The repairs involved some soldering of the new pipes. Routine stuff. At the end of the war, the Netherlands experienced a terrible winter and in January 1945, Queen Wilhelmina pleaded with Churchill, Roosevelt, and Britain’s King George VI for help. In a letter sent to all three, she wrote, “if a major catastrophe, the like of which has not been seen in Western Europe since the Middle Ages, is to be avoided in Holland, something drastic has to be done now.” I saw her with a group of travelers in a Chinese restaurant in Nukualofa, the capital. She was tall, blonde, buxom, and sounded American. I tried to talk to her, but she took no interest. Then it was announced everyone was going to a nightclub, the only one in the land. I went, along with a German guy I’d met some days earlier and was sharing a hotel room with, to economize. I’d begun to believe he might well be gay and was feeling nervous about this realization, as I am not gay.
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