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dead from happiness. Mother stared with fascination at the water. Even in her wildest soap opera fantasies, she had never imagined such luxury as we now enjoyed atHotel Europa: two-room suites with balconies and a view over the canal, bright lounges and sleeping quarters with mahogany beds, bathrooms with gold-plated faucets, and slippers.
    â€œYou mustn’t envy me for getting the more elegant suite. The staff probably decided to put me in there, seeing as I’m older. I’ll just light one up while you get dressed. As the bankers in the lobby said: Amsterdam, here we come!”
    *
    T he first thing Mother mentioned when we walked out into the sunshine was the deep-rooted culture in the street landscape. From here, the brave adventurers sailed off for the Indies, and here the master painters had filled in the canvas of history.
    â€œNot to mention all the crimes of passion and the orgies,” she added. “Can you imagine all the sensations that have bubbled in these houses? Countless whoremongers and whores trying all sorts of sex. You almost want to jump through one of these windows and see if some ghost won’t take you on. This is quite a change from Reykjavik with all those ceaseless Subway and McDonalds ads. Not to mention that horrible Idol thing. Why do people insist on being so devoid of culture in Iceland?”
    We walked to where the hotel met the street and the Amstel River branched out, dividing into smaller canals. Three black kids stood rapping on the bridge, much to Mother’s delight.
    â€œHold this, Hermann, I’m going to take a photo,” she said, hung her handbag on me and skulked behind me with the camera. “I’ve often wondered how much more fun it would have been if I’d had you with a black man, Trooper.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œYes. It would have been such a nice contribution to the diversity of the population to have you a bit tinted.”
    â€œAh. But would I have been me then?”
    â€œAs if you would have noticed? You wouldn’t have given it any thought, just like you don’t currently think about what it would have been like to be colored. That’s the problem with having just the one life. I’ll never really know what it’s like to be Catherine Deneuve.”
    â€œThe only thing you know is that you’re Icelandic,” I said and explained to her my theory that the nation’s color chart, excluding the handful of immigrants in the restaurant business, could be divided into three categories. I belonged to the Porridge People—people who work indoors and therefore have the complexion of oat porridge in the first stages of souring. Then there were the Pig People—people who simply were the color of pigs, and finally the Prosperous People—orange people who had chemical skin treatments and worked in finance or media. The whole flock was descended from the same pale ape that discovered Iceland.
    â€œThen you’ll understand, my dear Trooper, what soul food it is for people like me who got their education in Fraülein Europa to finally have some diversity.” She pointed to a tall, attractive older man on a bicycle. “You just don’t see silver foxes like that in Reykjavik, not unless they’re married or throwing up in some bar.”
    I promised to call the Guinness Book of Records to let them know. Almost everything we came across defied haters of beauty. The program was in full swing. It was highly unlikely that any mother and son in the history of mankind had ever had as much fun before noon.
    To celebrate, she fished out her lifesaver and offered me a capful, which I gulped down as fast as I could. It tasted like every type of alcohol known to man with a touch of brandy in the foreground, which was probably what she poured into the flask the last time she filled it.
    â€œHere, have some more,” she said and got out a miniature she’d pocketed from the hotel minibar.