“ Tell her, damn it!” Ruth said.
“I’ve told her my own version,” Wim replied, smiling at Ruth. Claiming to have had sex with Ruth Cole had evidently given Wim some sort of power over Harriët with an umlaut. Her downcast appearance gave Harriët a suicidal aura.
“Listen to me, Harriët—we were never lovers,” Ruth tried again. “I’ve not had sex with your husband—he’s lying.”
“You need your Dutch translator,” Wim told Ruth; he was openly laughing at her now.
That was when Harry Hoekstra spoke to Ruth. She’d been completely unaware that he’d followed her into the hotel lobby, as he had every morning. “I can translate for you,” Harry told Ruth. “Just tell me what you want to say.”
“Oh, it’s you, Harry!” Ruth said, as if she’d known him for years and he was her best friend. It wasn’t only from the mere mention of Harry the cop at the bookstore that she knew his name; she also remembered it from the newspaper account of Rooie’s murder. Besides, she’d written his name (taking pains to spell it properly) on the envelope that had contained her eyewitness account.
“Hello, Ruth,” Harry said.
“Tell her I never had sex with her lying husband,” Ruth said to Harry, who began to speak in Dutch to Harriët—much to Harriët’s surprise. “Tell her I let her husband masturbate beside me—that was all,” Ruth said. “And he beat off again when he thought I was asleep.”
As Harry went on translating, Harriët seemed cheered. She handed the baby to Wim; she said something in Dutch to her husband as she started to leave. When Wim followed her, Harriët said something more.
“She said, ‘You hold the baby—he’s wet,’” Harry translated for Ruth. “Then she asked him: ‘Why did you want me to meet her?’ ”
As the couple with their baby were leaving the hotel, Wim said something plaintive-sounding to his angry wife. “The husband said, ‘I was in her book!’ ” Harry translated.
Once Wim and his wife and baby were gone, Ruth was left alone with Harry in the lobby—except for a half-dozen Japanese businessmen standing at the registration desk, where they’d been mesmerized by the translation exercise they’d overheard. What they’d comprehended of it was unclear, but they stared in awe at Ruth and Harry— as if they’d just witnessed an example of cultural differences that would be hard to explain to the rest of Japan.
“So . . . you’re still following me,” Ruth said slowly to her cop. “Do you mind telling me what I’ve done?”
“I think you know what you’ve done. It’s not too bad,” Harry told her. “Let’s take a little walk.”
Ruth looked at her watch. “I have an interview here in forty-five minutes,” she said.
“We’ll be back in time,” Harry replied. “It’s just a short walk.”
“A walk where ?” Ruth asked him, but she thought she knew.
They left their gym bags with the concierge. Instinctively, Ruth took hold of Harry’s arm as they turned onto the Stoofsteeg. It was still early enough in the morning for the two fat women from Ghana to be working there.
“That’s her, Harry—you got her,” one of them said.
“That’s her, all right,” the other prostitute agreed.
“Remember them ?” Harry asked Ruth. She still held his arm as they crossed the canal onto the Oudezijds Achterburgwal.
“Yes,” she answered in a small voice.
She’d showered and washed her hair at the gym. Her hair was a little wet, and she was aware that her cotton T-shirt was not quite warm enough for the weather; she’d dressed only for the walk back to her hotel from the Rokin.
They turned onto the Barndesteeg, where the young, moon-faced Thai prostitute stood shivering in her open doorway in an orange slip; she’d grown heavier in the past five years.
“Remember her ?” Harry asked Ruth.
“Yes,” Ruth answered again.
“That’s the one,” the Thai told Harry. “All she want to do is watch.”
The transvestite from Ecuador had left the Gordijnensteeg for a window on the Bloedstraat. Ruth instantly recalled the feel of his baseball-size breasts. But this time there was something so obviously male about him that Ruth couldn’t believe she’d ever thought he was a woman.
“I told you she had nice breasts,” the transvestite said to Harry. “It took you long enough to find her.”
“I stopped looking for a few years,” Harry replied.