The Safekeep(40)

She was not wanted. That was the long and the short of it: she had learned want, briefly and hungrily. A span of a day, two days. She had learned the shape of it, the quick taste of it. She had reached out, foolishly, and she was not wanted in return. She was not Louis. She was not Hendrik.

And in a house not too far from here, in a room with a window overlooking a rose garden, Johan was thinking of her. Getting ready to come to her.

She stood before her closet in her underclothes. She remembered Johan’s hand on her leg, on her bare skin. She chose her one pair of trousers, the one she wore most often for gardening. It was high at the waist, loose at the knees. An old blouse that had been washed a dull gray over the years, and was missing a button at the collar. She plaited her hair quickly, purposefully messy. Plaits did not suit her, looked starkly childish against her severe features.

The house smelled like food. Isabel’s stomach turned over on itself. The tail of her wet braid stained the back of her shirt. Isabel had half-formed plans to send Eva away, to do so cruelly—demand she eat her own dinner in her room. That she not come down for the rest of the evening. The idea alone was miserable. Triumphant and miserable.

But Eva had already set the table herself—outside, in the garden, under the shade of the parasol. She’d set out two plates of her own accord, not three. She was arranging the glasses, and then saw Isabel had come out of the kitchen, and then froze. Confused a moment—eyes quick. Her gaze lingered somewhere at the height of Isabel’s waist. The button of her trousers.

Evening was settling in slow. The air smelled like the warm bark of pine. Isabel said, “Are you done?”

Eva nodded. She took a moment to say, “You should—tell him you cooked. He’ll like that.”

“What will you do?” Isabel asked. She had intended to command, and instead it was only a question. “When he arrives?”

“Oh, I’ll—Don’t worry about me.”

“I don’t,” Isabel said.

Eva smiled at that, unhappy. She had done a lovely job of the garden table: a cloth, two candles. A bowl over a plate. The good glasses, the etched crystal. Isabel weathered the sudden and rattling rush that demanded she go to Eva, that she put her hands on her—but Isabel remained where she was, a tree upright in a storm.

It was Eva who came to her. Starting and then stopping—a quick step, a pause. There was an arm’s length between them. There was a blush mottling Eva’s jaw. “Your plait is crooked,” she said, and it sounded uncertain: as if she herself did not know why she said it.

Isabel looked at her.

“God,” Eva said, a sob. And then, all in a blurry rush: “I don’t, I don’t want to be rid of you, but what can we do, Isabel? What can we have? Louis is—The house—Isabel, can’t you see? In the end there will be nothing. Can’t you see how it’ll be just—”

“I can’t,” Isabel said. “I can’t see. There must—”

A car approached. Eva swallowed a word, an exclamation, turned away, went to arrange her face with her back turned to Isabel. Isabel took a step, took her elbow, said, “Don’t leave us. Eat with us, please, don’t leave me with him, stay, you must stay.”

“I can’t,” Eva said.

“You can,” Isabel said. “You can. You will.”

The look Eva gave her was wide and dark. Her mouth set as though in anger. It wasn’t anger. Isabel recognized it this time. Found it echoed in herself, a shiver. It wasn’t anger at all.

She went inside and fumbled with a plate, a bowl, a third seat at the table.

Johan shut the car door in the distance and came toward them. His hair was combed back with water, oil. He carried with him an overwhelming cloud of cologne. He raised his hand in hello before he said hello. He noticed Eva quickly, seemed curious about it, vaguely annoyed about it. He greeted Isabel first: leaned in close, kissed her cheeks three times. He did it slowly. He put a hand to her waist. “I waited for you,” he said, low, in her ear. There was still a shiver in her, which he mistook for thrill, and grinned at her.

To Eva he gave a hand. “Hello,” he said. “A friend? On your way out?”

“Eva is staying,” Isabel said before Eva could answer. “She’s—staying. With me, at the house.” A shiver, too, to her words. She could not get them under control, could not get them to lie flat. “She’ll be staying for dinner.”

“Oh.” Johan saw the table: three spots, one haphazardly laid. “I thought, Isabel, that we would get the chance to…”

“I could—” Eva started, and Isabel cut in with:

“Eva is a guest. She’ll be eating with us.”

“Ah,” Johan said, and rocked back on his heels, put on some nonchalance and said: “The more the merrier, I suppose. And a chance to meet Isabel’s friends, of course, a privilege. I’m sure you two have been cooking away all day, working hard, no? A treat for me. Aren’t I lucky?”

He went into the kitchen, rubbing his hands together, saying how good it smelled. Saying how he was hungry already, how he couldn’t wait. Eva closed her eyes the moment he was out of sight. Isabel touched her hand on passing: her smallest finger to Eva’s smallest finger. A touch, a hook, and gone.

How quickly did the belly of despair turn itself over into hope, the give of the skin of overripe fruit.