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Just Give Us Your Keys My bike leaned against a bakery store window. The man ahead of me pointed to my map and asked where I was going. The man ahead of him spoke English and translated while he showed me a good route along secondary roads. When I reached the counter I asked for a loaf of whole wheat bread. She grabbed a white loaf off a high shelf and as she put it into the slicer I said "No." The fellow who spoke English saw the white bread and said, "You asked for whole wheat didn't you?" "Yes... that's not what I'm getting, is it?" He spoke to the girl in Flemish, then turned to me, "It's coming." It was good to have friends. Exiting the bakery with my loaf of brood the man was waiting outside and asked if I needed water. We still had enough so I declined his kind offer. Sharon was waiting across the street by the church. She had wanted to look inside, but it was locked. I told her about the guy asking if we needed water. "Did you ask him if he could make it in the form of a shower?" We headed north along secondary roads, dead into a howler of a wind. Most had a bike lane adjacent to the road that kept us from being blown into traffic. We struggled to the Dutch border and took refuge behind the deserted border crossing station. Across the highway, the Belgian station had been converted to a gas bar and restaurant with a money exchange. We ate, then fiddled with my clicking pedal (to no avail) waiting hopefully for the wind to die down -- or better yet, change direction. No such luck. It would likely blow that way when we returned. A few drops of rain fell. A solitary cyclist on a one speed clunker laboured past in painful revolutions -- his upper body lurched forward with each pedal stroke applying pressure. Across the way a trucker meeting was taking place. They honked their air horns and pulled out onto the highway in one long, steady stream. I was glad they didn't have to pass us. That would have beat our Spanish record for number of trucks in a row. The legendary bike paths of Holland began. We followed the well marked route reading Rotterdam. Sometimes the path paralleled the freeway with only a low hedge between us and cars; other times it meandered through fields or turned off to go through a town. It was better than having to constantly worry about cars. Where trees lined the path it was quite sheltered. A father-son combo approached us from the opposite direction. They flew by, the wind pushing at their backs. It was the same pair who had passed us the night before in Belgium. It was May 13, Mom's birthday. I wanted to call Dad to get Mom's phone number at the hospital. Turning off the bike path we took a small road to a marina. A phone was conveniently situated by the dock. We pulled in through the open sliding bars that secured the grounds after hours. From the harbour, a man with greasy hands walked towards us . "You looking for a boat back to Canada?" he joked. "I thought I would phone first and make sure it's still there," I replied. After talking to us for a couple of minutes he said, "I would normally invite you for supper, but I've been invited to my sister-in-law's birthday party." "Just give us your keys," I jested. "Where are you staying tonight?" he asked. "Haven't got a clue. Maybe around here," I said, pointing to Dordrecht on my map. "I live in Dordrecht." "Do you have a small backyard for our tent?" "No. I live in a flat." "Isn't all of Holland flat?" I asked. Reasonably, he ignored my remark. "You can sleep in the living room and put your bikes in the kitchen." he decided. "Or else they will go missing. I won't be home until ten. But with this wind it will probably take you that long to get there anyway. It's Force seven today." "What does Force seven mean?" I asked. "It means it's windy." "Gee, I hadn't noticed." "I don't go out sailing if it's higher than six." "How high does it go?" I wanted to know. "Twelve." "You mean this is half?" I pondered what a Force twelve must be like. We would still be in Belgium. He wrote his name and address on the back of a coupon and handed it to me: "W. van Verseveld...." "William?" I asked. "No. The other one. Walter," he said. "Which you would have got on your second guess since that's all the W names." "Wendy," I said helpfully. With trepidation I approached the phone booth. European phones and me hadn't been getting along. And I had neither coins nor a phone card. I figured I would try my Belgium coins first and when that didn't work I'd ask someone in the marina for change. Incredibly, the instructions on the phone were in English. It accepted credit cards as well as phone cards. To make an overseas call without either, it instructed, just push the button marked special functions and follow the directions on the screen. I did, and a list of alphabetized countries appeared. I scrolled to Canada and pushed the button next to it. The phone automatically dialed and an operator's voice said: "Welcome to Canada." Slick. Why couldn't other countries be so phone friendly? I placed my call collect. Walter said that was some birthday present, but typical of kids. Being in the wee hours of the morning in Canada, Dad answered in a tone that sounded as if he had been horse drugged. Mom had just finished her fourth chemo treatment and he had been at the hospital half the night. Mom had been doing well. She was putting on weight and had gone from a skeletal eighty pounds to a whopping ninety-three. Someone must have been slipping contraband in to supplement that hospital food. I told Dad that I would phone next on June 21 so he could wish me Happy Birthday. Mom's sixth chemo was scheduled for June 23. She expected to be home by the end of June. Dad said he would wish Mom Happy Birthday and Happy Mother's Day for us. We were fifteen kilometers from Dordrecht. I went into the marina to get water. The toilet bowl was like none I had ever seen. There was a shelf before the exit hole where one's poo would sit for a self-satisfactory examination before the flush. Interesting. I envisioned mine would look like a Snicker's bar from all the ones I had eaten lately. Arriving in Dordrecht we saw an info board with the town map. We looked up Walter's street address and charted a route, arriving at his place at eight. His building was a row of flats three stories high facing a small canal. I assumed the parking at the end of the street was for tenants, but they were all filled. If Walter was at his brother's, I figured at least one should be empty. "Maybe they have underground parking," Sharon suggested. "It'd be more like underwater parking," I said, glancing at the canal. "Did you notice what kind of car Walter drove?" I asked. "Nope." "How about a license plate number then?" I began to think Sharon was getting lax in the observation department. "I'm going to check if he's home," I said. "Maybe he's back already. He did say he wasn't in the good books with his brother and sister-in-law since his divorce." ("You're a beast," his brother had told him. "But she left me," Walter had responded.) Consequently, he wasn't fond of going there. Walter lived on the top floor. Just our luck. We would have to lug our bikes up all those stairs. I grasped the handrail and pulled myself up the first of three flights of steep stairs. I knocked on the door. In a few seconds Walter came to the door rubbing his eyes. Seeing me he glanced furtively at this watch. "I fell asleep," he said. "I still have to go to my sister-in laws. Is that right? Sister-in-laws?" I thought it was going to be sister-in-outlaws. As if he wasn't already on their shit list. "Maybe they'll throw me a hamburger on the front steps," he said, grabbing his coat. Walter handed us a city map and pointed out a couple spots to see. He hopped in his car, "I'll be back at ten." We went to the sites Walter had indicated. They probably would have been more appealing if it wasn't freezing cold and a strong wind. I checked my thermometer: Four degrees Celsius. The big church had four gold-faced clocks on its tower. We rode along canals looking at boats moored in the middle of downtown. The downtown area was deserted. It was like we were in a huge open air museum after it had closed. The streets were brick, cobble, or a mixture of the two. We saw some captivating views of buildings lining the canals. Walter had told us Dordrecht was the oldest city in Holland. It had charm. The building facades were ancient, but looking through windows I could see modern interiors. We passed a bank machine and stopped to make a withdrawal. Since the phone had been so easy, I didn't expect any problems with the auto teller. My Visa card wouldn't work. And my Mastercard was still expired. We tried two other banks with the same result. Oh well. The next day, being Sunday, nothing was going to be open anyway and we had enough food to carry us over the weekend. Several people spoke to us. It was noticeably friendlier than Belgium. It helped that they spoke English. Sharon complained about being cold. I had put on my rain coat and figured I would probably survive. Sharon lamented: "I wish we had just set the tent up in that little patch of trees we saw." The other day she had complained that all we did was set up the tent night after night and never did anything different. "I thought you wanted to do something different?" I reminded her. "Freezing to death isn't what I had in mind," she shot back. Sharon spied a small cafe. Through the pane glass windows we saw overstuffed chairs and romantic little tables. It looked cozy. "Let's go in here," Sharon said. "It looks like my kind of place." The door opened and a puff of blue marijuana smoke drifted out. Sharon changed her mind. "Oh come on," I teased. "It's your kind of place." We happened upon the train station and could have gone inside to warm up, but we were numb anyway and it was almost ten. We turned around and tried to relocate Walter's. Where was that church clock tower again? Arriving outside Walter's building we noticed his car hadn't returned. I pulled out a Snicker's bar and took a bite. Walter pulled up. He checked his ground level storage room to see if we would be able to squeeze our bikes in there, but decided it would take a month of Sundays to reorganize the jumble. He had a balcony on the third floor. I told Sharon I would catch the bikes if she threw them up to me. We hauled the bikes up the steep stairs. Sharon on handlebars, Walter and I on trombone. Walter's baggage handling career was short lived when he bent his thumbnail completely back. I decided to unload my bike before bringing it up. Inside the flat we leaned our bikes against Walter's computer table. There was a floor to ceiling window in the living room with a small table and two chairs overlooking the canal. Drapes hung in graceful horizontal accordion folds. A steel mesh lamp was interspersed with mini Christmas lights twinkling at random intervals. "I made it," Walter said, noticing me admiring it. Walter worked for a steel company. He used to travel extensively in Mexico and Brazil. "I've lived in the flat for two years officially, but I've only been here about five months. I used to own a house by the marina, but I sold it after my divorce." Forty-four year old Walter had three kids. His oldest daughter was nineteen, another sixteen, and his son was fourteen. They lived with his ex. Walter had been kicking around the idea of sailing around the world. But he hadn't committed yet. Walter struck me as the kind of guy who, once he said he was going to do something, he did it. "What do you miss most?" he asked. "Hot showers," I said. "Family and friends," Sharon added. "I've talked to a lot of people who have sailed around the world and they say loneliness is the biggest problem -- especially if they go solo." "It must be expensive to sail around the world," Sharon said. "Oh, no," Walter replied. "The one I've talked to did it for $10,000 a year." "That's less than our food bill," I told him. "They catch a lot of seafood," Walter said. "And they wouldn't eat as much as you because their energy output wouldn't be as high." Walter went to the fridge and returned with three Lentebok beers -- his current favourite -- made in Belgium. "Heineken is good," he allowed. "But people have drank too much Heineken and are tired of it." Walter sliced a light sausage and dug out crackers and a French cheese spread. Shortly it was 1:30 a.m. "You should have a shower soon as I want to go to bed," Walter said. "And three in the shower is a little crowded." "You go first," Sharon said to Walter, thinking he would then be able to go to bed while we showered. "Thank you," he replied. "But there may be a problem. The shower is in my bedroom." Sharon went first. Walter and I looked out the window. Cyclists were still going by. "All hours -- all the time," Walter said. Sharon and I laid out our mats on the living room floor. "You can stop the pendulum if you wish," Walter said pointing to the clock. We left the ticking and put in ear plugs instead. |
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