A Widow for One Year

“I know what you mean,” Harry said, but he saw no reason to translate any of this for Ruth.

“I thought you were retired, Harry,” Anneke said to him. “How come you’re still working?”

“I’m not working,” Harry told Anneke. Ruth couldn’t even guess what they were talking about.

On their way back to the hotel, Ruth observed: “She’s put on a lot of weight, that girl.”

“Food is better for you than heroin,” Harry replied.

“Did you know Rooie?” Ruth asked.

“Rooie was a friend of mine,” Harry told her. “Once we were going to take a trip together, to Paris, but it never happened.”

“Did you ever have sex with her?” Ruth dared to ask him.

“No. But I wanted to!” Harry admitted.

They crossed the Warmoesstraat again and re-entered the red-light district by the old church. Only a few days earlier, the South American prostitutes had been sunning themselves, but now only one woman was standing in her open doorway. Because of the cooler weather, she’d wrapped a long shawl around her shoulders, yet anyone could see that she wore nothing but a bra and a pair of panties underneath. The prostitute was from Colombia, and she spoke the creative English that had become de Wallen ’s principal language.

“Holy Mother, Harry! Are you arrestin’ dot woman?” the Colombian called.

“We’re just taking a little walk,” Harry said.

“You said me you was retired !” the prostitute called after them.

“I am retired!” Harry called back to her. Ruth let go of his arm.

“You’re retired,” Ruth said to him in the voice she used for reading aloud.

“That’s right,” the ex-cop answered. “After forty years . . .”

“You didn’t tell me you were retired,” Ruth said.

“You didn’t ask,” the former Sergeant Hoekstra replied.

“If it’s not as a cop that you’ve been interrogating me, in exactly what capacity have you been interrogating me?” Ruth asked him. “Just what authority do you have?”

“No authority,” Harry said happily. “And I haven’t been interrogating you. We’ve just been taking a little walk.”

“You’re retired,” Ruth repeated. “You look too young to be retired. How old are you, anyway?”

“I’m fifty-eight.”

It made the hair stand up on the backs of her arms again, because it was the same age Allan had been when he died; yet Harry had struck her as much younger. Harry didn’t look fifty, and Ruth already knew he was very fit.

“You tricked me,” Ruth said.

“In the wardrobe closet, when you were looking through the curtain,” Harry began, “was it as a writer that you were interested, or as a woman—or both?”

“Both,” Ruth answered. “You’re still interrogating me.”

“My point is: it was as a cop that I first followed you,” Harry told her. “Later, it was as a cop and as a man that I was interested in you.”

“As a man ? Are you trying to pick me up?” Ruth asked him.

“It was as a reader, too,” Harry continued, ignoring her question. “I’ve read everything you’ve written.”

“But how did you know I was the witness?”