‘Solo?’
‘I guess.’
We wander through the streets in comfortable silence.
At my hostel’s door, he says, ‘I’ve booked a canal cruise at 4 p.m., do you want to join me? I mean, it’s not an issue if you don’t. I’ll be on it anyway. It would be cool to share it with someone. No pressure. You may have other plans.’
‘Julian,’ I say, amused at his spiralling, ‘yes, I’d like to do the canal cruise and I think it would be heaps more fun with someone than on my own.’
‘Shall I come by here?’ He gestures to the hostel. ‘Maybe 3 p.m.? We could walk to it if the weather stays clear?’
‘Yeah, that would be lovely.’
‘Okay, thanks. I’m glad we met up again.’
‘Me too, Julian, me too.’
Inside the dorm room, I feel buoyant.
‘What’s happening?’ Leon asks, smiling at me as he dries his hair with a towel.
‘I met this guy on the flight over. He was interesting. Good-looking. Funny.’
‘Tall, dark and handsome?’
‘Totally. And I bumped into him on the street. We’ve spent the last couple of hours walking around, chatting. It’s been lovely. Romantic even.’
‘Ooooh,’ Leon says. ‘That’s amore. You want to come outside? I’ve got some sweet j rolled.’
‘I’ve had enough highs for one evening.’
I wake early and visit the Anne Frank House. Within seconds, I’m crying. Anne’s story, the treatment of the Jews by the Nazis, how she was a normal teenager in the midst of this. It breaks my heart.
Upstairs, I can’t believe I’m in her room. The cramped space. Walking around it, I spot a couple on a date, and wonder if that works. Does it bring people closer together to see the horrors that humans can inflict on each other? Does it make them want to keep each other safe?
I get my tissues out again watching a video, grainy black and white, of Jews boarding a train to a concentration camp. They were in good thick winter coats bearing the Star of David. At the end of the clip, a child boards, she seems unbothered that everyone is squashed. The little girl sees the camera filming and waves heartily at it. She has no idea she’s off to starve, off to see her family and people destroyed, off to her annihilation. She waves. Her innocence.
The BodyWorlds museum salesman offers me a two euro discount. The street is hot and I need a break from walking. I go inside. The exhibits are all about the body. The effect of cigarettes is disgusting, but what’s more confronting is the length of the digestive system laid out from mouth to anus and the amount of work necessary to process food and gain nutrients from it. It shows the intense effects of sugar and junk food on the system, of meat, of grease. I’m appalled at how badly I treated myself scoffing on shit food mindlessly. I’m amazed at what a forgiving and powerful ally the body is.
Two older Brits marvel at the heart. They discuss the various heart attacks they’ve had. One of the men is overweight and discusses veins and arteries in depth. The pair move on to a conversation about stents. One of them asks where they’ll go for lunch and the other mentions a pizzeria next door.
I wonder if I can squeeze in another museum before meeting Julian.
I pay and enter the sex museum. This place would have been altogether shocking maybe fifteen, twenty years ago but now, in the age of internet porn, I realize how desensitized I am. Even the girls in the red light zone – for a couple of minutes it felt weird, objectifying them, but the red light district is no creepier than the average hip hop music video.
I overhear some American students discussing the mushroom trip they were on the day before.
‘I spoke to God, man,’ one of them says. He looks pretty high still.
‘Which shop was it?’
‘It’s on the street across from this one, in the red light district. The white dude in the shop has dreads and cross eyes, he’s French maybe, or fuck knows. European but not Dutch. He has info, bro. Ask him what kind of high you want and he’ll hook you up.’
‘Sweet, bro.’
I leave the museum and walk to where the student mentioned.
Inside, I get a slight thrill. There’s information on how to grow plants, how to save the planet, and all sorts of smoking paraphernalia, hemp products, mushrooms and headshop highs.
The shop assistant wears a colourful hoodie. ‘Madam,’ he says and doffs an imaginary cap to me.
‘Which mushrooms would be best for a beginner? I don’t want something too heavy, never tried them before.’
‘Truffles,’ he corrects me. He runs through my options and I choose Mushrocks.
‘Now you got somewhere safe to go? I recommend you go to a park or be with nature. Don’t eat, don’t drink, just have water. Earth don’t like chemicals. Here, take these too,’ he says and passes a packet of peanuts. ‘You’ll need these for the taste. Are you doing this with a friend?’
‘Sort of.’
‘Twenty-four euro please,’ he says. ‘Namaste.’
The day is still warm and sunny when Julian collects me. I thumb the pack in my pocket when he asks me how the morning was.
‘Do you want to grab a sandwich or tea or something for the boat? I’ve got our tickets.’
‘Let me pay you for mine, Julian,’ I say.
‘No. Please don’t. My expenses are on the business. I’m glad for your company for an afternoon. Really.’
‘Okay, well, let me get the drinks in. Do you want a beer? Some crisps?’
‘I’ll have a beer and a water. You know the tap water here is the same water in the showers and toilets and sinks. It’s one of the best water systems in the world.’
‘Really? I was bloody gasping yesterday and went walking for miles to find a shop. I didn’t know I could drink from the taps.’
‘You could drink from the toilets here. But don’t.’
We board the canal cruise. I tell him about the mushroom shop and the man working there. The high it’s supposed to give.
‘Do you want to do some with me?’
‘I can’t.’ He shakes his head sadly. ‘I convulsed twice before when I tried them in uni. Allergic.’
‘Really?’
‘Yup. I can be the sober person to your trip though, if you’d like.’
Halfway through the canal cruise, after learning about some famous Amsterdam sites and that, I decide fuck it, take the mushrooms out and down a few. They leave a metallic tang on my taste buds.
‘Ugh,’ I say, tearing the pack of peanuts and pouring them into my mouth, chewing them into a paste to spread around my tongue.
The houses start to bend towards the end of the cruise and I’m anxious to get off the boat. I apologize. ‘I only took a quarter of the packet, imagine if I took more.’
‘You’ll be okay,’ Julian says. ‘Breathe and relax.’
‘I was going to go to that rave.’
‘Hey, don’t let me tell you your business,’ he says, his empty hands up, ‘but a rave is not a good place to go right now. You should maybe be somewhere quiet. I’m going to flag a cab and bring you back to your hostel. Is that cool?’
‘Yeah. Thank you.’
‘It should wear off soon.’
At my hostel, he gets out of the cab to walk me to the door.
‘Thanks for joining me.’
‘I’m sorry for spoiling the end.’
‘You didn’t, crazy lady. Maybe buy some sugary things from the vending machine. As much as I detest sugar, it’ll bring you back to this reality if you need to get grounded.’
‘Thanks, Julian.’
‘Maybe we’ll catch up again?’
I nod and go inside. All my roommates are in the dorm room talking loudly and preparing for a night out. I lie on the bunk and try to stay calm. The room is trippy. Colours are coming off everything. I think the guys can hear my paranoid thoughts. One of them plays metal music with heavy guitar, drums and screeching and it scares me. It’s like the song is wielding a weapon and threatening me. I can see the violence imbued in each sound.