“What’s wrong, Uncle Justus? Cat got your tongue, because for once Elisa isn’t wearing ripped-up jeans?”
“Hardly,” Uncle Justus said. He regained control of his emotions and looked at me furiously. “Take that dress off right this minute.”
I didn’t have a chance to reply, because he left the guest room as quickly as he’d entered.
“What was that about?” I asked. But Lukas only shrugged.
“I have no idea, Elisa. I’ve given up on trying to figure out Uncle Justus.”
“Well, I think I’ll just ignore him.” I was nonetheless angry—not only at his remark but at my inability to confront him in such situations.
I went into the bathroom and changed back into my jeans. I held the light-blue dress in my hands indecisively. I thought it would be a shame to put it back in the box. So I hung it in my wardrobe, thinking I might wear it one more time just to provoke Uncle Justus.
Because it was unusually warm for September, I decided to go sit in the garden with a book. I headed into the library to choose something to read, pulling out one book after another, and then putting each one back in its place. At the sound of approaching footsteps, I turned around.
“Are you looking for something to read?” asked my aunt, smiling at me.
“Yes, but I can’t decide.”
“Wait a minute.” She went to a shelf, stood on tiptoe, and pulled down a book. She leafed through the pages for a moment, then handed it to me. “Whenever I need a distraction, I read Out of Africa by Karen Blixen.”
I accepted the book. “I know the movie, of course, but I never read the book it was based on.”
“Well, now you can.”
As we left the library and crossed the foyer, she gave me an impassioned lecture on the difference between the Danish original and the American translation. I was struck by the fact that my aunt could be quite interesting if she were passionate about a subject.
Aunt Helen and I parted ways, because she had an important appointment, and I was heading for the garden.
As I walked over the crunching gravel, I reflected on Uncle Justus’s reaction to seeing me in my mother’s dress. That wasn’t at all like him. I couldn’t help but wonder if it were connected to all the strange occurrences—or if I were just getting carried away. But for the time being, I needed a break from thinking about it all.
I strolled over the grass to one of the lounge chairs and stretched out. With the warm sun shining down on me, I immersed myself in the story of Karen Blixen, falling in love with the landscape she described at the foot of the Ngong Hills. Caught up in the spell of her tale, I completely lost track of time.
I startled as a shadow fell over me. I looked up to see David standing above me. He was wearing sunglasses and his hands were grimly shoved into his pockets.
“Are you doing any better?” he asked, perching on the armrest and studying me with an impenetrable expression.
“Yeah, I still have a bit of a headache, but it’s already going away.” I looked at him uncertainly. I wondered why he was being so formal and distant with me. “Where were you this morning?”
David took off the dark sunglasses and rubbed his eyes, revealing the deep shadows beneath them. He cleared his throat.
“I had something important to take care of.”
“I see.” It rattled me. Why was he so dismissive?
“You were really lucky last night, you know?” he said, running his finger gently over the bump on my head. His touch sent a shudder through my body.
I shrugged. Given all the injuries I could have sustained tumbling down the stairs, I was amazed that I hurt nothing more than my head. But I had already wasted enough time wondering what could have been.
“Never scare me like that again!” he said. He rubbed my shoulder.
“I’ll try.”
“Promise me.”
I looked at him, blinking as I faced the blinding sun. “Promise.”
He squeezed my shoulder as confirmation, then pulled his hand back. “I have something for you.” He fished in his pockets. “Close your eyes,” he said in a hoarse voice.
I did as I was told.
David took my left hand and set something in my open palm.
“Can I open them now?”
“Yes.”
I opened my eyes and blinked. In my hand was a coin glinting in the sunlight. It seemed suspiciously familiar.
“In case you should feel compelled to fall down some stairs again.”
My heart beat irregularly as I looked more closely at it. It couldn’t possibly be the one that my grandfather had given me! I’d thrown it at David in anger that time we’d had our fight at school. Had David treasured it all these years?
“Do you recognize it?”
I nodded, unable to speak, because I didn’t trust my voice. I ran my thumb over the surface of the coin, recalling every elevation and dent.
“I should have given it back to you ages ago, but . . .” David paused and looked at me timidly.
“Did it bring you luck?” I asked in a harsh voice as I struggled against the lump in my throat.
“I aced my oral exam,” he said proudly, taking my hand, which clutched the coin. “And my state exam.”
“But”—I searched for the right words—“then why did you flip out when I wanted to give it to you?”
David dropped his gaze. He seemed to be looking for what to say. Then he lifted my hand to his mouth and pressed his lips to it. “I couldn’t tell you.”
I held my breath as I lost myself in his gray eyes. His gaze held none of the usual arrogance. My heart soared. Resisting him was futile.
“You can’t imagine how much I hated myself for what I said to you,” David said, staring at our interlaced hands and stroking my knuckles. “You were one of the only people who always stood up for me, but I couldn’t bring myself to accept your help.”
“Why not?”
“You can’t imagine how jealous I was of you,” he said.
I couldn’t imagine David being jealous of anyone, much less me.
“You had your secret society with Lukas and Kristina. You all seemed to understand each other without even speaking.”
“But we didn’t deliberately shut you out. As I remember it, you didn’t always make things easy for us.” David let go of my hand and contorted his face into an expression of remorse. He didn’t try to make any excuses, which I appreciated. I did my best not to sound accusatory: “That doesn’t explain why you, of all people, were so mean to us.”
“No.” He shook his head and a faint redness crept into his cheeks as he admitted, “Our dad always preferred Lukas and Kristina, which I could understand, because, in the end, I wasn’t his biological child.”
David averted his gaze and seemed to be composing his next words in his mind. I put my hand on his arm to encourage him. “But Dad always treated you like his own daughter, even though you were only his niece.” I had to agree that he had a point, but I said nothing.
“Haven’t you noticed how many photos there are of the three of you? I’m not in a single one. David stood up, suddenly appearing resentful. “It’s always Lukas, Kristina, and you!”
Shocked, I stood up as well. I would have never have thought that his resentment ran so deep.
David ran his hands through his hair and took a few steps back, his tense posture betraying his feelings.
I walked up to him and rubbed his back. I wasn’t sure how to comfort him—I could hardly turn back the clock and change the past. My uncle and my aunt should have asked more questions earlier—tried harder to get to the bottom of why David was such a difficult child—instead of sending him to England. David seemed to have calmed down somewhat and smiled at me.
“I’m sorry. That came as something of a surprise, didn’t it?”
“Yeah, I had no idea.”
He shrugged and assumed an aloof expression that I knew only too well. It was likely difficult for him to have disclosed so much. But didn’t he know how attractive his vulnerability made him? I didn’t want him pulling away from me again, so I put my arms out to hug him.
David sighed and wrapped his arms tightly around me. He kissed me gently on the temple and buried his face in my neck. With a rapidly beating heart, I snuggled up to him and stroked his tense back. How had I never noticed that his dismissive attitude toward me in the past was rooted in something completely different? How could I have been so blind? I’d been deceived by his aura of confidence and never looked beyond the facade.
I was oddly agitated as I walked with David up the gravel path that led back to the house. Countless questions were on the tip of my tongue, but I didn’t trust myself to ask them. I feared I would drive David away if I pressed too hard. So I just tried to keep up with his long strides and concentrate on the magical garden.
The air smelled heavily of the wild roses that lined the path, and we kept having to push back the aggressive tendrils. Every time one grazed my body, a tingle shot through me. The sun was high in the sky and the air hummed with the sound of insects flying among the flowers. The only other sound was the crunching of gravel under our feet. I looked tentatively at David.
He also seemed to sense the spark between us because he turned and smiled at me. He took my hand without a word, lacing his fingers in mine. As we walked hand in hand toward his parents’ house, I couldn’t help but wonder what our relatives would say about it. I had no idea how they would react.
David suddenly stopped, as though he had read my thoughts. He quickly squeezed my hand, then released it.
“Elisa.” He cleared his throat. “Everything is a mess right now. What would you think if . . .”
I didn’t let him finish speaking. I didn’t want to hear some sorry excuse from him; I didn’t want him to kill my tenuous hope that there might be something between us. I pushed past him and stalked off. The gravel now crunched unpleasantly in my ear and the sweet scent of roses made me nauseous. David called after me, but I just accelerated my pace.
David didn’t run after me.
I felt a surge of joy as I watched Elisa storm up the stairs. Would she finally pack her suitcase and go? I hoped so, because soon I would no longer be able to suppress my desire for revenge. The darkness was mounting in me, rising with a vengeance that would no longer be tamed. This desire had developed a life of its own that I could no longer control.
Recent developments had cost me too much strength. It was getting more and more difficult to keep up appearances and, day after day, continue to wear the mask that had concealed my face for so long.
I couldn’t bear it anymore.
I sighed deeply when I reached my room, determined not to obsess over my misfortune. But it wasn’t easy. Ever since yesterday’s kiss in the garden, I had been filled with a naive hope. A hope that was as seductive as it was lethal.
But I had to hand it to David—he had successfully distracted me from the strange happenings and mysterious messages. Once again, my thoughts turned to him. I simply couldn’t suppress them. When it came to David, I was lost.
I threw myself down on my bed and buried my face in my pillow. I had to agree with David, though it was devastating. The Westphal house was in a state of turmoil at the moment. David had just broken up with Valerie, who refused to accept it and was still coming and going. Uncle Matthias had just been released from the hospital after a serious heart attack, and no one could foresee how he would react to the news that his stepson and his favorite niece had fallen in love with each other.
I wistfully thought of the moment when David had opened up to me and supplied me with at least a partially plausible explanation for his past behavior. But something about it bothered me. What was it? I went through our conversation word for word. I stopped when he came to the childhood pictures of Lukas, Kristina, and me. Was that really true? I could hardly imagine it to be so.
The question gave me no peace. So I finally walked down to the foyer and studied the framed photographs myself. There was the one of the three of us at the Carnival celebration that I’d already seen. The next one showed Lukas, Kristina, and me at the zoo, where we stood in front of the monkey house, making silly faces. Then another one of Lukas, Kristina, and me on a ski trip. And another of the twins and me at the premier of one of our school plays. Another showed us having a water fight in the garden. The next, we were in the kitchen baking cakes. I stepped closer, smiling. This was my favorite picture. Kristina and I must have been around seven years old. We beamed at the camera with flour-dusted faces, while Lukas licked the bowl next to us. Most people could barely tell Kristina and me apart in this picture. At the time, we had the same hairstyle—a gorgeous bowl cut—and our features were hard to tell apart under the flour. Even I had to look twice as I studied the picture.
The next picture was one of the few that showed David as a child. He held a taut bow in his hand and had his sights focused on the target. His well-proportioned face already emanated a touch of aloofness and lacked the typical lightheartedness of children his age.
I was still deep in thought as I climbed the stairs to the second floor. Unfortunately, I had to agree with David. The four of us never appeared together in a photo. With every step, I thought of more images from our childhood. And I always saw Lukas, Kristina, and me. Something about that continued to bother me, but I couldn’t put my finger on why.
At dinner, I couldn’t get a bite down. I had deliberately avoided sitting across from David. Instead, I faced Kristina, who skillfully wound her spaghetti around her fork and quickly emptied her plate. My gaze frequently wandered to David’s face, and the pictures that I had studied earlier kept popping up in my mind’s eye. Why did the photos suddenly irritate me? I’d looked at them countless times before and knew their every last detail.
Lukas elbowed me, pulling me from my thoughts.
“What’s wrong? Don’t you like your spaghetti?”
“Yes,” I answered, laying down my fork. “But I’m just not hungry.” Lukas didn’t deliberate for long; he switched his empty plate with mine and dug into my spaghetti.
David turned toward me and his eyes met mine. He, too, had hardly eaten a thing, instead getting absorbed in a conversation about an amendment to a bill. He had completely ignored me. Our meeting in the garden earlier seemed like it had never happened, and I began to fear that I had imagined the entire thing.
Right after dessert, I fled the dining room. I could sense the stunned looks from my relatives, but I didn’t care. As I hurried through the foyer, I heard quick steps behind me. Because I knew it could only be David, I didn’t look around but instead ran up the steps, taking them two at a time in an effort to put some distance between us.
“Elisa,” he called, running up behind me. Given the advantage of his long legs, he soon caught up to me.
I was breathing rapidly, but my heart beat even harder when David suddenly grabbed me by the arm and pulled me to him. He looked at me with fury in his eyes.
“Let me go!” I hissed. But who was I actually fooling?
David released my arm, took my face in his hands, and lowered his voice. “Damn it, Elisa! Stop always running away from me!”
“You don’t leave me any other choice!”
“Do you have any idea how complicated this is?”
At the hopelessness in his voice, I stopped struggling. Tears clouded my vision.
David took my hand and pulled me toward my room.
Monday
I awoke from a light sleep late that night. What had just transpired was so beautiful and so stirring that I’d been able to find peace. I turned and looked at David, who was sleeping on his side, facing me.
The moonlight shining through the window lit his naked sho
ulder. The milky light illuminated his smooth skin, his well-defined muscles, and his handsome face.
David appeared younger in his sleep. His disheveled black hair fell over his forehead. I reached out my hand and brushed back a wayward lock. His shiny hair slid coolly through my fingers. I couldn’t stop touching him. I stroked the elegant curve of his eyebrow with the tip of my finger and then slipped it over his temple and down to his cheek, where his rough stubble scratched my skin.
Suddenly, he grabbed my wrist and opened his eyes. His eyes twinkled as he glared at me in the semidarkness.
“Is it possible that you can’t sleep?”
“Looks that way.”
When I awoke the following morning to the sound of cheerful bird chirps, David was gone. I lay in bed and thought about what I had so often pictured in my dreams—and how it had finally become a reality. I smiled, not even letting myself be bothered by the fact that David was gone.
Because I had no desire to face my family, I decided to skip breakfast, snapped up my camera, and left the room on tiptoe.
Bolting down the stairs, I caught myself humming the melody to a cheesy love song. At the foot of the stairs, Lukas appeared and grabbed my sweatshirt. “You’re not going anywhere!”
Laughing as I tried to keep my balance, Lukas studied my face intently.
“Just last night, you were totally sullen at dinner and now . . .” He crooked his head.
“Am I not just allowed to be in a good mood?” I asked, trying to pull away, but I could never get away with anything with Lukas.
“I’m guessing that your good mood has something to do with the fact that you and David were nowhere to be found.” He crossed his arms over his chest.
“I don’t have to explain anything to you.”
“So I’m right . . .”
I furrowed my brow. “Lukas, it’s none of your business.”
He looked at me grimly. “Do you really think he’s changed? After all, you haven’t been here the last few years.”
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