“That was fast.”
“When you know, you know. It’s just become my favorite city in the whole world.”
“It tends to have that effect.”
“I should add that there wasn’t much competition, seeing as I didn’t actually enjoy most of the places on the tour.”
And again, it just slips out. Apparently when you only have one day, you can say anything and live to tell. The trip has been a bust. How good it feels to finally admit this to someone. Because I couldn’t tell my parents, who had paid for what they believed was the Trip of a Lifetime. And I couldn’t tell Melanie, who really was on the Trip of a Lifetime. And not Ms. Foley, whose job it was to ensure I had the Trip of a Lifetime. But it’s true. I’ve spent the last three weeks trying to have fun—and failing.
“I think maybe traveling is a talent, like whistling or dancing,” I continue. “And some people have it—you seem to. I mean, how long have you been traveling?”
“Two years,” he says.
“Two years with breaks?”
He shakes his head. “Two years since I’ve been back to Holland.”
“Really? And you were supposed to go back today? After two years?”
He throws his arms up into the air. “What’s one more day after two years?”
I suppose to him, not a lot. But to me, maybe something else. “That just proves my point. You have the talent for traveling. I’m not sure that I do. I keep hearing everyone go on about how travel broadens your horizons. I’m not even sure what that means, but it hasn’t broadened anything for me, because I’m no good at it.”
He’s mostly silent as we walk over a long bridge spanning dozens of railroad tracks, graffiti everywhere. Then he says, “Traveling’s not something you’re good at. It’s something you do. Like breathing.”
“I don’t think so. I breathe just fine.”
“Are you sure? Have you ever thought about it?”
“Probably more than most people. My father’s a pulmonologist. A lung doctor.”
“What I mean is, have you ever thought about how it is that you do it? Day and night? While you sleep. While you eat. While you talk.”
“Not so much.”
“Think about it now.”
“How do you think about breathing?” But then all of sudden I do. I get tangled up in thoughts about breathing, the mechanics of it, how is it that my body knows to do it even when I’m sleeping, or crying, or hiccupping. What would happen if my body somehow forgot? And sure enough, my breath grows a little labored, as if I’m walking uphill, even though I’m walking down the slope of the bridge.
“Okay, that was weird.”
“See?” Willem asks. “You thought too hard. Same with travel. You can’t work too much at it, or it feels like work. You have to surrender yourself to the chaos. To the accidents.”
“I’m supposed to walk in front of a bus and then I’ll have a good time?”
Willem chuckles. “Not those accidents. The little things that happen. Sometimes they’re insignificant; other times, they change everything.”
“This all sounds very Jedi. Can you be more specific?”
“A guy picks up a girl hitchhiking in a faraway country. A year later, she runs out of money and winds up on his doorstep. Six months after that, they get married. Accidents.”
“Did you marry a hitchhiker or something?”
His smile unfurls like a sail. “I’m giving examples.”
“Tell me a real one.”
“How do you know that’s not real?” he teases. “Okay, this happened to me. Last year when I was in Berlin, I missed my train to Bucharest and caught a ride to Slovakia instead. The people I rode with were in a theater troupe, and one of the guys had just broken his ankle and they needed a replacement. On the six-hour ride to Bratislava, I learned his part. I stayed with the troupe until his ankle got better, and then a while after that, I met some people from Guerrilla Will, and they were in desperate need of someone who could do Shakespeare in French.”
“And you could?”
He nods.
“Are you some kind of language savant?”
“I’m just Dutch. So I joined Guerrilla Will.” He snaps his fingers. “Now I’m an actor.”
This surprises me. “You seemed like you’d been doing it a lot longer.”
“No. It’s just accidental, just temporary. Until the next accident sends me somewhere new. That’s how life works.”
Something quickens in my chest. “Do you really think that’s how it works? That life can change justlikethat?”
“I think everything is happening all the time, but if you don’t put yourself in the path of it, you miss it. When you travel, you put yourself out there. It’s not always great. Sometimes it’s terrible. But other times . . .” He lifts his shoulders and gestures out to Paris, then sneaks me a sidelong glance. “It’s not so bad.”
“So long as you don’t get hit by a bus,” I say.
He laughs. Then gives me the point. “So long as you don’t get hit by a bus,” he says back.
Five
We arrive at the club where Willem’s friend works; it seems completely dead, but when Willem pounds on the door, a tall man with blue-black skin opens up. Willem speaks to him in French, and after a minute, we’re allowed into a huge dank room with a small stage, a narrow bar, and a bunch of tables with chairs stacked on them. Willem and the Giant confer a bit more in French and then Willem turns to me.
“Céline doesn’t like surprises. Maybe it’s better if I go down first.”
“Sure.” In the hushed dim, my voice seems to clang, and I realize I’m nervous again.
Willem heads to a staircase at the back of the club. The Giant resumes his work polishing bottles behind the bar. Obviously, he didn’t get the message that Paris loves me. I take a seat on the barstool. They twirl all the way around, like the barstools at Whipple’s, the ice-cream place I used to go to with my grandparents. The Giant is ignoring me, so I just sort of spin myself this way and that. And then I guess I do it a little fast, because I go spinning and the barstool comes clear off its base.
“Oh, shit! Ow!”
The Giant comes out to where I am sprawled on the floor. His face is a picture of blasé. He picks up the stool and screws it back in, then goes back behind the bar. I stay on the floor for a second, wondering which is more humiliating, remaining down here or getting back on the stool.