THE RAIN FINALLY CLEARED ON SATURDAY AND the sun washed the crooked, gabled buildings, bringing cheer to a city suffering from a weather-influenced bipolar disorder. On the lawns of Rembrandtplein, Theo passed an army of sunbathers, feeling severely overdressed in his polo shirt and cotton pants. At the end of the square, he crossed the road and stopped in the shade of a chocolate-colored art deco building. A large, garish sign stared down on him.
“BANK OF ETERNITY.”
The tinted door opened with a whoosh, and a man attired in office clothes emerged from the bank. His callow face beamed as soon as he saw Theo.
“Hey, remember me? Sam. You interviewed me for a summer job last year?”
Theo studied the man closely: medium build, spiky blond hair, game-show-host grin.
“I’m sorry.” He’d seen so many candidates that their faces were all a blur.
“It’s okay,” Sam said, shrugging off his disappointment. “You guys did me a favor, ’cause the job I’ve got right now is awesome. Trainee to chief afterlife consultant in just one year. Made a cool 200k in commissions alone. If I worked for you, bet I’d still be fetching your dry cleaning.” He snorted.
“You work here?”
“Want a tour?”
Theo hesitated.
“Come on, don’t be shy,” Sam insisted.
They walked through the door and stepped into the cool air of the bank. The lady behind the reception desk greeted them with a shallow smile.
“People come here expecting some kind of oriental mumbo jumbo. But as you can see, we’re just like any other bank,” Sam said.
Theo’s eyes swept the premises. It did look like any other bank: teller counters, ticket machine, pens on chains.
“And that’s my team, right there.” Sam gestured to four men in red jackets behind the service desks. “You’re looking at the first stop in the assembly line of eternal happiness. Every day, we help people achieve their ultimate dream. I can’t tell you how good that feels,” he said, high on the company Kool-Aid.
“Is it always this busy?” Theo asked, referring to the thirty-odd people in the waiting area, most of them lost in their smartphones.
“This is nothing. You should have been here last week.”
Theo narrowed his eyes. “You mean after the Mumbai blasts?”
Sam averted his gaze and pointed to the big-screen TV on the wall. “Our new commercial!”
Theo turned to look. Much like a soft-drink ad, it started off with a group of young people having fun at a pool party: men and women genetically bred to be beautiful—perfect skin, perfect hair, perfect teeth, perfect everything. They all wore white, not a drop of sweat as they ground their hips in slow motion to some kind of doof-doof beat. The DJ was a strange hybrid of biblical prophet and modern-day emcee, with long hair; flowing robe; tattoos on the forearm; one hand tweaking the mixer, the other making the sign of the devil horns.
As the music hit a crescendo, the camera moved behind the DJ. He spread his arms wide, palms facing the sun, his silhouette a perfect cross.
“Happiness, now and forever,” said the caption.
“Is that what heaven’s like? Ibiza?” Theo scowled.
“It can be Ibiza. It can be Rodeo Drive. It can be Disneyland. Whatever you want it to be,” Sam said with a glazed look in his eyes.
“And what if I don’t have any money? What happens then?”
“What happens when you don’t have money in this world?”
“So you’re saying the Mumbai suicide bomber—a terrorist—will be shaking his butt at a pool party, because he’s got Afterlife Dollars. And my buddy Hans, an honest social worker, will be rotting in some fucking ghetto. What sense does that make?”
Keep it down, Sam gestured with a tight smile, wary of the glances from customers in the waiting area. But Theo didn’t care how loud he was being. All he could think of was the coffin containing his friend’s remains.
“I’m not much of a believer in the afterlife. But all that Sunday school stuff … good guys being rewarded in heaven, bad guys roasting in hell, keeps us in line. Now you’re saying, ‘Forget all that. Here’s a moral blank check. Go ahead: steal, rape, murder, commit genocide. As long as you have the money, we’ll let you in.’ Do you realize the dangers of encouraging this line of thinking? No, you don’t, as long as you get your commission. You may as well stand outside a school and sell heroin to kids, because that’s what you are … fucking lowlife scum.” Theo stormed out.
THE CAFE WAS in a pen-nib shaped building in Prinsengracht. Despite the lunchtime bustle, Theo managed to secure a prized canal-side table.
The waitress, a petite brunette with a stud in her nose and cigarette tucked behind her ear, arrived with his order of pinot gris.
A nervy Theo took a large gulp of his drink. His heart was still running after the visit to Bank of Eternity, and he needed it to settle before Valerie got there. Their first meeting since the bitter breakup.
Ten minutes later, she arrived, clad in a pastel-blue shirt and her trademark white jeans. His heart convulsed. As he rose to greet her, he noticed he wasn’t the only one looking at her. She had a face that could be on a magazine cover: high cheekbones, full lips, ski-slope nose, movie-star sunglasses. A flick of her head threw her long, dark hair over her shoulders.
The force of habit nearly compelled him to lean in for a kiss. But he checked himself and she didn’t make a move, either. They sat down, the space between them filled with an awkward silence. She hadn’t even said goodbye. One day, he came home from work and she was gone.
“I’m sorry about Hans,” she said, finally breaking the impasse. “I’m sorry it happened after I left. Are you okay?”
“I guess so.” He shrugged.
They spoke about Hans for a while, a safe topic. Theo drank the rest of the wine as he gathered the courage to broach what he really wanted to talk about.
“I’ve been thinking,” he said. “You do, when things like this happen. Life’s precious. And we waste so much of it on stupid stuff, don’t you think? Stuff that doesn’t matter. We get so caught up, we forget what’s important.”
She nodded as if she’d been on this same introspective journey herself.
“I want to give us another chance. You and me. Start over,” he said, encouraged by her response.
She shook her head.
“Please, Valerie. Hear me out.”
“You went through my phone,” she hissed.
He swallowed.
“And how about that guy you nearly punched at Jody’s party? You embarrassed me. You embarrassed yourself. You embarrassed Jody.”
“The two of you were gone—”
“And how about poor Peter?”
He inhaled sharply. She’d kissed that asshole on the lips. That wasn’t a matter of conjecture. He’d seen it with his own eyes.
“What do I have to do to convince you I’m not fucking every man in Amsterdam? I can’t be with someone who doesn’t trust me. Who rings every five minutes when I’m out, calls my friends to check if I’ve really been with them. Then looks at my phone when I’m in the bathroom.”
Theo turned away, glaring at the crying baby at the next table. The mother, a brunette with aviator glasses, was reading a magazine while rolling the pram back and forth.
“There should be a law against that. Just like there’s a law against smoking.” He fumed.
Valerie sighed.
“We’re very different. I want to go out. You want to sit at home and watch Discovery Channel while your sick mind imagines all kinds of things.”
“There’s going out, and then there’s going out and coming home at three in the morning, phone beeping with text messages from random strangers. That’s not the behavior of someone in a relationship.”
“Here we go again. The same shit.” She grimaced as if she had a headache. He felt a throbbing pain in his temple, too. He was hoping they could forget the past, but the past was there, sitting at the table, an unwelcome guest refusing to take the hint and leave.
For a while, neither of them spoke. The world rushed in to fill the edgy silence. A boat full of drunk teenagers dancing to some crap techno music. A kakker riding his scooter with his head ducked behind the visor to protect his hundred-euro haircut. Two Latino types at the next table gawking at Valerie and then sharing a perplexed look: what’s she doing with him? Their envy made him more determined to win her back. Not just because he was punching well above his weight with her. He’d wanted her the first time he laid eyes on her: a feisty teenager, stealing makeup from the department store. He wanted her when he was teaching her to ride a bike, when they were lying on the rug in his living room, listening to his dad’s records. And he wanted her now. More than anything in the world. He reached across the table and cradled her hand.
“Life’s short. We can’t spend it hurting the people we love,” he said. “We’ve both got issues. Maybe I’m scared of losing people who’re close to me. Because of my mum … And as for you, you’ve been going around trying to fill a daddy-shaped hole all your life.”
He felt her body stiffen at the mention of her father. She didn’t like talking about him. That had been the problem. They never talked about anything. All the unsaid words festering in toxic cesspools, that had brought them to this point.
“None of our problems are insurmountable,” he continued. “I know someone who can help us work through them. And when we do, we’ll make a great team. One thing I can promise: I’ll never abandon you, whatever happens. I’ll always be there for you.” He squeezed her hand.
“I don’t know …”
“Please, Valerie. Give us another shot. If it doesn’t work, I promise—”
“I don’t love you.” Her voice was like cut glass.
Theo’s face fell. His hand went limp, allowing her to withdraw from his slack grip. He looked at her, a mixture of anger, hurt and self-pity. Why had she been with him if she didn’t love him? Was he just a credit card with arms and legs?
Suddenly, she smiled. He smiled back reflexively and then realized it wasn’t meant for him. He spun around, following her line of sight down the pavement. A man: pink face, thick arms, thick neck, blond hair swept across the top of a sloping forehead. The man turned away as soon as he was spotted. Despite the fleeting glimpse, Theo recognized him. It was the gorilla who’d been in one too many of her recent Facebook photos.
He swiveled back to her. The guilty countenance said it all. Were they fucking when she was with Theo? Maybe they were. Maybe he’d been right all along.
His hand shook as he peeled a twenty-euro note from his wallet to pay the bill. Had he driven her away by being too possessive? What had come first? Her infidelity or his jealousy? Chicken or egg?
He looked at her, hiding behind those movie-star sunglasses, waiting for him to go, for this awkward meeting to end. The hate pouring out of his eyes was twisting her face, making her look like a victim of botched plastic surgery.
Bitch.
But he wasn’t going to give her the satisfaction of saying it to her face.