“Next bakery,” he said, “we’ll stop.”
But nothing was quite open. We teetered on the edge of a fun night gradually becoming a march to hell. I still felt drunk and sloppy. My feet hurt, and I had started to worry about Amy and Constance. We had separated before on our travels, but usually after a couple of days in a city. This all seemed too fast, too reckless, and I was about to tell Jack I should grab a cab back to the hostel when finally he found an open bakery. It was merely a hole in the wall, a place to step in, order, then go, but an old woman opened the door for us when she saw us peering in, and she nodded when we ordered.
We ordered a lot. We took three baguettes in a paper bag, two croissants, one chocolate éclair, a chocolate bar, and two steaming coffees. Jack spoke to the woman in English, but she responded in Dutch. He tried German on her, and that worked fairly well, and he talked for a minute or two, asking directions, then he nodded and grabbed my elbow and led me out.
“Drink your coffee, but I have a place where we can eat,” he said, his smile contagious, his excitement obvious. “She told me how to get there. We’re close.”
The coffee tasted fresh. I realized, holding it, that I had become chilled. Maybe it was hunger, or being drunk still, or the residue of the pot we had smoked, but I felt cold down in my spine. Jack held the paper bag open and made me put my nose in it. He said to breathe it in, that it was possible we would remember this single minute as long as we lived.
“I didn’t take you for such a romantic,” I said when he lifted the bag away. “You said I had it bad with Hemingway, but you have it worse.”
“What’s the opposite of a romantic? I’ve always wondered.”
“An accountant, I guess. A person who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.”
“Whoa,” Jack said. “Did you just Plato my ass at four o’clock in the morning?”
“Not that hard to do, Jack Vermont.”
“You don’t even know my last name, do you?”
“Do you know mine?”
“Merriweather.”
“Wrong.”
“Albuquerque. Postlewaite. Smith-Higginbothom. It’s probably a hyphenate. Am I close?”
“Tell me yours first, and then I’ll tell you mine.”
“Now you’re pulling some Rumpelstiltskin trip on me.”
“Does your conversation ever go in a straight line?”
“Yes and no.”
He smiled. He had a damn good smile.
“Let’s keep our names to ourselves,” I said. “That will make it harder for you to find me after you’ve fallen hopelessly in love with me. It will turn it into a quest.”
“How do you know I’m not already hopelessly in love with you?”
“Too soon. It usually takes men a day and a half for them to pledge their lives to my service.”
“Heather Postlewaite, for sure.”
“Weren’t you taking me somewhere?”
“You’re making it difficult. Jack and Heather or Heather and Jack? Which way sounds more natural?”
“Heather and Jack.”
“You’re just making up anything now.”
“Jack and Heather sounds like a candle store.”
“What’s wrong with a candle store? Jack and Heather is the euphonious order, and you know it.”
“Euphonious? Is euphonious Latin for ‘I’m trying to catch up to my smarter friend so I will throw in the biggest word I can think of’?”
We had been walking slowly. Before Jack could answer, a different smell took over. It didn’t originate with the canals or the croissants, but something familiar and friendly, something I knew I recognized but couldn’t quite place. Jack smiled as I struggled to make sense of it.
“Come on,” he said, and I did.
12
The street sign hung from the side of the building read Nieuwe Kalfjeslaan 25, 1182 AA Amstelveen. The smell came from somewhere behind a dungeon door, a wide half circle of heavy black wood with equally heavy hardware. It didn’t make much sense to me, but Jack began smiling, and he pulled at the hardware, causing it to make a loud bang. The door opened on creaky hinges, exactly out of a Frankenstein movie. Jack put his finger to his lips and smiled.
I wanted to tell him he had already been loud, that we probably had awakened anyone inside, but he slipped through the crack in the door before I could speak. I looked around, trying to understand what we were getting into, then did a mental shrug and followed him. Besides, he had the paper bag of food.
I smiled when I realized where we were.
It was a riding academy. De Amsterdamse Manege. And it was beautiful. It was old and meticulously cared for; the walls were white stucco, and pine shavings covered the cobblestones that lined the ground. A dozen coats of arms hung on the walls. The horses rested in ancient stalls around the perimeter of a large courtyard. Their heads hung over their stall doors, and they looked drowsy and peaceful, like coat hooks beside a fireplace. Jack grabbed my hand and led me to the first stall.
“The horse’s name is Apple,” he said, reading the Dutch.
“Hello, Apple,” I said.
I petted his forelock and his cheek. He was a beautiful horse, not the knock-kneed nag you might find in a riding academy in some American towns, and slowly I slipped my arms around him. He smelled like everything good.
“My grandfather came here after the war,” Jack whispered, his eyes a little wet, his hand petting Apple. “He wrote about this place, but I wasn’t sure it still existed. He said the horses gave him hope after everything he had seen in the war. He always took special note of animals and children. He gave this place three stars. That’s his highest rating.”
“How did you know it was here?”
“I didn’t, honestly. It was in his journal. I’ve read the entries a hundred times, but I’d always wondered if the horses still existed. The stable, I mean. I knew the general area of town, and Raef told me he remembered something about a riding academy being out this way. We looked it up when we got here, and that coffee lady gave me the last bit of directions.”
“I rode a little when I was a girl.”
“I’m glad you like horses,” he said.
“I love animals,” I said and let go of Apple and walked to the second stall. “I always have. What’s this one’s name?”
“Cygnet, I think. A baby swan.”
I took out my cell phone to take a picture, but Jack stopped me.
“Would you mind,” he asked, “if we didn’t take a picture?”
I lowered the phone.
“Why not?”
He moved his hand slowly on Cygnet’s nose. His voice was serious but sweet.
“I don’t want to cheapen the experience,” he said. “Or turn it into a little snapshot. I want to be here with the horses, that’s all. And with you. I hate taking photos of everything. It means what’s going on now is only this thing we perform so we can take pictures and look at them later. Stick them on Facebook. It dilutes whatever we’re doing. That’s kind of what I think, anyway.”
“Do you take photos of anything?”