The Invisible Circus - Jennifer Egan [48]
Suddenly he turned to her. “You have some minutes?” he asked, twisting his forearm as if to consult a watch. But there were only the two dirty strings.
Phoebe hesitated. “What for?”
“We can make a visit to Karl. He is staying in Amsterdam more than ten years. He knows everybody coming here.”
“Sure,” Phoebe said. “Yes, I’d like to meet him.”
“Some little walk,” he said. “Is okay?”
She felt a shadow of anxiety. “All right.”
“So. Please come.” He flicked his gaze along the canal a last time, then began walking swiftly away from the center of town. Fighting her reluctance, Phoebe fell into step.
“Nico,” he said when she asked his name.
Phoebe’s anxiety eased as they walked. Along glistening greenish canals the narrow houses sat unevenly, as if floating. Boxes of bright flowers hung in their windows. The day was warm, bits of white fluff poised delicately on the water.
Nico walked in silence. Twice he and Phoebe passed groups of other young people clearly from his world, and both times the strangers behaved identically: they muttered something to Nico, eyes brushing Phoebe as they passed. She had an uneasy sense that her situation was recognizable to them in some way. “Who were they?” she asked after the second encounter.
Nico just shrugged. “You know. People,” he said.
After a baffling series of turns, they reached what appeared to be a student neighborhood. Layers of torn posters were pasted across buildings, and outside corner bars young people sat cross-legged on the pavement, drinking beer from dark bottles.
“Not so much more,” Nico assured her.
They turned onto a quieter street. Garbage floated on the canal, plastic bottles, soaked sheets of newspaper. An upside-down doll, pink legs groping up from the murky green. The houses here seemed more drastically uneven than those nearer the Dam, as if they were bobbing directly on the water. Phoebe had to trot every few paces to keep up with Nico. Again the anxiety seized her; how would she find her way back?
They turned again and the canal disappeared. The street narrowed. Abruptly Nico stopped. “Okay,” he said.
“I hope he’s home,” Phoebe said.
“Yes, I am hoping also.”
They walked up a few steps to a red wood door with a pane of glass at its center. Nico rang the bell. He rang it in a particular way: two short rings, one long, then another short. Each ring followed a pause, like something landing a long way down.
Phoebe heard a sound overhead and glanced up, catching a flash of dark hair from a high window. A moment later the front door jerked open as if released by a hook. Nico pushed it wide into a cool, dusty foyer. The floor was a coarse-looking marble covered with dry leaves.
“So,” Nico said, leading the way up a cramped staircase. Phoebe followed, nervous yet determined. There was no stopping now; if she lost this opportunity, she would despise herself. At the second landing Nico stopped, breathing hard. “Please,” he said, motioning Phoebe ahead.
Landings came and went. Finally, on what seemed a sixth or seventh floor, the staircase ended. Nico seemed virtually undone by the climb. Drops of sweat glistened through the hairs of his eyebrows, and he breathed in quick, shallow gasps. Phoebe decided he must be unwell in some way.
“Okay,” he breathed. “So we meet Karl.”
“Fine.” Phoebe was looking forward to different company.
Nico pounded on the door, calling out something in Dutch. It opened quickly, and Phoebe glimpsed a set of striking, almost womanly features before their host about-faced without a word, leading the way down a narrow hall. Nico and Phoebe followed him into a room that struck her immediately as a place where one person had lived for many, many years. At the focal point of the room stood a large black sewing machine on a table, surrounded by bright, jumbled fabrics piled so high that they seemed on the verge of overwhelming the machine itself. The remainder of the room was overgrown with plants, ivy around the windows, lily pads floating in a shallow tub, long vines dangling from hanging pots.