As she sat there, blinking in confusion, I saw that despite the powerful charisma of her body, her face was very plain, the individual features unremarkable. But Anton was right to be delighted by his good luck, she was a carnal prospect of no small worth. He was in a state of extreme excitation, so that it seemed as if he might soon burst, he squeezed her hand with such force that she let out a little squawk. She looked at him with an expression of real adoration, staring into his face as he gripped her hand and, with a wicked grin, lowered it to his lap. As I watched them, I understood that Anton was attractive, a man with no small powers of fascination.
Do you have any questions for me? Anything that might help you reach your decision? I swiveled my head back to Bettina. She looked uncertain, my behavior had unnerved her. She leaned back in her chair and said, Where is your family? I don’t think I ever asked. It was true, Bettina had never asked me a single personal question. My mother moved to Singapore a few years ago. My father is dead. I’m sorry, Bettina said, and I shook my head. It was some years ago, and it wasn’t a surprise. It was even a relief, he was sick for a long time. She cleared her throat. And is Singapore home? she asked, and I shook my head again. I don’t think I’ve spent more than a couple of weeks there. I moved here from New York.
Yes, Bettina said, many at the Court have similar family histories, a certain rootlessness seems almost to be a precondition for the work. I nodded. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Anton rise and tug the blond woman unsteadily to her feet. She wobbled and I wondered if she was already drunk, Anton had ordered champagne and they had both rapidly emptied their glasses. They made their way across the dining room, he was using his cane and she was trailing a little way after him, her heels clattering on the floor. Probably they were going outside to smoke a cigarette. I turned back to Bettina, I said that I would let her know as soon as I was able, I wouldn’t keep her waiting. She nodded, and then I asked her how long she had lived in the Netherlands.
A decade.
It was a long time and yet it was shorter than I thought. She sat in the chair across from me, and she seemed so thoroughly of this city, she understood the language and the customs, the unspoken ideologies of its culture. In the end, it took only a decade to become of a place, and that was not so very long.
There were adjustments, she added as the waiter set down our dessert plates. She waited until he left, and then picked up her fork. It’s not a very affordable city, and there is something small scale in the landscape, at least compared to where I am from. I go home when I can. I need to be in the place where I grew up, and Germany is only a short drive away. But I like the Dutch, they are quite neutral as a people, although even that is in and of itself something to adjust to.
At that moment, Anton and the blonde came staggering back into the dining room. He had one arm around her waist and she was leaning heavily into him, with no regard whatsoever for his physical condition. He bore her weight without complaint, his posture more erect than I had ever seen it. The blonde lowered her head demurely onto his shoulder and I saw that the skin at the back of her neck was flushed, her hair disheveled. As they passed, she reached down to adjust her skirt.
I looked away, face hot. There was something grotesque and titillating about the entire scene, they must have gone to the bathroom for a quick fuck, propped against the wall of the bathroom. Or perhaps she had been kneeling on the floor blowing him as he leaned on the wall for support, perhaps she had been propped on the sink, her ass cradled in the basin. They looked, as they settled back into their chairs, smug and a little flushed, and also a little less interested in each other. The waiter soon arrived with their starters, and I thought I saw Anton exhale as he contemplated the plate before him. They had not even begun, they had their entire meal to get through before they could reasonably leave.
The blond woman picked up her fork half-heartedly and sighed. Anton squeezed her hand, as if in commiseration. They were speaking in low tones and in Dutch, and I had no special desire to eavesdrop. And yet my ear seized upon fragments of their conversation, he’s back tomorrow and it’s a nice place and then better than Sampurna. The word Sampurna was familiar and I realized it was the name of a restaurant not far from Jana’s apartment, I had passed it several times and noted the sign without ever stopping to go in. I turned sharply to look at them. Anton was busy forking food into his mouth and the blonde was eating quickly. Relax, he said and even from across the restaurant I could hear the irritation in his voice. Nobody knows you here. I looked down instinctively, as if to hide my face. This woman was undoubtedly the reason Anton had been in Jana’s neighborhood, even perhaps the reason for his improbable reticence about the assault.