Just One Day 02: Just One Year Read Free

yesterday now?—in Amsterdam. But if a hospital bill goes to Marjolein, then all of this goes straight back to Yael, and I don’t want to explain it to her. I don’t want to
not
explain it, either, in the more likely event she never asks about it.
    “Can I give you a friend’s address?” I ask the clerk.
    “I don’t care if you give me the Queen of England’s address so long as we have somewhere to mail the bill,” she says.
    I can give them Broodje’s address in Utrecht. “One moment,” I say.
    “Take your time,
mon
chéri
.”
    I lean on the counter and rifle through my address book, flipping through the last year of accumulated acquaintances. There are countless names of people I don’t remember, names I didn’t remember even before I got this nasty bump on my head. There’s a message to
Remember the caves in Matala
. I do remember the caves, and the girl who wrote the message, but not why I’m supposed to remember them.
    I find Robert-Jan’s address right at the front. I read it to the clerk, and as I close the book it falls open to one of the last pages. There’s all this unfamiliar writing, and at first I think my eyesight must really be messed up, but then I realize it’s just that the words are not English or Dutch but Chinese.
    And for a second, I’m not here in this hospital, but I’m on a boat, with her, and she’s writing in my notebook. I remember. She spoke Chinese. She showed it to me. I turn the page, and there’s this.

    There’s no translation next to it, but I somehow know what that character means.
    Double happiness
.
    I see the character here in the book. And I see it larger, on a sign. Double happiness. Is that where she is?
    “Is there maybe a Chinese restaurant or store nearby?” I ask the clerk.
    She scratches her hair with a pencil and consults a colleague. They start to argue about the best place to eat.
    “No,” I explain. “Not to eat. I’m looking for this.” I show them the character in my book.
    They look at each other and shrug.
    “A Chinatown?” I ask.
    “In the thirteenth arrondissement,” one replies.
    “Where’s that?”
    “Left Bank.”
    “Would an ambulance have brought me here from there?” I ask.
    “No, of course not,” she answers.
    “There’s a smaller one in Belleville,” the other clerk offers.
    “It is a few kilometers from here, not far,” the first clerk explains and tells me how to get to the Métro.
    I put on my rucksack, and leave.
    I don’t get far. My rucksack feels like it’s full of wet cement. When I left Holland two years ago, I carried a big pack with many more things. But then it got stolen and I never replaced it, instead making do with a smaller bag. Over time, the rucksacks kept getting smaller and smaller, because there’s so little a person actually needs. These days, all I keep is a few changes of clothes, some books, some toiletries, but now even that feels like too much. When I go down the stairs into the Métro, the bag bounces with each step, and pain knifes deep into me.
    “Bruised, not broken,” Dr. Robinet told me before I left. I thought he was talking about my spirit, but he’d been referring to my ribs.
    On the Métro platform, I pull everything out of the rucksack except for my passport, wallet, address book, and toothbrush. When the train comes, I leave the rest on the platform. I’m lighter now, but it’s not any easier.
    The Belleville Chinatown begins right after the Métro stop. I try to match the signs from her character in my book, but there are so many signs and the neon lettering looks nothing like those soft ink lines she wrote. I ask around for double happiness. I have no idea if I’m asking for a place, a person, a food, a state of mind. The Chinese people look frightened of me and no one answers, and I begin to wonder if maybe I’m not really speaking French, only imagining I do. Finally one of them, an old man with grizzled hands clutching an ornate cane, stares at me and then