A Father's Affair by Karel van Loon

after that. The next two months I spent working like an idiot.
    ‘Where’s Mama?’ Bo asked every now and again.
    ‘Mama is dead,’ I would tell him.
    ‘Oh yeah. Mama’s dead.’
    Two years ago my mother died of intestinal cancer. She was seventy-two. My father phoned, at five thirty in the morning. ‘Mama is dead,’ he said. And I thought about Bo, and about
Monika, and when the tears came I didn’t know who I was crying for.
    ‘She died peacefully,’ my father said.

15
    S he’s walking down the other side of the street. Her face and hands white as snow, her red hair like a warning.
    ‘Look out!’ she shouts.
    I follow her gaze and see a little girl on my side of the street, standing at the kerb. She’s trying to cross, but there’s too much traffic. I walk over to her; she’s about
six, with short blonde hair and blue eyes that remind me of the first nice day in March.
    ‘Come on,’ I say, taking her hand. She doesn’t seem afraid or surprised. She smiles at me. We cross the street together.
    ‘Thank you,’ she says when I take the child to her.
    ‘My pleasure.’
    On my way home, I can’t stop thinking about her. Green eyes. Or were they grey? I’ve forgotten already. She had a nice voice. Self-assured, but friendly too. Soft, but not girlishly
soft.
    Two weeks go by, during which the memories fade. Then, suddenly, there she is again. The tram stops at the Leidseplein and she gets on. That white skin, that red hair. She moves up the aisle to
a spot near me. Green eyes. Or more like greyish-green.
    ‘How’s the little blonde girl?’ I ask. ‘Is she more careful about crossing the street these days?’
    She looks at me in surprise. Then bursts out laughing. ‘My little neighbour girl, you mean? She’s the kind of child who makes you want to ban all cars from the city, isn’t
she?’
    She laughs and the tram shakes, but the one has nothing to do with the other, except in my mind.
    ‘I’m surprised you recognized me.’
    ‘Immediately.’
    ‘My hair.’
    ‘Your eyes.’
    ‘Of course.’ She laughs again. She has lovely, straight teeth.
    ‘Where are you headed?’
    ‘To the Bijenkorf, to do some shopping.’
    ‘Can I go with you?’ It’s out before I know it, probably surprising me even more than it does her.
    ‘You’re a bit like my little neighbour girl,’ she says.
    The tram jerks and shakes heavily again. In the curve on the Spui she almost loses her footing. With one hand she grabs my coat and pulls herself back on balance.
    ‘We could have a cup of coffee on the top floor. With apple pie,’ I say.
    ‘Oh, all right,’ she sighs teasingly.
    As we cross the Dam she walks close to me.
    ‘I’m afraid of pigeons,’ she says. I’ve never heard anything so preposterous. But I don’t tell her that.
    ‘What’s your name, anyway?’
    ‘Monika.’
    ‘I’m Armin.’
    ‘Ar-min,’ she says, as if she’s trying to taste the syllables. ‘Armin. That’s different.’
    In the restaurant at the Bijenkorf we drink coffee and eat apple pie with whipped cream. She tells me about her little neighbour girl. That they go out and do things together
all the time; go to the park, to the museum when it’s raining, to the zoo.
    ‘What are her favourite animals?’ I ask.
    ‘The elephants.’
    ‘Have you told her that elephants weep?’
    ‘No. Do elephants weep?’
    ‘They certainly do. Back in the Fifties there was a circus elephant called Sadie who didn’t learn her tricks quickly enough. The elephant trainer punished her for her stupidity by
beating her on the side of the head with a stick. To his amazement, she began crying, horribly, heartbreakingly. He never hit her again. And she was good and learned all her tricks.’
    ‘And what if my little neighbour girl had a different favourite animal?’ she asked. ‘Would you have told me something about that one, too?’
    ‘Sure. What’s your favourite animal?’
    She thinks about it. Then, with that mocking smile of hers