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‘Two days ago.’

‘You’re doing a tour! Where?’

‘In Rotterdam. Cycles like crazy. Has a Pegoretti with gold leaf on it and a thirty-five-year-old Anglo-Russian girlfriend.’

‘Jesus,’ said Joost. ‘Jesus Christ Almighty… Anything else?’

‘No.’

‘Beer. A very large pilsener. It just goes to show, Pol, we haven’t seen each other for far too long.’

‘You’re right, Tuur. And one more thing. That girlfriend of André’s, that Ludmilla, is the spitting image of Laura.’

-

VI

I gazed at the short blond hair of Marga Sap in front of me. A gold chain glittered through it. She was wearing a tight black sweater and I had to restrain myself not to stroke her neck with one finger.

It was the end of August 1978, Gerrie Knetemann had just become world champion, and Karel Giesma the maths teacher was talking about p-adic numbers. I tried to make myself invisible in order to avoid questions. The dark universe in which he moved was not mine.

Next to me, Joost was adding moustaches and glasses to the pop musicians in his diary—most of them already had moustaches anyway. He also drew in text balloons. He was bored, and Giesma couldn’t tell him anything new. Joost was one of those people for whom the logic of numbers and lines held no secrets. He read Pythagoras Magazine.