Around ten o’clock that night, when the red-light district was very crowded, Els and Saskia and Jack accompanied Alice on the short walk from Saskia’s room on the Bloedstraat to Els’s room on the Stoofsteeg. Els was carrying Jack. The boy was half asleep, with his head on her shoulder. Alice didn’t sing when she was changing rooms. “Do you think William’s ever going to show up?” she asked.
“I never thought he was going to show up,” Saskia said.
“You should call it a night, Alice,” Els told her. She unlocked the door to her room, and Alice took up her usual position in the doorway. She was about to start the hymn again when she saw Femke coming toward her on the Stoofsteeg.
“You’re not singing,” Femke said.
“He’s not coming, is he?” Alice asked her.
Both Saskia and Els started in on Femke—they were furious and let her know it. Jack woke up, but he had no idea what they were saying. It was all in Dutch. Femke didn’t back down to them, not a bit. Els and Saskia kept after her. Jack thought Els was going to throw Femke down on the cobblestone street, but they stopped shouting when Alice began to sing. Jack had never heard her do “Breathe on Me, Breath of God” any better. Femke looked undone by her voice. Possibly Femke said, “I didn’t think you’d actually do it.” Alice just kept singing—if anything, a little louder. But Jack was so out of it, for all he knew, Femke might have said, “I didn’t think he’d actually accept it.”
As Jack understood things, his father was playing a piano on a cruise ship—or someone was. The piano seemed to surprise Alice, but most organists learn how to play piano first—certainly William had. Maybe the surprise was that William wanted to sail to Australia and get tattooed by Cindy Ray.
Alice had switched hymns, but she was nonetheless continuing to sing—heedless of such a small thing as punctuation, or the fact that William might already have been on his way to Australia. “The King of love my Shepherd is,” she sang. (She just kept repeating that line.)
Did William hope that Australia would be too far away for Alice and Jack to follow him there? Jack was falling asleep on Els’s big, soft bosom. Alice had switched hymns again and showed no sign of stopping. “Sweet Sacrament divine,” she sang repeatedly. The purity of Alice’s voice followed Femke down the street. By the time Femke left the Stoofsteeg, Alice had switched back to “Breathe on Me, Breath of God” and Jack woke up.
“You can stop now, Alice,” Saskia said, but Alice wouldn’t stop.
“Where’s Australia?” Jack asked Els. (He just knew that Australia wasn’t on their itinerary.)
“Don’t worry, Jack—you’re not going anywhere near Australia,” Saskia said.
“It’s on the other side of the world,” Els told him. The boy felt better thinking that his dad might be on the other side of the world; yet this wouldn’t prevent Jack from imagining that his father was somehow watching him from a crowd.
“Come on, Alice—it’s time to stop,” Saskia said.
“The King of love my Shepherd is,” Alice started up again, a little tonelessly.
They’d been so interested in watching Femke’s departure that they hadn’t noticed Jacob Bril’s arrival. It wasn’t even midnight, but there was Bril on the Stoofsteeg, and he wasn’t walking. He stood paralyzed in a religious rage. “That’s a hymn you’re singing—that’s a prayer!” Bril yelled at Alice.
She looked right at him and went ahead with “Sweet Sacrament Divine.” (In her state of mind, maybe three hymns—or just their titles—were all she could remember.)
“Blasphemy!” Bril shouted. “Sacrilege!”
Saskia said something in Dutch to him; it didn’t sound especially religious. Els stepped up to Bril and shoved him; he dropped to one knee but kept himself from falling with the heel of one hand on the cobblestones. When he straightened up, Els shoved him again. He managed to stay on his feet, but he bounced off the side of the building. “Not around Jack,” Els told him calmly. She stepped forward to shove him again, but Bril backed away from her.
“Where’s Nico when you need him?” Saskia said facetiously—Els didn’t appear to need Nico’s help.
Alice began again with “Breathe on Me, Breath of God.” That was when they all saw him—the boy who had not argued with Els, the one who’d run backward out of the Bloedstraat. He was there because he needed another look at Alice. This time, he was alone. Els spoke to him in Dutch; she looked as if she intended to shove him, now that Bril was retreating.
“Leave him alone. He was the only nice one,” Alice told Els; she had finally stopped singing. She smiled at the boy, who stood helplessly in front of her. “He looks like he needs advice, doesn’t he?” Alice asked.
“Alice, you don’t have to,” Saskia said.
“But he looks like he needs advice,” Alice said.
“Saskia or I can give it to him,” Els told her.
“I think it’s my advice he wants,” Alice said.
“You should call it a night, Alice,” Els repeated.
“Would you like to come inside?” Alice asked the boy. He didn’t look as if he understood English. Els translated for him and he nodded.
“Come on, Jack,” Saskia said; she took his hand. “I could use a ham-and-cheese croissant. Couldn’t you?”
The boy in need of advice had an olive complexion and very dark hair, cut short; he was small-boned with wide, staring eyes and features as fine as a girl’s. He had not moved since he’d been invited inside the prostitute’s room—he just stood there. He’d wanted to have another look at Alice, never imagining that he would get up the nerve to ask her again, or even have the opportunity to do so—that is, if he’d asked her the first time. (From the look of him, he’d been too scared; probably one or more of his friends, the hecklers, had asked her.)
Els stepped up behind him and pushed him toward Alice, who took his hand and pulled him inside the room; the top of his head barely came to her chin. When Alice had closed the door and the curtains, Els joined Saskia and Jack. “Is he a virgin?” Jack asked them.
“Definitely,” Els said.
Remembering what Nico Oudejans had said to his mom at the police station, Jack asked: “Is he too young a virgin?”
“Nobody’s too young at this time of night,” Saskia said.
Jack had been napping half the afternoon and night—first for an hour or so in Els’s room, and then in Saskia’s, and of course in Els’s arms when she carried him here and there—but now he was exhausted. When they got back to Saskia’s room, Saskia closed her curtains so Jack could go to sleep. She stood in her doorway, guarding him, while—every fifteen or twenty minutes—Els would walk back to her room on the Stoofsteeg to see if Alice was still advising the virgin.
Jack managed to stay awake for the first two trips Els took. “I thought Els said virgins were quick,” the boy remarked.
“Go to sleep, Jack,” Saskia said. “It’s taking a long time because the virgin’s English isn’t very good. Your mom probably has to speak very slowly to him.”
“Oh.”
“Go to sleep, Jack.”
Much later, the sound of whispering woke Jack. The three women sat on the edge of Saskia’s bed in the glow from the lamp with the red glass shade; there was hardly any room on the bed for Jack, who didn’t let them know he was awake. His mom’s string of pearls was broken. Els and Saskia were trying to help Alice put her necklace back together. “The clumsy oaf,” Saskia said. “That’s the trouble with virgins.”
“He didn’t mean to—he’d just never taken off a necklace before,” Alice whispered. “I think they’re cultured pearls. Is that good or bad?”