that illuminated her twenty square metres of crumbling splendour like a strong torch.
‘Go away, Ad,’ George said under her breath.
She hoisted herself to sitting position and looked around through sticky eyes. She was naked. There was a dark-haired man lying next to her. She yanked back the duvet and gave him a quick, appraising once over, shuddering with distaste at the sight of his anaemic pallor next to the latte warmth of her own skin. She groaned.
‘Filip? Aw, not Filip, man,’ she muttered under her breath. ‘I’m never drinking again.’
‘George!’ Ad sounded agitated. His voice was squeezed tight. He knocked again.
‘Coming,’ George answered.
She swung her legs out of the bed, knocking over an empty Heineken bottle. It spilled flat, stale beer onto yesterday’s underwear. The sight of the mess made her heartbeat accelerate.
Panic. What could she use to cover herself? She grabbed at a tea towel hanging off a straight-backed antique Dutch dining chair, shoved underneath a scratched Formica table for two. Covering as much of herself as she could, she undid the two locks on the door.
‘At last,’ came Ad’s voice through the wood.
George opened the door five inches and shoved her face up to the gap, hiding her nakedness.
‘What’s wrong?’ she asked. She squinted at her friend in the murk of the hallway. He was shaking like he had drunk too much coffee.
‘There’s been a massive explosion at the faculty library,’ he said. ‘Didn’t you hear it?’
‘What?’
‘Bushuis library. I was on my way there. It’s been wiped out.’
‘What time is it?’ George smacked her dry lips together and felt a draught on her back coming from the window. She wanted Ad to go away. She wanted her guest to get the hell out as well.
‘Gone nine,’ Ad said. ‘Come on. You’ve got to see this. Let’s go.’
Ad pushed the door open, taking George by surprise. He peered into her room and she knew then he had seen everything.
‘Filip?’ he said.
She could hear the ridicule in his voice. She flushed hot with embarrassment.
‘Don’t,’ she said. ‘Meet me downstairs in two.’
As she closed the door on Ad, she was sure she could see hurt in the intelligent brown eyes that hid behind his steel-framed glasses. She drew back the brocade curtains in sharp, angry movements, annoyed with herself for letting Ad see what she had done. Whom she had done. Why did he care so much anyway? He already had his blonde, Milkmaid childhood sweetheart back home. What was she called? Astrid or Margo or something like that. Screw him.
Feeling like her brain was packed with cotton wool, George peered out over the steep rooftops of Amsterdam’s red light district. It had rained in the night, and now the roof tiles glittered in the morning sun.
She had the best view in the world; an exclusive view, hidden from those below. The judgemental. The respectable. The petty-minded. The paying punters who had eyes only for red-lit booths and the bongs in coffee shop windows.
Yes, it was a lovely morning. But then, on the horizon to her far right, George spotted a plume of black smoke. Thick and acrid, it curled up into the delicate blue of the morning sky like an angry fist. The explosion.
‘My God!’ she said. ‘He’s right. That’s some fire.’
Wishing she had the time to scrub away the blunted memory of her conquest in a hot shower, she hastily sprayed deodorant over her body. She threw on freshly ironed jeans and a T-shirt, quietly chiding herself for putting clean clothes on a dirty body. She dragged her fingers roughly through her curly black hair.
‘Lock up on the way out,’ she said to a stirring Filip. ‘Drop the keys in the coffee shop downstairs. Ask for Jan. Only give them to Jan, okay?’
‘Are you leaving?’ Filip asked, shielding his eyes from the glare of the day.
George answered him by closing the door behind her, relieved that she did not have to have the stilted ‘let’s just be friends’ conversation over coffee made with almost sour milk.
Perhaps her imagination had been over-stimulated by the violent events that were unfolding just down the road. Or possibly it was just a paranoia hangover from the previous night’s revelry. George was not entirely sure why, but as she undid the clanking, rusted U-lock that fastened her bike to the bike-rack, she felt inclined to look up.
She saw nothing but the unremarkable scene of dark, still water, the gnarled limbs of winter-bare trees, pointing to tempting shop windows that would later be crammed with sickly eye candy, dressed only in thongs and bras to satisfy the sweet, rotten tooth of the common, kerb-crawling Homo sapiens.
Flanked by Ad, George rattled on her old Dutch bike along the canals and through the slowly waking streets. Suddenly the awkward silence between them was punctured by the wail of sirens; the sound of screaming. Her heartbeat quickened. She felt the heat; smelled diesel.
‘We’ve got to stay together, okay?’ Ad said, looking back at her with watery eyes and a red, pinched nose. ‘It’s like hell on earth,’ he said. ‘You’ll see.’
They rounded the corner of Bethanienstraat onto Kloveniersburgwal. Not yet cordoned off, the scene was spread before George like a poisoned feast.
Where the elegant period facade of the old library should have been was now a ragged, gaping mouth, belching fire and fume over the canal. Masonry and glass had been spat out into the street and into the oily water. Between the flashing lights of the emergency services, queuing like impatient customers along the narrow stretch of road, George glimpsed a blackened crater in the pavement the size of a bus. It looked as though demons had tried to swallow the place whole.
‘Stand back! Move back!’ Policemen shouted, waving away the crowd that had started to gather and gawp.
‘Nightmare,’ George said.
Two paramedics hurtled towards her, pushing an ambulance gurney with somebody strapped to it.
‘Get out of the way!’ one of them shouted at her.
Dumbfounded, she stepped up to the canal’s edge to let the trolley through, hardly daring to look at its charred and screaming cargo.
The upper storey of the building exploded suddenly, hurling masonry and roof tiles into the sky. Screaming. Running. Horns honking.
‘Get behind the fire truck,’ Ad yelled, pulling her by her upper arm as brick rained down, bounced off the road and into the water.
She jumped over the fat fire hoses that snaked along the ground. Together, they squatted beside giant wheel arches of the red Brandweer fire service shelter.
‘Jesus,’ George said. ‘What the fuck happened here?’
She peered out at the flaming building as it coughed
