Willem walks back to the canal, turning away from the museum casually, glancing at the people on the streets and trying to act as if he were just a curious visitor, a tourist perhaps, just looking to see what this magnificent building is called. The part about dogs was also of interest to him. But the part about Jews? Of course not. As he turns in his attempt at casualness, he is almost hit by a bicycle. The old woman on it, dressed in a long paisley skirt like a school librarian, spins her head around like a witch to shriek evil spells at him in Dutch. His eyes focus on the street in front of him, and he ventures over to the water’s edge to peer into the canal. It’s a clear day, the sort of day so bright that it’s practically insulting to complain of the cold, but he can’t help burning with cold. A cruel day. His reflection looks back at him, his left cheek shimmering red from being scraped against the floorboards and his ears sticking out wildly from underneath his messy brown hair. Ears, he had read in his biology textbook, are one of only two parts of the body that continue growing throughout one’s life. Unfortunately the other part was the nose. Being Jewish was a double curse. He examines his face, more with his bare fingertips than in the reflection—which, he notes with pleasure, is not quite detailed enough to pick up the little island chain of pimples alongside his mouth. No facial hair yet, although as he glances at the canal, he imagines that he can see a bit of a shadow on his upper lip, until a duck splashes into the water and makes his image disappear.

He pictures his father’s dark mustache and rubs his own upper lip, suddenly tasting something bitter. But then he remembers something he noticed in his reflection before the duck landed. He waits until the ripples in the water dissipate and peers down at himself again. In the canal’s waters, he looks like a dark young man, unhatted and unjacketed. But this young man seems much more ordinary than Willem has felt in the past few months, much more like every other young man on the streets around him. It takes a moment for him to realize why. Without his jacket, he no longer has his yellow star.

The image of this starless self enchants him. It is as if his reflection, plunged into the canal in the duck’s wake, has emerged renewed from cleansing waters. Purified and anointed, he rises up and examines himself in the canal again. Suddenly he looks older, taller, more handsome. The people on bicycles riding behind him seem to turn their heads toward him in admiration, smiling and singing Dutch greetings, at least in the world reflected on the skin of the canal. He has become a grown man of Amsterdam, a lord of the city. He spins around and faces the street, smiling with confidence verging on arrogance. The city is his!