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May 4-5, 2007

I got off the train from Amsterdam on May 4, the day Holland remembers the dead of World War II, including the Jews who got on trains heading to Westerbork and were sent farther east to Auschwitz and Belsen. I’d come to attend a performance of a piece I wrote about Anne Frank, suitably scheduled for that evening. As I scanned the middle distance of the central hall for an ex-lover I hadn’t seen in twenty-five years, the only one waiting in the appointed place was a fat, balding old Dutchman in a khaki raincoat. It took a few seconds before his features morphed into a familiar, still handsome, but puffy face. I walked toward him, smiling. He smiled back widely, and when I reached him he said, “You look exactly the same.” I thanked him and kissed him and didn’t mention the face-lifting microcurrent treatments.