The Safekeep(45)

Downstairs, Neelke was doing the dishes. On the desk, Eva’s leather-bound notebook. Isabel put a hand over it, as she would over a Bible. The leather was warmed. Perhaps by the room, perhaps by the sun.

“Don’t,” Eva said.

Isabel turned. Eva was sitting up, holding the sheets up to her chest, covering. Her hair was matted. She looked fully awake now. “It’s private,” she said. She meant the book. Isabel had forgot about the book instantly, and now glanced at it. Eva said: “My diary. It’s…”

Isabel came to sit at her side. Eva shuffled. She was watching Isabel like she was trying to calculate her next move. Isabel said, “I brought you breakfast,” and Eva saw the food and said, “Oh, ah…” And Isabel said, “Eat something.”

Eva ate two grapes. Isabel watched her chew, watched her swallow. Eva said, “Don’t just watch me,” and took a handful of grapes from the stem and gave them to Isabel. She still clutched the sheet to her throat. Isabel couldn’t look away from it: the fast pulse right below the thin skin.

Isabel ate the grapes. She poured Eva water, poured herself water. Bread, butter, cheese. Then she took everything and put it aside, and put a knee on the bed, and came in close. Eva’s breath went short and stuttering. Isabel pulled the sheet from her hold. Eva whispered a curse, whispered it again at Isabel’s cold hands on her waist. A sound from downstairs. Eva jerked, said, “What’s—” And Isabel said, “Neelke.”

“Isabel,” Eva said into a kiss. “She’s—right there, we shouldn’t—”

“I told her not to come here. She knows.”

“Isabel,” Eva said again, bending under the kiss. Shifting back, back—onto the pillows. “It’s—ah, it’s, I don’t—”

“We’ll be quiet,” Isabel whispered, settling between Eva’s legs, rolling in. “We’ll be quiet,” she promised again. On the bedside table, the glasses rattled; the plates clicked together.

“God,” Eva said, nails to Isabel’s back, under the fall of her blouse. “God.”



* * *



Eva watched her garden. High noon was approaching and Isabel was on her knees, her string hat on, gloves. What survived of the gourds needed to be harvested. The tomatoes were swelling. Isabel’s shirt clung to her back, sweat under her arms. Eva lay on a towel in the grass, watching her through the mirror-black of her sunglasses.

Isabel sat back on her knees. “What?”

“What,” Eva said. And then, “You care for the garden. It’s nice to see.”

Isabel pushed away her hair with the back of a hand. A strand of it was caught at the corner of her mouth. Mud, sand, somehow the grain of it against her teeth. Eva, on her towel, did not move. Isabel took off her gloves. Took off her hat. Went to her.

That’s how the days had passed. Eva had cooked for her last night, moving through the kitchen with a calm, towel over her shoulder and swaying—a step to the hob, a step to the counter. Isabel remained close, asked small-worded questions just to get Eva to say something, to get her to say the next word: Who taught you to cook? And, Did you cook at home? And, Do you enjoy it? And, What’s that? And, How do you do that?

Eva was amused by it all, a half smile tilted to Isabel, and answered as though it was all said in jest: Who do you think? Where else? Does it look like I enjoy it? This is a spatula, sweetheart. I do it like this. And then like this. And then—

Isabel, too full to be teased, came to stand behind her. Wrapped her arms around her, pressed her face to Eva’s neck and stayed there. Eva’s laughter went quiet. She let herself be held a moment. She stroked Isabel’s arms. She said, quiet, “Who are you?” She said, “Have you always been like this? Have you just been waiting to happen?”

A small hour was lost in the kitchen. They turned hobs off, left the precut onions sweating on a plate. Eva held on to the counter’s edge, panting with Isabel’s hand moving fast under the skirts of her dress, working her. Isabel’s fingers were still pruned by the time dinner was done. When they went to bed that night, Eva had cleaned up the room. The desk was tidied. The notebook was gone. The drawer locked.

Right before she fell asleep, Isabel spared an edge of a thought to her forgotten inventory: that tightly folded piece of paper left in the pocket of her skirt. An edge of a thought to the things on that list, to the precious things and the places they belonged—and then she was gone. Fell, all at once, into slumber.

Now, in the garden, falling between the lazy bend of Eva’s knees, Isabel repeated: “Nice to see.” She palmed Eva’s thighs. She arranged them as she wanted them: open, around her hips. Hoisted her closer.

“Ah,” Eva said, her expression still a blank glint of sunglasses. “Too far, you’re—” and pulled Isabel in by the damp collar of her shirt.

After, Isabel said, a statement: “You’ve done this before.” They lay side by side. The towel had bunched under them at some point, had been cast aside. Isabel had a wide-fingered hold on Eva’s leg, high up her leg. Eva said, “Hmm,” a general sound, an I-don’t-know-what-you-mean sound. A tired sound.

“With women,” Isabel said. “Other women.”

Eva stilled. Then sighed, a tight sound. She was silent for a while. A blackbird rushed across the grass, stopped, raised its tail—called out. Called out. Isabel squeezed her hand at Eva’s thigh.