The Safekeep(17)

Her mother would sometimes call her a joy. Geluk. What a joy you are. When Isabel was a child, at bedtime, her mother would sit at her side and drag a fingertip in a line from the top of her forehead to her chin. She would do this over and over again, whispering Allez-hop! every time she passed the slope of Isabel’s nose. Pretending it was a playground slide. She did this until Isabel fell asleep.

One day, during their first winter here, Hendrik fell asleep in the cradle of her arms. She’d been reading him a book, on the couch, and he fell asleep. He’d been under the weather, had a slight fever, and his cheeks were puffy, red. Isabel held him and felt his heartbeat through the line of his spine. He was ten. She wanted to seal him in something, wanted to cover him in hard metal, him and her together: hidden and forgotten and underground. Airplanes whistled overhead and nothing was allowed to touch him. She thought that might have been joy, or something like it. Something that feels sad as much as it feels like love. When Isabel was twenty-two, the year after her mother’s passing, she got a dog, Haasje. Little hare. The animal wasn’t very clever—chased everything into the water, even the things that meant danger. She made Isabel laugh when so few other things ever did. Haasje died, too, barely a few years old. Too young for a dog. There had been a tumor. What was joy, anyway. What was the worth of happiness that left behind a crater thrice the size of its impact. What did people who spoke of joy know of what it meant, to sleep and dream only of the whistle of planes and knocks at the door and on windows and to wake with a hand at one’s throat—one’s own hand, at one’s own throat. What did they know of not speaking for days, of not having known the touch of another, never having known, of want and of not having felt the press of skin to one’s own, and what did they know of a house that only ever emptied out. Of animals dying and fathers dying and mothers dying and finding bullet holes in the barks of trees right below hearts carved around names of people who weren’t there and the bloody lip of a sibling and what did—what did she know of—what could she possibly know of what it—



* * *



A thimble from her sewing kit. Isabel could not find it. It was such a small thing, could’ve gone anywhere—could’ve rolled under the bed, could’ve ended up in a pocket, and then in the drain after a cleaning.

It did not prove anything. It was only a thimble. It did not prove—



* * *



Isabel caught her in the office. Eva was taking something from the desk, something shiny. Isabel marched in and the door bounced off the wall, causing a loud bang. A figurine fell over, a vase teetered on the top shelf. They both turned to the noise, eyes up, watching the vase still itself. Then Isabel looked back and glimpsed the tail end of a movement: Eva trying to hide her hand from view, to put it in her pocket. Isabel went to her, grabbed her wrist in a tight grip.

“Isa—” she started, and Isabel held her wrist higher, tried to shake whatever was in it from her grip. “Ah!” Eva stumbled—steadied herself, hand back against the desk. Isabel was so much taller. Eva looked up at her, face flushed. The bones of her wrist felt delicate like that, ground together in the circle of Isabel’s hand.

They remained for a moment. Eva’s stuttering breath close, Isabel’s heart a rush of noise in her ears. Their knees knocked together. Eva wouldn’t let go of what was in her hand. Isabel took it, then—took her hand, turned it over, wrenched open her fingers. Eva began with an “It’s just my—”

An earring. A fake golden earring. Isabel didn’t recognize it: it wasn’t hers, not her mother’s. Neelke, she thought in a frenzy, didn’t have her ears pierced. She looked up from Eva’s hand and saw—the other earring, hanging from the tender drop of Eva’s ear. The late-day sun painted the room in low light, and it caught the peach fuzz on Eva’s jaw, the pierced lobe. The flesh of an almond.

“My earring,” Eva said, so quietly, breathless. “I dropped it. I was looking for it.”

Isabel’s eyes went unfocused, focused. Eva’s crooked tooth under her full lip. Isabel pulled away, let Eva go. There was a red mark where she’d held her—and she had held her, so very tightly.

Eva breathed quickly. She looked at Isabel and almost spoke, and stuttered first before saying: “What did you think I was doing?” she asked. “Did you think—that I was stealing something?”

Isabel’s mouth went dry. She had been so sure. She had thought: Now I have you. Eva had been a warm line of heat and Isabel had thought—Now I have you. She had imagined the rest in loose flashes: police outside the house, Louis with a shocked expression, Hendrik saying, Oh, Isa, you were onto her, you really did know that she—

Eva was putting her earring back into her ear: passed the metal through the flesh, the pierced slit. She clicked the hook into place, eyes on Isabel. On her face—her nose. Her chin. She must have seen something in Isabel’s reaction, because she started on a breath, saying: “Oh, you’re very protective, aren’t you? Of your family, this house. Of Louis. I understand. I also have things I… And it suits you, you know. It’s very noble, in a way, I think, but Isabel…” She was scanning her now, looking for something. “You worry too much. You shouldn’t worry so much. What danger am I, hmm? Small as I am?” A soft smile now, and she reached out: in the scuffle a strand of hair had come loose from Isabel’s bun—fell over her brow, eye. Eva brushed it aside, tucked it behind Isabel’s ear. Her fingers were colder than the room, nails cut short. “Sweet Isabel. What could I do to you?”