The Safekeep(6)

She drove him home. He tried to get her to come up with him, to come say hello to Sebastian, come have a last drink to end the night. It had been so long since she’d seen Sebastian. He said this with shiny-wet eyes, said it quietly, seriously. His hold on her wrist was harsh. The light was on upstairs: Sebastian had waited up for him.

She said she would go home. Hendrik nodded and nodded and bared his teeth in an almost-smile. He promised to call. Promised to come by with Sebas at some point this summer, before they maybe left for Paris: they could stay for a few days. Swim somewhere. Take a trip somewhere. It had been so long, he repeated himself, since Isabel had seen Sebastian.

On the train back to Zwolle she took out the small packet, unwrapped it. Considered the found piece. The china was thin. Blue, white, blue. The train lights flickered with each bump in the rails. Home, when she arrived, welcomed her with relief. There you are, said the dim light in the kitchen, left on for comfort. I’ve waited up for you, said the rattle of key in the door. The hallway had kept within it a chill, but upstairs Neelke had left a few embers to burn in Isabel’s hearth. Isabel crouched and held out her hands to the heat.

She tried to recall her first night at the house, young and scared and sirens wailing at a dark distance. She tried to recall what had been there already—what things, what shapes, what vases and paintings and embroidery to the edges of which sheets. She recalled nothing. She recalled the thump of a knock and Hendrik’s cold little foot under the blankets and a feeling like a fist on the inside of her throat.

A window slammed shut across the hallway. Isabel startled and rushed toward the sound. It had come from her mother’s old room—she had aired it out earlier in the day. She had left the window open. Nothing was the matter, nothing had been broken, only a picture frame had been blown face down on the bedside table.

The photograph had been taken that first summer after the war. Her mother, reedy in a long skirt, sitting on the bench out in the garden, the two firs rising proud behind her. She sat neatly, looked straight into the lens.

Isabel put the picture back in its place and righted it.





2


SUNDAY MORNING WAS SPENT AT church, the smell of varnish and old curtains. Monday morning had the sun beating down broadly, open-armed, and Isabel went to work on the garden. The lilac shrubs needed pruning and the roses needed tying in, and Isabel rooted around in the ground for other sharp objects that might be found. There was nothing but earth. Monday afternoon she paid a visit to the solicitor about her allowance, Tuesday she had an appointment with the upholsterer about the chair, on Wednesday she did the groceries she didn’t trust Neelke to do, and on Thursday she had tea at the Van den Berg household because Johan was in town—and if Isabel went to him then he would not come to her, which was how she liked it: parking by his mother’s home, saying her neat hellos, being invited for coffee before dinner. If she did not do this, Johan would take matters into his own hands. He would show up unannounced at her front door, walk himself inside with his keen eyes, and linger in the room, touching things, asking about her life. He would press close in doorways.

She did not know what to do when he did this. It made her dizzy, a little nauseated, all of it, but she had been told by Hendrik these were only nerves, and perfectly normal. At his mother’s dinner table Johan put his hot hand over Isabel’s under the table, under the fall of the tablecloth. He kept it on her knee, while his mother went on about Did Isabel hear what happened with the Huijers? The weekly help had been caught stealing, things had been disappearing for a while, but “Oh, just small things, a spoon, a plate, and then of course one morning Mother Huijers wakes up and where is her best necklace? Well, they caught the girl eventually. Tipped out her bag before she left. What do you think? A whole drawer of silver came falling out: knives and forks and—”

Johan pushed his hand up Isabel’s thigh. The fabric of her dress bunched, slid. She excused herself to the bathroom. The house was once a farm and still smelled of straw. Johan’s mother didn’t grow anything on the land but kept a lovely rose garden in the back. Isabel rearranged her dress, pinched her stockings into order. When she returned to the table, her breath was even, her hands steady.

She stayed for dinner and then the weather turned: a rumble of fast-moving clouds, wind, a young tree near the end of the pasture bending deeply. Isabel said she must get back before the rain would start. Johan’s mother didn’t approve, worried, insisted that Isabel stay longer, or stay the night—they had plenty of rooms. Johan agreed eagerly. He licked his bottom lip.

Isabel said she must get back.

The rain started when she was in the car. The wipers whipped fast over the window and still she could barely see the path ahead. The debris of the storm ticked against the car. The road was muddy, and the tires slipped occasionally, but home was close. Between the trees the horizon had darkened fully.

At the house, Louis’s car was parked up the gravel path. The living room lights were on. Isabel found a newspaper in the glove compartment and used it as an umbrella. She ran and was still miserably soaked by the time she was inside. Two coats on the rack, one of which was Louis’s. A bright red hat hanging from a hook.

“Louis!” Isabel called into the house. The stairwell was dark, the hallway was dark. One hum of light came from under a closed door—through the drawing room, the dining room. The two of them were sitting at her mother’s table, Eva with a glass of sweet port, Louis gesturing around the room at the various paintings of old family members—making fun of them. Making Eva laugh.