Until I Find You

before. That late afternoon in Femke’s room on the Bergstraat was the first time Jack felt in need of some advice regarding women, but he was too afraid to ask.

“If you’re still in touch with him, perhaps you’ll be so kind as to give him a message,” Alice continued.

“Do I look kind?” Femke asked.

“Can we go?” Jack asked again; his mom still wouldn’t take his hand. Jack looked out the window at a passing car. There were no potential clients looking in.

Alice was saying something; she sounded upset. “A father should at least know what his son looks like!”

“William certainly knows what the boy looks like,” Femke replied. It was as if she were saying, “I think William has seen enough of Jack already.” That’s the kind of information (or misinformation) that can change your life. It certainly changed Jack’s. From that day forth, he’d tried to imagine his father stealing a look at him.

Did William see Jack fall through the ice and into the Kastelsgraven? Would The Music Man have rescued his son if the littlest soldier hadn’t come along? Was William watching Jack eat breakfast at the Grand Hotel in Stockholm? Did his dad see him stuffing his face at that Sunday-morning buffet at the Hotel Bristol in Oslo, or suspended in the derelict elevator above the American Bar at the Hotel Torni in Helsinki?

And on those Saturdays in Amsterdam when Jack often sat in the window or stood in the doorway of The Red Dragon on the Zeedijk, just watching the busy weekend street—the countless men who roamed the red-light district—was his father once or twice passing by with the crowd? If William knew what his son looked like, as Femke had said, how many times might Jack have seen him and not known who he was?

But how could he not have recognized William Burns? Not that William would have been so bold as to take off his shirt and show Jack the music inscribed on his skin, but wouldn’t there have been something familiar about his father? (Maybe the eyelashes, as a few women had pointed out while peering into Jack’s face.)

That day in Femke’s room on the Bergstraat, Jack started looking for William Burns. In a way, Jack had looked for him ever since—and on such slim evidence! That a woman he thought was a prostitute, who may have been lying—who was unquestionably cruel—told him that his dad had seen him.

Alice had contradicted Femke on the spot: “She’s lying, Jack.”

“You’re the one who’s lying, to yourself,” Femke replied. “It’s a lie to think that William still loves you—it’s a joke to assume that he ever did!”

“I know he loved me once,” Alice said.

“If William ever loved you, he couldn’t bear to see you prostitute yourself,” Femke said. “It would kill him to see you in a window or a doorway, wouldn’t it? That is, if he cared about you.”

“Of course he cares about me!” Alice cried.

Imagine that you are four, and your mother is in a shouting match with a stranger. Do you really hear the argument? Aren’t you trying so hard to understand the last thing that was said—to interpret it—that you miss the next thing that is said, and the thing after that? Isn’t that how a four-year-old hears, or doesn’t hear, an adult argument?

“Just think of William seeing you in a doorway, singing that little hymn or prayer I’m sure you know,” Femke was saying. “How does it go? ‘Breathe on me, breath of God’—have I got it right?” Femke also knew the tune, which she hummed. “It’s Scottish, isn’t it?” she asked.

“Anglican, actually,” Alice said. “He taught it to you?”

Femke shrugged. “He taught it to all the whores in the Oude Kerk. He played it, they sang it. I’m sure he played it for you and you sang it, too.”

“I don’t need to prove that William loved me—not to you,” Alice said.

“To me? What do I care?” Femke asked. “You need to prove it to yourself! Wouldn’t it bother William—if you accepted a customer or two, or three or four? That is, if he ever cared about you.”

“Not around Jack,” Alice said.

“Get a babysitter for Jack,” Femke told her. “You’ve got a few friends in the red-light district, haven’t you?”

“Thank you for your time,” Alice said; only then did she take Jack’s hand.

Walking from the Bergstraat, they reentered the red-light district on the Oudekerksplein. It was early evening, just growing dark. The organ in the Oude Kerk wasn’t playing, but the women were all in their doorways —as if they knew Jack and Alice were coming. Anja was one of the older ones; she was on and off in the friendliness department. It must have been one of Anja’s off nights, because she was humming the tune to “Breathe on Me, Breath of God,” which seemed a little cruel.

It’s not much of a tune. As a communion prayer, sung instead of spoken, the words matter more than the tune. Like many simple things, Jack thought it was beautiful; it was one of his mom’s favorites.

They next passed Margriet, one of the younger girls, who always called Jack “Jackie”; this time she said nothing. Then came Annelies, Naughty Nanda, Katja, Angry Anouk, Mistress Mies, and Roos the Redhead; they were humming the tune of the hymn, which Alice ignored. Only Old Jolanda knew the words.

“Breathe on me, breath of God …” she was singing.

“You’re not going to do it, are you?” Jack asked his mother. “I don’t care if I ever see him,” the boy lied.

Maybe Alice said, “I’m the one who wants to see him, Jack.” Or she might have said, “He’s the one who wants to see you, Jackie.”

When Alice told Tattoo Peter about Femke’s idea, the one-legged man tried to talk her out of it. Peter had Woody the Woodpecker tattooed on his right biceps. Jack got the impression that even the woodpecker was opposed to the idea of his mom singing a hymn in a prostitute’s window or doorway.

Years later, he would ask his mother what ever happened to the picture she took of him with Tattoo Peter’s Woody the Woodpecker. “Maybe the photograph didn’t turn out,” was all she said.

After posing with the woodpecker, Jack and his mom walked down to The Red Dragon, where Robbie de Wit rolled Alice some joints, which she put in her purse. Perhaps Robbie took their picture with Tattoo Theo. (Jack used to think: Maybe that photo didn’t turn out, either.)

They bought a ham-and-cheese croissant for Saskia, who was busy with a customer on the Bloedstraat, so Jack ate the sandwich while they walked over to the corner of the Stoofsteeg, where Jack drifted in and out of his mom’s conversation with Els. “I don’t recommend it,” Els was saying to Alice. “But of course you can use my room, and I’ll look after Jack.”

From the doorway of Els’s room, Jack and his mom couldn’t see Saskia’s window or doorway on the Bloedstraat; they had to cross the canal in order to see if Saskia was still busy with her client. She was. By the time they walked back to Els’s room, Els was with a customer of her own. Jack and Alice went back to the Bloedstraat and chatted with Janneke, the prostitute who was Saskia’s nearest neighbor.

“What’s with the hymn?” Janneke asked Alice. “Or is it some kind of prayer?” Alice just shook her head. The three of them stood out on the street, waiting for Saskia’s client to slink out the door, which he did a few minutes later. “If he had a tail like a dog, it would be between his legs,” Janneke observed.

“I suppose so,” Alice said.

Finally Saskia opened her curtains and saw them on the street. She waved, smiling with her mouth open, which was never the way she would smile at a potential customer. Saskia told Alice she could use her room, too, and that—between her and Els—Jack would be properly looked after.

“I really appreciate it,” Alice told the burned and beaten girl. “If you ever want a tattoo …” Her voice trailed away. Saskia couldn’t look at her.

“It’s not the worst thing,” Saskia said, to no one in particular. Alice shook her head again. “You know what, Jack?” Saskia asked; she seemed eager to change the subject. “You look like a kid who just ate a ham-and-cheese croissant, you lucky bugger!”

In Amsterdam, all the prostitutes were registered with the police. The women were photographed, and the police kept a record of their most personal details; some of these were probably irrelevant. But if the prostitute had a boyfriend, that was relevant, because if she was murdered or beaten up, it was often the boyfriend who did it—