She sees the look of confusion on my face. “Our divorce is more successful than most marriages.”
I turn to Willem. “What kind of stain is that?” I whisper, and he laughs just as Agnethe takes the picture.
A church bell rings in the distance. Agnethe hands back the phone, and I take a picture of her and Bert. “You will send me that one? All of the ones?”
“Of course. As soon as I have reception.” I turn to Willem. “I’ll text them to you too, if you give me your number.”
“My phone is so old, it doesn’t work with pictures.”
“When I get home, then, I’ll put the pictures on my computer and email them to you,” I say, though I’ll have to figure out a place to hide the pictures from Mom; it wouldn’t be beyond her to look through my phone—or computer. Though, I realize now, only for another month. And then I’ll be free. Just like today I’m free.
He looks at one of the pictures for a long time. Then he looks at me. “I’ll keep you up here.” He taps his temple. “Where you can’t get lost.”
I bite my lip to hide my smile and pretend to put the phone away, but when Captain Jack calls to Willem to take the wheel while he visits the head, I pull it back out and scroll through the photos, stopping at the one of the two of us that Agnethe took. I’m in profile, my mouth open. He’s laughing. Always laughing. I run my thumb over his face, halfway expecting it to emanate some sort of heat.
I put the phone away and watch Paris drift by, feeling relaxed, almost drunk with a sleepy joy. After a while, Willem returns to me. We sit quietly, listening to the lapping of the water, the babble of the Danes. Willem pulls a coin out and does that thing, flipping it from knuckle to knuckle. I watch, hypnotized by his hand, by the gentle rocking of the water. It’s peaceful until the Danes start bickering, loudly. Willem translates: Apparently they’re hotly debating whether some famous French actress has ever made a p**n ographic film.
“You speak Danish too?” I ask.
“No, it’s just close to Dutch.”
“How many languages do you speak?”
“Fluently?”
“Oh, God. I’m sorry I asked.”
“Four fluently. I get by in German and Spanish too.”
I shake my head, amazed.
“Yes, but you said you speak Chinese.”
“I wouldn’t say I speak it so much as murder it. I’m kind of tone deaf, and Mandarin is all about tone.”
“Let me hear.”
I look at him. “Ni zhen shuai.”
“Say something else.”
“Wo xiang wen ni.”
“Now I hear it.” He covers his head. “Stop. I’m bleeding from my ears.”
“Shut up or you will be.” I pretend to shove him.
“What did you say?” he asks.
I give him a look. No way I’m telling.
“You just made it up.”
I shrug. “You’ll never know.”
“What does it mean?”
I grin. “You’ll have to look it up.”
“Can you write it too?” He pulls out his little black book and opens to a blank page near the back. He rifles back into his bag. “Do you have a pen?”
I have one of those fancy roller balls I swiped from my dad, this one emblazoned BREATHE EASY WITH PULMOCLEAR. I write the character for sun, moon, stars. Willem nods admiringly.
“And look, I love this one. It’s double happiness.”
“See how the characters are symmetrical?”
“Double happiness,” Willem repeats, tracing the lines with his index finger.
“It’s a popular phrase. You’ll see it on restaurants and things. I think it has to do with luck. In China, it’s apparently big at weddings. Probably because of the story of its origin.”
“Which is?”
“A young man was traveling to take a very important exam to become a minister. On the way, he gets sick in a mountain village. So this mountain doctor takes care of him, and while he’s recovering, he meets the doctor’s daughter, and they fall in love. Right before he leaves, the girl tells him a line of verse. The boy heads off to the capital to take his exam and does well, and the emperor’s all impressed. So, I guess to test him further, he says a line of verse. Of course, the boy immediately recognizes this mysterious line as the other half of the couplet the girl told him, so he repeats what the girl said. The emperor’s doubly impressed, and the boy gets the job. Then he goes back and marries the girl. So, double happiness, I guess. He gets the job and the girl. You know, the Chinese are very big on luck.”
Willem shakes his head. “I think the double happiness is the two halves finding each other. Like the couplet.”
I’d never thought of it, but of course that’s what it is.
“Do you remember how it goes?” Willem asks.
I nod. “Green trees against the sky in the spring rain while the sky set off the spring trees in the obscuration. Red flowers dot the land in the breeze’s chase while the land colored up in red after the kiss.”
The final section of the canal is underground. The walls are arched, and so low that I can reach up and touch the slick, wet bricks. It’s eerie, hushed but echoey down here. Even the boisterous Danes have shushed. Willem and I sit with our legs dangling over the edge of the boat, kicking the side of the tunnel wall when we can.
He nudges my ankle with his toe. “Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For arranging this.” He gestures to the boat.
“My pleasure. Thank you for arranging this.” I point above us, to where Paris is no doubt going about its business.
“Any time.” He looks around. “It’s nice, this. The canal.” He looks at me. “You.”
“I’ll bet you say that to all the canals.” But I flush in the musty, rich darkness.
We stay like that for the rest of the ride, swinging our legs against the side of the boat, listening as the odd bit of laughter or music from Paris seeps underground. It feels like the city is telling secrets down here, privy only to those who think to listen.
Eight
Arsenal Marina is like a parking lot for boats, tightly packed into cement piers on both sides of the water. Willem helps Captain Jack guide the barge into its narrow mooring, hopping out to tie the lines in complicated knots. We bid farewell to the Danes, who are now truly soused, and I take down Agnethe’s cell phone number, promising to text her the pictures as soon as I can.