The Safekeep(21)

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Johan came to pick up Isabel in his car. Isabel dressed neatly, her idea of neatly: an ironed-out dress with mother-of-pearl buttons, a pattern of mustard flowers, her hair pinned down to the back of her head. Her mother had once taught her how to make a proper bun; that’s what she called it, netjes. Proper. All of Isabel’s hair in her mother’s hands, gathered and gathered and twisted, twisted, the skin of her scalp pinched. It gave her a severe part down the middle of her head, pulled her features straight out of her face: big bug eyes, pale and gray. Her wide mouth. Her nose, straighter than straight. As a child she’d wanted one that went up at the end, and would try to bend it up in front of the mirror, hoping it would stay like that.

Isabel didn’t like to look at herself in the mirror too long. It embarrassed her, her own reflection. She had strong ideas of beauty that she did not find in herself: how tender the face must be, how thick the hair. She had strong thoughts about what it meant, to care too much about beauty. To want it, to search for it in oneself. In another. They weren’t nice thoughts.

Johan, however, was handsome enough. He did his best tonight: a fresh shirt and a good jacket, a pair of trousers she hadn’t seen on him before. A pair of shoes she hadn’t seen on him before, either. He’d pushed his sandy hair back with product. He did have a nose that went up, that took his top lip with it, showed his big front teeth. His parents knew Uncle Karel, and they lived nearby, and when Mother was still alive and they were all a little young, the family would occasionally come over for dinner. Johan got along with Louis, and didn’t get along with Hendrik in a way that felt pointed. Johan hadn’t noticed Isabel at all until a year or so ago. What happened was that Isabel was biking to the Van den Berg home and had got rained on, and on arrival had to take down her hair to let it dry. Johan had watched her sit by the fire, combing her fingers through the tangled length. He was smoking out the open doors to the garden. It was still pouring outside. He would not look away from her.

“That’s a good look on you,” he said when his mother left the room for a moment.

“What?” She said it sharply: he made her nervous. She knew he would say something to her. She expected it to be mocking.

“You look nice,” he said. “Drowned little cat.”

“Excuse me?” She shivered. She was still cold and her dress clung uneasily. She crossed her arms over her chest. He laughed like she’d made a joke. He showed up often after that when she was around. Sometimes when he visited her at the house he brought by something his mother sent along: a tin of cookies, a pot of preserves, a hat she used to wear, and didn’t wear anymore, that she thought Isabel might appreciate.

He never liked to leave. He never seemed to know when she wanted him to leave; he’d stay with one elbow up on the doorframe, asking her inane questions. Did she bake the bread herself? Did she keep the house herself? Isabel would say of course she didn’t, what did he take her for, she bought her bread and had a maid, and all the while she spoke Isabel fussed about, not wanting to meet his eye.

And then there were the times he touched her. Once, he kissed her neck, and a shiver like nausea ran through her. She had mentioned it to Hendrik, under the blur of several glasses of wine. Hendrik said: Oh, that’s not bad, that’s good! And Isabel said, It is? And Hendrik said: That’s how you know you like someone. When you’re shaking and can’t think and maybe you’re going to throw up if he comes any closer.

Johan turned the radio to a slow channel. He said, “I love this song.”

Isabel did not know the song. She hummed in affirmation as though she did. Eva had been quiet and avoidant since the night in the kitchen. Her face seemed scrubbed of paint—paler now. Once, Isabel walked into a room and Eva picked up her book and walked right out. Once, over a tense dinner, Isabel’s foot bumped against Eva’s and Eva looked up, away, and all Isabel’s mind provided was the echo of—follow me around, you won’t leave me alone…

It was a Friday evening and the restaurant was loud. Isabel was distracted the first few minutes trying to figure out where the kitchen was in relation to the bathroom in relation to the exit. Johan said, “What are you looking around like that for?” like she was entertaining, and she cleared her throat, said: “Sorry.” She touched her hand to her neck to make sure the pins were still in place: they were. “Where is the menu?” she asked, and Johan pulled the folded menu from under where she’d placed her elbow. This, too, amused him. “You’re funny,” he said. She really wasn’t.

He talked a lot. About anything, it seemed to Isabel: himself, yes, his work, a colleague called Willy, Willy’s boat called Marcella, the reasons why Delft was better than Tilburg. When the food came he talked about the food. He didn’t like it: Why were they so precious about their potatoes, about their meat? He liked a good honest meal, is what he liked, and Isabel should come by when the opperdoezer potatoes were in season because his mother made the best—

He ordered wine for the table. He made a point of saying: Beer is my drink, but for you… She drank. He touched his foot to hers under the table and she thought about Hendrik saying, That’s not bad, that’s good. The restaurant was loud. She drank some more. He went to the bathroom and passed behind her, brushed his fingers to the bare nape of her neck, and her stomach gave a jolt. She moved away from the touch and pretended to press the napkin to her lips instead. She hadn’t said much more than a full sentence that night. While he was gone, she considered his empty chair, the smear of gravy on his plate. She imagined looking at his empty chair more often: at her home, or at his. Waiting for him to come back from work and tell her about Willy and his boat. Every day, tell her about Willy and his boat. The wine made her woozy, tired. She rarely drank this much, this fast, only it was so loud, and hot, and the oil left a shiny trail over his fat bottom lip and when he spoke she—