Just One Day

Thirty-four
AUGUST
Utrecht, Holland
My guidebook has all of two pages on Utrecht, so I expect it to be tiny or ugly or industrial, but it turns out to be a gorgeous, twisting medieval city full of gabled row houses and canals with houseboats, and tiny little alley streets that look like they might house humans or might house dolls. There aren’t many youth hostels, but when I turn up at the only one I can afford, I learn that before it was a hostel, it was a squat. And I get that sense, almost like a radar communicating from some secret part of the world just to me: Yes, this is where you’re meant to be.
The guys at the youth hostel are friendly and helpful and speak perfect English, just like Willem did. One of them even looks like him—that same angular face, those puffy red lips. I actually ask him if he knows Willem; he doesn’t and when I explain that he looks like someone I’m looking for, he laughs and says he and half of Holland. He gives me a map of Utrecht and shows me how to get to the address the hospital gave me, a few kilometers from here, and suggests I rent a bike.
I opt for the bus. The house is out of the center, in an area full of record stores, ethnic restaurants with meat turning on spits, and graffiti. After a couple of wrong turns, I find the street, opposite some railroad tracks, on which sits an abandoned freight car, almost completely graffitied over. Right across the street is a skinny town house, which according to my printout, is the last known address of Willem de Ruiter.
I have to push my way past six bikes locked to the front rail to get to the door, which is painted electric blue. I hesitate before pressing the doorbell, which looks like an eyeball. I feel strangely calm as I press. I hear the ring. Then the heavy clump of feet. I’ve only known Willem for a day, but I recognize that those are not his footsteps. His would be lighter, somehow. A pretty, tall girl with a long brown braid opens the door.
“Hi. Do you speak English?” I ask.
“Yes, of course,” she answers.
“I’m looking for Willem de Ruiter. I’m told he lives here.” I hold up the piece of paper as if in proof.
Somehow I knew he wasn’t here. Maybe because I wasn’t nervous enough. So when her expression doesn’t register, I’m not all that surprised. “I don’t know him. I’m just renting here for the summer,” she says. “I’m sorry.” She starts to close the door.
By now, I’ve learned no or sorry or I can’t help you—these are opening offers. “Is there someone else here who might know him?”
“Saskia,” she calls. From the top of a stairway so narrow it looks like a ladder, a girl appears. She climbs down. She has blond hair and rosy cheeks and blue eyes, and there’s something vaguely farm-fresh about her, as though she just this minute finished riding a horse or plowing a field, even though her hair is cut in spikes and she’s dressed in a woven black sweater that is anything but traditional.
Once again I explain that I’m looking for Willem de Ruiter. Then, even though she doesn’t know me, Saskia invites me in and offers me a cup of coffee or tea.
The three of us sit down at a messy wooden table, piled high with stacks of magazines and envelopes. There are clothes strewn everywhere. It’s clear a lot of people live here. But apparently not Willem.
“He never really lived here,” Saskia explains after she serves me tea and chocolates.
“But you know him?” I ask.
“I’ve met him a few times. I was friends with Lien, who was the girlfriend of one of Robert-Jan’s friends. But I don’t really know Willem. Like Anamiek, I just moved in over the summer.”
“Do you know why he would use this as his address?”
“Probably because of Robert-Jan,” Saskia says.
“Who’s Robert-Jan?”
“He goes to the University of Utrecht, same as me. He used to live here,” Saskia explains. “But he moved out. I took over his room.”
“Of course you did,” I mutter to myself.
“In student houses, people come and go. But Robert-Jan will be back to Utrecht. Not here but to a new flat. Unfortunately, I don’t know where that will be. I just took over his room.” She shrugs as if to say, that’s all.
I drum my fingers on the old wooden table. I look at the pile of mail. “Do you think maybe I could look through the mail? See if there’s anything with a clue?”
“Go ahead,” Saskia says.
I go through the piles. They are mostly bills and magazines and catalogs, addressed to various people who live or have lived at this address. I count at least a half dozen names, including Robert-Jan. But Willem doesn’t have a single piece of mail.
“Did Willem ever get mail here?”
“There used to be some,” Saskia replies. “But someone organized the mail a few days ago, so maybe they threw his away. Like I said, he hasn’t been around in months.”
“Wait,” Anamiek says. “I think I saw some new mail with his name on it. It’s still in the box by the door.”
She returns with an envelope. This one isn’t junk mail. It’s a letter, with the address handwritten. The stamps are Dutch. I want to find him, but not enough to open his personal correspondence. I put the envelope down on the piles, but then I double-take. Because the return address in the upper left-hand corner, written in a swirling unfamiliar script, is mine.
I take the envelope and hold it up to the lamp. There’s another envelope inside. I open the outer envelope and out of that spills my letter, the one I sent to Guerrilla Will in En-gland, looking for Willem. From the looks of the stamps and crossed-out addresses and tape on the envelope, it’s been forwarded a few times. I open up the original letter to see if anyone has added anything to it, but they haven’t. It’s just been read and passed on.
Still, I feel overjoyed somehow. All this time, my scrappy little letter has been trying to find him too. I want to kiss it for its tenacity.
I show the letter to Saskia and Anamiek. They read it and look at me confused. “I wrote this letter,” I say. “Five months ago. When I first tried to find him. I sent it to an address in England, and somehow it found its way here. Same as me.” As I say it, I get that sense again. I’m on the right path. My letter and I landed in the same place, even if it’s the wrong place.
Saskia and Anamiek look at each other.
“We will make some calls,” Saskia says. “We can certainly help you find Robert-Jan.”
The girls disappear up the stairs. I hear a computer chime on. I hear the sounds of one-sided conversations, Saskia on the phone. About twenty minutes later, they come back down. “It’s August, so almost everyone is away, but I am sure I can get you contact information for Robert-Jan in a day or two.”
“Thank you,” I say.
Her eyes flicker up. I don’t like the way they look at me. “Though I might have found a faster way to find Willem.”
“Really? What?”
She hesitates. “His girlfriend.”