The Invisible Circus - Jennifer Egan [47]
“We’ll save you a place if we can,” said Helen, the younger sister, who was always offering kindness. “We’ll leave your name at the desk.”
“Great,” Phoebe said, nodding and smiling and wishing they would go.
Dear Mom and Phoebe and Barry, Wolf is gone but I dont miss him. I was made to live in Amsterdam. The craziness here is beyond anything. Maybe I’ll become a Dutch citizen. Just kidding Hee Hee. Love, Faith
The number of hippies in the Dam had grown since the morning. Phoebe paused at a florist’s stall, watching as they lounged against the War Monument and milled in groups, some entering and leaving the Dam in the brisk manner of drug dealers. One man with dreadlocks thick as wrists played a hoarse-sounding guitar; a blond girl leaned against him, her tangled hair glittering like cut wheat. Phoebe felt the same jealous awe she’d felt for the Haight Street kids who asked her for lemons. She wanted to be on their side.
Phoebe reached in her purse for Faith’s picture. It did not seem impossible that one of these people would remember her sister. But her own appearance felt too neat. The peasant skirt and huaraches were ludicrous, insufficient, and shyness tightened like a hand at Phoebe’s throat. The space between herself and these gypsies loomed, unnavigable.
The flower vendor eyed Phoebe inquiringly over his buckets of red tulips. She left the stall and crossed the Dam toward the group, Faith’s picture in hand. But at the last moment she lost heart, swerving away from the gypsies and out of the Dam altogether, down a narrow street leading toward the canal. Her heart was pounding; there seemed no room for air in her chest. She went to the canal and stopped on a bridge to regroup. Okay, she thought. Okay. In a minute I’ll go back.
A few feet away stood a guy Phoebe recognized as one of the sleeping bodies she’d watched come to life that morning in the Dam. She eyed him furtively. His profile was mostly obscured by hair, a wavy pale blond that might have been angelic but for its thinness. Two dirty strings were tied at his wrist. He was leaning over the bridge, staring at the water.
“Excuse me,” Phoebe said.
The man started so violently that Phoebe jumped, too. He began to laugh, a harsh, croupy laughter that sounded like coughing. His face seemed unnaturally small, shrunken almost, a child’s face on a man’s body. Yet he didn’t look young.
“Goh, wat hib ga me bang gemaakt!” he said.
Phoebe was taken aback. She hadn’t fully registered the fact that these people might speak another language. “I’m sorry, I don’t understand,” she said.
“American?” He regarded her with interest. When Phoebe nodded, he said warmly, “American is best.”
“Thanks,” Phoebe said, quizzical.
“Then comes Australia, New Zealanders, then South African. Oh, and Israeli also is great.”
“You know them all?”
“Sure,” he said. “Everyone comes to Amsterdam.”
He turned back to the water, gazing at the canal as if some worry lay hidden there. “So … you live here?” Phoebe asked.
“Yes. I am living here.”
A pause fell. The man looked up and down the canal. Phoebe thrust Faith’s picture before him. In it, her sister was laughing, her mouth open, a string of white shells hanging crookedly around her neck. The shells were from Fiji; their grandparents had sent them each a set.
“Did you ever know this girl?” Phoebe asked.
The fellow took the picture and studied it. His fingernails seemed unusually long for a man. He looked at Faith, then at Phoebe. “Is you?”
“No, my sister. She came to Amsterdam eight years ago.”
“Eight years,” he said, laughing his gritty wet laugh. “Come on, eight years ago I am this.” He flattened a hand at his thigh, indicating the height of a child.
“Oh,” Phoebe said. “I thought you were older.”
“Everybody thinks,” he said rather proudly. “Actually, I am eighteen.”
“Me too,” said Phoebe.
There was an awkward pause. The guy turned back to the water. Phoebe