I can smell it before I even turn into Bloemgracht, that rich, dry rasp of woodsmoke cut with something more unsavoury: plastic, paint, unnatural things. I run down Bloemstraat, unable to see my houseboat yet, but Rashid’s coffee place across the canal gives me a taster, its windows ablaze with reflected flame. Blue lights flicker too, catching tree trunks and highlighting faces in windows as they watch the firefighters battle from the shore.
I’m running hard into the heavy, ballooning heat and a fireman sees me coming, throws an arm across my chest, stopping me getting any closer.
‘Have you seen my dog?’ I scream over the noise. ‘That’s my boat – have you seen my dog?’
The fireman just shakes his head and holds fast. I can see Leah on the far side of the fire engine, the heat distorting the air between us so she looks wobbly, unreal. I can’t see if she has Kush with her. I think of the electrics, and for a crushing moment realize it’s my fault. They’d been faulty and I’d left them on. With Kush inside. Two men direct the hose, strafing the aft of the boat. The flames roar and crackle, and when the water hits them they hiss too. But the water does little more than dampen the flames down; they seem to come back with increased ferocity. I turn away, back off from the fireman and run behind the fire engine towards Leah’s boat. But as I round the truck I can see she’s standing there alone, Kush not with her, watching my boat burn and hoping the fire doesn’t reach hers. She looks so old suddenly, so old and alone, like she’s the last human on the planet, staring into the cataclysm which took us all.
I step beside her and she turns to look at me and just shakes her head. After a few moments she reaches out a hand and clasps mine, holding it tight. I look at the flames and see something, a shape in the darkness between two flames dancing on the roof. It’s gone in a flash, but it appears again. Then again and again.
It looks like a black wolf, head thrown back, fur standing proud on the back of its neck, as if howling at the moon.
A spark becomes its eye, before it’s gone in an instant.
‘Jaap?’
I don’t know how long I’ve been here. The firefighters left, the fire engine groaning away into the night, Leah back on board her boat, safe as the flames were doused before they got there, and the faces in the windows gone back to their lives, their beds, their dreams. And I’m here sitting on the concrete edge of the canal, my feet hanging over dark water. I notice suddenly I’m shivering. I turn to see Sabine standing close by.
‘Jaap, oh my god. Are you okay? I was calling and you didn’t answer …’
I feel her arm round my shoulders as she sits next to me. We sit there for a long time and eventually my shivering stops. Later, back at her flat, I let the water from the shower pour over my head as I think about what I’ve lost, about how Kush must’ve died in agony – the panic, the fear. I screw up my eyes but the images get worse so I keep them open. I end up counting the number of tiles on the wall, over and over, like I’m stuck in a loop. Finally, when the water’s run cold, I get out and dry myself. I’m in a daze, my movements automatic. Next thing I know I’m standing, staring at myself in the mirror when the door opens and Sabine steps in naked. She kisses me, and yet all I can think about is the shape I saw in the flames.
Sabine’s caressing me now, kissing my neck, my chest. She sinks to her knees and sucks me into her mouth and I try to fade away, lose myself in it.
But as I close my eyes I can still see my houseboat, the flames dancing accross it with glee.
And, worst of all, the eye, staring right at me, a dot of fire in the vast dark of my mind.
Later I wake in bed, the thud of my heart so loud for a moment I think there’s someone hammering on the door. I get up slowly, I don’t want to disturb Sabine, and creep through to the bathroom. There’s a window there, looking out over the rooftops, and I open it and let the night in, hoping it will calm me down. The air’s cool and smells of the city I know so well, the city I’ve always called home. But now? I wonder. Can it be again?
I must be imagining it but I catch the scent of burning and close the window. I go back to bed, where Sabine is mumbling something in her sleep. I gently get in and lean closer, holding my breath. It takes me a while to work out she’s saying something over and over again.
I’msorryI’msorryI’msorryI’m …
I lie here in the stark night and wonder if it ever ends.