The Safekeep(76)

“That’s not true,” Isabel said. Eva was not listening. She continued, not looking at Isabel, looking instead at the room, at the boxes:

“Was it very terrible, lately, sleeping in a bed you knew wasn’t yours? Eating from plates that weren’t yours? I imagine it was. Oh, I imagine you hated it, or—no, maybe you did not care at all. Maybe you didn’t feel a thing. Maybe you slept like a babe, slept right through the night, how peaceful! God, why am I here? I shouldn’t—I shouldn’t have—”

“I’m glad you came,” Isabel said.

“Glad!”

“No—” There was nothing she could say that would come out well. She tried, “Yes, I—have missed you. I wanted to say, how I—regret—”

But Eva would no longer hear her. She was riling herself up, speaking over Isabel, speaking faster, saying, “You remember—do you? Do you remember? When we stood right there, right there, Mum and I—” She meant the window, she meant outside, the pathway to the house. “Did you hear that? Did you remember that? She begged. She begged for her house back and where—” She looked at Isabel now. “Where were you?”

The room had gone blurry, a wet film. It was not a true question: they both knew where Isabel had been. Still, Isabel answered, a quiet “I was—young. I was—”

“And what was I?” Eva said. “What was I, do you imagine?”

“I know,” Isabel said, and she did—knew it in her bones, in her marrow, had been haunted by it for weeks, months. Eva, a teen wrapped in her own arms, outside by the bush, waiting as her mother screamed to be let in, to have her house back. Eva before the war, a child, collecting her things in a box, colored pencils and a doll with long hair and a little stuffed hare.

“Do you?” Eva said. “What do you know?” She worked a word in her mouth, almost speaking, then looked up at Isabel. Seemed to see Isabel anew, all of her—her face, her hands balled together at her navel. An emotion passed over Eva’s face, something pained, something desperate. For a heartbeat Isabel thought Eva would reach out for her. She didn’t, and then all at once the fight left Eva. She sat back in her chair, trembling. She held the back of her hand to her eyes. The fire crackled. A log broke and fell, and the flame rose dramatically—then quieted.

Isabel said, “Eva.”

“Eva, Eva, she says. What is it, what do you want, what could you possibly want from me now, God, haven’t I given—haven’t I—”

“Ask me again.”

She faltered. It came out on a breath: “What?”

“Ask me again.”

“Ask you what?”

“What I’d do. Ask me again.”

Eva’s mouth was parted. She had not drunk the wine though it looked like she had. A flush was coming up now, up her neck, her cheeks; the heat returning to her body.

Isabel went to her. Isabel went to her knees. Isabel held Eva by her shins and put her face to Eva’s sodden hems. She wanted to stay. She wanted to be allowed to stay. She didn’t know how long the moment lasted. The radio was a soft blur and the fire a warm brick at her back and all she knew was the hard press of Eva’s legs. She had sat like this as a child, under tables with her hands over her head, as per instruction when the bombs fell. She was afraid then. She was afraid now, too.

“Isabel,” Eva said. It was quiet, and softer. She sounded lost. She put a cold hand to Isabel’s hair, shakily, pushed at her, said, “Isa. Isabel, come now. Isabel. Get up, no.”

Isabel looked up. She did not move away. Eva hesitated, then touched her face. Her cheek. “What terrible ideas you have,” she said. “What a terrible thing to ask me to return here.”

Isabel put her face to Eva’s palm and hid there. She said, “The house.”

Eva’s touch stilled. Isabel did not look at her. She remained in hiding. She said, “I have arranged it. It will go to me. It’s done, and I want… You must live here. In your house.”

“Isabel.”

“It’s mine. And it’s yours. If you want it.”

Eva rested a finger at the corner of Isabel’s eye. She rested it there until Isabel looked at her. The room was blurry at first. Eva was blurry. And then Isabel blinked and everything sharpened: Eva’s sad tilt of a mouth, the way she sat, as if she was in pain—a wound to her waist. She held Isabel like one might hold a dear pet at their feet: cradled in a palm.

“Yours,” Eva repeated.

“No,” Isabel said. “I only—I wanted, it could be—”

“Mine. If I want it.”

Isabel felt she had said it wrong, again. That she had meant the one thing and said the other thing without understanding the difference.

“What does that mean?” Eva asked. “Yours or mine? What are you saying?”

“I’m sorry. I don’t…”

“Do you mean to trick me?” Eva was so close. Her voice was so small. “That to have the house, I must have you, too?”

Isabel shook no. Went up on her knees, said, “No,” said, “No, no.”

“So I can have the house?” She, too, was shivering. “And you will leave if I ask? You will give me the house?”

“I don’t—” Isabel’s hands fisted into the fabric of Eva’s skirt. “I can only… It will go to me, when he passes, that is all I can do. I can—I cannot leave, I have nowhere else, but you can have anything. All of it. Or not, if you don’t want it, or me, if you will. Will you?” She said, “Have me? Will you have me?” She said, “Have me. Have me.”