I had been on the road for a week, though it felt like a month.
“Interpol,” Alain had said, looking troubled.
“Yes, Interpol has an office in Paris where they spend all day tracking down runaway boys like you,” Dave added cheerfully.
Suddenly I understood why Alain no longer wanted me on the boat.
We made one last round of the terraces in Saint-Tropez. The next day I had to leave. Dave sang that terribly corny song Yesterday, which seemed to be playing everywhere that summer. All I could think about was tomorrow. I would much rather have stayed a little longer with this agreeable bunch of misfits on the boat. The feeling sat in my stomach like a lump of stone, the kind that washes up along the banks of the Old Meuse, slick and heavy.
I have just stepped out of an oily truck. The stinking thing made a noise like a Boeing 727 with engine trouble. To lubricate my vocal cords, I buy a family-sized bottle of cola, honestly paid for with troubadour francs earned in Saint-Tropez.
It is a sunny autumn day on the Mediterranean. A sharp wind drives from the town toward the sea. I am the only person on the boulevard.
I usually sense trouble long before it arrives, even when everyone around me is busy smearing themselves with factor-50 sunscreen. So, I am not surprised when, out of nowhere, a blue police van drives straight toward me. The driver slams on the brakes the moment I enter his field of vision.
I walk past with the expression of a casual passer-by, as if my presence deserves no particular attention. That takes little effort. I am very good at pretending not to belong to my surroundings, rather like a cat returning after three days away, calmly ignoring its overenthusiastic owner.
I flick my Gauloise away behind my back; smoking makes me look suspicious straight away. The stone in my stomach grows heavier. It suddenly dawns on me that I may be doing something illegal, and that my name might well appear on some list of wanted persons. Perhaps I am less invisible than I think. Alain must have realised that too when he told me it would be better if I moved on. Nobody wants trouble with the police.
One of the officers calls out from the van. Yes, he is calling me over, I understand that. But I don’t believe in making things too easy for people. The officer makes as if to step out. Two more policemen sit in the back, straight out of a Tintin album, eyeing me suspiciously above identical moustaches. Training, I suppose.
“Passeport, s’il vous plaît,” the officer says.
His eyes move back and forth between my passport and my face. He squeezes out a look of suspicion and asks whether I am really sixteen. I say oui, playing along with the little performance. You never know whether an officer is waiting for something that isn’t actually written down.
At that moment the plastic cap on the cola bottle pops loose under the pressure of the warmed-up carbonation and shoots against the ceiling of the van. The officers look as though they think I am mocking them.
To distract attention I explain, as casually as possible and in my best school French, that I am on holiday with my parents, who are staying somewhere over there. I wave vaguely toward the mountains. How do you wave casually outside when inside you are rigid with tension?
With great seriousness the officer produces a dog-eared bundle of papers. Liste des personnes recherchées, I read. Once again, he studies my passport and compares my details with the curling pages. I watch his fingers move down the names.
Over his shoulder I look out at the sea. The waves roll in a rhythm quite different from those at home on the North Sea.
“Why don’t you go outside for once,” I hear my mother say. “You sit indoors all day.”
The officer seems unable to grasp that my surname begins with a Z, because he keeps starting over from the beginning of the list. I begin to hope it hasn’t been updated yet; after all, I haven’t been away from the Netherlands that long.
I try not to watch his hands and let my gaze drift outside, like someone waiting for a metro train.
He is not satisfied. He asks whether I have any money. I take the last few francs from my pocket and drop them casually onto the table, as if there were plenty more where that came from.
Then the cola cap launches itself again with another loud pop.
“Ohlala,” says the officer, apparently the least bureaucratic of the three. A restrained grin spreads among them.
“Allez. Descendez-vous. Au revoir.”
As I stand up, I hit my head.
I feel like diving into the Mediterranean, like those New Year swimmers relieved to have survived another year, or happy because they can finally look ahead.
But I would be the only one on this windy day.
I avoid empty boulevards.