She was flattered he remembered their time together in such detail. Either his memory was sharper than hers, or their relationship had meant more to him.
“Do you remember the time you rode too close to the edge of the canal and almost fell in? You never did have a good sense of balance. Did you have a good journey? Was the airport busy?” Ruben listed so many more things they’d shared, and fired off so many questions, it was like he’d written an encyclopedia about their time together and studied it before meeting her. Carla was left opening and shutting her mouth as she tried to keep up with his words. It was easier to nod and pretend she remembered everything, too.
“First of all, our bicycle ride,” Ruben announced, pointing to a line of bikes. “Let us begin.”
They rode through the streets together for an hour or more, passing many arched bridges and brightly hued houseboats. She’d forgotten how the city had a deep, rich mud aroma from the canals and she kept getting a whiff of the cannabis on offer in the legalized coffee shops.
“This is wonderful, isn’t it?” Ruben called to her over his shoulder. “It is like we have never been apart.”
“Yes, it is,” she panted, struggling to keep up as she wiped sweat from her brow.
He pointed out street art and hidden churches and skirted the edge of the infamous red-light district, explaining how the city had thrived in the seventeenth century from its trading of fish, wood, corn, grapes and spices.
It was fascinating for sure, but Carla’s stomach started to cramp, and her leg tendons felt stretched to snapping point.
Ruben indicated they should park their bikes at the end of a pretty, red-brick bridge and he took out his phone. He directed her with precise instructions on where to stand. “A little left, hoor, a little right. Is that okay? Please move back a little.”
Carla smiled until her jaw ached. When he suggested they ask a passerby to take shots of them both together, she’d finally had enough. She looked around her and pointed to a cute café over his shoulder. “That place looks pretty. Shall we get that coffee?”
Ruben frowned and looked at his watch. “We are only one-third of the way through our tour.”
“It’s easier to talk when we’re not moving,” Carla gently assured him. “I came here to see you, not the scenery.”
Her compliment brought a smile to his lips. “Yes, of course you are right. We shall do whatever you like.”
They found a table and he pulled out her chair for her, just like he always had. Carla used to find it thoughtful and attentive. Now it felt a bit odd and performative.
Ruben perused the menu. “I will have the bruine bonensoep, a brown bean soup. Shall I order for both of us?”
Carla tried not blow out her cheeks. Had she actually let him order her food in the past? “I’m craving something sweet, so would prefer pancakes.”
“I assure you the soup will taste very delicious and is a good source of protein.”
Carla tried not to feel irritated and caught a waitress’s eye. “May I order pancakes and a latte, please?”
The waitress smiled and tapped out their orders on her keypad.
Ruben’s left cheek twitched and he sat back in his chair. “Have you thought about me often over the years, as I have done with you? I shall tell you more about my endeavors and then I can learn more about you.” He cleared his throat and spoke as if reading his CV aloud. “After we parted, I completed my master’s degree and then progressed to undertake a PhD on the confines of selfhood. I am now the director of Sociology at one of the best institutes in Europe that ranks in the top one hundred globally. I was once engaged to a fellow academic. However, we found our research was more important than our relationship. I am still a bachelor,” he said, holding Carla’s gaze to emphasize his last point.
“That’s very...impressive,” Carla replied, unsure if he was boasting or just stating facts. “I personally graduated from the University of Life with a first-class honors degree.”
He stared at her for a moment, her words seeming to mangle his computer of a brain. “Perhaps this is a joke?” He forced an unnatural short laugh. “Yes, I think it must be.”
Carla wondered if anyone ever teased him, or if he had a sense of humor at all. “Yes, it was a joke. I didn’t go back to university after my travels.”
“That is a great shame. I am sorry to hear this,” Ruben said solemnly, as if she’d just announced someone had died.
Carla left out a nervous chuckle. “Don’t be sorry. I learned more from setting up my own business than anything I could have learned at college.”
“What does your business entail?”
She sat up straight and proud. “I help cautious people find love, using a set of unique questions and algorithms.”
Ruben steepled his fingers together, his eyebrows knitting as he tried to work out if this was another joke or not. “A scientific endeavor to capitalize on emotion and the need for human contact, and monetarizing it? This is most interesting. It sounds like you took influence from Maslow’s hierarchy of needs.” He nodded, prompting her to enter into a debate with him.
In the past, Carla would have tried to answer in a way that might impress him, welcoming a linguistic version of tennis. She’d once been in awe of this knowledgeable older man, but their age gap no longer seemed that alluring. “The idea originated from my terrible divorce,” she said flatly. “I wanted to help other people find a better match than mine.”
“And surely also from the 1943 ‘Theory of Human Motivation,’ no? Humans may think they are looking for a partner, but really their needs are Maslow’s third, fourth and fifth levels of love, esteem and self-actualization. Don’t you think your clients need to look inward as well as outward?”
Carla considered his question. Was she herself looking outward, physically trying to find a man from her past, when she should be exploring her own intuition more? Her hunger made it a theory too deep to contemplate in a café and she was glad when the waitress set down their plates and coffees. Carla leaned over and inhaled the smell of the pancakes. “Gosh, these look fantastic. I could eat a horse,” she said.
Ruben gaped at her, as if he’d suddenly found he was dining with a stranger. He adjusted the angle of his knife, fork and spoon so they were perfectly aligned, and draped a napkin across his lap. “Perhaps I have overwhelmed you with information?” he asked quietly.
“Not at all.” Carla ate a piece of pancake and closed her eyes at its heavenly taste. “Your curious and searching mind might have helped to inspire my business.”
Ruben’s face lit up. “It did?”
She nodded. “I believe that the probability of people meeting their best match organically and by chance is very low. I calculated that introducing a range of specific questions and algorithms directly enhanced a positive outcome.”
“Absolutely,” Ruben agreed, his eyebrows lifting with delight at the sound of her scientific words. “I also believe that humans match through a range of other attractions other than physical attributes.”
“Precisely,” she said, and he beamed ever more.
“What would you like to do this evening, dear Carla? I believe the Electric Tram Museum is most interesting. Or perhaps the Body Worlds exhibition? It features bodies donated to science that have been plasticized for education and entertainment purposes. Or...” He hesitated and cleared his throat. “We could watch a foreign language film in my apartment. I have a very good bottle of red wine and a fine selection of cheese. You would be most welcome to stay overnight, too, if you should like?”
Carla swallowed uncomfortably, realizing that he may have construed their “elevated” conversation as foreplay. In the past, she’d managed to avoid invitations to his bedroom, afraid he might pepper her with questions in there, too.
She looked around her quickly, trying to find something else to focus on, and grabbed a tourist booklet off a nearby table. “This looks interesting,” she said, glad to see it was translated into several languages. She leafed through it, hoping to find something that wasn’t trams, bodies or Ruben’s bedroom.
