The Map That Leads to You

by J. P. Monninger

  We couldn’t help it; the comment made us laugh. It took her a moment, but Amy eventually saw the humor in the situation. She buried her head in her hands and laughed. It was a frustrated laugh, but at least it was a laugh.

  * * *

  Amy used my phone to make about a thousand calls. She rang her parents and told them what had happened, cried again, fought through it, explained everything, then took down a bunch of numbers and nodded as she did it. We called from a café not far from the train station. It was called Café Van Gogh. We sat outside and drank water and coffee and ate crackers and cheese. Little by little, Amy pieced the events of the night as well as she could, but the reassembled memories didn’t shed any light on the makeup bag’s disappearance. It was gone. Ultimately how it got lost didn’t particularly matter.

  In the late afternoon, we splurged on a room in the Hotel Hollander. Amy said she couldn’t stand the thought of dealing with the hostel, so Constance and I chipped in and we got a charming room with a small balcony overlooking a canal. It was a major splurge, and it cut into the meager budget we had so carefully concocted during our spring semester, but it felt necessary. As soon as we entered the room, Amy took a shower that went on so long both Constance and I went in to check on her. Each time she said she was okay. We didn’t really believe her.

  Her parents called a half dozen times, worried and trying to manage things from stateside. They floated the idea that she should come home. At first I thought that wasn’t truly necessary. I asked myself, Can’t something be done? Although every time I asked it, I failed to come up with a solution—but as the afternoon wore into evening and Amy emerged in a towel, her face taut in a way I had never seen it, I wasn’t so sure. Although the credit cards had already been canceled, the passport was not going to be easy to replace. It took time, by all accounts, and we only had another two, maybe three weeks left in any case. She had lost all her cash, close to $700. I watched Amy calculating the pros and cons as she talked to her folks. It was all a mess.

  We joined Raef and Jack for late-night fondue, all of us squeezed around a small table, a pot of cheese in the center, hunks of bread and sausage scattered on a plate. It was a funny place called the Bull Stone, as far as we could translate, well off the beaten tourist track. Raef had known about it; Raef seemed to know everything. But the silliness of the cheese pot, the communal nature of eating around a crowded table, wound up being exactly what Amy needed.

  You can never anticipate these nights. You can never expect the kind of spontaneous fun we had. You can plan and plan for a party, get every detail right, serve delicious food and excellent drinks, and the party can still fall flat. We had no business being happy and goofy, no business laughing at everything. Rounds of beer punctuated each new burst of energy, and the cheese fondue emptied slowly, the bread and cheese and sausage tasting more and more delicious as time passed, and I thought how I liked sitting here, how I loved my friends, how Jack fit me and Raef fit Constance, and how brave Amy was for rallying. A hundred times I looked over at Jack, or caught him looking at me, and I couldn’t help thinking that I had never met anyone like him. I had never felt this comfortable, this compatible with a guy, and when he asked me if I wanted to go for a nightcap, I said I had to check with Amy, make sure she was going to be all right, then yes, yes, of course, if she felt comfortable.

  16

  “Favorite movie?” Jack asked.

  “Babe.”

  “You’re kidding. The movie about the sheepdog pig?”

  “I love Babe. Favorite serious movie? Is that what you want?” I asked, my knees between his knees, the barstools pulled close. “My Life as a Dog.”

  “I never heard of it.”

  “Scandinavian. Swedish, I think. What’s your favorite?” I asked him.

  “Lawrence of Arabia or Gladiator.”

  “Good choices. If you have to pick one?”

  “Gladiator,” he said. “Favorite season?”

  “Fall. Cliché, I know, but it is. You?”

  “Spring,” he said. “It was a nice time to be on my grandfather’s farm. It felt like everything had been asleep for a long time, and then morning came and everything began to wake up.”

  “The Vermont farm,” I said, starting to see him, to understand something of his life. “With your grandma and grandpa when your parents had split up.”

  He nodded. I had no idea what time it was. Near midnight, I supposed, although I didn’t care. The bar we sat in seemed to have no rules about closing, no plan to kick us out. The bartender was a tall, thin man with an enormous salt-and-pepper beard, who obviously got through the night by playing a game on his computer. He hardly looked up when people came through the door. A taxi driver had recommended the bar. It was called Abraham’s.

  “Are you tired, Heather Postlewaite?” Jack asked after a little bit. “Should I get you home?”

  “Yes, of course. And no, not yet.”

  “Tell me about your job. You’re going to work for Bank of America? New York, the whole thing?”

  I nodded. That conversation didn’t seem to fit the mood, but he waited, and finally I had to speak.

  “Investment banking, really,” I said carefully. “I’m going to be involved in the Pacific Rim side of the business—Japan, primarily. I speak a little Japanese. Well, that’s not true. I’m fairly fluent. That’s really what made me valuable to a couple of companies. I start September fifteenth. I’ll travel a lot, back and forth, and I’ll be expected to work long hours. It’s a great opportunity.”

  “And a well-compensated position.”

  “Yes, better than I deserve. Better than anyone deserves, probably. It has potential that way.”

  “Is that important to you?”

  “Is what important?”

  “Money. Wealth. I guess the balance of work and life.”

  I regarded him closely. I wished I had been clearer in my mind, because I felt an agenda sneaking into his questions, a slight judgment, and I didn’t like it. Didn’t need it. I sipped my drink and looked out at the street. A single streetlight pushed the darkness away around the edges of the buildings.

  “Sorry,” he said. “A little reaction, that’s all. You seem so … alive to the world in a way that I don’t immediately connect with a corporate employee. With someone in investment banking.”

  “Investment bankers live in the world,” I said, trying to keep my voice level, “and they even like it and admire it.”

  “Right,” he said. “Point taken.”

  But I didn’t think he believed it. He held my hand. Then he turned it over and kissed my palm. He put his eyes on mine.

  “I’m sorry about what happened with Amy. Do you think she’ll go home?”

  “I guess so. She’ll push through it, but from a practical standpoint, if she can’t get a replacement passport and all the paperwork in reasonable time, she plans to head home in the next day or so.”

  “It’s probably a better choice. It’s a shame, but it is.”

  “It’s sad, though. We planned this trip forever. It’s all we talked about for the entire spring semester, and now it’s gone, just like that. It’s strange to think about how quickly things can change.”

  “You don’t seem like a big fan of change.”

  “I guess I’m not. I don’t know.”

  “A planner?”

  “I suppose. You’re not?”

  “I’m a little lazy about planning. I like things to surprise me.”

  “I’m the Smythson planner type of girl.”

  “That’s what I’m discovering. And I have an old journal held together by a rubber band. Tidy dresser drawers?”

  “Organized closet. Shoes in rows. I alphabetize condiments and spices.”

  “I’m more of a dress-out-of-the-laundry-basket sort of guy.”

  “How do you fight wrinkles?”

  “I let them live. I let them go free and find their way.”

  “See, I couldn’t stand that. That’s lik
e going through life as a basset hound.”

  “I love basset hounds. What’s wrong with a basset hound?”

  “But I don’t know if you want to be a basset hound. Kind of wrinkly and all jowly. You’re not really a basset hound, Jack.”

  “What am I, then?”

  “Oh, maybe a sled-dog type. I’m not sure. I don’t know you well enough yet.”

  “Are you one of those clipped poodles?”

  “I hope not. I’ve always seen myself as a Labrador retriever.”

  “You are definitely not a Lab. Labs are easygoing and happy with a dirty tennis ball in their mouths.”

  “I’m easygoing. I do draw the line at dirty tennis balls, though.”

  A little later, a man came in carrying a box containing a statue of the Virgin Mary. He had bad teeth and a hard face; his hands appeared heavier than any hands I had ever seen on a human, with dark, spatulate fingers connected to a palm as thick and purposeful as a hammerhead. He wore a red kerchief around his neck, but he was not a priest. He set the box on the end of the bar and asked us, and the bar in general, if we wanted to say a prayer to it. I had never seen anything quite like it: it had been made from a packing crate, covered in chicken wire, and he had fashioned a small spotlight behind the topmost frame, so that it appeared the Blessed Mother had been transfixed in a beam of celestial light. Constance, I knew, would have flipped over it. But if the bar owner or any of the other patrons found anything unusual about the box and the scene of the Virgin Mary, her palms turned out to welcome the world, her heel pinning a serpent to the earth, they showed no sign of it.

  “Do we pay an offering?” Jack asked the man in English.

  The man nodded.

  “How much?” Jack asked.

  “As you like,” the man answered.

  Jack dug in his pocket and gave him a few coins. Then he turned to me.

  “Do you pray?” he asked.

  “Not in a long time.”

  “I don’t often pray, but tonight I feel I should. It’s not every day the Virgin Mary walks into a bar.”

  “Sounds like the start of a bad joke.”

  “I worry that God might be lonely.”

  But then to my surprise, he closed his eyes and prayed. I examined his beautiful profile, his solemn expression, and I tried to join him, but I couldn’t. When he finished, he crossed himself and nodded at the man with the boxed Virgin Mary. The man nodded. It was late at night, and the man seemed to understand the need for prayers.

  17

  I climbed into bed with Amy at dawn. It was good to be in a warm bed. She turned when I slid in, mumbled something in her sleep, then fell back into whatever dreams she pursued or ran from. Her feet moved for a moment, pedaling, then she stopped and began breathing steadily. I watched her face for a time and tried to imagine what she had been through. But I was too tired to do a good job of it.

  Constance woke us near midday by appearing at the foot of the bed, coffees and bread and croissants spread on a tray in front of her. She had brought tiny plates and white, starched napkins, and she set them out for us on the bedspread. I pulled myself up against the pillows and tried to rub the sleep out of my eyes. The coffee smelled amazing; the croissants resting between tubs of raspberry jam and white bricks of butter reminded my stomach it was hungry.

  “Your mother called me twice, Amy,” Constance announced, pouring coffee out in the cups for us and adding cream. It was precisely Constance to turn the breakfast into a tea service. “I told her I would let you sleep until noon, then wake you. It’s now past noon.”

  “I have to pee,” Amy said. “Give me another half hour before I have to think about Mom and all that.”

  She shot out of the bed but returned in a few minutes. She had combed her hair and brushed her teeth. She climbed back in bed and fluffed her pillows behind her.

  “I cannot think of a single thing I want more in this world right now than a cup of coffee and a delicious croissant,” Amy said. “Thank you, Constance. You’re a lifesaver.”

  “I got it from the dining room downstairs. It’s surprisingly swanky, you know? The dining room, I mean. I guess this is a better hotel than we realized.”

  I waited for Constance to finish fixing me a cup of coffee. She handed it to me. I put both hands around it and cuddled it against my chest.

  “Okay,” Amy said, her voice rising in fun as it used to before losing her papers and cards, “let’s go over the scoreboard. Who’s in love?”

  Constance flushed but did not look up. She continued stirring coffee and adding cream. I felt my neck go red as it always did in these moments.

  “Wow,” Amy said at our silence, “that means you both are. Jesus, it’s really happening. No kidding? You two are not kidding me right now, are you?”

  “Falling in love, maybe,” Constance said, her voice soft. “Maybe. It’s all too soon to say. But I like him a lot. I like him terribly.”

  She finished preparing her own coffee and raised the cup to her lips. Her eyes shone above the rim of the cup. She was happy and in love, or falling in love, exactly as she said, and it showed.

  “You’re going to end up on a sheep farm in Australia, and I can’t freaking stand it!” Amy squealed, her eyes wide. “You’re his little Sheila. How dreamy! How ridiculously dreamy! What do they call them? Not farms … stations. Sheep stations, don’t they call them that?”

  “I have no idea,” Constance said.

  “Oh, yes, you do, you little fibber. You’ve already dreamed it all out. The wind blows and the kangaroos hop by, and it’s all red dust and sheep, but you’ll have white tablecloths. Won’t she, Heather?”

  “If anyone will, Constance will,” I agreed.

  “And you—you’re just as bad. Jack, Jack, the lumberjack! Okay, so I’ll need two bridesmaids’ dresses, unless you can figure out a way to get married at the same time—a joint wedding, a double wedding! That’s what we’ll do. It will save money all the way around. Now somebody tell me why I am destined to be the bridesmaid in all this? Always the bridesmaid, never the bride!”

  “You might be rushing things just a bit. Jack can be superior and a bit judgy. That’s a report from the front.”

  “Can he now?” Amy asked, glancing at Constance with a twinkle in her eye.

  “He’s very bohemian. At least he thinks he is. Aspires to be, I guess. He’s dissing my plans to work for Bank of America. Says the corporate types are not alive to the world.”

  “Oh, that’s just something he says. He’s just posturing,” Constance said. “He’s crazy about you. Anyone can see that.”

  “One minute he’s so sweet and sincere, and the next minute he’s on his soapbox about how life should be. He’s all carpe diem, let’s go explore, let’s not worry about tomorrow—”

  “You are in love,” Amy said and laughed. “You wouldn’t care what he said if you didn’t have a boner for him.”

  “Girl boner,” I said.

  “It’s all way too soon to take seriously,” Constance said, trying to shield me. “It’s just fun right now.”

  “You girls are getting your frisk on,” Amy said. “You’re both so super slutty.”

  It was sweet and funny, but just underneath it, just along the seams, I knew Amy was trying too hard. She knew it, too, but she had to keep going. The rest of it—the phone calls with her mom and dad, the trips to the consulate for a passport, the ignominy of returning home before the trip was over—all lay in front of her. She knew it, and so did we, but we had to fake it and pretend and be brave.

  We had the coffee and the croissants and the bright red jam. At one point, Constance slipped off the bed and opened the curtains and windows, and we gained a constant breeze flowing through the window. The breeze lifted the sheer white curtains, and I supposed we all thought the same thing: that this was Europe, that curtains lifting in a midday breeze against a French door was something worth seeing and remembering.

  Then the phone rang again from far away, but w
e knew it was Amy’s mom, or the consulate, or some day-to-day matter that demanded her attention. The magic left us, and we lifted the tray from the bed and swept off the crumbs, and Constance took a single spoonful of jam and put it in her mouth as if she wanted to remember, needed to remember, and the white curtain flapped softly and the day started.

  * * *

  “It’s about the light, isn’t it?” Jack asked.

  We hadn’t left Amsterdam. We couldn’t leave until Amy’s affairs were in order, or she had made the final decision to return home. Besides, we didn’t want to leave Jack and Raef. Now we stood in front of Johannes Vermeer’s The Milkmaid. It was odd, I thought, to see finally a painting that one had studied in art books for all one’s school days. Here it was at last, the humble portrait of a kitchen maid emptying a pitcher into a bowl. Light—soft, morning light, I thought—streamed in through the window on the pail’s right and coated everything with calmness. I knew from the small handout they gave at the Rijksmuseum’s admissions desk that most art critics believed Vermeer employed a camera obscura to capture the image of the maid and reflect pinpoints of light onto the furniture of the painting. You could see the blots of light on the maid’s apron and on the rim of the pitcher. But Vermeer had transcended the camera obscura and everything else to provide a moment of quiet domestic solitude. It was about the light, just as Jack said, and I stood transfixed by the painting. Out of every piece of art I had seen in Europe, it was my favorite painting by far.

  “When I saw the Mona Lisa in Paris,” I said, “I couldn’t seem to care. But this?”

  My throat caught.

  “Yes,” Jack said.

  “She could be alive in the next room. And the light is still there, still waiting for any of us to discover it.”

  “I agree. That’s how I see it, too.”

  “It’s real, but it’s more than real. It feels like it’s the essence of everything. Sorry, I know that sounds inflated and pompous or just stupid, but it’s not just about common light, it’s about the whole world, isn’t it?”