CHAPTER 32The air was hazy, and the buildings lining the empty Sunday morning streets of Scheveningen were colored in pastel tones.
“They can't do this,” Hubert exclaimed as the taxi came to a halt. The Aan Zee hotel had disappeared, and in its place was a ghastly building with an art nouveau façade, housing a cinema called Spleen. Pink and jade green tiles were set in flowery ornaments, which appeared to spill into the sky. A billboard in front of it depicted a man, with a gun in his hand and a grin on his face, who was embracing a woman with his free arm. The smoke emerging from the gun, hinting at its most recent use, was delicately curled, as though in celebration of success. What Hubert had liked and respected about Helga was her fierce independence. Their courtship had been mutual b
