July 24, 2000
Diary entry
TODAY I MOVED into the Veldkamp mansion.
I felt like a beggar as I stood on the doorstep, clutching my tattered overnight bag in one arm and Smokey my cat in the other. Sometimes I hate my dear stepsister, but she’s the only family I have, and she’s always been there when I’ve needed her.
After Louisa turned me out of the apartment, I stayed away for five days. I spent the first night on the sofa at Marieke’s converted loft, but Smokey triggered her asthma, so I moved on to Joop’s moldy apartment, a dump rented cheap to keep out squatters. Joop is an ex-boyfriend, and he knows I’m involved with a man who is in no position to help me. He threw a lumpy, stained mattress onto the floor in the living room, where I spent four nights trying to sleep while he and his friends came and went at all hours. Even as a temporary solution, the arrangement sucked. But I’m penniless. My job at the university library ended when I withdrew from school. I can’t even afford a night in a youth hostel.
I swallowed my pride and rang the doorbell. A rotund boy wearing glasses with thick lenses answered the door. I knew it was Jurriaan because of the glasses, but he’d gained weight since I saw him last.
“Jurriaan. It’s nice to see you.”
He nodded and we exchanged the traditional three kisses on alternating cheeks.
“May I hold the cat?” he asked.
“Her name’s Smokey.” I shifted the cat into his arms. “Is Louisa home?” I asked, hoping she had gone out, giving me time to settle in before the inevitable confrontation.
“She’s downstairs practicing. I’m supposed to take you to your room.”
“And Willem?”
“In his room with Bas. He’s our best friend.”
Jurriaan led the way, gripping the rail with his free hand. He didn’t trot up the stairs the way Willem would have. Each step was labored.
The attic room had been cleared out and converted to a bedroom with a small desk, a wardrobe, and a single bed.
“I arranged your books,” Jurriaan said, pointing to the bookshelf above the desk.
He had ordered them by color. “Thank you.”
He smiled and stroked the cat.
The room was bigger than I remembered from my visits on school holidays. Sometimes I had hidden in the attic to be alone and read a book.
My typewriter took up most of the space on the desk. I opened the wardrobe and found my clothes folded inside, even my panties and bras. At least they weren’t sorted by color! Louisa had known I would come. She knew she had me cornered, that I had no choice but to do her bidding.
Then I heard birdsong. I climbed onto the bed and peered out the casement window. The garden below was a palette of green, violet, and blue. A gravel path wound from the terrace to the end of the garden, where the canal flowed by, a glimmering silver ribbon framed by rich green foliage. For the moment I felt lighter. If only it were anyone else’s house.
Slow, deliberate footsteps sounded on the stairs.
Louisa ducked when she came through the doorway. She was wearing a long gold and white kaftan and metallic leather sandals. “Welcome, Katja.”
The top of her blonde head brushed the low-beamed ceiling. The atmosphere in the room darkened, and I felt a sudden chill. But Louisa smiled as if no ill will had ever passed between us, as if we were on the best of sisterly terms.
“Jurriaan, go downstairs,” Louisa said with a smile that bordered on genuine.
“Yes, Mom.” He set Smokey on the floor and tripped on the edge of the rug in his haste to leave.
Louisa turned the desk chair around and sat down majestically. I perched on the edge of the bed, and Smokey sprang onto my lap.
“I’m glad you accepted my proposal,” Louisa said.
“Proposal? You gave me no choice,” I snapped.
Louisa tutted. “What is the cat doing here?”
I hugged Smokey closer and swallowed hard. “Sorry. No one could take her. Besides, Jurriaan will love having a pet. And it’s a big house. You won’t know Smokey is here.”
“Is the animal house-trained?”
“Yes, I have a litter box.”
“We’ll call it a trial run.”
“Thank you, Louisa,” I said, relieved. But I couldn’t help wondering what was in it for her.
She continued. “These are my ground rules. The boys can entertain themselves. But you need to keep tabs on them. Know where they are at all times. A cleaner comes once a week. A woman normally comes at four o’clock to cook the evening meal, but she’s away nursing a sick relative. You’ll have to do the cooking until she returns.”
My eyes darted to Louisa’s smooth hands. She didn’t do any cooking or cleaning herself. She spent most of her life in five-star hotels with maid service, crisp white sheets, fresh towels, a rose on the pillow. And when she was home, she avoided any activity that might wrinkle, redden, or roughen her hands. Or injure them. Her hands were the tools of her trade. She would be lost without them.
“I don’t know how to cook,” I said.
“Didn’t the boarding school I sent you to teach the girls how to cook?”
“The school had a modern curriculum. It wasn’t the 1950s.”
“There’s no call to be sarcastic.”
I tried for a neutral expression.
“Cooking isn’t rocket science, Katja. You’ll find cookbooks in the kitchen.”
“Anything else?”
“No boyfriends in the house. Is that clear?”
“I’m nineteen.”
“I expect you to spend the nights alone in your own bed.”
“Am I allowed to go out with my friends?” If Louisa said no, I was going to pack my bag and walk out. Even if it meant sleeping under a bridge and slinging coffee in a café.
“Of course. As long as Hendrik and the boys get their dinner. Any more questions?”
“What would you have done if I hadn’t come?”
“You’re here, aren’t you? And your timing is perfect. I leave tomorrow.” Louisa rose from the chair and glided to the door.
After she was gone, I unpacked my suitcase. At the bottom was the draft of my novel. Leaving it on the desk was risky. I didn’t put it past her to confiscate the manuscript or even destroy it. The desk had a single drawer underneath, with a key dangling in the lock. Was it a trap? Louisa might have a spare. But she was leaving tomorrow, so I locked the manuscript in the desk and looked for a place to hide the key. I considered hiding it under the mattress, but that was too predictable. Or inside the boots that I wouldn’t wear again until winter. I decided on the tight gap between the back of the wardrobe and the wall. I worked the key along the floor until it was out of sight.
After living like a nomad for nearly a week, my hair was limp and greasy, and my clothes grubby. The guest bathroom was on the floor below. I grabbed clean clothes and went down the attic stairs. As I turned into the hall, I heard a shout of laughter from behind a door. On impulse, I knocked.
A beautiful boy opened the door. Willem? He and Jurriaan no longer looked like twins: Jurriaan’s weight gain, glasses, and timidity had seen to that. Willem’s honey-blond hair was shaggy and combed straight back. He regarded me with frank, golden-hazel eyes, fringed with thick blond lashes. I couldn’t help wishing I had washed my hair and changed into clean clothes first. Ridiculous to let a boy that age make me self-conscious.
“Hi, Willem.” Curious, I peered around him at the other boy, who was sitting cross-legged on the floor. Chestnut brown hair, turquoise eyes, and a prominent cleft chin.
“You must be Bas.”
“You’re Katja, right? We met at one of Willem’s birthday parties.”
I recalled a young boy with the same coloring, pretty enough to be a girl. He was growing up to be a heartbreaker.
Willem opened the door wider, and Jurriaan waved from the beanbag chair.
“Am I interrupting?”
“It’s okay,” Willem said.
“The bunk beds are gone,” I said, looking around. The Legos and the stuffed animals were gone too, replaced by an acoustic guitar lying on the desk and an electric one leaning against the bed. On the wall was a black and white poster of Kurt Cobain holding a guitar in his lap.
“We have our own rooms now,” Jurriaan said.
“That’s nice. What are you guys up to?”
“We’re writing a song,” Willem said.
“May I hear it?”
“Maybe, when we’re finished.”
He pushed back a lock of hair that had fallen forward, drawing my attention to a goose egg on his temple, the cut in the center scabbing over.
“What happened to your head?”
Bas opened his mouth, but Willem shot him a warning glance.
“Bumped it on the corner of a cabinet,” Willem said.
“Did you tell your mother?”
“It’s nothing.”
I recalled he was accident-prone. Once when I visited, his arm was in a cast—broken in a tumble down the stairs. Another time, he was missing a front tooth—knocked out in a soccer match. Or was it a hockey match? At his tenth birthday party, I glimpsed a bruise on his back when his T-shirt rose. Happened in a fall from a tree, he’d said, and showed me the tree next to the canal.
Jurriaan fiddled with his glasses, Bas gazed at my chest, and Willem avoided looking me in the eye. The welcoming sunshine was spent. Shadows cloaked the house. I left the boys to their songwriting.
Thank God, Louisa is leaving tomorrow.