An Uncommon Family

by Christa Polkinhorn

  Jonas gave Anna a quick smile and hugged Karla. “Hello there, I didn’t expect you today. Class is only in two days.”

  “We’re shopping for some stuff,” Anna explained.

  “I see,” Jonas said. He seemed a little embarrassed. “Anna, this is Martina, an artist friend of mine.” He turned to Martina. “Anna is the aunt of my favorite student.” He gave Karla a pat on the back.

  Jonas and the woman exchanged a quick glance.

  “I’m pleased to meet you,” Martina said, and stretched out her hand.

  “Pleased to meet you, too.” Anna shook hands with her. She surreptitiously checked the woman out. She was younger than Anna, attractive, with shoulder-length mahogany hair. She was wearing boots and was dressed in a somewhat outlandish outfit, a green-and-yellow pantsuit and a longish matching scarf, which fluttered in the wind. I wonder if she dyes her hair.

  “Martina is in town for a few days. She came to visit me. We haven’t seen each other for a long time. She has an exhibition and some paintings in a gallery. We’re just on the way there,” Jonas went on.

  “Oh, how nice.” Anna felt awkward. Why did Jonas feel the need to explain all this to her? “Well, I guess we should be on our way. We have some more shopping to do.”

  “All right,” Jonas said with a smile. He seemed relieved. “I guess I’ll see you in a couple of days.”

  “Karla will probably come by herself. I may be too busy,” Anna said.

  Jonas gave her a quick questioning look, then turned to Karla. “See you soon then?”

  Karla nodded. “Bye, Jonas.”

  Anna was surprised that Karla didn’t say good-bye to Jonas’s visitor. Since nobody seemed to pay attention, Anna let it go. The woman smiled at both of them. “Bye then . . . Oh, since you’re both interested in paintings, I would love to see you at my opening. Here’s an invitation. Or if you can’t make it, drop by anytime after that. The paintings will be up for a few weeks.”

  She handed Anna a card, who accepted it with a forced smile. “Thank you.”

  Jonas and his friend walked up the street and Anna and Karla continued in the other direction. Karla turned a few times, looking after them. Anna forced herself not to look back. She glanced at the announcement for the opening, then stuffed it into the pocket of her jacket.

  “I wonder who she is,” Karla murmured.

  “A friend, as Jonas said. I don’t know her either.” Anna tried not to sound irritated.

  “Do you think she’s his girlfriend?”

  “I don’t know, Karla. Probably not. And if she is, why do you care?” Why do I care?

  “You sound upset.” Karla peeked at her, her forehead wrinkled. Then after a pause, “I want you to be his fiancée.”

  “Karla, stop, please. I’m not in the mood.”

  “I know why you’re upset.”

  “Karla!”

  “All right, all right.”

  They went to their usual art store to buy some art supplies for Karla. On the way there, Anna secretly tossed the invitation into a trash can. They picked out a few items at the store. However, Karla’s usual display of enthusiasm at the display of painting paraphernalia was lacking. She barely glanced at the hundreds of different crayons, paints, pens, canvasses, and the large selection of drawing pads. Anna wasn’t much in the mood either. After they paid for the stuff and left, they decided to skip their usual hangout at the coffee shop and go home early instead.

  The trip home was quiet. Karla stared out the window with a morose face. Anna watched the houses flip by and focused on the fields with the ripe corn and golden wheat, on the ponds near their home, trying not to think of the woman.

  Chapter 39

  Karla sat on her bed, holding the phone and punching Maja’s number. It was the evening after her and Anna’s shopping spree in the city. “Come on, Maja, answer,” Karla murmured, nervously tapping her hand on the bed and staring out the window.

  One of the windows in her bedroom faced west and she was able to see the sunset. Normally, she loved to watch the moment when the sun just disappeared behind the hills and the forest and the sky erupted into a lively display of color. As a young child, she had heard a story that it was the sunbeams that painted the sky. During the day, they painted the sky blue, or when storm clouds hovered in the sky, the sunbeams would hide behind the clouds and toss buckets of black and gray paint onto them. In the evening after the sunset, the beams would take their favorite paints and color the evening sky red, orange, and purple and shake the clouds, so they looked like puffy cotton balls. Karla loved the idea that the sunbeams were painters.

  This evening, however, such childlike fantasies were far from her mind. “Finally,” she said, as she heard her friend’s voice at the other end.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Jonas has another woman,” Karla blurted out.

  “What are you talking about? How do you know?”

  Karla told her how she and Anna met him and this other woman in the city and how he had hugged and kissed her.

  “Like a real kiss? On the mouth?” Maja asked, all excited.

  “No, on the cheek, but I have a bad feeling. Anna was upset, too. I noticed but of course she won’t do anything about it,” Karla said, exasperated.

  “Is she sexy?” Maja asked.

  “I don’t know. She’s pretty good-looking. She has this long, dark-reddish hair—”

  “Red hair?” Maja’s voice rose to a high pitch. “That’s bad.”

  “Why?” Karla asked.

  “Well, I heard my older cousin once say that women with red hair are hot in bed.”

  “Really? Oh God. We have to do something.”

  “Yep. This calls for action. We have to have an emergency meeting. Can you sneak out tonight?”

  “No, it’s too late. I’d just get into trouble.”

  “Okay, tomorrow at school then.”

  “Okay.”

  “And Karla, don’t worry, we’ll come up with something.”

  “’Kay,” Karla murmured. “See you tomorrow.” She punched the disconnect button and put the phone on the nightstand. Although she was a little worried about Maja’s sometimes crazy plans, she was even more worried about Jonas slipping through her and Anna’s fingers. Seeing him with that other woman in town had made her aware once again how much she wanted him to be part of her family. She had noticed, too, that for the last couple of years, her aunt had become more cheerful and she knew that Anna enjoyed Jonas’s company. She would laugh more when he was around. At least, until that day a few weeks ago, when Jonas had left on her birthday, although he said he would spend the night. And ever since then, Anna had acted strange whenever Karla mentioned Jonas. Something had happened. Adults were so complicated and unpredictable.

  Jonas was an important presence in her life. He wasn’t just her teacher but he was like a father or an uncle to her. She was still in touch with her real father, Arturo. She had gotten to like him during his visit and she loved the presents he sent her. But he was so far away. Having seen him only once, she didn’t really know him. It was Jonas who listened to her and gave her advice when she had a problem. He was like Anna in this respect. Sometimes, she even told him things she kept from Anna.

  One day, she hadn’t done her homework for the following day. It was a series of math problems. Karla hated math, so she had put the homework off until the last moment. During her painting lesson on a Sunday, she told Jonas that she was worried she didn’t have enough time to do her math homework for the following day and Anna was very strict about homework.

  “Well, too bad you don’t have the problems with you. You could do them now,” Jonas said.

  “I have them in my bag,” Karla said. “I took them along, so I could do them on the train, but I only got one done.”

  “Well, take them out.”

  “But . . . the painting?”

  Jonas lifted his hands with the palms facing up and raised an eyebrow, his typical expression me
aning Well? What is it going to be? Make up your mind.

  “All right,” Karla said and pulled out her notebook. She sighed as she looked at the scribbles on the page. Truth was, Karla didn’t quite understand the new set of math rules they had been taught.

  “That’s math?” Jonas said as he looked at what Karla had written down. “That looks more like hieroglyphs or modern art.”

  Karla grinned, then took a deep breath and pointed at one of the problems. “I don’t really understand this.”

  “Okay, let me see.”

  The following two hours, Jonas helped Karla with her math. Jonas could explain them much better than her teacher. He drew pictures and made them more visual for her. At the end of her lesson, she had done all of the problems and felt she finally understood the concept.

  Before she left, Jonas pointed his finger at her. “Next time, bring them to me earlier, not at the last moment. And as a punishment for your procrastination, I’ll give you painting homework for next time, since we didn’t have time today.”

  “That’s not a real punishment,” Karla said.

  “I know.” Jonas chuckled.

  Yes, Jonas was her best friend, Karla thought as she got ready for bed. And if Anna was such a stick-in-the-mud and didn’t realize that they would all be happy together, then Karla had to make her realize it. Whatever it took.

  The following day, Karla and Maja met after school and took a walk along the pond, discussing the situation of “that other woman.”

  Maja was in her element. She skipped once in a while and waved her hands to underscore a point she made. She scrunched her forehead as she thought of possible solutions to “the problem.”

  “We have to find ways to get Jonas and Anna together. Didn’t you say Jonas had an exhibition coming up?”

  “Yes,” Karla said, “the opening is in two weeks, I think.”

  “Hmm. Is Anna going?”

  Karla shrugged her shoulders. “Don’t know. Normally she does, but lately she’s been avoiding Jonas.”

  “Okay, we have to find a way to make her go.”

  “How?”

  “Don’t they send out invitations to people? When one of my relatives played in a band, they had a concert, and he sent out flyers.”

  “Yeah. Jonas has invitations printed out. I saw them at his place.”

  “Good.” Maja nodded. “That’s a possibility. Can you get ahold of an invitation?”

  “I guess so. Jonas would give me one, I’m sure.”

  “Okay. Get one and bring it home. We’ll put a personal message from Jonas on it and send it to Anna. Something like, Anna, my love, I really want you to come to the opening. Can’t live without you.”

  Karla shook her head. “That’s stupid. Jonas would never write anything like this. Anna would know right away it wasn’t him.”

  “Okay, we can tone it down a little. Just get an invitation.”

  “Wait, though,” Karla said. “That wouldn’t work, because he may send Anna an invitation himself and then she’d get two. She’ll get suspicious.”

  “Hmm.” Maja brushed her hand through her short blond hair and squinted her eyes. “I got it,” she said after a while. “You go there, you see the invitations, and you ask Jonas if you could take one home with you and give it to Anna. Then he wouldn’t send her one. And she’ll only get ours.” Maja’s blue eyes lit up.

  Karla saw that it could work, but she felt uneasy about it. “I don’t know, Maja. This doesn’t feel right.”

  “What’s wrong with it?”

  “It’s dishonest.”

  “No, it’s not. He would send her an invitation anyway. The only difference is that we make it a little more personal. What’s wrong with that?”

  Karla shrugged.

  “Do you want them to get together or not?” Maja stared at her.

  “Yes, but . . . I guess we could try. But . . . the handwriting. Anna would know it wasn’t from him.”

  “Well, has he ever written to her? Does she know his handwriting?”

  “I can’t remember, but she may have seen notes he has written. And he has sent her tickets for concerts. She must know his signature.”

  “Okay, so you have to get ahold of something with his handwriting when you have your lesson. I know how to imitate handwriting.”

  “Yeah right, like last time with your cousin. You want another beating from your uncle?”

  Maja scrunched her face in disgust. “No, but . . . that won’t happen. He won’t find out, since it doesn’t have to do with my family.”

  They sat down on a bench along the pond. The small lake was covered with water lilies. A small water snake slid across the surface. Insects hovered over the flowers. It smelled of clay and sagebrush. Across the pond, a train rushed by, whistling as it passed.

  Karla looked down at her hands, trying to make up her mind. She hated subterfuge probably as much as Anna, but she wanted so much for Anna and Jonas to be together. Besides, the idea with the invitation sounded kind of innocent. She just had to rein in Maja’s wild imagination and make the note look friendly but not too gushing. “I guess we could try,” she finally said.

  Chapter 40

  “Hey lady, nice ass. How about it? Want to come home with me?”

  Anna turned around, shocked. An older, shabby-looking man, with torn pants and wild, dirty, unkempt hair leered at her. He held a paper bag in his hand with the top of a beer bottle sticking out. He was obviously drunk. His eyes were bloodshot and the white around the pupils had a yellowish tint.

  “How dare you?” Anna’s voice shook a little. This hadn’t ever happened to her in Zurich. What’s this city coming to? she wondered. She walked on fast, hearing the man utter an insane laugh. After Anna turned the corner, she noticed she was holding her breath. She exhaled and looked behind her. There was no sign of him anymore.

  It’s not a big deal, just some poor sucker having a bad day; no reason to take it personally, she told herself.

  She hiked up the road in the old part of town, where her hairdresser had her salon. It was a street with many secondhand bookstores. In the middle of the steep hill, she stopped to catch her breath and browsed through the boxes of books that stood in front of the stores. She came across one with the title Forty and Still Single and the subtitle The Problems Middle-Aged Women Face Trying to Find a Suitable Mate. She gave a weak smile. A few months ago, the book wouldn’t even have interested her. Now, she picked it up and paged through it, then put it down with a sigh.

  Well, I guess there isn’t much choice— aside from an old drunk this morning . . . and a man with possibly doubtful moral principles. Anna sighed and walked on. Was she being unfair to Jonas? She had to admit she missed him, their get-togethers, and their talks. She had almost taken the road he lived on—it was a parallel street to the one she was on now—but then had decided against it. Part of her wanted to see him and part was afraid to meet him.

  The beauty shop was in a little courtyard among old stone buildings, some of them with carvings above the doors. Linden trees and pots with the first fall flowers—purple asters; white, yellow, and orange sneezeweed; and mums—gave the courtyard a cheerful look. When Anna entered the store, a wave of different kinds of aromas wafted her way: hairsprays, shampoos, and conditioners. It was a pleasant and subtle-enough mixture.

  “Hi there. Sit down, I’ll be right with you,” the cheerful beautician, a middle-aged woman with a modern short hairstyle and purple lipstick, greeted her. She was alone in the store, cleaning up after a customer who had just left. “How are you?”

  “Okay,” Anna said. “And you?”

  “Great,” Petra replied. She motioned Anna to sit in the chair, lowered the backrest, and shampooed Anna’s hair.

  “So what’s been happening since I saw you last?” Petra asked, as she massaged Anna’s head.

  “Not much that I can think of. Same old story: managing the bookstore, working at the library, taking care of my niece. Sounds kind of boring, does
n’t it?” Anna gave a quick chuckle.

  “Oh, I don’t know, it sounds busy,” Petra said. She put Anna’s chair in an upright position again and toweled her hair. “What about that man of yours?” she asked with a twinkle in her eyes.

  Ever since she had modernized Anna’s hairstyle and added highlights, she had been teasing her about trying to seduce a man. Jonas had once passed the beauty shop by accident when she had just finished doing Anna’s hair. He had seen them through the window and had come in, complimenting Anna on her looks. The fact that Anna had blushed had given Petra even more ammunition for teasing her.

  Anna sighed. “Nothing new,” she said in a matter-of-fact tone.

  “Nothing?” Petra peered at her in the mirror in front of Anna, then continued styling her hair.

  “Well . . . we kind of took a break from each other.” Perhaps for good.

  “Uh-oh. Sounds a little ominous. Want to talk about it?”

  Anna debated if she wanted to give Petra more details but she needed someone to talk to. The break with Jonas had troubled her more than she wanted to admit to herself sometimes.

  “Well, he told me some things that upset me,” Anna began and told Petra of the talk she had had with Jonas about his withholding an important truth from his former wife.

  Petra listened and at one point stopped working on Anna’s hair. She put her fists on her sides and peered at her friend. “And because of that, you don’t want to see him anymore?”

  “I have a very hard time with people who aren’t honest,” Anna said.

  “But that whole thing is long past. And obviously the man regretted it, or else he wouldn’t have told you. And did he really do something so horrible? What do you want? Perfection?”

  “No, just someone I can trust.”

  “I don’t know, Anna. Everybody has flaws. At least he was honest with you. People can change, you know.”

  “I guess so.” Anna sighed. “Perhaps, I’m a little too hard on him.”

  “I’ll say.” Petra gave a snort. “That guy looked like a million bucks to me. Do you know how hard it is to find someone at our age who is unmarried, not gay, and a halfway-decent person and doesn’t have a potbelly hanging down to his knees? If I wasn’t happily married to Erich, I would take a shot at him.”