I had just pulled my phone from my pocket when a young man, young to me, circa forty, took a seat catty-corner to me, sharing a banquette, the seat cushion so dense I hardly felt his descent. Nonetheless, I felt his presence. A graceful young man, like a dancer, and terribly attractive, in that Dutch way, with deep-set eyes and sharp cheekbones. He was fashionably, yet casually dressed, unlike the more formal or business attire of others scattered about. Perhaps, I thought, he’s a member of the local arts community, since we were situated in what is called here, in Amsterdam, the Museum District.
Charcoal tweed slacks clung to his narrow frame, with a black, likely cashmere turtleneck sweater. Expensive fabrics, as well as a monotone ensemble, make men and women appear, to my mind, exemplars of the good life. By dressing the part, they construct the part and, by extension, inhabit the part.
Shaggy light brown hair fell to the nape of his long neck, with one disobedient dangling strand at the temple, augmenting his boyish demeanor. Skin tinted naturally by the sun, he was the picture of good health, and exuding good will, which I have found in abundance on my first visit here. On the other hand, being so perfectly composed, he might have been staged, like the mannequins in the shop windows I perused while strolling this posh neighborhood.
If I were to sketch him, something I rarely do anymore, he would be a Manet: stark contrast between light and dark and a flattened perspective, he would be gazing toward me, but beyond me, searching the distance, for what? The defining question of that impressionist period, which ushered the great Vincent Van Gogh, my very favorite painter, on to the more abstract and symbolic post-impressionism.
My adolescent students find the concept of an artistic continuum difficult to grasp, having grown up with a polarized delineation. Most of what they know falls more simply between ordinary, meaning most of what most of us do, and celebrity. Influencers versus the influenced. I always hope to broaden their view.
I might have been scrutinizing him too closely, too obviously, as if stepping back from a model to frame the composition, because he turned to me and smiled, the sort of smile suggesting he knew he was an object of interest. I was mortified to be caught gawking, although I smiled in return, not sheepishly, rather as a token of connection, and then, reverting to type, gazed down at my phone, as if I had something to see, which, as if to save me, vibrated in my hand.
I rarely use a phone in public – not one to have it glued to my hand or perched prominently on a table as if oxygen. I retrieve it to map a route, check operating hours or gauge the weather. However, my brother back home requires frequent contact, as if a sixty year old woman traveling alone in a European capital might be in danger. The truth is it is crucial for me to check in often with him.
I lowered my voice to ensure privacy, more so to minimize bother to my neighbor.
After three hours, yes, three hours at the Van Gogh museum, I walked through Vondelpark, near the city center, I related to Alfred, who is called Freddie, and who has a need to picture exactly where I am when not with him, despite the fact that he is able to locate me at all times on a digital tracking system installed on his phone. Until this past week, I am usually close by, rarely far, and never before in another country.
Like Franklin Park? he asked.
My brother compels relevance to home – everything, for Freddie, and everyone as well, is grounded in Boston.
Not nearly as big, 120 acres, Google says, I answered.
But no conglomerate.
I smiled, picturing the childish grin on Freddie’s face, the way his large eyes light up with delight when extracting factoids or trivia from his remarkable memory. In this case, he referred to the sedimentary rock formation that forms the bedrock of Franklin Park, also known as the puddingstone ruins, designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, best known as the landscape architect of New York City’s Central Park.
When he was a child, Freddie cried out jubilantly, repeatedly, the word puddingstone, escalating to a state of mania, one of a frequent litany of barkings, we called them. Sometimes he spun his head so hard and so fast, I feared it might disconnect, a mass of dark curls crashing the air like a pinwheel, until suddenly going still.
No, no ruins. No conglomerate. Named for a 17th century poet, not a statesman, I said.
I heard the clack of the keyboard in the background as Freddie, to satisfy his insatiable curiosity, searched the internet for the writer Joost van den Vondel.
Out of the corner of one eye, I saw my attractive seatmate lean forward to a plump, sweet-faced waitress dressed in black shirt and skirt, with a white apron, like an English maid, and she leaned in as well to take his order, so close they might have been paramours whispering words of love. Moments before, the same young woman
delivered to my table a crystal glass with a flask of icy cold water, as if harvested from a glacier, and I sipped the last of it while waiting for my brother to regale me with the biographical background of the poet, which he would surely do.
Settling back against the banquette, listening closely enough to capture what Freddie had to say, I scanned the grand hotel lobby where I had stopped for a respite after many hours on foot. I enjoy people watching in a gracious atmosphere. I do the same in Boston, now and then. Guests who frequent these places don’t take much notice of people like me, and today I felt like a Henry James character – the bourgeois American in Europe – as I gazed upward to a soaring atrium rising majestically above a spacious interior terrace abundant with flowers and fine art in gilded frames.
Quite a contrast from the unadorned guest house in a residential part of the city where I had booked a room, and which I described to Freddie as an upscale hostel for grown-ups.
I landed the other day in Amsterdam to visit, at last, the Van Gogh museum. In my youth, in art school, I devoted a great deal of my time to copying his palette, trying to derive his inimitable blue and sunflower yellow, applying paint to the canvas directly from the tube or with thick brush strokes, like the Fauvists, and forging his most famous works, a teaching method I still deploy. By tracing a finished work of art, a student might absorb a masterful eye. Enhance technique. Not that any amateur, no matter how talented or polished, will ever match the skill of the masters.
After a textbook two-hour docent tour, I retraced my steps, twice, gallery to gallery, basking in his genius, the diversity of his expression, his command of light, harmonic composition, and the ecstasy of proximity to paintings I’ve rarely seen beyond a bookplate. A wheatfield of crows. A willowy almond tree. Starlight on a midnight sky. I texted photos to Freddie with the caption: VG IRL!
I’m haunted still by Vincent’s sadness, and I have to believe, I want to believe, his talent was as great because of the depth of his suffering, yet his paintings, incongruously, emblems of hope. I urge students to ponder his stylistic shift over time by staring at his paintings, as I did today, for long periods of time, in effect, peeling the layers, which drives them mad, as young people these days rely on first impressions, little patience for more.
Once I’d exhausted even my capacity for his work, for today, I took off in the direction, I thought, of my home away from home, where I planned to read before an early dinner or, already feeling a familiar afternoon ennui, stay in, study the city map and finalize tomorrow’s itinerary, while munching on a croissant I pilfered from the breakfast buffet, wrapped discreetly, I hope, in a spotless fabric napkin to protect the flaky crust.
There is a statue of Van den Vondel in the park, nondescript, but I came upon a sculpture
of a fish that was decidedly Picasso-ish, I told Freddie. I cannot be certain, I didn’t notice a plaque.
A Picasso pike, he cried, laughing, which I suspect he will chant all day.
Indeed, oh, and here comes my chamomile tea. Anon, my dearest, I said, a saying Freddie
adopted when he was a boy, when we began to acknowledge and grapple with his obsession for odd and multisyllabic words, a crippling anxiety among strangers, also the proclivity to furious outbursts. By the age of ten, he was fixated on Mozart – he plays all his sonatas by heart – and in adolescence, addicted to cyber-technology, the seeds planted for what evolved to a modest but steady income as a coder.
Okay, Freddie yielded, sadly, as if I were abandoning him. Watch where you go.
I always do, my boy, I answered.
Another favored endearment, because Freddie is, and has largely been, my boy.
I have a good sense of direction, overall, with the safety net of internet maps; however, charmed by the rows of row houses, the ubiquitous pitched roofs and glimpses of canals and bridges at every angle, I turned left instead of right and landed at an imposing iron gate marking the western entrance to the grand urban park. A mass of bike-riders, backpacks overflowing, stopped at a traffic light there, one foot like a kickstand to the ground as if awaiting the shotgun signal to race. Their anticipation would have been difficult to reproduce in a painting, but an image I will long remember for capturing the essence of life here – mobility and vitality bounded by art and antiquity.
Although I was tired of walking by then, and thirsty, I decided to immerse myself in the bucolic and followed a walking path paralleling a creek bed. Inhaling misty autumn air, I snapped a photo of a gazebo shrouded in part by leaves in deep reds and golds, worthy of a postcard, and then took a shot of a playground bereft of children, looming like a sculpture against gray sky.
Walkers strolled, bikers zipped by and, before long, I arrived at the opposite gate. Dismissing the instinct, the crutch, of a cyber-map, I wandered instead along pristine sidewalks with exquisitely curated shop windows, until I noticed a discreet sign just off the main street for the Conservatorium Hotel.
An invitation to the weary traveler.
Pardon, the young man said to me, in a distinctly Dutch accent: consonants sharp even as words resound softly. I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but the sculpture you referred to is a Picasso, installed on the park’s 100th anniversary.
Thank you. A nod to the canals?
He smiled. Could be, yes, although who knows, and who would question Pablo?
Truer words were never said, I answered.
I took the first sip of tea, steaming hot, the floral flavor pleasing, soothing, before adding a dose of cream from a delicate silver pitcher, only because it seemed I was meant to. With that gesture, I felt far grander than I am. Dressed in black leggings and a Prussian blue sweater, in Van Gogh’s honor, with black canvas sneakers to cushion long hours on foot, I was as understated as my neighbor stylish. My straight chestnut brown hair, still worn past my shoulders, gathering gray at the crown, and the dangling silver earrings I brought for the trip, the one lingering nod to a once bohemian style. Yesterday, at the grand Rijksmuseum, immersed in the striking works of Vermeer, I had the notion I could never have been his model; the guests here, however, seemed his modern day exemplars.
Did you know Picasso admired Van Gogh? I asked.
I am not at all sociable, by nature, but in this place, so far from home, I felt the desire to be. And the young man, after all, had invited conversation.
In the later years, yes, but who did not admire Vincent? he answered.
Yes. However, of all the artists Picasso held in high esteem, Van Gogh is the one he professed to admire most. He spoke of him with reverence, not with his infamous irony, or mockery.
Vincent is the progenitor of all that followed, the young man stated, like a historian.
I was charmed by his melodious voice, as well as his enlightenment.
Also true, I said. In the sixties, when, I guess, the fish sculpture was installed…?
He nodded yes.
At that time, Picasso painted self-portraits reminiscent of Van Gogh. One, perhaps you’ve seen it, an abstracted image with the famous yellow hat. Post-impressionism as surrealism.
He smiled, although I realized at once, and embarrassed by it, I was lecturing. I had to caution myself, as I often do, to restrain a tendency to the didactic, about art, that is. On the other hand, I have not spoken with anyone besides a ticket taker or a waiter for several days and my charming neighbor seemed chatty. I would not, however, delude myself that his attention was anything more. I’m an aging plain Jane and he an urbane, obviously well-educated, much younger man, although what woman of any age would not be enchanted by his attention.
A longtime teaching colleague, and dear friend, Luisa, would have reminded me, were our ages reversed – a handsome man in conversation with a woman twenty years his junior – a spontaneous rendezvous would not be at all presumptuous. Certainly not in Amsterdam.
Encouraged by that thought, as I formulated a comment to extend the conversation, he asked, you are an artist?
No, no. An art lover. A devotee, so to speak, I answered, attempting a flirtatious smile.
Dear Luisa, who seemed on the surface more Victorian than avantgarde, referred to me as a museum whore. You will spend an hour at the museum at a moment’s notice, she once said, kindly admonishing. But a whore is paid for her time, I countered, to which she stated, as if an empirical fact, you are paid in satisfaction, which is otherwise sorely lacking.
Luisa would be pleased to know I have at last made my way to distant shores to take in the arts, and overjoyed I was engaged in a tête-à-tête with an attractive stranger.
Artists throughout the world salute you, the young man said.
You are an artist then? I asked.
He shook his head no.
A collector? I queried, presuming, by the way he was dressed, he could be of that crowd.
He shook his head again; however a tiny smile suggested he was flattered by the possibility.
But you are in the arts, he pronounced more than asked. Curator? Gallerist?
No. I shook my head insistently. I had hoped to be, when I was young, I confided, a rare disclosure. Instead, I teach.
As a rule, I do not speak in past tense and never confess my childhood ambition to be a painter, quashed when my mother died soon after Freddie was diagnosed with autism. There was no spectrum then, the designation meant more to avoid labelling as retarded or disturbed. I was seventeen at that time, accepted at Cooper Union in New York City to study fine art and architecture, breathless at the thought of inhabiting an artsy milieu and breaking free of conventional New England roots.
Freddie was nine. Someone had to parent him. My father worked two jobs and wallowed in self-pity off hours.
American? Canadian? the young man asked, breaking into my own self-pitying reverie.
American, I replied, with an apologetic shrug, as Europeans, justifiably, deem American culture lowbrow and our politics ludicrous.
Another server, this one wearing a black apron over a crisp white shirt and a black skirt, like a negative of the others, delivered the young man’s café au lait.
A sweet, he commanded, in English.
She pointed at a menu on the table.
Surprise me, he replied, with a seductive smile.
She blushed, the red in her cheeks like apples at harvest, then retrieved the menu and retreated as discreetly as she had appeared.
Apparently the young man had more than confidence. He seemed to have a sense of entitlement to whatever he desired or required. I have only encountered that trait occasionally, more often among Ivy League parents of a student, and in the face of that I fortify myself, as the privileged are demanding, also too often condescending. On the other hand, by his looks and manners, he was more likely the product of what I would call benign entitlement – the affection bestowed on an adorable child who matures into a charismatic man.
Are you staying here? he asked.
I chuckled. Too rich for my blood. I stopped in to enjoy the ambiance.
I do the same. Lots of history here. Once a bank, then, a music school, and now, a wellness center and spa. The lobby is referred to as the living room.
I laughed. Not like any living room I know.
A drawing room, perhaps.
I nodded, pleased with that distinction, and then, words failing me, sipped my tea, scanning the tableau in which I had been inserted. Triple-heighted windows gazed over a constellation of work areas, dining tables, comfy chairs. Behind our table, a gift shop framed in glass displayed Dutch porcelain and oversized art books. Classical music wafted from a grand piano and crystal vases on pedestals held bouquets of tall fresh flowers, like still lives.
There’s a famous painting of a drawing room in Boston, where I was raised, the thirties, as I recall, by David Payne. A bit frilly. This place feels more like a palatial parlor, I commented.
Indeed. Tell me, I don’t recall, did Van Gogh paint a living room? he asked.
He favored the bedroom. Picasso as well, I responded, proudly knowing.
He smiled again, and again, a seductive smile, nearly lascivious and then I had a sudden tantalizing fantasy of the young man and I, our bodies entwined on a lush disheveled hotel room bed. I cannot recall the last time I felt a visceral reaction so strong, like lightning charging through intimate spaces, and certainly not toward a stranger.
Feeling more awkward by my own titillating lascivity, I peered around, as if expecting someone to join me, and then, not wanting to miss an opportunity, I returned my gaze to the young man who was watching me, waiting me out. I imagine the rooms here are quite elegant. Far more so than my humble hotel, I commented.
Not an air bnb? That seems the American way these days.
I prefer a hotel, more communal, and with a front desk if, if I need assistance, I stammered, like a hapless old woman.
In truth, coming late in life to solo travel, I am constantly on guard, albeit pained to be revealed so.
Google however provides primary support, 24/7, I added, to appear hipper than I am.
Indeed, he replied, nodding, then eyeing me all the more intently, as if calculating my worth, the way a collector considers a work of art. Not exactly predatory, although I felt uncomfortable being scrutinized quite so.
A different waitress, dressed the same, also plainly pretty, appeared and proudly presented a porcelain plate with a single-serving brown Bundt cake perched dead center, like a crown, dusted artfully with confectioners’ sugar. Dollops of Chantilly cream clung to the edges and ripe raspberries dotted the silver scalloped rim.
My companion, I thought of him now, nodded appreciatively, as she pressed a spoon into the heart of the cake, dark molten chocolate oozing to the plate, as sensual as mouthwatering.
Another plate and fork, please, the young man instructed, motioning to me.
Oh no, thank you, I protested, but he waved off my resistance and, when the plate arrived, cut the cake into two nearly identical slices and placed one on the extra plate, spooning melted chocolate over it, with a generous dollop of the cream, and then plopped two raspberries artfully on top.
A young man used to the good life, that much was certain.
Not wishing to be rude, and, truthfully, salivating over the luscious sweet, I accepted his offering with an appreciative smile.
The dissent of warm silky chocolate against crumbly cake was as good as anything I’ve tasted in a long time. I usually deny myself pastries because I can tolerate a modicum of caffeine or sugar, but in combination, my nervous system, perpetually on alert, shifts to hyper-vigilance, and then, with little provocation, to flight or fight mode. Something having to do, I am told, with an incessant maniacal news feed, as well as the often unrealistic demands placed on public school teachers, exacerbating a nearly lifelong responsibility for my brother, and, before him, until he passed, my father.
It is only in recent years, having found a safe place for Freddie to live, subsidized by the state and in the company of others who share his way of navigating the world, and now, my first study sabbatical, long overdue, I’m able to explore beyond my borders.
What brings you to Amsterdam? the young man asked, a spoon aloft in his hand, a bit of chocolate on his perfect lips.
Returning his gaze, I had a sudden disquieting thought: he could be my son. A student. Then, again, I thought, he could have been a lover, when I was young. There were a few, although none as handsome a specimen. What Luisa would refer to as dreamy. She had an active sex life and an active imagination and, despite efforts to control my imaginings, I could not help but picture skin taut across his broad shoulders. A rippled chest. Muscular legs. The rise of masculinity to fingers and lips.
Such a very long time since.
Luisa died last year, just sixty, from lung cancer. When I visited her at hospice, our last visit, she told me she would rather have enjoyed all her habits, including the smoking, than deny herself the greater pleasures of living. I thought then, and again today, while standing before Van Gogh’s self-portraits, how fortunate to live a life of one’s choosing.
We all choose, whether we acknowledge that or not, Luisa croaked that day, reading my mind, her voice weak, but assured, as always, in her convictions. You chose altruism.
Before I could find the words to defend myself, believing the choice had been out of my hands, she cupped my chin with her long bony fingers, cold to the touch despite the warmth of her affection. You made a choice for your brother, yes, but a choice for yourself as well.
Most of my life, I’ve believed people like Luisa, like Van Gogh or Manet or Picasso, and now, likely, this young man, chose their paths, convinced I was denied the privilege. Luisa, however, was right. A decision for the sake of others can be merely a way of avoiding the more formidable aspirations for ourselves.
The young man smiled, a smile inviting conversation beyond simply passing time, and, remembering Luisa, I relented to the desire to bond. I confessed my childhood attempt at portraits in charcoals gifted by my mother on my ninth birthday, a consolation, of a sort, when my so much younger brother was born, disrupting the family dynamic. I described long days in museums and galleries, long nights reading artists’ biographies or watching documentaries, envying their liberated lifestyles. And, I described the highlight of my work: the occasional student with real promise.
Now, at last, personal commitments put to rest, I said, without mentioning Freddie, as I never compromise his privacy, I am on the road to see the world’s finest art. That’s what brings me to Amsterdam, I concluded, certain I had revealed too much, and painfully aware of how conventional I am.
I assume you’ve already spent time in Paris? he inquired, perfunctorily, as if my revelation was typical, or predictable.
I started there. Three days at the D’Orsay. I stood rapt before Van Gogh’s Café Terrace at Night. This trip, this city, is like a fine chocolate dessert.
In emphasis, I took another bite of the cake, with a spoonful of the cream.
The young man turned somber. Vincent believed himself a nonentity. In one of his letters, he wrote that he was someone who had no position in society and never would have.
The lowest of the low, I quoted, familiar with that letter. All the letters.
The lowest of the low, he murmured.
Then, as if an automated reset from a trigger tucked beneath his facade, he cried out. Champagne with the chocolate!
He waved to a waitress to order a split.
It’s still light, I sputtered, embarrassed at once by such a plebian response.
Exactly, but not for long. The summation of the day begins with the summons of the night.
I was charmed by his poetic expression. The surrender to spontaneity.
Of course, I exclaimed, feigning sophistication.
Yes, of course I would take a sip, or two, why not? Why not enjoy fine food and drink in a fine place with a fine young man?
Another waitress returned with champagne flutes and the bottle on a silver tray. Previously corked, for the sake of decorum, no doubt, she poured the golden liquid into the tapered glasses crafted for it, the splendor of that color like Van Gogh’s wheat fields.
To the delight of the drawing room, my companion toasted, his cheerful demeanor restored.
We clinked and sipped, bubbles coating my throat like sand after a languorous beach day, and we continued chatting, savoring the sweet, bite by bite, the way I savor museum art, painting by painting, sipping the bubbly like brush strokes, until I detected a buzz, pleasing and assuasive, and far more satisfying than a stale croissant chomped alone in a cramped hotel room.
The young man held the bottle aloft and I shook my head no, so he poured the last drops into his glass and drank, and then, when every morsel of the sweet was gone, he licked the last drop of cream off the spoon and I smiled, sharing the delight of this small measure of abandon.
When his phone rang, he nodded to me, apologetically, and stood, to remove himself from our tables for the sake of discretion, I assumed, and as he walked away, I noticed a slight unravelling at the back hem of his sweater, mostly hidden by the darkcolored pants, also a bit of bagging at the butt of his pants. Not new clothes, I realized, and not quite as perfectly put together as on first sight. A young man who has perhaps manufactured an image, as many of us do at one time or another.
Pretense or ambition? I wondered then, as I looked up to a large round golden wall clock, rays of its sun ticking away the hours as darkness slowly descended beyond Palladian windows. Guests were returning from work or play, the lobby filling now with the fashionably elite. Fine silk scarves wrapped their necks. Wool coats and jackets draped the back of their chairs. Designer leather handbags and attaché cases lay at their feet. A din settled in, animating what had been a hush, more like a museum than a hotel, and now, as he described, a communal living room.
The young man stood at the far end of the lobby, slightly turned away from me, phone to his ear and nodding, now and then. I sipped the last drop of champagne and waited, anticipating with delight a return to genial conversation. Further flirtation. At the very least, I wanted to express my appreciation for the sweet.
To pass time, and to appear less conspicuous just sitting there, I pulled out my phone to scan the map. Five minutes passed, a few more, and when I looked up in his direction, he was out of sight, as if he’d been a figment of my imagination all along.
A busboy arrived to clear the tables and the waitress placed the bill at mine. Not the first time, she whispered.
I leaned back against the seat cushion and sighed, dejected, surprised, although not astonished. A Manet, after all: a dashing opportunist, more, or less, than he appears to be. Perhaps, a tourist-serving gigolo, awaiting the summons, while assessing an obviously lonely woman as an alternative target.
Luisa’s spirit returned to me. You were suckered by a charmer, so what? Chocolate, champagne, sexual chemistry… a wonderful way to while away an afternoon!
Her words in mind, I paid the bill, nodded my thanks to the waitress as if no matter at all and exited the hotel, slowly making my way through the encompassing darkness.
Back to the main thoroughfare and to my room in the modest district on the other side of town. Back to where I belong.