John Irving - Until I Find You

“You can stop now, Alice,” Saskia said, but Alice wouldn’t stop.

“Where’s Australia?” Jack asked Els. (He just knew that Australia wasn’t on their itinerary.)

“Don’t worry, Jack—you’re not going anywhere near Australia,” Saskia said.

“It’s on the other side of the world, ” Els told him. The boy felt better thinking that his dad might be on the other side of the world; yet this wouldn’t prevent Jack from imagining that his father was somehow watching him from a crowd.

“Come on, Alice—it’s time to stop,” Saskia said.

“ The King of love my Shepherd is, ” Alice started up again, a little tonelessly.

They’d been so interested in watching Femke’s departure that they hadn’t noticed Jacob Bril’s arrival. It wasn’t even midnight, but there was Bril on the Stoofsteeg, and he wasn’t walking. He stood paralyzed in a religious rage. “That’s a hymn you’re singing—that’s a prayer !” Bril yelled at Alice.

She looked right at him and went ahead with “Sweet Sacrament Divine.” (In her state of mind, maybe three hymns—or just their titles—were all she could remember.)

“Blasphemy!” Bril shouted. “Sacrilege!”

Saskia said something in Dutch to him; it didn’t sound especially religious. Els stepped up to Bril and shoved him; he dropped to one knee but kept himself from falling with the heel of one hand on the cobblestones. When he straightened up, Els shoved him again. He managed to stay on his feet, but he bounced off the side of the building. “Not around Jack,” Els told him calmly. She stepped forward to shove him again, but Bril backed away from her.

“Where’s Nico when you need him?” Saskia said facetiously—Els didn’t appear to need Nico’s help.

Alice began again with “Breathe on Me, Breath of God.” That was when they all saw him—the boy who had not argued with Els, the one who’d run backward out of the Bloedstraat. He was there because he needed another look at Alice. This time, he was alone. Els spoke to him in Dutch; she looked as if she intended to shove him, now that Bril was retreating.

“Leave him alone. He was the only nice one,” Alice told Els; she had finally stopped singing. She smiled at the boy, who stood helplessly in front of her. “He looks like he needs advice, doesn’t he?” Alice asked.

“Alice, you don’t have to,” Saskia said.

“But he looks like he needs advice,” Alice said.

“Saskia or I can give it to him,” Els told her.

“I think it’s my advice he wants,” Alice said.

“You should call it a night, Alice,” Els repeated.

“Would you like to come inside?” Alice asked the boy. He didn’t look as if he understood English. Els translated for him and he nodded.

“Come on, Jack,” Saskia said; she took his hand. “I could use a ham-and-cheese croissant. Couldn’t you?”

The boy in need of advice had an olive complexion and very dark hair, cut short; he was small-boned with wide, staring eyes and features as fine as a girl’s. He had not moved since he’d been invited inside the prostitute’s room—he just stood there. He’d wanted to have another look at Alice, never imagining that he would get up the nerve to ask her again, or even have the opportunity to do so—that is, if he’d asked her the first time. (From the look of him, he’d been too scared; probably one or more of his friends, the hecklers, had asked her.)

Els stepped up behind him and pushed him toward Alice, who took his hand and pulled him inside the room; the top of his head barely came to her chin. When Alice had closed the door and the curtains, Els joined Saskia and Jack. “Is he a virgin?” Jack asked them.

“Definitely,” Els said.

Remembering what Nico Oudejans had said to his mom at the police station, Jack asked: “Is he too young a virgin?”

“Nobody’s too young at this time of night,” Saskia said.

Jack had been napping half the afternoon and night—first for an hour or so in Els’s room, and then in Saskia’s, and of course in Els’s arms when she carried him here and there—but now he was exhausted. When they got back to Saskia’s room, Saskia closed her curtains so Jack could go to sleep. She stood in her doorway, guarding him, while—every fifteen or twenty minutes—Els would walk back to her room on the Stoofsteeg to see if Alice was still advising the virgin.

Jack managed to stay awake for the first two trips Els took. “I thought Els said virgins were quick,” the boy remarked.

“Go to sleep, Jack,” Saskia said. “It’s taking a long time because the virgin’s English isn’t very good. Your mom probably has to speak very slowly to him.”

“Oh.”

“Go to sleep, Jack.”

Much later, the sound of whispering woke Jack. The three women sat on the edge of Saskia’s bed in the glow from the lamp with the red glass shade; there was hardly any room on the bed for Jack, who didn’t let them know he was awake. His mom’s string of pearls was broken. Els and Saskia were trying to help Alice put her necklace back together. “The clumsy oaf,” Saskia said. “That’s the trouble with virgins.”

“He didn’t mean to—he’d just never taken off a necklace before,” Alice whispered. “I think they’re cultured pearls. Is that good or bad?”

“You should have kept the necklace on, Alice,” Els told her.

“He was really very sweet—he’d just never done anything before,” Alice whispered.

“He must have had a lot of money, for all that time,” Saskia said.

“Oh, I didn’t charge him—that would have made me a prostitute !” The three women laughed. “Shhh! We’ll wake up Jack,” Alice whispered.

“I’m awake,” he told them. “Did you give that boy some good advice?” he asked his mom. She gave Jack a hug and a kiss while Saskia and Els went on trying to reassemble her broken necklace.

“Yes, it was pretty good advice, I think,” Alice replied.

“The best advice he’ll ever get,” Saskia said.

“At least for free, ” Els added. The three women laughed again.

“You’ll have to take this damn thing to a jeweler,” Saskia said, handing Alice the damaged necklace and a bunch of unstrung pearls. Alice put the loose pearls and the necklace in her purse.

Saskia and Els volunteered to walk them back to the Krasnapolsky, but Alice proposed a slight detour. She wanted to walk by the Oudekerksplein, just to show those old prostitutes she was still standing. “It’s too late—most of them will have stopped working,” Els told her.

“It’s worth doing,” Saskia said. “Even if only one woman is working, the others will hear about it.”

It must have been two or three in the morning. They had just come off the Oudekennissteeg when the music hit them; it was even louder on the bridge across the old canal. That organ in the Oude Kerk was a holy monster. “Bach?” Jack asked his mother.

“It’s Bach, all right,” Alice said, “but it’s not your father.”

“How do you know?” Els asked. “Femke is such a bitch. You should at least have a look and see.”

“It’s Bach’s Fantasy in G Major,” Alice said. “It’s popular at weddings.” Weddings were not exactly William’s cup of tea, apparently, but Saskia and Els insisted on having a look at the organist.

Alice wanted to walk around the Oudekerksplein before going inside the Old Church, so they did. Only one prostitute was standing in her doorway, listening to the music. She was one of the younger ones—Margriet. “You’re up late, Jackie,” Margriet said.

“We’re all up late,” Els told her.

They went into the Oude Kerk. Two of the older prostitutes were sitting in a pew, and one of them, Naughty Nanda, appeared to be asleep; the other one, Angry Anouk, wouldn’t look at Alice.