Billie nodded grimly and looked at the blackboard. ‘You have sausages and potatoes?’
‘Baby, this is Holland. It’s all sausage and potato here,’ he laughed. ‘For two?’
Billie nodded. She pulled out money.
‘Hoh, you are the boss for sure.’
She liked him. People in Amsterdam weren’t so bad. They weren’t afraid of kids like they were in Paris and London. They had sing-song voices and cheeks like apples, and she wondered if Dominique felt the same way. Dominique was sad like Alex. Her pictures were lonely and dark and sad. She was like a bird, Dominique. A big sad bird. Maybe she came here to cheer up, to see rosy people and do happier pictures.
In the corner a man with pencils through his earlobes was chattering on the phone. He looked ridiculous and should have been ashamed of himself. He sounded like a budgie talking away in his language, whatever they talked here. There were too many languages, too many countries. She was sick and tired of it. She climbed off her stool and crossed the sandy floor to where the phone book hung against the wall on a string. She picked up that book and opened it flat against the wood of the wall. But it was hopeless. She didn’t know how to spell Dominique and she forgot her last name.
She should know these things, she knew. She should be in school reading books and writing in pads and playing softball. She should be at someplace, somewhere they knew her name and what she was like. Somewhere she didn’t have to save people.
The phone book fell to the wall with a thump that startled everyone in the bar.
‘How do you spell Dominique?’ she asked Scully.
But he looked at himself in the mirror with his eyes half open. Their food came.
‘Your father need some help, maybe,’ said the barman kindly.
‘Yes,’ said Billie. ‘I’m helping.’
The smell of food was dreamy. It made her feel strong again.
• • •
THE LONGER SCULLY sat there the thirstier he got. The Trappist beer was rich and lovely. It seemed as though pain was behind him. He could calmly think all his worst thoughts, every nightmare flash across the brain-pan, without pain. He was close to her now. It wasn’t just in his mind anymore, no delusion, no desperate wishful thinking. She was here in Amsterdam and it was only a matter of time. A good night’s sleep, an early start, a clear mind, a bit of system.
No pain. Not even thinking about Dominique. There couldn’t be any doubt that she was with Dominique, though in what way she was with her was more of a lottery. Was their friend giving Jennifer sanctuary against her own better judgement? Was she in two minds, at least, her loyalties just a little divided? Or did the two of them share the same — what else could it be? — hatred for him? What else did they share? A bed? The very idea was supposed to make men wild, wasn’t it? It was supposed to be the ultimate humiliation, being left for a woman, but it didn’t seem any worse or any better just now. Whatever it was, however it was, Scully was stuck with a kind of precious disappointment with Dominique. What did it matter how it was? Dominique had held out on him.