and a view over the canal, bright lounges and sleeping quarters with mahogany beds, bathrooms with gold-plated faucets, and slippers.
“You mustn’t envy me for getting the more elegant suite. The staff probably decided to put me in there, seeing as I’m older. I’ll just light one up while you get dressed. As the bankers in the lobby said: Amsterdam, here we come!”
*
The first thing Mother mentioned when we walked out into the sunshine was the deep-rooted culture in the street landscape. From here, the brave adventurers sailed off for the Indies, and here the master painters had filled in the canvas of history.
“Not to mention all the crimes of passion and the orgies,” she added. “Can you imagine all the sensations that have bubbled in these houses? Countless whoremongers and whores trying all sorts of sex. You almost want to jump through one of these windows and see if some ghost won’t take you on. This is quite a change from Reykjavik with all those ceaseless Subway and McDonalds ads. Not to mention that horrible Idol thing. Why do people insist on being so devoid of culture in Iceland?”
We walked to where the hotel met the street and the Amstel River branched out, dividing into smaller canals. Three black kids stood rapping on the bridge, much to Mother’s delight.
“Hold this, Hermann, I’m going to take a photo,” she said, hung her handbag on me and skulked behind me with the camera. “I’ve often wondered how much more fun it would have been if I’d had you with a black man, Trooper.”
“What?”
“Yes. It would have been such a nice contribution to the diversity of the population to have you a bit tinted.”
“Ah. But would I have been me then?”
“As if you would have noticed? You wouldn’t have given it any thought, just like you don’t currently think about what it would have been like to be colored. That’s the problem with having just the one life. I’ll never really know what it’s like to be Catherine Deneuve.”
“The only thing you know is that you’re Icelandic,” I said and explained to her my theory that the nation’s color chart, excluding the handful of immigrants in the restaurant business, could be divided into three categories. I belonged to the Porridge People—people who work indoors and therefore have the complexion of oat porridge in the first stages of souring. Then there were the Pig People—people who simply were the color of pigs, and finally the Prosperous People—orange people who had chemical skin treatments and worked in finance or media. The whole flock was descended from the same pale ape that discovered Iceland.
“Then you’ll understand, my dear Trooper, what soul food it is for people like me who got their education in Fraülein Europa to finally have some diversity.” She pointed to a tall, attractive older man on a bicycle. “You just don’t see silver foxes like that in Reykjavik, not unless they’re married or throwing up in some bar.”
I promised to call the Guinness Book of Records to let them know. Almost everything we came across defied haters of beauty. The program was in full swing. It was highly unlikely that any mother and son in the history of mankind had ever had as much fun before noon.
To celebrate, she fished out her lifesaver and offered me a capful, which I gulped down as fast as I could. It tasted like every type of alcohol known to man with a touch of brandy in the foreground, which was probably what she poured into the flask the last time she filled it.
“Here, have some more,” she said and got out a miniature she’d pocketed from the hotel minibar. “You could do with a pick-me-up.”
“No more for now, thanks. I’d prefer a beer and some coffee first. How about finding a seat and having a look at the map?”
“Great idea, Trooper. If there’s anything I’ve learned on my travels it’s that you can never sit down enough . . . but I can’t say I’ve ever had much use for maps. My map is in my heart.”
I resisted mentioning her disastrous trip with the Friends of Romania group that ended with me flying to Slovakia to take her home.
“Here,” she walked into a weird café where two men took turns frying pancakes and cutting people’s hair. We got a table by a window looking out over the canal and ordered coffee and pancakes. “They’ve even got Internet here. Would you check my email for me and see if I’ve got any new messages?”
I agreed and asked for her password.
“Milan Kundera, one word.”
“The poet?”
“He’s a writer, Hermann. And not just the best writer in the world but also the most beautiful man I’ve ever set eyes on.”
“Wow.”
“I know. And so it’s a great password. Not a chance I’ll ever forget it.”
I went through her mailbox, conscientiously reading aloud to her every single email, including a distraught message from Obed Kanutsi, a wealthy Nigerian fellow who had been terribly wronged by an unjust government and modestly asked for 1,000 dollars to pay for his escape, promising, of course, to back the loan with very generous interests.
“We have to help him, don’t we Hermann?”
“Nope. It’s spam.”
“But what about this watchmaker in Switzerland? Won’t he be disappointed if I don’t buy something?”
“These aren’t personal letters, Eva. You don’t have to feel bad about deleting them.”
“If you say so.”
After a short argument I decided to be the villain and deleted all her mail, checked my own inbox quickly and then played a couple of racing games for fun. An ad from Russian Bride flashed in the top right corner and immediately caught Mother’s attention.
“Look at that, Trooper! You’re being offered sex.”
“Everything’s available online now.”
“What luxury for these young generations, to be able to just pick a prince from a website. Isn’t there something for dying women in their sixties?” Mother laughed at her own joke but quickly turned serious again. “I mean it. Can’t you find me a good man? Just for three months or so, can’t be more than that if we’re to have time for all those museums. The Cannabis Museum, The Museum of Torture . . . And Van Gogh! How are we going to manage all that?”
“You’ll do that with the guy, I guess.”
“You never know what these men are thinking. Like Jonas? Do you think he would have been interested in going to the Museum of Torture, limping about like some . . .”
“. . . bondage gimp?”
“No, thank you very much! There was never any of that with Jonas. He was a terrible pervert of course, like most men, but nothing that was any fun. He just wanted me to stroke him, like you would a child’s head. Which reminds me.” She pulled a pack of condoms from her handbag: Durex. Ribbed for her pleasure.
“This, my dear, is for you.”
“I’m
