| |
In 1991 I began to go out with a Dutch girl called Hanna. We’d met whilst she had been studying in the U.K and when the time came for her to return to her hometown of Rotterdam in the Netherlands, we naively thought that we could continue a long distance relationship. It worked for a few months, with both of us visiting each other’s countries for a weekend here and there or a full week when time allowed. Youth and distance, however, got the better of us and we realized that we were just holding onto something that would never work. We both had good social lives in our own countries and neither of us was prepared to sacrifice any of it for the chance of a more serious relationship. We were very fond of each other, but I was still only 21 and she 18. We parted amicably, and kept in touch for a short while through letters at increasingly distant intervals.
Two years later, long after I had last received a letter from Hanna, I left Britain and went to live in Japan. I stayed there for two and a half years, becoming involved in a serious relationship with an Irish girl, Kate. Kate and I left Japan in early 1997 and went traveling through Asia. We had done little planning, and when our money began to dwindle following several months in China, Thailand and India, we booked a flight back to Europe. The cheapest one we could find took us from Delhi to Amsterdam. On the day of departure, we had a last snack in India and made our way to the airport.
Amsterdam was packed. It was mid-summer and the city was filled with backpackers, all vying for the cheapest hotel rooms. We couldn’t find one and ended up having to stay in segregated dormitories at the Christian Youth Hostel in the heart of the red-light district. We checked in and after being told the times for the Christian meeting, made a quick exit again, agreeing with each other not to return until the meeting was over. We wandered through the streets of Amsterdam, and when the novelty of seeing scantily clad women in windows had worn off, (well, it had worn off for Kate, I think) we turned into more respectable streets in search of somewhere to eat. Kate said she wasn’t feeling great and wanted to sit down somewhere and have a glass of water. I spotted a café’s terrace further up the street and thought I could have a beer and a snack sitting outside while Kate tried to recover.
We began to head towards the terrace, but as we passed a slightly better restaurant, I stopped dead and stared in the window.
“That’s Hanna,” I said.
“Where?”
“Sitting there with her back to us. Having dinner with the blonde guy.”
The blonde guy had by now caught me staring and must have told Hanna that there was a right weirdo staring at him through the restaurant window, because Hanna turned round and squinted slightly before taking on a look of some surprise and coming out to the street to say hello. We chatted politely, I introduced Kate, I wished we didn’t look quite so tired and grubby, and we remarked on how odd it was that we should bump into each other after so long, especially as Hanna had only moved to Amsterdam from Rotterdam a week earlier. She looked pleased to see me, but judging by the physical appearance of her new boyfriend, I suspected that she was somewhat relieved that we hadn’t stayed together.
We parted with promises to stay in touch, but I was surprised to get a phone call at the Christian Youth Hostel the next morning, inviting Kate and I to lunch with Hanna and her boyfriend. I asked Kate and she agreed to go, but when the time came, she said she really didn’t feel well and thought she had better stay in bed. We were due to take a ferry home the following day. I had lunch with Hanna alone as her boyfriend couldn’t make it either and again we promised to stay in touch and commented on how odd it should be that we run into each other by chance in a city as big as Amsterdam. I told her we were leaving the next day and that it had been good to see her again.
Back at the hostel, Kate was lying on a sofa saying that she felt very ill and that she thought she had better see a doctor. We went to the hospital, and the doctors, whilst not knowing exactly what was wrong with Kate, said that there was no way she would be going anywhere for at least a week. She was very dehydrated, very ill, and would be spending some time in the hospital. I, on the other hand, would have to continue to pay Christians for a bed in a dorm with about forty other chaps for whom personal grooming was not of the highest priority. My days were spent taking the subway to the hospital at visiting hours and wandering round Amsterdam trying to eat as cheaply as possible. It turned out that Kate had contracted a form of dysentery, probably on her last day in India, and that it was very contagious. This worried me as I had started having bowel movements with the consistency of a chocolate milkshake but with the heat and odour of a faeces Madras. I saw a doctor who pushed on my stomach a few times and told me I was fine.
Towards the end of Kate’s first week in the hospital, I was returning to the hostel by subway and took a seat near the doors. At the next station, a young, smartly-dressed woman got on and without looking sat down opposite me. She glanced up and pushed her hair back, and I was quite taken aback to see that it was Hanna on her way home from work.
“I thought you had already left,” she said with a hint of suspicion. I explained the circumstances that had led to me to still be in Amsterdam and bemoaned life at the hostel and the constant search for cheap meals. She took pity on me and invited me to her flat for dinner. Her flatmate was cooking, she said, but it wouldn’t be any trouble. I took her up on the offer, and we walked from the subway station to her ground-floor flat where her friend was already chopping vegetables in the kitchen. We were introduced, and when Hanna said, “Remember I told you about him,” her friend’s face revealed that she didn’t.
The meal was nice, but my stomach was still quite delicate and the food passed right through me. I had to use their bathroom shortly before leaving. Hanna never did contact me again, and, frankly, I don’t blame her. |
|
