Amsterdam 2020 (Amsterdam Series Book 2) by Ruth Francisco

Author:Ruth Francisco
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2015-11-20T22:00:00+00:00

Fourteen, March 2011

Chia

Kazan and Laszlo are eating lunch with a pretty girl named Diane, when Michael Chalhoub and Khalid Chahine from the Muslim Club sit down beside him. They ignore Diane, pretending she isn't there, something a highly-privileged debutante from Greenwich, Connecticut is not used to.

Michael starts in talking about how Muslims will make up a majority in Europe by 2050. “It's simply a matter of demographics. For a culture to sustain itself, the fertility rate must be 2.11. Look at Europe. France has a fertility rate of 1.8, England 1.6, Greece, 1.3, Germany 1.3 Italy 1.2, Spain 1.1. With a fertility rate lower than 1.3, it is impossible to reverse a population decline. But the average fertility rate among Muslims is 8.1. In the Netherlands and Belgium, fifty percent of the babies born are Muslim. The fifty-two million Muslims now in Euope will fuck their way to a Muslim continent. I'm not saying this to be provocative. It's just the truth. In a few decades, Europe will be Muslim.”

His diatribe just sits there for a few moments, until Diane says, “Did you know that 22 percent of all Nobel Laureates are Jews, but represent only 0.2 percent of the world population? Muslims, on the other hand, won only 0.01 percent of the Nobel prizes, yet represent 23 percent of the world population.”

“You are a racist,” says Michael.

“I merely stated a fact,” she says, standing, tilting her chin upward. “Besides, Islam is not a race.” She flips her very pretty blond hair, picks up her tray, and saunters to a table of girls.

Kazan feels Laszlo's body tense as the boys turn their attention to him, the only Jew around right now.

Laszlo eats slowly, deliberately, changing the grip on his fork. “She has a point,” he says. “Maybe if they spent less time defending their invisible friend, their minds would have room for creative and scientific exploration.

Absolutely the wrong thing to say to these two. But it does make them get up and switch tables.

Around midnight, Kazan notices Laszlo hasn't come to bed. He climbs out of bed and wanders the corridors of the dormitory, hoping to find him in one of the lounges. He walks past the resident, who is watching television in his room, and down the stairs into the quad.

Flood lights on the main villa makes it look like a wedding cake among the dark hills. The cold air stings his lungs. His thick socks freeze instantly on the cold ground.

Laszlo sits in a snowbank, face bloodied, staring up at the stars. He doesn't respond when Kazan calls his name.

Kazan kneels beside him, and sees he is conscious. He is shivering, his lips gray. “You making snow angels? I thought you didn't believe in them.”

Laszlo doesn't even blink.

“Com'on. You've got to get up. You can't stay here all night.” Kazan takes his hands, pulls him up, and hauls him upstairs to bed.

“You know those assholes write poetry?” Laszlo whispers, as Kazan rolls him onto his bed. “They're all into it.

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