they plan to take her? It would also explain why Cate gave Samira my name in case something went wrong.
“Last night you said you were giving up and going home,” says Dave.
“I know. I just thought—”
“You said yourself that these babies belong to Samira. They always have.”
“Someone killed my friend.”
“You can’t bring her back.”
“They torched her house.”
“It’s not your case.”
I feel a surge of anger. Does he really expect me to leave this to Softell and his imbecile mates? And Spijker doesn’t fill me with confidence after letting Yanus go.
“Last night you were crying your eyes out. You said it was over.”
“That was last night.” I can’t hide the anger in my voice.
“What’s changed?”
“My mind. It’s a woman’s prerogative.”
I want to say,
What is it about men? Just when you think they’re rational members of the human race they go all Neanderthal and protective. Next he’ll be asking me how many partners I’ve had and if the sex was any good.
We’re drawing stares from other patrons. “I don’t think we should talk about it here,” he whispers.
“We’re not going to talk about it at all.” I get up to leave.
“Where are you going?”
I want to tell him it’s none of his damn business. Instead I say that I have an appointment with Samira’s lawyer, which isn’t entirely true.
“I’ll come with you.”
“No. You go and see Ruiz. He’ll appreciate that.” My voice softens. “We’ll meet up later.”
Dave looks miserable but doesn’t argue. Give him his due—he’s a quick learner.
Lena Caspar’s waiting room is being vacuumed and tidied. Magazines sit neatly stacked on a table and the toys have been collected in a polished wooden crate. Her desk is similarly neat and empty except for a box of tissues and a jug of water on a tray. Even the wastepaper basket is clean.
The lawyer is dressed in a knee-length skirt and a matching jacket. Like many women of a certain age, her makeup is applied perfectly.
“I cannot tell you where Samira is,” she announces.
“I know. But you can tell me what happened yesterday.”
She points to a chair. “What do you want to know?”
“Everything.”
The lawyer places her palms flat on the desk. “I knew something was wrong when I saw the interpreter. Samira’s English is perfect, yet she pretended not to understand what I said to her. Everything had to be translated back and forth. Samira volunteered no information without being prompted.”
“Did Yanus spend any time alone with her?”
“Of course not.”
“Did she see him?”
“Yanus took part in a lineup. She picked him out through a two-way mirror.”
“He couldn’t see Samira?”
“No.”
“Did Yanus have anything in his hands?”
She sighs, irritated at my pedantry.
I press her. “Did he have something in his hands?”
She is about to say no but remembers something. “He had a blue handkerchief. He was pushing it into his fist like a magician preparing a conjuring trick.”
How did he find Zala? Nobody knew she was at the convent except the nuns. Sister Vogel wouldn’t have given her up. De Walletjes is a small place. What did the lawyer once say to me? The walls have mice and the mice have ears.
Mrs. Caspar listens patiently while I explain what I think happened. Zala is not her concern. She has four hundred asylum seekers on her books.
“What will happen to Samira now?” I ask.
“She will be sent back to Afghanistan, which is I think a better option than marrying Yanus.”
“He is not going to marry her.”
“No.”
“He is going to find her and take her babies.”
She shrugs. How can she blithely accept such an outcome? Leaning on the windowsill, she looks down at the courtyard where pigeons peck at the base of a lone tree.
“Some people are born to suffer,” she says pensively. “It never stops for them, not for a second. Look at the Palestinians. The same is true of Afghanis and Sudanese, Ethiopians and Bangladeshis. War, famine, droughts, flood, the suffering never stops. They are made for it—sustained by it.
“We in the West like to think it can be different; that we can change these countries and these people because it makes us feel better when we tuck our own children into their warm beds with full stomachs and then pour ourselves a glass of wine and watch someone else’s tragedy unfold on CNN.” She stares down at her hands as if she despises them. “Unless we truly understand what it’s like to walk in their shoes, we should not judge people like Samira. She is only trying to save what she has left.”
Something else trembles in her voice. Resignation. Acceptance. Why is she so ready to give up? In that split second I realize there is something that she’s not telling me. Either she can’t bring herself to do it or Spijker has warned her off. With her innate sense of honesty and justice, she will not lie to me directly.
“What happened to Samira?”
“She went missing last night from the migrant center at Schiphol Airport.”
8
There is a scientific theory called the uncertainty principle that states it is impossible to truly observe something without altering it. I have done more than observe. By finding Samira I have changed the course of events.
During the taxi journey to police headquarters my fists are clenched and my fingernails dig into the soft flesh. I want to scream. I warned Spijker this would happen. I said Samira would run or Yanus would find her.
I don’t expect him to see me. He will hide behind his workload or make excuses that I’ve wasted enough of his time already. Again I wait in the foyer. This time the summons comes. Perhaps he has a conscience after all.
The corridors are lined in light gray carpet and dotted with palms. It feels more like a merchant bank than a police station.
Spijker is jacketless. His sleeves are rolled up. The hair on his forearms is the color of his freckles. The door closes. His jacket swings from a hanger behind it.
“How long are you intending to remain in Amsterdam?” he asks.
“Why, sir?”
“You have already stayed longer than is usual. Most visitors are here for a day or two.”
“Are you advising me to leave?”
“I have no authority to do that.” He spins on his chair, gazing out the window. His office looks east across the theater district to the neo-Gothic spires of the Rijksmuseum. Lined on the windowsill are tiny cacti in painted clay pots. This is his garden—fleshy, bulbous and spiky.
I had a speech prepared during my taxi ride, when I vented my spleen and caused the taxi driver a few
