Intimacies(42)

Still, it did not make me feel any more warmly toward her, and I saw that this too was mutual. She smiled, her expression at once brittle and dazzling. I apologize for dropping in like this, she said, although she did not sound sorry in the least. Did Adriaan warn you? I shook my head, mouth dry. He can be so bad about administrative matters, she murmured, as if the matter of our relationship, mine and Adriaan’s, had simply been a question of organization and management. Or perhaps she had meant for the comment to be conspiratorial, two women discussing the foibles of a shared man. I stood before her, uncertain of what she was trying to tell me.

She turned and went to the sink. Everyone will be coming back in a week, she announced over her shoulder as she poured her coffee down the drain. Adriaan, the children as well. She turned to face me and crossed her arms. It was not clear what she meant by everyone, whether that included her, whether that implied a reunion of the family. And you? I asked. I looked her in the face, I had nothing really to lose. She shook her head and looked up at the clock. She picked up her bag. I have a meeting in Rotterdam, she said. And although this was no kind of answer, although the way she had shaken her head was completely ambiguous, I nodded.

She went to the desk in the sitting room and opened a drawer, pushing through papers and notebooks, life roughage I had never before seen or dared go through. She frowned as she gathered a pile of documents together and placed them in her bag before shoving the drawer closed again. She retrieved her coat, which she had thrown carelessly over the back of the sofa, and moved in the direction of the front door. What should I do with the keys? I asked. She turned to look at me. Through all the beauty, I saw a glint of cruelty in her eyes. She looked around the apartment, she gave a little shrug. Keep them, I suppose. It makes no difference to me. And without waiting for a response, she turned and left, the door slamming shut behind her.



* * *



—

    I did as she said. I returned the keys to my bag and I left the apartment. As I rode the tram across town, it was as if a boulder had dropped into the middle of my mind. In part it was Gaby, she made it difficult to think, she ate up the air around her, and I wondered how Adriaan had lived with her for so long. But it was not really this, or not only this. It was the fact of Adriaan’s return. What was its meaning, and why had I not heard of it directly from him? My mind circled back to Gaby’s words, had there been an edge of defeat to her voice when she said the children as well, as if that were a battle she had lost, custody of the children? Or was it resignation, over the life she had forsaken in Lisbon, the choice she had made to return?

I stared through the window of the tram, speckled with dust and droplets of water. I was due to meet Eline for lunch, I had not seen her since the dinner with Anton. I thought uneasily of my encounter with him the previous day, and I wondered what obligation I was under to tell Eline of it. But almost as soon as I arrived at the café, almost before we sat down at our table, Eline said, Anton said he ran into you yesterday. Her voice was bright and I saw that she was braced for the worst. She looked at me cautiously, her manner at once solicitous and wary. It dawned on me that she believed her brother had or was in the process of seducing me. As she waited for me to reply, her mouth tightening with apprehension, I saw that she had been in this situation before, she was only trying to judge how bad the fallout might be this time around.

Yes, I said. Although I don’t think he saw me, he was somewhat preoccupied. She blinked. I could see her recalibrating her thoughts, the parameters of the situation shifting before her. He was with a woman, I said reluctantly.

Oh, she said.

I don’t know the nature of their meeting, I said.

She leaned back and the air seemed suddenly charged with the added distance between us. Are they sleeping together? Her voice was brittle, she seemed almost another person. It doesn’t matter, she continued without waiting for a reply. I’ve often thought it was a woman that brought Anton to that neighborhood. She paused. Was she an escort? Anton likes prostitutes, he’s used them before. Her voice was too casual, as if she were speaking of a car or cleaning service, and some part of me recoiled.

No, I said. No. They were—they liked each other.

But what was she like?

I shook my head. I couldn’t really describe her.

She stared at me for a long moment, then nodded. Something about this whole thing has been wrong from the start, she said. I don’t believe Anton when he says he doesn’t remember anything about the assault. I know my brother well and I know when he is lying. But why wouldn’t he just tell me? Infidelity isn’t especially shocking, and it’s not as if I would tell Miriam, it’s not as if— She stopped. He should know that he can trust me.

Perhaps he feels embarrassed or ashamed, I said. I recalled his words in the restaurant. Relax. Nobody knows you here. Or perhaps the woman is married, I continued, and there are other reasons why he can’t involve the police. Perhaps it would expose her in some way.

Eline shook her head, and then gave a short laugh. He has the luck of the devil, Anton. The police haven’t a clue. Not a single lead. If he’s keeping quiet about something, he’ll get away with it. There’s no evidence, there’s nothing, in all the footage from that day. It’s as if the assailant never existed. She paused. He loves Miriam, you know. But it is hard to ask her to keep accepting the terms of his love.