The Invisible Circus - Jennifer Egan [53]
Finally Phoebe hoisted herself to her feet. Though the sky was still light, it was evening now, the air heavy with a dreadful sense of too late. She walked ten minutes to a second hostel and found that one full, too; without pause she spun back around and began plodding toward a third, this one back in the direction of the train station along a wide, arid boulevard. Streetcars rattled past, empty and beige. The bottom floor of this hostel was a public bar. Phoebe wove among tables to the owner, whose hands glistened with something from the kitchen. He wiped them, leaving streaks on his apron. Yes, they had a bed; Phoebe nearly folded with relief. His son, a red-haired, insolent boy of about twelve, led Phoebe to a room filled with bunk beds. It smelled of mildew. She longed to open a window.
She was given a top bunk at the very end of the room, beside a window of rippled factory glass. A ring of dirt surrounded each pane like frost. Carefully Phoebe spread her sleeping sheet across the mattress and rested her backpack against the windowsill. The shower was down the hall and cost extra; there were no doors or even curtains on the stalls, but the room was empty. The floor felt slick. Phoebe went back to the bar and paid for the bed and a shower. The owner was smoking a joint as thick as a finger, and offered Phoebe a hit. She refused politely. She would leave Amsterdam tomorrow.
A long, vigorous shower improved her spirits somewhat. It was eight-thirty, and through the frosted glass by her bed she saw darkness finally falling. She took everything of value from her backpack, including the bottle of Chanel No. 5, and stuffed it in her purse. She went back outside.
From a café window Phoebe watched the night descend on Amsterdam. Eating her sandwich and drinking a beer, she found herself longing for company. This was strange, for until now being alone hadn’t felt like being alone. She’d been shored up—crowded almost—by her sense of purpose. Now she felt weak, transparent. She longed to call her mother but this seemed impossible, as if by leaving home she’d closed off that avenue forever.
There was a small rack of postcards on the café counter, and Phoebe bought one of the War Monument, where she’d first seen the hippies asleep. “Dear Mom,” she wrote, “I just want to tell you I’m fine. I hope you are, too.” It sounded ludicrous, stilted. Phoebe wished she could find it in herself to write, “Everything is great, I’m having a ball,” but the deception seemed too vast to carry off. “Love, Phoebe,” she wrote. The man at the counter sold her a stamp. She had almost no Dutch money left.
Phoebe mailed the card outside the café. It was dark, and the streets in this part of town were eerily quiet. Phoebe had been curious to see the Amsterdam whores in their famous red-light district, but no longer could muster any real enthusiasm. Still, she was desperate to be among people. The thought of running into Nico or Karl haunted her as she followed the general drift to a livelier part of town where whores lounged like department-store mannequins behind plate-glass windows, chewing gum, reading, doing their nails, as if unaware of the audience gaping in from the street. One woman in a black leather bikini was talking on the phone, twisting its black cord around her calf. Now and then a door to one of these parlors would open, releasing a puff of music and usually a man, both of which lingered a moment before dissolving into the night. To Phoebe it all looked meager, the dregs of something better that had passed. What Karl had said about op-posites seemed to touch all of Amsterdam; the whole city had turned, gone rotten in the eight years since her sister’s visit. Even Karl himself—surely his life had once consisted of more than shooting junkies full of drugs and molesting foreign girls in his apartment. He was his own best example.
Phoebe felt a hand on her shoulder and yelped, whirling around to see Helen, the younger Australian sister whom she’d met on the boat the night before.
“I’m sorry,” Phoebe said. “Oh God, I’m sorry.” She took