Editors' Choice

Amsterdam Naked

by Leslie Van Dyke

In trying to escape herself, she finds herself.

In seventh grade, I was master of changing my clothes without exposing one inch of private skin. Yes, there were only girls in the changing room, and yes, my undeveloped body didn’t have much private skin to hide. But, that was the point. We girls were all judging each other (especially the underdeveloped) and we were all hiding from the judging eyes of the girl next to us.

In seventh grade I was also afraid to speak, afraid to do or say anything that didn’t involve homework or grades. I looked down at the ground, thinking it made me invisible. I hid in my hair and clothes two sizes too big. I was most often in a corner or the back of a room. My hiding behavior continued as I grew into womanhood in the USA. I grew into a woman who hid in baggy clothes and scribbled every thought in my head into secret journals but rarely expressed an opinion. I considered myself the master of being invisible.

All was about to change. In Amsterdam, I met my match. Geoffrey, a college student from Puerto Rico, raised in New York, turned out to be the undisputed master of hiding private flesh.

I was visiting my aunt, Beverly, who owned a small eight-room hotel in Amsterdam. Beverly was the ultimate black sheep. She did drugs and free love throughout the 70s, partied through the 80s, and then “settled down” in Amsterdam. Her son, Azar, though the youngest cousin, was considered to be the coolest of the cousins. He’d traveled the world. He’d grown up in Amsterdam. He was only 13 and I was 21. I was intimidated by his confidence.

Geoffrey was Beverly’s night porter at the hotel. He was the epitome of respect and good manners. He was a student of political science, full of opinions, and very serious.

I was the good girl who studied, never partied, and graduated from college with honors. I was in Amsterdam in an attempt to escape myself, my need to always be the good girl.

Soon after my arrival, soon after my introduction to Geoffrey, my aunt had an idea. “Why don’t we all go to the sauna and relax. Geoffrey, you need a reward for all your studying. And Leslie, you need to get over your jetlag.” She wasn’t asking. She started throwing us our coats, wrapped a scarf around my cousin’s neck, and rummaged through her desk for the office keys.

Geoffrey started mumbling, “This is wrong. This is wrong,” as he slowly put his arms into his coat.

“I don’t have a swim suit,” I said.

“You don’t need one,” my aunt replied.

Azar started laughing. “You don’t wear clothes at the sauna.”

“I see,” I said, holding my coat and not moving.

“This is wrong,” Geoffrey said again. “My boss, her son, her niece, this is wrong.” Then he walked out the office door and we followed, down the steep narrow Dutch stairway, the sound of my aunt’s keys locking the door behind us.

Walking down the street, through the drizzle from what I would learn is a constantly gray sky, I kept telling myself, “This is what I came here for. Beverly doesn’t think this is a big deal. If I don’t think it’s a big deal, then it’s not a big deal.”

As we got closer to the sauna, I felt myself walking slower and slower, staring at the brick beneath my feet. At any moment, I was going to bolt, run back to the hotel and to hell with self improvement, adventure, free spiritness . . . it was time to get my clothed ass back to America and find a job.

“Wrong, wrong, wrong . . .” Geoffrey muttered into his scarf.

“We’re here,” Beverly cried out as Azar ran through the door.

Once inside we were handed padlocks for lockers and ushered through another door. We entered a locker room, filled with Dutch men and women chatting away as they removed clothes and then headed to the showers. Azar ran from the showers back into the locker room, stood naked for a second, just enough time to say “Come on guys.” Then he disappeared into the steamy interiors of the sauna.

Geoffrey opened his locker and put his head inside, mumbling to himself about leaving as my aunt walked by, slapped him on the back, and said “Come on Mr. Geoffreys, you’ll love it in there, get those clothes off.”

She peeled away her clothes, locked them up in her locker and followed Azar, disappearing into the steam.

I hadn’t moved. I still had my coat on, my lock in my hand. I looked at Geoffrey with his head buried in a locker, talking to himself. I don’t want to be him. I took a deep breath and forced my body to move as if it did this every day.

I took off my clothes, folded them, locked them up in the locker, and walked calmly into the showers where two naked men and a naked woman stood under rushing water. They looked as if they did this every day. I put my face under a showerhead and pretended I was invisible.

On my way back through the locker room, I glanced around for Geoffrey. I spotted him. It seemed half his body was now in his locker and there was a movement of clothing that appeared to hint of undressing but I didn’t see any skin.

I headed into the steam and found my cousin in a Jacuzzi, surrounded by bubbles. I sank into the privacy of the bubbles and relaxed. I made it. Then a sudden flash of blur and Geoffrey was beside me, also hiding in the bubbles.

“You didn’t leave,” Azar said.

“Of course not,” Geoffrey answered, looking more like the in-control-serious-grad-student I’d met earlier in the day.

Then the bubbles went off and the water calmed. Geoffrey repositioned himself as a naked woman jumped out to turn the bubbles back on.

“I’m going to the dry sauna,” Azar announced.

“Me too,” I said, figuring it was better to wander naked with my cousin than to wander naked alone. I couldn’t stay in the Jacuzzi all night. My fingers and toes were already tightly shriveled like raisins.

After I’d sat for a few minutes in the dry sauna, chatting with my aunt, Geoffrey magically appeared at my side. He might have had a towel with him at this point, I’m not sure. The only thing I’m absolutely sure of is that I was becoming more and more comfortable in my skin as Geoffrey was behind someone, beside someone, in a dark corner, or in a cloud of steam.

We spent the entire evening in the sauna, three or four hours, and not once did I see Geoffrey naked. Wet sauna, dry sauna, Jacuzzi, cold dipping pool, rooftop gazing at stars, sitting at the bar (yes, a bar!). I’m guessing he had a towel for a moment or two but having one at all times would have made him stand out and he didn’t stand out. He blended in. We all blended in. The local baker and butcher. The woman who lived across the street from my aunt’s hotel. Everyone conversing like they were at the local café.

The more I acted like it was normal, the more it became normal. The more Geoffrey hid and ran from setting to setting when no one was looking, the less I focused on myself.

For the first time I felt no one was judging me. I no longer felt guilty for being in Amsterdam, for not being home sending out resumes and applying for internships. In many ways that evening was a rebirth, a willingness to lay myself bare, to stop hiding in what everyone expected of me, and to discover what I expect of myself.

I stopped hiding in my hair and in baggy clothes. My life changed. I changed.

After we left the sauna, Geoffrey seemed different. When we got back to the hotel, he took a shower and then walked around the lobby and office in his towel. He insisted we climb out onto the roof and watch the stars. He told me that some moments were just so beautiful, that life was just so beautiful, that you just forget everything wrong with the world.

For the rest of the time I knew him, I never again heard him mutter into his scarf, “wrong, wrong, wrong.”

Leslie Van Dyke works at Book Passage, "the Bay Area's liveliest bookstore." Fully clothed, she co-edits the 32-page newsletter that is literally stuffed with news of literary events, classes, and conferences. Amsterdam will forever remain her second home, though her aunt's neighborhood sauna was, sadly, destroyed in a fire. She also plans to visit her dear friend Geoffrey and his Dutch wife in Puerto Rico, where they have gotten into a bit of trouble for "indecent exposure" on a public beach.

About Editors' Choice:
Every week we choose one of the great stories we've received from travelers around the world and present it here as our "Editors' Choice." For more about the editors, see About Travelers' Tales Staff.


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