Chapter Two
Roos
I’ve always loved Amsterdam in autumn. It’s not a city that stays uncomfortably hot in summer – maybe only for a few weeks – but regardless, I’m still grateful for the fresh air that the new season brings.
The slight chill I feel has me pulling at the neck of my coat, all while keeping my other hand on my bike’s handlebars, but I welcome it.
Just like I welcome the leaves changing colour from green to yellow to orange and red, and how this time of day – early evening – gives everything a golden hue.
Perhaps my love of autumn has something to do with my childhood growing up on a farm surrounded by fields and trees and plants, which all changed so dramatically at this time of year.
I miss it. I miss home. Sometimes, I even miss my family too.
Maybe I should turn my bike around and go back to my apartment so I can call my parents and find out if they still don’t want to speak to me?
Maybe even that terrifying prospect would be a smarter way to spend my time.
As devastating as I suspect it could be – my father shouting at me, my mother hanging up on me – it would still stop me from doing what I know is a big mistake.
But I’m starting to think I have a thing for red flags. I’m starting to wonder if I’m like a bull and have to run towards them, rather than scampering away like somebody more sensible than me.
I try not to dwell on the reasons why as I hop off my bike and lock it to the iron railings lining the bridge over the canal.
I give myself two deep breaths to change my mind, to walk away from what I’m about to do, but I am not in the least bit surprised when I start making my way to the art gallery before the second exhale has left my body.
It’s not that I think Lex will be here. I’m almost certain xe won’t be.
The last I heard through mutual friends, xe is still travelling, enjoying warmer weather and cheaper rent and likely several new lovers.
Xe hasn’t posted anything on social media since we broke up, but that’s not new.
I haven’t dared to call xir number to find out if I’m blocked. I imagine I am.
But I want to see xir art. This collection, especially. Xe worked on it while we were together. Xe spoke of it obsessively at times, and xe shared glimpses of it when xe was feeling generous or extra confident, or both. I want to come and see the butterflies.
I’m allowed to come and see the butterflies. I’m allowed to come and admire art that I feel I was a part of, albeit on the fringe, the sideline, the outside.
This gives me some confidence to hold my head up high as I step inside the gallery.
It’s noticeably warmer inside, and the vast room glows with thoughtfully placed spotlights on the paintings that are on the first few walls.
There are a handful of people further inside the space, and one of them breaks from the others and approaches me.
Dressed all in black, with round tortoiseshell glasses and a tight, high bun that reminds me of a ballet dancer’s, the woman looks like the very cliché of an art gallery employee.
I smile at her, and she holds out a hand.
“Marjolein Kuiper,” she says in Dutch. “I’m the gallery’s chief curator.”
“Oh, hi,” I stammer. “I’m Roos. And I’m just an art fan who was cycling by.”
Marjolein gives me an assessing look that teeters on the edge of being cold, but then she releases my hand and softens her stare with a smile. “Well, please, take a look around.”
She walks back to the group of people, who presumably are a more likely sale.
Maybe it’s what I’m wearing. My jeans haven’t been washed in weeks because I recently read you’re not supposed to wash denim, and my Converse have seen better days.
She can’t see the sweatshirt under my wool jacket, so she can’t judge me on that.
As soon as I think that, the heat inside makes me realise it would be nice to take a layer off, but then I would look even more like a scruff.
And then I would probably, stupidly, explain my casual attire with the fact I work for a charity, and then she’d be even more suspicious of why I’m here.
I keep my jacket on, and I make my way deeper into the space. Once I pass the group of people, I see Lex’s collection. I see it, and I audibly gasp.
It’s huge. Taking up the space of two or three other paintings, it’s hard to take in the full width of the main piece.
As I step back so I can try and do so, I see xir other accompanying pieces on the wall behind me.
I glance at them quickly, smiling at their vague familiarity, but it’s the main piece that commands my attention.
Hundreds, possibly thousands of Monarch butterflies are scattered across a white canvas background.
Each one is so intricate you could stare at it for hours and still find new details, but when you zoom out and see countless ones surrounding it, each one poised as if in mid-flight – wings at varying angles – the mind starts to spin.
I know Lex would know how many there are. I know Lex would show me the scars xe earned from making each and every one.
What makes it all the more remarkable is that each one is made from fabric.
Discarded fabric. From materials that made fast fashion.
Cottons and acrylics and polyesters and maybe even some wool that Lex found in fabric recycling centres.
Material that xe saved from going to the global south, where it would be dumped.
The piece is called Migration.
“Did you know no other creature on this planet travels as far as the Monarch butterfly?” xe asked me on one of our first dates, if you could call them that. “And that they’re poisonous.”
I’d struggled to believe that. How could something so beautiful be so toxic?
“As caterpillars, they eat milkweed, which has a slightly poisonous sap, and that makes them taste bad for some predators, thus reducing the number of potential threats,” Lex had explained.
That had been one fact too far, but Lex was not stopping.
“That’s why they’re so brightly coloured. Their golden orange wings are a warning sign.”
I sigh to myself now, thinking of the irony of Lex, the most beautiful person I have ever seen, telling me this.
Xe was obsessed with Monarch butterflies for months, and this artwork stretching out before me, a blur of orange and black and white when I let my eyes lose focus for a moment, is a physical representation of that obsession.
Annoyingly, I love it. Just as I still love xem.
Not that xe deserves it, my love for xem or for xir art.
“It’s quite remarkable, isn’t it?” Marjolein sidles up out of nowhere, taking me by surprise.
“It’s… Yes, it is.”
“It’s supposed to represent the journey of fast fashion. From the factories of the Global South, to our shops on the high street in Western nations, and then ultimately returning to Africa and Asia, where the materials – many of which are toxic – are dumped.”
I know, I want to scream. We talked about it for hours when we first fell in love.
“Very interesting,” I mumble instead.
The warmth in the gallery is starting to feel stuffy, like the lights up above are beaming down directly on me. I undo the buttons of my jacket but stop taking it off when Marjolein gives me another frosty look.
“The smaller pieces on the wall behind you may also be of interest,” she indicates.
Because of course a woman like me can’t afford this large piece. I glance quickly at the small text on one side of the Migration art. 75,000 Euros.
Godverdomme, Lex.
She’s right, I can’t afford it. I probably can’t afford any of the smaller pieces either.
The heat increases and I have the very real and very sudden urge to be outside, in the cool dusk air, away from Marjolein’s cold stare and Lex’s fantastic, fantastic art.
“Excuse me,” I mumble, and then I walk swiftly away, keeping my head bowed as I leave the gallery. I have the door in my sights, and I reach out a hand to open it, but when I expect the brass doorknob to touch my skin, nothing happens.
And then everything happens.
The door jolts open and hits me in the face, square on the forehead. A blinding pain has me closing my eyes, and a fear of blood has my hands rushing up to cover my face, eyes squeezed closed.
“Oh, fuck!” somebody exclaims, possibly me.
Hands are on my elbows, and I’m moved slightly to the side.
“Fuck, that hurts,” I say in English or Dutch, I have no clue.
“Shit, I’m so sorry,” somebody says, the person holding my elbows. They’re definitely speaking English. “Are you alright?”
“Yes. No. Fuck, I don’t know.”
“Everything okay?” Marjolein’s voice comes from further away.
In one big flood of sensations, I’m aware of my heat again, the stuffiness of the room, the way Lex’s art makes me feel, the way I miss xem so much, the way it still hurts so much that xe left me the way xe did.
And fuck, my head… It feels like my forehead is splitting open.
“Get me out of here,” I say in English to the person holding my elbows. “Please get me out of here.”
“Okay,” they say, and with my hands still covering my eyes, I let them lead me outside.