Дэвид Митчелл - Utopia Avenue

Grafgraversgracht is an oddity among Amsterdam’s waterways for being a cul-de-sac canal. Tourists blunder in only by accident in search of a short-cut to the zoo. Born-and-bred Amsterdammers have told Jasper to his face that no such canal exists – that its very name, ‘Gravediggers Canal’, is proof of a prank.

Yet here it is, complete with street sign, legible in the light of a half-moon. Its respectable residents are asleep, but at the far end, in the triangular attic window of 81 Grafgraversgracht, is a dab of sky blue. Jasper walks the length of the short canal to the door below the lamplit window. He presses the top bell to the rhythm of a Dutch nursery rhyme: ‘ Boer wat zeg je van mijn kippen … ’ a pause ‘… Boer wat zeg je van mijn haan ?’ Jasper waits.

Maybe she’s asleep, and forgot to switch the lamp off.

Jasper waits. I’ll count to ten, then slip away …

Four floors above, the window opens. A key chimes on the cobbles. Jasper picks it up. It’s attached to a Superman key-ring. Quietly as a burglar, he lets himself in and climbs up to the fourth storey past bicycles, cooking-gas cylinders and a roll of old carpet. At his approach, the door at the very top opens …

The one-bar electric fire is lava red. It bleeds into the light of the sky-blue lamp to make a purple glow. Helen Merrill’s muslin-and-silk voice is singing ‘You’d Be So Nice To Come Home To’ on the record player. Trix stands in a furry bathrobe embroidered with Il Duca Hotel, Milano. Thirty, slender, a dash of Javanese, steamy from the bath, hair up. ‘Good heavens. It’s Mr Platypus.’

‘Can I come in?’

Trix lifts her eyebrows. ‘Lovely to see you too.’

I should have said hello. ‘Sorry. Hello. It’s lovely to see you.’

Trix stands aside and shuts the door behind him. ‘I was about to go to bed and cry myself to sleep. I thought your groupies must be feasting on the bones of my poor red fox.’

Jasper hangs his coat on the antlers. ‘Irony.’

‘My, my, haven’t we gotten clever in London?’

Jasper slips off his boots. ‘Sarcasm?’

‘Don’t get too good at normality.’

‘There’s not much danger of that.’

Trix prepares two glasses of rum and ice.

The clock on the shelf says it’s five o’clock.

Jasper’s watch says it’s three minutes to midnight.

‘It wound down months ago,’ says Trix. ‘Time’s noisy.’

They each take one end of the sofa, drawing their feet up, and sit facing each other. ‘ Proost , Mr Platypus.’

‘ Proost. ’ They drink. Rum burns Jasper’s oesophagus.

‘How was the Paradiso?’

‘The show went well, but the party afterwards was too much. I slipped away when nobody was looking.’

‘Your album’s selling like fresh herrings. The de Zoets of Middelburg are having an emergency board meeting about you now. Your father will be there, addressing his shareholders: “The family skeleton in the cupboard is playing guitar on Fenklup ! What is our official policy on this?” Your bassist is dishy.’

‘Dean’s smaller in real life than he is on television.’

‘The four of you look very close.’

‘If you’re in a band with someone, you get to know them well.’

‘Like family?’

‘I’m not an expert on the subject but maybe, yes. I live with Dean. He looks out for me, I suppose. He makes sure I don’t forget things. Griff is fearless. He doesn’t worry. He’s good at living. Elf is like a sister. I imagine. She’s good at understanding what people mean. Like you. All three of them – and Levon, our manager – know about my emotional dyslexia, I think. We don’t discuss it. They just cover for me, when I need it.’

‘How very English of them.’ Trix lights a Turkish cigarette. ‘What’s it like? Stardom?’

‘People kept asking me that at the Paradiso, and when I said, “I’m not really a star,” they became … hard to read.’

Trix considers this. ‘They may think you’re holding out on them because you think them unworthy of illumination.’

‘The reality isn’t at all like the fantasy.’

‘When did that ever matter?’

Jasper finishes his rum and peers through the base of the glass at the candle flames, the sloping walls, draped fabrics, the electric fire, the incense-breathing Indian goddess. ‘I’ve missed your anthropology classes, Trix.’

‘You’re the one who crossed the English Channel to find his fortune and left me tearing my hair out with misery.’

Did I? Was she? No – she’s smiling. ‘Irony.’

She biffs his calf with her foot. ‘Give the boy a prize.’

The half-moon shines in through Trix’s window onto her home-made four-poster bed. A celestial body never dies , Jasper tells the moon, but you never get to curl up with another body, either. ‘It’s lucky you played at the Paradiso this side of April,’ says Trix. ‘I’m moving to Luxembourg. For good.’

‘Why?’

‘To marry a Luxembourger. You’re my last fling.’

You say, ‘Congratulations.’ ‘Congratulations.’

‘On my marriage? Or about you being my last fling?’

‘I meant’ – was she joking? – ‘your marriage.’

‘Well, it’s about time. I’m not getting any younger.’

‘That’s true.’

Trix’s torso twitches. She’s smiling.

‘What? Was that funny? Why?’

Trix twirls Jasper’s hair around her finger. ‘No jealousy, no “How could you, how dare you?” You’re nearly an ideal man.’

‘Not many women agree.’

Trix makes a noise that may mean skepticism. ‘You didn’t teach yourself that trick with your tongue, did you?’

Jasper thinks of Mecca and her room above the photographer’s studio. It’s still yesterday in America . ‘What’ll happen to the shop when you’ve gone?’

‘I’ve sold it to Niek and Harm. They’ll still get obscure LPs from Brazil and poor Conservatory students will still get a discount.’

‘Amsterdam won’t be the same without you.’

‘Bless you, but Amsterdam won’t notice a damn thing. The city’s changed since we stayed up late redesigning the future and crashing the royal wedding.’ Trix traces her forefinger along Jasper’s clavicle. ‘Remember the free white bicycles? Nobody repairs them now. People think, Why can’t somebody else do it? Or they paint them black and lock ’em up. Provo is winding down. New revolutionaries have grabbed the megaphones. Humourless ones. The ones who quote Ché Guevara like he’s a close personal friend. “It is better to die on your feet than live on your knees.” They’ll say, “You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs,” as if a demonstrator’s spine, or a policeman’s skull, or an elderly widow’s window is only an egg. Time for us Utopianists to clear the stage for the Molotov-cocktail brigade. I want no part of it.’

‘Who is the future Monsieur Trix van Laak?’

‘A horse-breeder. He’s a little older, and not exactly Adonis, but he’s rich enough to be my last best suitor, smart enough to value a clever wife, and worldly enough to let my past stay in the past.’ Trix tapped the tip of Jasper’s nose. ‘His mother disapproves. She called me a social climber. I called her an Alpinist with oxygen tanks. I’ll win her around.’

An ember eats an incense stick. Sandalwood.

‘You’ll ride horses every day,’ says Jasper.

‘I’ll ride horses every day,’ agrees Trix.

Dr Bell of Ely wasn’t sure about Jasper going on a twelve-hour sea-crossing in the grip of a nervous breakdown with only Formaggio to mind him, but the headmaster was adamant. He had been an army cadet when he was sixteen, and a blast of sea air might be the very medicine young de Zoet needed. Jasper was too battered by Knock Knock’s campaign against his sanity to express an opinion. Telegrams had been sent to Jasper’s grandfather, who would be waiting at Hook of Holland. Later, Jasper worked out that his school’s concern was to ensure that he lost his marbles as far away from Swaffham House as possible, ideally in another country. There was a car to Harwich. Dr Bell had entrusted Formaggio with a few pills to give to Jasper if his condition deteriorated. Before the car was halfway to Harwich, Jasper’s condition deteriorated. The knock-knock-knock-knock s were merging into one solid impact. The pills softened it, a little, but didn’t stop the assault. Jasper and Formaggio boarded the Arnhem. It was a choppy crossing. The boys sat in the second-class lounge, Formaggio only leaving him to throw his latest sick-bag over the side. Some soldiers bound for West Germany laughed at the vomiting Formaggio and pasty-looking Jasper in their poncy uniforms before, eventually, taking pity on them. ‘Have a mouthful o’ this, you poor bastard.’ An army flask. Tea and gin, to settle their stomachs. The Arnhem docked under a late sky. The squaddies bade them good luck and were swallowed by the world. Grootvader Wim waited in his Jaguar, where the new immigration building stands. He spoke English to Formaggio. ‘I shan’t forget your kindness. Jasper, I’m taking you directly to a clinic near Wassenaar. All will be well. All will be well. You’re in the Netherlands now …’