As we began to land in Amsterdam, the pilot put on “Queen Jane Approximately,” and for twenty years I’ve wondered why that song, why Amsterdam, why I loved that girl who asked me why I wore those jeans, that sinister expression. The world has not collapsed, she said, as we dodged the bikers …

  There’s a man so willing to sell alarm clocks—like a teenager focused on sex—that he lets them buzz all day on the sidewalk ledge for the passersby. I think, the batteries are draining. I think, his wife, in one of these buildings that surround us, crochets washcloths and listens to the radio, a cat …