Lien looks at me, but I pretend to be absorbed in the movie. The piano player is building to a crescendo as Lulu flirts with Jack the Ripper and, lonely and defeated, invites him up to her room. She thinks she has found someone to love, and he thinks that he has found someone to love, and then he sees the knife, and you know what will happen. He’ll just revert to his old ways. I’m sure that’s what she thinks of me, and maybe she’s right to think it. The film ends with a frenzied flourish of the piano. And then there’s silence.
The boys sit there for a minute and then all start talking at once. “That’s it? So he killed her?” Broodje asks.
“It’s Jack the Ripper and he had a knife,” Lien responds. “He wasn’t carving her a Christmas turkey.”
“What a way to go. I’ll give you one thing, it wasn’t boring,” Henk says. “Willem? Hey, Willem, are you there?”
I startle up. “Yeah. What?”
The four of them all look at me for what feels like a while. “Are you okay?” Lien asks at last.
“I’m fine. I’m great!” I smile. It feels unnatural I can almost feel the scar on my face tug like a rubber band. “Let’s go get a drink.”
We all make our way to the crowded café downstairs. I order a round of beers and then a round of jenever for good measure. The boys give me a look, though if it’s for the booze or for paying for it all, I don’t know. They know about my inheritance now, but they still expect the same frugality from me as always.
I drain my shot and then my beer.
“Whoa,” W says, passing me his shot. “No kopstoot for me.”
I knock his shot back, too.
They’re quiet as they look at me. “Are you sure you’re okay?” Broodje asks, strangely hesitant.
“Why wouldn’t I be?” The jenever is doing its job, heating me up and burning away the memories that came alive in the dark.
“Your father died. Your mother left for India,” W says bluntly. “Also, your grandfather died.”
There’s a moment of awkward silence. “Thanks,” I say. “I’d forgotten all about that.” I mean it to come out as a joke, but it just comes out as bitter as the booze that’s burning its way back up my throat.
“Oh, don’t mind him,” Lien says, tweaking his ear affectionately. “He’s working on human emotions like sympathy.”
“I don’t need anyone’s sympathy,” I say. “I’m fine.”
“Okay, it’s just you haven’t really seemed yourself since . . .” Broodje trails off.
“You spend a lot of time alone,” Henk blurts.
“Alone? I’m with you.”
“Exactly,” Broodje says.
There’s another moment of silence. I’m not quite sure what I’m being accused of. Then Lien illuminates.
“From what I understand, you always had a girl around, and now the guys are worried because you’re always alone,” Lien says. She looks at the boys. “Do I have that right?”
Kind of sort of yeah, they all mumble.
“So you’ve been discussing this?” This should be funny, except it’s not.
“We think you’re depressed because you’re not having sex,” W says. Lien smacks him. “What?” he asks. “It’s a viable physiological issue. Sexual activity releases serotonin, which increases feelings of well-being. It’s simple science.”
“No wonder you like me so much,” Lien teases. “All that simple science.”
“Oh, so I’m depressed now?” I try to sound amused but it’s hard to keep that tinge of something else out of my voice. No one will look at me except for Lien. “Is that what you think?” I ask, trying to make a joke of it. “I’m suffering from a clinical case of blue balls?”
“It’s not your balls I think are blue,” she says coolly. “It’s your heart.”
There’s a beat of silence, and then the boys erupt into raucous laughter. “Sorry, schatje,” W says. “But that would be anomalous behavior. You just don’t know him yet. It’s much more likely a serotonin issue.”