"You can stop now, Alice," Saskia said, but Alice wouldn't stop.
"Where's Australia?" Jack asked Els. (He just knew that Australia wasn't on their itinerary.)
"Don't worry, Jack--you're not going anywhere near Australia," Saskia said.
"It's on the other side of the world," Els told him. The boy felt better thinking that his dad might be on the other side of the world; yet this wouldn't prevent Jack from imagining that his father was somehow watching him from a crowd.
"Come on, Alice--it's time to stop," Saskia said.
"The King of love my Shepherd is," Alice started up again, a little tonelessly.
They'd been so interested in watching Femke's departure that they hadn't noticed Jacob Bril's arrival. It wasn't even midnight, but there was Bril on the Stoofsteeg, and he wasn't walking. He stood paralyzed in a religious rage. "That's a hymn you're singing--that's a prayer!" Bril yelled at Alice.
She looked right at him and went ahead with "Sweet Sacrament Divine." (In her state of mind, maybe three hymns--or just their titles--were all she could remember.)
"Blasphemy!" Bril shouted. "Sacrilege!"
Saskia said something in Dutch to him; it didn't sound especially religious. Els stepped up to Bril and shoved him; he dropped to one knee but kept himself from falling with the heel of one hand on the cobblestones. When he straightened up, Els shoved him again. He managed to stay on his feet, but he bounced off the side of the building. "Not around Jack," Els told him calmly. She stepped forward to shove him again, but Bril backed away from her.
"Where's Nico when you need him?" Saskia said facetiously--Els didn't appear to need Nico's help.
Alice began again with "Breathe on Me, Breath of God." That was when they all saw him--the boy who had not argued with Els, the one who'd run backward out of the Bloedstraat. He was there because he needed another look at Alice. This time, he was alone. Els spoke to him in Dutch; she looked as if she intended to shove him, now that Bril was retreating.
"Leave him alone. He was the only nice one," Alice told Els; she had finally stopped singing. She smiled at the boy, who stood helplessly in front of her. "He looks like he needs advice, doesn't he?" Alice asked.
"Alice, you don't have to," Saskia said.
"But he looks like he needs advice," Alice said.
"Saskia or I can give it to him," Els told her.
"I think it's my advice he wants," Alice said.
"You should call it a night, Alice," Els repeated.
"Would you like to come inside?" Alice asked the boy. He didn't look as if he understood English. Els translated for him and he nodded.
"Come on, Jack," Saskia said; she took his hand. "I could use a ham-and-cheese croissant. Couldn't you?"
The boy in need of advice had an olive complexion and very dark hair, cut short; he was small-boned with wide, staring eyes and features as fine as a girl's. He had not moved since he'd been invited inside the prostitute's room--he just stood there. He'd wanted to have another look at Alice, never imagining that he would get up the nerve to ask her again, or even have the opportunity to do so--that is, if he'd asked her the first time. (From the look of him, he'd been too scared; probably one or more of his friends, the hecklers, had asked her.)
Els stepped up behind him and pushed him toward Alice, who took his hand and pulled him inside the room; the top of his head barely came to her chin. When Alice had closed the door and the curtains, Els joined Saskia and Jack. "Is he a virgin?" Jack asked them.
"Definitely," Els said.
Remembering what Nico Oudejans had said to his mom at the police station, Jack asked: "Is he too young a virgin?"
"Nobody's too young at this time of night," Saskia said.
Jack had been napping half the afternoon and night--first for an hour or so in Els's room, and then in Saskia's, and of course in Els's arms when she carried him here and there--but now he was exhausted. When they got back to Saskia's room, Saskia closed her
curtains so Jack could go to sleep. She stood in her doorway, guarding him, while--every fifteen or twenty minutes--Els would walk back to her room on the Stoofsteeg to see if Alice was still advising the virgin.
Jack managed to stay awake for the first two trips Els took. "I thought Els said virgins were quick," the boy remarked.
"Go to sleep, Jack," Saskia said. "It's taking a long time because the virgin's English isn't very good. Your mom probably has to speak very slowly to him."
"Oh."