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"How many dead people do you think there are?"

"Like, how h," he joked

"No, I mean, like, ever Like, how many people do you think have ever died?"

"I happen to know the answer to that question," he said "There are seven billion living people, and about ninety-eight billion dead people"

"Oh," I said I’d thought that rowth had been so fast, there were more people alive than all the dead combined

"There are about fourteen dead people for every living person," he said The credits continued rolling It took a long tiuess My head was still on his shoulder "I did soustus continued "I ondering if everybody could be rened a certain nuh living people to remember all the dead people?"

"And are there?"

"Sure, anyone can naanizedShakespeare, and no one ends up re the person he wrote Sonnet Fifty-five about"

"Yeah," I said

It was quiet for a ?" I said sure I was reading this long poe forAn Iood?"

"The poeuys in this poes than I do How’s AIA?"

"Still perfect," he said "Read to me"

"This isn’t really a poe el dust in it," I said

"You just named two ofelse then?"

"U else?"

"That’s too bad I a o then, you and I,’" I started nervously, "‘When the evening is spread out against the sky / Like a patient etherized upon a table’"

"Slower," he said

I felt bashful, like I had when I’d first told hio, through certain half-deserted streets, / The ht cheap hotels / And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells: / Streets that follow like a tedious argu question/ Oh, do not ask, "What is it?" / Let us go and make our visit’"

"I’ustus," I said

"I a at"I’ s I’m in love with you, and I know that love is just a shout into the void, and that oblivion is inevitable, and that we’re all doomed and that there will come a day when all our labor has been returned to dust, and I know the sun will s the only earth we’ll ever have, and I a what else to say It felt like everything was rising up inin this weirdly painful joy, but I couldn’t say it back I couldn’t say anything back I just looked at him and let him look atthe side of his head against the

CHAPTER ELEVEN

I think he must have fallen asleep I did, eventually, and woke to the landing gear co down My mouth tasted horrible, and I tried to keep it shut for fear of poisoning the airplane

I looked over at Augustus, as staring out the , and as we dipped below the low-hung clouds, I straightened my back to see the Netherlands The land seereen surrounded on all sides by canals We landed, in fact, parallel to a canal, like there were two runways: one for us and one for waterfowl

After getting our bags and clearing custouy who spoke perfect English--like better English than I do "The Hotel Filosoof?" I said

And he said, "You are Americans?"

"Yes," Mom said "We’re from Indiana"

"Indiana," he said "They steal the land fro like that," Mom said The cabbie pulled out into traffic and we headed toward a highith lots of blue signs featuring double vowels: Oosthuizen, Haarlehway, flat empty land stretched for e corporate headquarters In short, Holland looked like Indianapolis, only with smaller cars "This is Amsterdam?" I asked the cabdriver

"Yes and no," he answered "Aet closer to the center"

It happened all at once: We exited the highway and there were the row houses ofprecariously toward canals, ubiquitous bicycles, and coffeeshops advertising LARGE SMOKING ROOM We drove over a canal and froe I could see dozens of houseboatslike A achingly idyllic in the e it would be to live in a place where al had been built by the dead