The Safekeep(19)

“Things get misplaced. Things get misplaced all the time when you live with other people. God, what do you think half my arguments with Sebastian are about?” He had to pull in his long legs when someone wanted to pass, then unfolded them again—sprawled into space. “Stop that,” he said, and pulled Isabel’s pinching fingers from the back of her hand.

“I don’t live with other people,” she said. The implication was: unlike you. Unlike Hendrik and Sebastian. It had been seven years and she avoided saying it out loud as such, admitting it as such—Hendrik and the person he was living with. The person he was—

“I know. But for now you do. For now.” He saw her face and laughed apologetically, said, “Oh, not for long, Isa, she’ll be gone before you know it.”

Isabel could find no relief in the thought. They took a walk along the city canals. Down by the water a man was hewing a sculpture of a body out of a log of wood. Next to him a willow bent heavy under the curtain of its bloom.

“How’s Johan?” Hendrik asked, and Isabel said, “Oh, stop it, stop it,” but the question flustered her immediately: Johan had called, just a few days ago, had complained about being abandoned, about never getting to see his girl anymore. He had invited her out for dinner. Just the two of them this time. Not at his mother’s, not at hers, but a restaurant in town. It was one that Isabel had never been to, which in itself was an upsetting prospect—a new space, unknown crowds.

Along the streets of Utrecht the sun had spread her arms wide open. Boats bobbed by, an idyll. Isabel was anxious for the day trip to end: She imagined the house with only Eva in it, walking around in it, rooms full of things that weren’t hers and her touching them and taking them; putting them in Mother’s secretary, locking them away. Doing something with them, Isabel didn’t know what, but doing something, doing—

“Stop that,” Hendrik said again, and took her hand in his.

The first thing she heard when entering the house was Eva’s voice in the other room. Isabel was hanging up her hat, her jacket, and inside the house Eva gave a hearty laugh, a giggle; she said, “Stop—stop it! No, I mean it, you can’t, I won’t allow, you’ll just have to wait until you’re here and then—”

She was in the drawing room, on the phone. Isabel lingered by the door and listened. There was a pause: on the other end of the call, Louis was talking. Then Eva took a breath, lowered her voice, said:

“Yes.” And, “Yes, of course.” Another long pause. “Me too. Mm-hmm. Oh, my darling…” Eva exhaled the words: my darling. Mijn lief. Isabel’s mother used to whisper the phrase to Isabel during storms or dark nights or on days when Isabel ached for reasons she couldn’t name—when she was young and empty-feeling and wanted to put her fists through things, wanted to bite, wanted to cry. To be held. My dear. My dear. All is well, shh, my darling.

Isabel put her forehead to the papered wall, looked in through the gap of the door hinge. Eva sat on the arm of the couch, phone to her ear. She had her hair up. Her dye job had missed the patch at the nape of her neck, and there it was soft brown hair, a few curls. The top knuckle of her spine jutted out above the collar of her blouse. Of her face, Isabel could only see the curve of her cheek, the shape of her smile.

Perhaps Louis was truly in love with her. Perhaps Eva was in love with him. Perhaps it all was real and Hendrik was right. A clamp of a hold tightened on Isabel’s lungs. Eva hung up but stayed where she was: hunched, sitting. Her smile shrunk slowly. She touched her cheek, kept her hand there. Took a deep breath.

Isabel, from her hiding place, took it with her.



* * *



A yellow egg cup, a paperweight, a children’s book.

Isabel went to Uncle Karel for a visit one afternoon. They sat at the garden table for a long time in intermittent silences: he listed all the things that were considerably more expensive now than they were last year this time, then went quiet. Isabel named several things that had needed fixing in the house recently, and then was quiet. It went on. By the time she was back in her car, the earliest of twilight was pulling the sky from a robin’s-egg blue to a blush. A wind rose, trees along the path gossiping with shaking leaves. They were so full this late spring. So proud.

Isabel returned home and Eva and Neelke were in the kitchen sharing a bottle of wine. It was late, Neelke was supposed to have been gone long ago; she was not supposed to be in the house. The radio was on loudly, a popular channel playing songs with skittering beats, guitars. Neelke’s skirt was all gathered up around her thighs, one leg bent under her on the chair. Her shoulders were sun-browned. She was sitting close to Eva, hair loose, and Eva bent to push Neelke’s hair this way and then that: You could wear it like this, she was saying, or like that. But if you cut it at this length you could—

The inside of Eva’s mouth was stained wine-purple. She was wearing Neelke’s cardigan. She said something, and then they both laughed loudly, and Isabel’s harsh tumble of a heart shoved her forward: down the two steps into the room. She could feel the angry heat in her face, saying, “What’s this? Why is Neelke still here? What are you two—what…”

Neelke jolted, wanted to rise from her chair but was kept in place by Eva’s hand—a grip to her arm. Eva turned in her seat to face Isabel, still holding Neelke by her elbow. “Hello, Isabel,” she said. “How was your evening?”