The Safekeep(20)

“What is this?” Even her ears were burning now. She wanted to take the wineglass from the table and throw it against the wall. “What’s she doing here?” She nodded at Neelke. Again, Neelke tried to get up but was again kept in place.

“I invited her,” Eva said.

“You invited her?”

“Why don’t you join us, Isabel? Sit down. Join. There’s wine, there’s—”

“I know there’s wine. That’s my wine.” Her breath was coming fast and uneven through her nose. “This is my kitchen. This is my—”

“House, yes, we know,” Eva said. “We know. This is your house.” She was defiant—jaw cocked, looking up at Isabel. She’d winged her eyelids today, had painted her lashes. She was still holding on to Neelke.

“Let her go.”

“I’ll go,” Neelke said.

“You stay,” Eva said.

“Let her go.”

“Oh, I think—I think I should—Eva, please, I—”

Eva’s attention—steady and hard on Isabel—broke a moment, and then she saw Neelke: unhappy, trying to pull away. Eva murmured, “You shouldn’t let her scare you like that,” and let go. She took off the cardigan, passed it back to Neelke, who took it with a scramble: collecting her things, her bag. She had taken off her shoes at some point. She was stepping back into them with a frenzy.

“She’s not going to fire you,” Eva told her.

“I’m not?” Isabel said.

“No.” Eva’s eyes flared. Her back was a sharp line. “You won’t.”

The door bounced off its frame: Neelke let it fall shut behind her as she rushed out, not too steady on her feet. Then Eva got out of her chair—a harsh scrape on the floor—and Isabel took a step farther, ready, and both of them spoke at the same time, Isabel with a “—getting the maid drunk under my roof while—” and Eva with a “—like a tyrant, as if no one is allowed to breathe when you’re—”

They fell silent.

“I’m losing my mind,” Eva said. Her tone changed: less angry, more tired. “I’m locked in this house, I don’t have anything to do and you—you follow me around, you won’t leave me alone but you won’t even talk to me, and the only person who looks at me is an eighteen-year-old!—”

“And whose fault is that? Whose idea was it, to have you come here? To have you stay, to—”

“What does it matter!” She laughed this out humorlessly. “Who are you so angry at, Isabel? Is it me? Is it Louis?”

Isabel tightened her arms to her sides. “The maid is not your playmate. Neelke has a job, she’s here to—”

“Christ, are you even listening to me? You’re not. You’re not listening.”

An indignant sound rose from Isabel. Not listening, Eva said, as if Isabel could, as if the sound of Eva’s voice was a choice for Isabel to make. Every day, she had to listen to Eva. Every moment spent in the house and everything about her was too big to avoid: the glare of the sun off her hair, the ring of her laughter, the way her words went high when she put on that act, her night terrors—huffing and restless in the dark, so loud that Isabel could hear her through two closed doors. Isabel couldn’t help but listen, wished she could, wished she—

“This is my life,” she ground out. “Do you understand? This is my—”

“And what a life it is! You must be bored. Isabel, I am bored beyond measure and I’ve only been here for a minute. Oh, if you’d just let me—just let me in, let’s—We could talk, we could take walks, wouldn’t that be fun? Wouldn’t that be so much better?” The apples of Eva’s cheeks looked tight and blotchy. She walked around the table as she spoke, walked toward Isabel. She was in a skirt, a loose blouse. The fabric slipped, and there: the pinched elastic of her bra dug into her flesh. It was pink.

“I can’t,” Isabel said, “think of anything worse.”

Eva came to a standstill. She breathed a few quick times, chest rising. “Why are you so determined to dislike me?”

An invisible hand on Isabel’s back, pushing her. Forward, it said. Go. Isabel pushed back against it. She said, “You’re wrong. I—”

Eva’s expression nearly cleared for a fraction.

“There’s no determination there,” Isabel said. “I dislike you—quite effortlessly.”

Eva’s reaction was a punched-out sound. It could have been amusement—it could have been frustration. It rolled through her once, twice. “Right,” she said, and then looked up at the ceiling, the empty game rack. She blinked rapidly, throat working. “Right,” she said, and walked by Isabel, making to leave. Isabel caught her by her elbow—it happened without her intention.

They both looked down at Isabel’s hand, the dig of her fingers. She was holding on tightly.

“Let go,” Eva said. Her voice was rough now.

Isabel let go.

The room was overfull, the room was empty. Eva was gone. On the table: a half-drunk bottle of wine. The glasses, a bowl of peanuts, peeled, a bowl of shells. She had used one of Mother’s set: the legs of the three hares peeking out along the rim.

The heat of Eva’s arm remained cupped in Isabel’s hand.