The Safekeep(71)

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Autumn had barely entered, barely taken off its coat, but the air smelled like winter already. Outside the café people bustled by and pulled clouds of breath behind them. Coats and hats and umbrellas held like walking sticks; the streets were slippery with last night’s cold snap, and across the street a vendor blew on his gloveless hands.

Louis was silent for a long time. He’d been late, and then when he arrived he gave Isabel a quick kiss on the head and announced that he would not be able to stay long—had other things to do, had a long list of errands, had his girl waiting back at home—and so Isabel said what she had come to say. He sat down, and she said what she had come to say: what she wanted, and what he must do to give it to her.

“Isabel…” he said now, and Isabel looked back to him. He said her name like an admonishment. “Isabel,” again. “What’s this? Are you—insecure? Uncertain?”

She did not follow. “Insecure?”

“That you will not find a man? Isabel, you will. If you try a little, I’m sure you will. Dress nicely, give a few compliments, it’s really—Look in the paper. There’s always men looking for women in the paper. I’m sure you’ll find someone nice, Isabel, and when you marry your man he won’t want to…” A waiter came by for Louis’s order. He ordered a coffee, sat back in his chair. Wiped the sweat from his upper lip. He’d been rushing and still looked hot from his commute. He said, “What man wants to move into his wife’s home? No, no. He’ll want to start a life for the two of you. He’ll want to buy, build, not—”

“I will not marry,” said Isabel.

“Isabel. Come now, what’s—”

“I will never marry. I’m telling you.”

“Don’t say that,” he said. “You don’t know that.” His coffee arrived. He used pincers to put in the sugar cubes: three. He said, “You just need to get out more. Don’t you have—friends? To take you out? Of course you’re never going to meet anyone cooped up in that depressing—”

“Hendrik,” Isabel said, “will never marry.”

He stopped stirring his coffee. His eyes were sunken, milky gray. They were her eyes, too. He said, “Hendrik… Isabel. Hendrik…”

“I will never marry,” she said.

“That’s not the same. You know that’s not the same. You know why he…” Louis glanced around. He did that when Hendrik’s life came up: as if someone might hear and come to some conclusion, and he would have to explain something. Get in some kind of trouble.

Isabel said it again: “Louis. I will never marry. Hendrik will never marry and I will never marry. Do you understand?” She reached out quickly—unplanned, desperate, placed her hand over Louis’s where it rested on the table. She gripped it, hard. “Do you understand?”

Louis stared. His eyes were restless, back and forth. A flush rose: over his jaw, his neck. He swallowed. He looked at where her hand covered his, then back to her.

She said, “Give me the house.”

He opened his mouth, closed it.

Isabel leaned in. She wanted to bare her teeth. “Please,” she said.

Louis did not respond. Eventually, he pulled his hand from under hers—held it in his own hand as if she’d hurt him. As if she’d squeezed too tightly. Isabel sat back, breathless, hot under her collar, under her arms.

Louis exhaled, slow and long. He looked out the window. A couple walked by: she was short, a fur coat. He was tall, noticeably tall, and had to lean down a little to hear her talk; she pushed herself flush against him. Smiled up at him. Her lipstick was on her teeth.

“Louis,” Isabel said.

Louis put a hand to his forehead, closed his eyes. He had their father’s hair: thick and upright. Mother used to tell a story that Louis, four years old, had cried a full evening because he could not be a dog—could not turn into a dog. He had somehow got it in his head that people could turn into the thing they wanted: dogs, birds, airplanes.

“Louis,” she said again.

“Yes, just—” He took a breath. “A minute. Give me a minute.” The coffee steamed between them. Louis said, “I need just a minute.”





14


JANUARY LOWERED ITSELF OVER AMSTERDAM and would not rise again. The clouds stayed close to building tops and yesterday’s snow would not be willed away, it turned to sludge and turned to ice in the drains. Isabel stood and shook. She could not cross the street. She held her purse with two hands and said, “No, no,” to herself, walked away, walked back. She made to step onto the road, and then a tram whooshed by in a rush—honking, wheels throwing up a wall of water, ice. Isabel scrambled back and held a hand over her heart.

Traffic slowed. Isabel crossed the road.

It was a slim building, a storefront with fogged-up windows. And below it the basement apartment had one small pane peeking out at street level and a lowered staircase behind a railing. The lights were on down there. People walked by, and continued to walk by, and Isabel had to move or get out of the way altogether.

The stairs to the basement were slippery. She rang the bell and heard it as loudly outside as it sounded inside. She retreated several steps, did not breathe.