>“Oh.”
“Victoria wouldn’t tell me. Said it was personal. You know how she gets.” He sighs. “So I just told her to send it you. I gave her the address on the boat. I didn’t know if you could get mail on the boat.”
“You could. We could. We did.”
“So you got the letter?”
“No, Skev. That’s why I’m calling.”
“Well, it must be at the boat, man.”
“But we don’t live there anymore. Haven’t done for a while.”
“Oh, shit. Forgot it was empty. Sorry about that.”
“No worries, man.”
“Break a leg with your Shakespeare and shit.”
“Yeah, you too—with your cappuccinos and all.”
He laughs. Then we say good-bye.
I go back to the rehearsal. Max is looking crazed. “I told them you had to puke. The Flunky is mad you didn’t ask first. I wonder if he calls Petra for permission before he makes love to his wife.”
It’s an image I do my best not to conjure. “I owe you. I’ll tell Linus it was a false alarm.”
“You gonna tell me what this is about?”
I think of Lulu, all the wild-goose chases this year that have led nowhere. Why would this be anything else?
“Probably just what you said: a false alarm,” I tell Max.
Except that probably becomes a pebble in my shoe, aggravating me for the rest of the day, making it hard to keep from thinking about the letter, where it is, what it says, who it’s from. By the time rehearsal ends, I feel this sort of urgency to know; so even though the rain has returned, and even though I’m bone tired, I decide to try Marjolein. She doesn’t answer her phone and I don’t want to wait until tomorrow. She lives close by, on the ground floor of a wide house in a posh neighborhood at the south end of the park. She’s always told me to drop by any time.
“Willem,” she says, opening the door. She has a glass of wine in one hand, a cigarette in the other, and she doesn’t seem so happy that I’ve dropped by. I’m dripping wet, and she doesn’t invite me in. “What brings you here?”
“Sorry to bother you but I’m trying to find a letter.”
“A letter?”
“That was sent to the boat, some time in the spring.”
“Why are you still getting mail at the boat?”
“I’m not. Someone just sent it there.”
She shakes her head. “If it went to the boat, it would’ve been forwarded to the office and then on to the address you provided us.”
“In Utrecht?”
She sighs. “Probably. Can you call me in the morning?”
“It’s important.”
She sighs. “Try Sara. She handles the mail.”
“Do you have Sara’s number?”