“It wouldn’t be the first time someone had a baby at that age,” Rooie said. Remembering the open curtains, she got up from the bed. “He was young enough to be my son,” the prostitute added. She was closing the window curtains when something or someone out on the Bergstraat caught her eye. Rooie closed the curtains only three quarters of the way. Before she moved to the outside door, the prostitute turned to Ruth and whispered: “Just a minute . . .” She opened the door a crack.
Ruth had not yet sat down in the blow-job chair; she was standing in the darkened room, with one hand on the armrest of the chair, when she heard a man’s voice speaking English out on the street.
“Should I come back later? Should I wait?” the man asked Rooie. He spoke English with an accent that Ruth couldn’t quite place.
“Just a minute,” Rooie told him. She closed the door. She closed the curtains the rest of the way.
“Do you want me to leave? I can come back later . . .” Ruth whispered, but Rooie was standing beside her, covering her mouth with her hand.
“How’s this for perfect timing?” (The prostitute also whispered.) “Help me turn the shoes.” Rooie knelt by the wardrobe closet, turning the shoes from toes-in to toes-out. Ruth stood, frozen, by the blow-job chair. Her eyes had not adjusted to the weak light; she still couldn’t see well enough to count out Rooie’s money.
“You can pay me later,” Rooie said. “Hurry up and help me. He looks nervous—maybe it’s his first time. He won’t wait all day.”
Ruth knelt beside the prostitute; her hands were shaking and she dropped the first shoe she picked up. “Let me do it,” Rooie responded crossly. “Just get in the closet. And don’t move ! You can move your eyes,” the prostitute added. “Nothing but your eyes.”
Rooie arranged the shoes on either side of Ruth’s feet. Ruth could have stopped her; she could have raised her voice, but she didn’t even whisper. Ruth later thought—for about four or five years—that she hadn’t spoken up because she was afraid that Rooie would be disappointed in her. It was like responding to a childhood dare. One day Ruth would realize that being afraid you’ll look like a coward is the worst reason for doing anything.
Ruth instantly regretted that she’d not unzipped her jacket; it was stifling in the wardrobe closet, but Rooie had already admitted her customer to the small red room. Ruth didn’t dare move; besides, the zipper would have made a sound.
The man seemed disconcerted by all the mirrors. Ruth had only the briefest glimpse of his face before she deliberately looked away. She didn’t want to see his face; there was something inappropriately bland about it. Ruth watched Rooie instead.
The prostitute removed her bra; today it was black. She was about to remove her black panties, but the man stopped her. “It’s not necessary,” he said. Rooie appeared to be disappointed. (Probably for my benefit, thought Ruth.)
“It costs the same, whether you look or touch,” Rooie told the blandfaced man. “Seventy-five guilders.” But her customer apparently knew what it cost—he had the money in his hand. He’d been carrying the bills in his overcoat pocket; he must have taken the money out of his wallet before he came into the room.
“No touching—just looking,” the man said. For the first time, Ruth thought that he spoke English with a German-sounding accent. When Rooie reached for his crotch, he sidestepped her hand; he didn’t let her touch him.
He was bald and smooth-faced with an egg-shaped head and a nondescript body—not very big. His clothing was nondescript, too. The charcoal-gray trousers of his suit were loose-fitting, even baggy, but the pants were crisply pressed. The black overcoat had a bulky appearance, as if it were a size too large. The top button of his white shirt was unbuttoned, and he’d loosened his tie.
“What do you do?” Rooie asked him.
“Security systems,” the man mumbled. “SAS,” Ruth thought he added—she couldn’t be sure. Did he mean the airline? “It’s a good business,” Ruth heard him say. “Lie on your side, please,” he told Rooie.
Rooie curled herself up on the bed like a little girl, facing him. She drew her knees up to her breasts, hugging herself, as if she were cold, and gazing at the man with a coquettish smile.
The man stood over her, looking down. He’d dropped his heavylooking briefcase in the blow-job chair, where Ruth could no longer see it. It was a misshapen leather briefcase of the kind a professor or a schoolteacher might carry.
As if in reverence of Rooie’s curled figure, the man knelt on the rug beside her bed, his overcoat trailing on the broadloom. A long sigh escaped him. It was then that Ruth heard him wheeze; his breathing was distinguished by a bronchial-sounding whistle. “Straighten your legs, please,” the man said. “And reach over your head, as if you’re stretching. Pretend you’re just waking up in the morning,” he added, almost breathlessly.
Rooie stretched—fetchingly, Ruth thought—but the asthmatic wasn’t satisfied. “Try yawning,” he suggested. Rooie faked a yawn. “No, a real yawn—with your eyes closed.”
“Sorry—I don’t close my eyes,” Rooie told him. Ruth realized that Rooie was afraid. It was as sudden as knowing a door or a window had been opened because of a change in the air.
“Perhaps you could kneel?” the man asked, still wheezing. Rooie seemed relieved to kneel. She knelt on the towel on her bed, resting her elbows and her head on the pillow. She peered sideways at the man; her hair had fallen a little forward, partially hiding her face, but she could still see him. She never took her eyes off him.
“Yes!” the man gasped enthusiastically. He clapped his hands, just twice, and swayed from side to side on his knees. “Now shake your head!” the man told Rooie. “Toss your hair all around!”
In an opposing mirror, on the far side of the prostitute’s bed, Ruth caught a second, unwanted glimpse of the man’s flushed face. His small, squinty eyes were partially closed; it was as if his eyelids were growing over his eyes—like the blind eyes of a mole.
Ruth’s own eyes darted to the mirror opposite the wardrobe closet; she was afraid she would see some movement behind the slightly parted curtain, or that there would be a detectable tremble in her shoes. The clothes in the closet seemed to gather themselves around her.
Rooie, as instructed, shook her head—her hair falling over her face. For not more than a second— maybe two or three—her hair covered her eyes, but that was all the time the moleman needed. He lunged forward, his chest dropping on the back of Rooie’s head and neck, his chin on her spine. He clamped his right forearm across her throat; then he grabbed hold of his right wrist with his left hand, and squeezed. He slowly got off his knees, coming to his feet with the back of Rooie’s head and neck pressed to his chest—his right forearm crushing her throat.
Several seconds passed before Ruth realized that Rooie couldn’t breathe. The man’s bronchial whistle was the only sound Ruth could hear. Rooie’s thin arms flailed silently in the air. One of her legs was bent beneath her on the bed, and the other leg kicked straight out behind her so that her left high-heeled shoe shot off her foot and struck the partially open door to the WC. The sound got the strangler’s attention; he wheeled his head around, as if he expected to see someone sitting on the toilet. At the sight of Rooie’s far-flung shoe, he smiled with relief; he returned his attention to suffocating the prostitute.
A rivulet of sweat ran between Ruth’s breasts. She thought of bolting for the door, but she knew the door was locked and she had no idea how to unlock it. She could imagine the man pulling her back into the room, his forearm collapsing her windpipe, too, until her arms and legs were as limp as Rooie’s.
Involuntarily, Ruth’s right hand opened and closed. (If only she’d had a squash racquet, she would later think.) But Ruth’s fear so immobilized her that she did nothing to help Rooie—a memory of herself that she would never forget or forgive. It was as if the clothes in the prostitute’s closet had held her.