There was an agent still on duty but she wanted to go home. "I'm sorry, sir, there's no connection to Maine." She checked her screen. "Flights begin at eleven A.M. but they're all booked up for today and tomorrow." She smiled sadly.
"It's the season, sir."
"Bus?" Grijpstra asked. "Please?"
She thought there might be one at 8:30 A.M. but it might be full and he'd have to connect to at least one other bus and the total trip might take twelve hours, stop-over time not included.
"Air taxi?" Grijpstra asked. "Please?"
All the numbers the agent dialed played recorded messages that suggested waiting for beeps.
The agent went home.
Grijpstra went to the restroom.
There was another man there, within the vast emptiness of tiled walls and ceilings. The other man did what Grijpstra did-unzip, let go, wait, drip, shake, zip, push faucet, wash hands, push soap button, wash hands, pull towel, rip towel, rub, drop towel into bin.
"Mannequins," the man said. "That's what we are, doing the routine. Like on earth, so in heaven." He looked at Grijpstra. "Don't you think? That this is what heaven's going to be? All this clean space?" He gestured toward the restroom's tiled walls and ceiling. "Sinless?"
Grijpstra was cursing, both his fate and this fellow man, maybe a moron.
"You sick?" the man asked. He looked into Grijpstra's eyes. "You don't look sick. Got something in your throat?" He clapped his hands. "Go on. Cough. Clear it."
"I was swearing," Grijpstra said, "in Dutch."
"You're from Pennsylvania?"
"From where?"
The man and Grijpstra shook clean hands. The man's name was Ishmael. He said he was from the Point in Maine. That'd be in Woodcock County. Grijpstra said he was from Amsterdam. Thafd be in Holland. Ishmael said his sister had married a man from there, that'd be in Copenhagen. Where the breakfast buns came from.
"What?" Grijpstra asked.
"The sticky buns," Ishmael said. He knew more, about Danish cheese called Gouda, about Saab cars you could win as prizes that go with magazine subscriptions, about Hans Brinker sticking his finger in the dike.
"Who is Hans Brinker?"
Ishmael said Hans was the Dutch boy you saw on paint labels, and that Hans was also known from textbooks. Finger in hole in dike. Grijpstra thought of Oedipus, desiring his mother, frustrated by his father, therefore, symbolically, sticking his finger in any hole at all. Hans Oedipus?
The name was definitely Brinker, Ishmael said, and Brinker specifically filled holes in Dutch dikes. Ishmael was surprised Grijpstra didn't know his own national hero.
Grijpstra, although willing to please, couldn't place the boy's name.
Ishmael also knew about Holland being a part of Germany. There was World War Two, but he wasn't one to bear grudges, even if a cousin didn't return from the Battle of the Bulge. Too long ago, from the black-and-white days-all that old anger… even so, Japan was coming on strong again.
"Holland fought Germany, too," Grijpstra said. "For all of five days."
"Defeat?"
Grijpstra admitted defeat.
"Germany still got you?"
"They gave us back."
"Didn't want to keep you, eh?"
It was all joined into a kind of Europe now, Grijpstra said. They were in it together. That might be better. "Wipe out some borders."
"Like the Canadian border," Ishmael said, "and the Mexican while we're at it. They aren't there anyway. I never see them when I fly across."
"What are the black-and-white days?" Grijpstra asked.
"War documentaries," Ishmael said. "Kind of faded. That's how we saw it then, as little kids. Didn't care much then. No TV, no nothing."
"Ah."
"After Korea it was color."
"To us World War Two was color too," Grijpstra said.
Ishmael thought that was amazing.
Ishmael, a small man, wiry, some fifty years old, wearing greenish wide-bottomed cotton trousers and a windbreaker, both well worn and faded, and a duck-billed hat, brand new and bright green, with a weathered face and a set of large very white teeth that he seemed to be holding on to, with his tongue perhaps, or with sucked-in cheeks, was a pilot. As he was bound for home, and the Point was close to Jameson…
"I'll pay," Grijpstra said. As in Amsterdam there had been no time to change money, Grijpstra only had Dutch guilders, hundreds, two hundred and fifties and thousands, having grabbed a pile of notes from the basement before leaving. He displayed his wad.
"That's money?" Ishmael asked, looking at the brightly colored notes of different sizes, which showed ornate faces of medieval Dutchmen, stylized flowers, fruit motifs, a bird even, ornamental bands, artistically drawn figures.
"Guilders," Grijpstra said. "One guilder is about half a dollar. There should be plenty here."
"Europe dollars," Ishmael said, shaking his head. "Can't rightly use those in Maine."
Logan Airport was mostly closed inside. The money exchange wouldn't open until 9:00 A.M. There were coffee machines. Ishmael worked one and gave Grijpstra a cup. Grijpstra showed his Diners Club card.
"Ah," Ishmael said. "Can't rightly use that in Maine either. Not where we are at. All empty coast, you know. The bank is a truck, coming in Tuesdays, and it does Visa, but only if you're known, cause there's no phone from the truck, and they only change Canadian dollars, not Europe dollars, I think."
Grijpstra put back his credit card. "I see."
"Bank truck doesn't take pesos either," Ishmael said. "Nothing personal, you know."
"Got to get to Jameson," Grijpstra said. He explained about his friend watching nature out there from an island, Squid Island.
"That's next to Bar Island," Ishmael said. "I fly around there some. Bar Island has this bar that connects to the peninsula ofJameson that gets submerged at low tide."
"Jameson goes under water?"
"No, just the bar to Bar Island." Ishmael's teeth clicked as he laughed. "Jameson too, when this ozone hole opens up a bit more. That hole is right above the coast of Maine, did you know that? That'll warm us up all right. What do you do for a living?"
Grijpstra explained that he was a former cop, now a private detective.
"Your friend on Squid Island, would he be a cop too?"
That was amazing, Ishmael said, two former European cops watching nature on three thousand miles of Maine coast (counting all the nooks and crannies) not too well guarded by the Coast Guard, the Marine Patrol, sheriffs' offices, justice departments, the DEA, the what-have-you.
"DEA?"
"Drug Enforcement Agency," Ishmael said.
"You got drugs in Maine?"
Ishmaers teeth were clicking again. "You got drugs in Dutchland?"
Grijpstra said he didn't care about drugs. He thought that over three thousand miles of not-too-well-guarded coast might attract some, though.
"So," Ishmael said, "you're in a hurry to start watching some nature with your former cop friend out on Squid Island. Now ifyou rented a car, you'd be there in ten hours."
"I'd rather fly with you," Grijpstra said. "I could pay you later."
"You could," Ishmael said. He didn't like to fly in the dark, though, so they'd have to wait for daybreak, three hours away. Grijpstra slept in the lounge, waking up every now and then to listen to Ishmael snore in the seat next to him, or to accept more coffee or candy bars that Ishmael kept getting from machines.
The plane was small, red and white, and had double wings, covered with what, to Grijpstra, appeared to be sailcloth. It was tied to the tarmac with ropes. Grijpstra helped undo them. There was only a small bench inside, with a little space behind it that Grijpstra's bag fitted into. Ishmael's bag balanced on top. The dashboard wasn't too complicated.