The Art of Disappearing by Ivy Pochoda (top non fiction books of all time TXT) 📗

the gray clouds blow across the gabled buildings opposite.

“Maybe our next stop is a snowy place. That would suit me perfectly.”

Toby turned from the window. “Of course it would, Mel Snow. But I don’t think there’s much call for a magician in Finland or the Arctic.”

“Magic doesn’t have to drive the train.”

Toby returned his gaze to the window. With a finger he traced the pathway of a droplet as it slid down the windowpane. “I guess not,” he said after a moment. Then he hit his hand against the glass, scattering the drops. “Want to see something green?”

“What are you going to do?”

“It doesn’t always have to be magic, does it?”

“Certainly not,” I said, letting Toby lift me out of bed.

We dressed and headed outside. Out on the street, Toby offered me a new angora scarf and an umbrella.

“You come prepared,” I said, wrapping up.

“Always.”

“Where are we going?”

He didn’t answer.

We walked to the end of Piet’s street and began to wind our way through his tangled neighborhood. Soon the elegant houses gave way to modern flats whose façades pretended a historic authenticity. We crossed a large canal and waited in front of Amsterdam’s largest parking garage for the tram. The wet air had condensed into a light rain—a noncommittal spray that brushed against our faces and settled on our hair. The inside of the tram was streaked with footprints, remnants of an early-morning rainstorm. The hinged carriages creaked and squealed over the wet rails as the rainy city smells came in through the doors. We headed east across the Amstel River, which was shrouded in a mist that rose up to meet the falling rain. At the next stop, Toby pulled me from the tram and into the rain, which had upped its tempo.

“Only a short walk,” he assured me.

“How do you know where you’re going?” I asked.

We crossed a sleepy canal that was being tickled and refreshed by the fat raindrops. We passed the hibernating zoo with its lingering scent of hay and wet fur. I kept my hand inside Toby’s, enjoying the warmth of his fingers. We crossed the street and stood in front of a black gate that joined two white buildings.

“The Hortus Bontanicus,” Toby announced.

“The botanical gardens?”

“Of course. Where else could we see something green?”

As soon as the turnstile clicked into place behind us, the sounds of the city evaporated—the rattle and squeal of the trams, the splash of car tires crashing through puddles, the whir of bicycles and the sharp ring of their bells. The gardens, which were no bigger than a playing field, had been designed to obscure the city that ran along their edges. Small paths wound through stooped trees that hummed with life. Our feet crunched over the gravel, disrupting the glassy silence of the small park.

“This way,” Toby said, leading me to a row of three narrow greenhouses.

He parted a rubber curtain, and we stepped inside. The damp chill of the air gave way to a tropical warmth that hugged our faces and caught in our throats. The greens in the misty interior were as dark as the deepest forest, as pale as the oldest sea glass, as electrifying as the harshest chemical. I breathed deeply to fill my lungs. Then the trees began to shake and tremble as an explosion of butterflies burst from their leaves. We threaded our way along the narrow path at the edge of the small greenhouse, watching the butterflies as they sucked nectar, danced among the trees, slept on the undersides of branches. All the colors that had been drained from the Dutch city sprang to life. They vibrated and shook. By the time we emerged from the greenhouse, having let the butterflies deposit farewell kisses on our necks, Toby’s face had smoothed into a smile. I took his hand and led him into the next greenhouse.

On either side of a path, thousands of cacti were stacked so high that they blocked the light from the windows. Some of them were minuscule, no bigger than my fingers, while others had towering tentacles with threatening spikes. It was as if Toby and I had stepped back in time, to the remarkable climate that had somehow drawn us together. The heat was the same: static and dry. The silence was the same: undisturbed by the quiet gaze of thousands of prickly plants.

I opened my mouth, letting the artificial heat fill my lungs. We didn’t speak as we examined the cacti’s confident poses and listened to their stagey silences. The plants were old. They had guarded their secrets for decades, not yielding to the scalding warmth or the scratchy soil. They seemed to be watching us with their needle-eyes, quietly confirming the match they had made in the desert months ago.

“Incredible,” Toby whispered as we stepped out into the chilly air. “So warm.”

We continued along a sand-colored path, ducking underneath the drooping branches of a weeping tree, and arrived in a small courtyard with an enormous glass atrium.

“I think we’re the only people here,” I said.

“I hope so,” Toby muttered.

I followed him up a set of stairs that led to a walkway forty feet above the greenhouse floor. We made our way through three climates—the familiar scorch of the desert, the wet burn of the tropics, and the searing humidity of the subtropics. Here the plants and trees came in shapes wilder than anything Toby’s hands might have conjured. All the patterns missing from the disorderly city appeared in the tripartite greenhouse—the veins spidering out over the rich green leaves, the perfect coils of bark winding around the exotic trees, the petals immaculately dispersed on the tiniest flowers.

I followed Toby out of the greenhouse toward an enormous glass structure as elegant as the palm trees arching toward its domed glass ceiling. We went up a wrought-iron staircase to a vertiginous semicircular walk through the tops of the palms. The trees grew thick and dense, often obscuring the path. I clung to the railing.

“The palms are so silent,” Toby