SIMONE VAN DER VLUGT

Shadow Sister

Translated from the Dutch

by Michele Hutchison

Contents

Cover

Title page

Lydia

1.

2.

3.

4.

5.

Elisa

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7.

Lydia

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Elisa

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Lydia

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Elisa

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Lydia

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Elisa

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Lydia

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Elisa

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Lydia

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Elisa

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Lydia

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Elisa

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63.

About the Author

Copyright

About the Publisher

Lydia
1.

All of a sudden he’s got a knife. The flash as he draws it is so unexpected fear paralyses me. I try to speak, but the sound dies in my throat. I can only stare at the blade glinting in the light streaming through the classroom windows.

Then waves of adrenaline pulse through my body and I can move again. I reverse towards the open door. Bilal steps forwards at the same time so that the knife remains pointed at me, at my chest, my throat.

My thoughts scramble and fall away. I once did a training course on how to handle these kinds of situations. An image of the textbook flashes through my mind. But I can’t remember the tips. I can’t remember.

Intuition kicks in: Don’t make eye contact. Try to escape. But will I make it to the door?

I glance at Bilal. His gaze is strange, fixed, predatory. His eyes register every movement I make, but surely he cannot see the wild heartbeat I can feel in my throat. I try to empty my face of expression, but I’ve no idea whether I’m succeeding. I probably look more surprised than frightened.

Surprised, because I hadn’t seen this coming. But I should have been prepared for it, particularly with Bilal Assrouti.

As he passes the first line of desks, the other students are still quiet, stunned. I stare at the knife and the world contracts into a tunnel through which I can see only the long blade and Bilal’s glittering eyes. The nineteen-year-old standing in front of me might be a schoolboy, but he’s also a man; he’s a head taller than me, his arms are muscular and there’s a tic in his neck.

My eyes become glassy with fear; time stretches. Probably no more than a few seconds have passed, but it feels like minutes, minutes in which I know I’m in serious danger.

Thick fog in my head. Reason, Lydia. Talk. I need to talk. Start up a calm conversation. Show him this isn’t the solution. Show him I’m taking his feelings seriously.

After letting out a dry cough, I find my voice. ‘Put the knife down, Bilal. You really don’t want this and it won’t get you anywhere. Why are you so angry?’

‘Why am I so angry?’ he shouts. ‘Why do you think, bitch? You just stood there, all full of yourself, and told me to leave school!’

‘That’s not what I said—’ I begin, but the denial is a mistake. His face contorts and I fly into the corridor. There’s a clamour in the classroom, but I don’t stop.

I run to the headmaster’s office and throw open his door. Jan van Osnabrugge has the phone in his hand, but one glance at my wild appearance is enough for him to put it down.

‘Lydia! What is it?’

I close the door behind me – Bilal hasn’t followed me – and lean against it. For a few seconds I can’t speak. ‘Bilal. He pulled a knife on me.’ I indicate the size of the knife with my hands and Jan’s eyes grow even wider.

‘You look pale. Are you all right? I’ll get you some water.’

He gets up, but I shake my head – I don’t want to stay here alone while he fetches water.

‘Sit down for a bit,’ Jan says. ‘Tell me what happened.’

Shaking, I sit down in the chair opposite him, but I can’t remember a single thing. I can’t recall anything of what happened beforehand or how the argument progressed, all I can see is the knife. I bury my face in my hands and weep hot tears.

Jan crouches next to me and puts his arms around me. ‘Have a good cry. Don’t worry. We’ll handle this. Where is Bilal now?’

I shrug, still shaking.

‘I’ll send someone to your classroom to look after the other students.’ Jan strides out of the room and I want to call out to him to stay, but no sound emerges from my throat.

I sit there in a daze, looking out of the window that opens onto the playground. Rotterdam College offers various types of education, but most students are doing some kind of technical or professional training. Generally they’re pleasant, reasonable young people. They do need keeping an eye on, but you can have a good relationship with them. Just like at any other school. And just like at any other school, we have students with learning difficulties such as ADHD, autism, Asperger’s or dyslexia. In the old days they would have gone to special schools, but not now.

I’ve always invested a lot in my students – I do a lot of overtime, making home visits or popping into the McDonald’s where they hang out, so we can have a chat. Mostly, my students appreciate this. Plenty of them have told me so; others have demonstrated it by sharing secrets, big and small, or telling me about their home lives. Believe me, this is not easy for them. In general, a child’s shame runs deeper than their need to talk about their problems.

In the beginning, if I turned up unannounced at their homes, they’d refuse to let me in, but little by little I’ve gained ground. I’ve been in most of their living rooms by now and, yes, I’ll admit that I’m proud of it. Why shouldn’t I be?

I wouldn’t have been able to get up in front of a class and teach if it didn’t inspire me. I feel responsible for my students; I might not be the driving force of their existence, but I do have some kind of influence on their future.

If I call a student to my desk to discuss their behaviour, we can have a conversation without them storming out, as they often do with my fellow teachers. The other teachers haven’t gone to the trouble of attending the inter-cultural coaching sessions – they take up a lot of time in the evenings but give important insights into immigrant children. Every teacher there has come because of troublemakers in their class, and Bilal Assrouti has always been a troublemaker.

Bilal has been in my class for almost two years and we have clashed from the start. He’s the kind of domineering child who rules the roost at home and thinks he can act that way at school too. But the idea that he’d draw a knife…

I’ve been teaching Dutch for seven years now and I’ve never come up against a problem with a student that I couldn’t solve, but every day Bilal gives me the feeling that I’m a failure as a teacher, that I fail at all those things I’m desperate to do well. I’ve tried from the start to get through his armour-plating of defensiveness and scorn – the problems that he has with me as a female teacher – but in vain. And on a sunny morning at the end of April, it’s come to this.

The noise of the school bell pierces the corridors and makes me jump. There’s an instant uproar and shortly afterwards the playground fills up with students. Dark hair, caps and headscarves everywhere. Is Bilal among them or has he gone? Would he really have stabbed me? I shunt restlessly backwards and forwards on my chair and decide not to leave the school premises before I’ve seen Bilal being carted off by the police.

2.

The door opens and Jan comes in and closes the door behind him. ‘Bilal’s friends say he’s left. I’ll get in touch with his parents presently and let them know about the incident.’ He sits down at his desk. ‘Lydia, we’ll address this without delay.’

I let out a sigh. ‘Thank you, Jan. Do you think the caretaker could take me to the police station in a little while? I daren’t go out while Bilal is still on the loose.’

My words are met with silence. Jan coughs and stares at the pen pot on his desk. ‘I’m wondering whether it makes sense to report this. Of course I can’t stop you, but I don’t think it’s worth it. There’s a large chance the case will be dropped due to a lack of evidence.’

‘A lack of evidence? With twenty-four witnesses?’

‘Most of whom are Bilal’s friends,’ Jan argues. ‘Don’t rely on your students too much – they’ll either be loyal or scared of repercussions. I’d rather not have them drawn into this, you understand.’

I stare at Jan as though I’m seeing him for the first time. ‘I don’t understand at all. I’ve been threatened with a knife and you propose we act as though nothing has happened. Why is that?’

I already know the answer. If I report him, Bilal will be arrested and it will generate negative publicity for the school. Rotterdam College has been losing students for years, despite merging with two other schools, and it’s not the first time we’ve made the news in this way.

My disgust must be evident because Jan raises a hand. ‘It’s not about the school, Lydia. The situation will only get worse if you make a big deal out of it. Bilal’s in his final year, there’s no way we can expel him. He’s legally entitled to take his final exams. We’ve all just got to get along for the rest of the year. Reporting him to the police would be like throwing oil on the fire.’

I hesitate. The mere idea of seeing Bilal in my classroom again makes my heart race.

‘I don’t want to run into him in school. I don’t want him in my class anymore, I don’t want to bump into him in the corridor and I don’t want to see him hanging around the assembly hall.’

Jan folds his hands. ‘I swear that Bilal won’t get away with this lightly.’

‘What are you planning to do?’

‘I don’t want to come across him in the corridors either,’ Jan replies. ‘I’ll suspend him for a while and after that he can finish the rest of the year at the other site. That way he can take his exams and you won’t have to be confronted with him. I’ll inform his parents and arrange an appointment with them for this afternoon. How do you feel about that?’

I rub my forehead, trying to massage away the beginning of a headache. ‘I’m not sure. Christ, Jan, he could have stabbed me!’

‘But he didn’t,’ Jan says in the tone of someone reassuring a child. ‘Why don’t you take the rest of the day off. Take as long as you need. Get over the shock, make sense of things and let me know when you’re ready to get back in the saddle. You’re too upset to teach right now.’

I shove my chair back and stand up. ‘Fine, but as far as the police go, I’m not promising anything.’

Jan says quietly, ‘If there’s another negative article in the papers it will cost us twenty new students next year and just as many will decide to change schools. That’d mean two jobs on the line, two teachers unemployed. Please, Lydia.’

3.

As I stand in the corridor, amid the bustle of students, I’m overwhelmed by exhaustion. I walk back to classroom no. 209, unlock the door and go inside. My eyes dart to where I was standing when Bilal threatened me. I picture him stabbing me, see the knife in my throat, a big slash across my face. I see the blood pouring out and suddenly I’m shaking uncontrollably.

I gather my papers into the bag I’d left on the small podium and hurry out. I want to go home but my need to talk to Jasmine is stronger. The lunch break is almost over, but I have to tell her what has happened. Jasmine is my colleague and friend; we both joined the school seven years ago, fresh from teacher-training college. We have been through the same problems with discipline and difficult students. In the beginning she lived outside Rotterdam, but as soon as she got a permanent position at the school, she and her husband Lex bought a house in the same street as Raoul and me in the Hillegersberg area. We’d always been friendly, but after they moved into the street, we began dropping round for cups of tea, and looked after each other’s children. Not that either of us have got much time for tea-drinking. We’ve both got families and a busy working week, so we mainly see each other at school.

‘My god, what happened to you? You look dreadful.’ Jasmine is in the staffroom drinking coffee and a quick glance at my face was enough to alarm her. The bell goes and the teachers around us pack up their bags, put their empty mugs into the plastic crate and leave the staffroom, chatting and laughing as they go.

‘Do you have to teach now?’ I ask.

Jasmine nods, frowning. ‘2E. Why? Tell me!’

‘Bilal,’ is all I say. ‘He had a knife.’

‘What?!’

I look at Jasmine; her expression of horror has made me feel better already. ‘A knife. And not a small one. A long, thin blade. He held it to my throat.’

Jasmine’s jaw drops. ‘You’ve got to be kidding.’

My hands are trembling and I’m close to tears again.

‘We have to talk about this, but I’ve got a class now.’ Jasmine is flustered. ‘Hold on, I’ll set them an essay, then I’ll be able to leave them for a while. Sit down and have a coffee, I’ll be back in a minute.’

She puts a cup of coffee down in front of me, then is gone, and I’m alone in the staffroom. I read the announcements on the noticeboard without taking them in. All I can think about is whether or not I should go to the police.

When Jasmine rushes back in, I jump.

‘Well, this really is the limit!’ she cries out. ‘We shouldn’t have to put up with this kind of rubbish. Tell me exactly what happened.’

‘We had an argument,’ I say, ‘but the crazy thing is, I can’t remember what was said.’

‘That’s the shock,’ Jasmine says. ‘It doesn’t matter. You had an argument and then what?’

‘He got up and came towards me. His face was all contorted, it was horrible. And then he pulled out a knife and pointed it at my throat.’ Three sentences and I’m crying again.

Jasmine puts her arm around me. ‘It must have been so terrifying.’

‘I really thought he was going to stab me,’ I sob, choking back the tears. ‘All I could think was, not my throat, not my throat, because I knew I’d have no chance of surviving that. But then I realised that he could also cut my face and I imagined spending the rest of my days with a big scar, or just one eye.’ I cry even harder.

Jasmine strokes my hair; her face is pale. ‘Where is Bilal now?’ she asks. ‘Have you already spoken to Jan?’

‘I ran out of the classroom and went straight to Jan’s office.’

‘And? What did he say?’

I pick up a plastic spoon and toy with it. ‘He would rather I didn’t report it to the police. He said he’d get in touch with Bilal’s parents this afternoon, and he’d suspend Bilal immediately.’

‘Okay. And what else?’

‘Legally speaking, Bilal’s got the right to take his final exams here, but he’ll be barred from entering this building. He’ll take classes at the other site.’

Jasmine nods. ‘The sooner they get him away from here the better. That does seem the best solution to me. Jesus, just the thought that he might pull a knife on me! I’d die of fright!’

I bend the plastic spoon, making a white crease in the plastic. ‘But I wonder if I should go to the police.’

Jasmine frowns. ‘You should really, shouldn’t you?’

‘It wouldn’t do much for the school’s reputation, but on the other hand.’ I look at my friend despairingly. ‘What kind of signal would that send out, that a student can threaten a teacher with a knife and the only punishment is being sent to work in another building?’

‘And a suspension.’ Jasmine adds.

‘A suspension?’ The spoon snaps. I put the pieces down. ‘He’ll get a week’s holiday, watch a bit of MTV.’

‘That’s true,’ Jasmine says, ‘but what do you expect the police to do? The most they’ll do is caution him. If we reported every threat that was made in this school, we’d all be out on the street in no time.’

‘That might be true,’ I say heatedly, ‘but what kind of school is this then? Not reporting him means that the students have the upper hand, that they can do whatever they want.’

‘They can,’ Jasmine says soberly, ‘and you know it.’

I do know it. The power of the students, protected by their parents, is growing and growing. When I was at school, just the threat of being sent to the deputy head’s office was enough to stop me in my tracks if I was fooling around in class. These days they just laugh at you. Once, a student I’d sent out stood outside the classroom windows and dropped his trousers.

If you telephone the parents to ask them in for a chat, they never have time and they aren’t interested. If they do turn up, they barely understand what you’re saying because their Dutch is so poor – or they promise they’ll give their son or daughter a good hiding which you then desperately try to talk them out of. Often, they’re defensive. How dare you?! Are you saying they aren’t good parents? Isn’t it the school’s job to sort out problems? Isn’t that what they’re paying taxes for?

Victor, one of my colleagues, was once punched by a father.

‘What should I do, Jasmine?’ I ask. ‘What would you do?’

‘I’d sleep on it.’ Jasmine gets up to make another coffee. ‘Think it over.’

We sit there together, drinking our coffee in silence. I look at Jasmine over the rim of my cup. ‘I’ve got a headache.’

She rests her hand on mine. ‘Just go home,’ she says. ‘I’ll call you this evening, all right? And whatever you decide, police or no police, I’ll stand by you.’

4.

I’m glad I never cycle to work, even though the weather’s lovely for the end of April. I can’t take my bike because I have to rush off at the end of the day to pick up my six-year-old daughter from school. To my shame, she is sometimes there waiting for me, holding the teacher’s hand. But not today. It’s Monday, early in the afternoon, and I’ve got plenty of time to tell my story to the police.

If I decide to.

As I cross the playground on my way to the car park, I catch myself looking around. The sight of every dark-haired, broad-shouldered boy gives me a jolt and I only feel safe once I’m in my car with all the doors locked.

As I join the busy Rotterdam traffic, it all comes back to me, piece by piece.

From the moment the lesson began, Bilal had been looking me up and down. I was wearing a skirt – not a mini-skirt, it was to the knee – and high black leather boots. Slouched in his chair, Bilal looked from my legs to my breasts and then back again.

Ignoring things is always the best approach, so I carried on with the lesson. Until Bilal raised his hand.

‘Miss?’

‘Yes?’

‘You look really hot today. Are you going somewhere?’

There were some repressed giggles, but most of the room gave Bilal a cold stare.

‘I’d appreciate it if you’d keep such thoughts to yourself, Bilal.’

‘I bet you would,’ Bilal said. ‘You know what we call women in Morocco who walk around like that?’

I gave him a warning look. I’d recently made clear to the class the consequences of swearing, specifically of using the word ‘whore’.

Bilal sat up straight, leaned towards me as if in confidence, and said, ‘Prostitutes.’

Anger coursed through me but I managed to control myself. ‘Do you have chewing gum in your mouth? Do be so kind as to put it in the bin.’

Bilal worked his long body out from under the desk and walked, with the same sly grin, to the bin. He spat out the gum and went back to his place. As he prepared to sit down again, he stared leisurely, suggestively, at my breasts.

That’s when I did something wrong. I should have told him to leave the classroom and report to the headmaster, but instead I looked at his crotch, my expression scornful. It happened so quickly – I shocked myself – I realised I was making a mistake, but it was too late. Bilal had seen it. His expression changed from sly to hard, his lips thinned and his eyes filled with a threat that set all the alarm bells in my body ringing. I stepped backwards and that’s when he pulled the knife.

The memory fills me with a burst of confidence. I’m going to go to the police; of course I’m going to go to the police.

I head back towards the centre, brave the traffic along the Coolsingel Canal and turn off into a side street called Doelwater Alley. I park there and look over at the ‘swimming pool’, as the mint-green tiled police station is known.

But I don’t get out of my car.

My eyes sweep the alleyway and the square in front of the police station, searching for Bilal. He isn’t here. Of course he isn’t here, but he might come out from behind a parked car once I get out of mine.

I don’t really expect that to happen, but my heart pounds away all the same and I wonder whether I’ll be able to get any words out once I’m inside.

I need to get a grip on myself. A glass of iced water would do me good, but all I’ve got is a mouldy tangerine lying next to the gear stick.

I take a deep breath. Would Bilal really have stabbed me? I’ve known him long enough not to believe that. Yet, that look in his eyes when I provoked him…Who knows what I triggered in him? Even though I have a good relationship with most of the students from immigrant families, I’ll never truly understand them.

I imagine Bilal being interrogated – he might have to spend some time in a prison cell – and then I see the Bilal I’ve always known, an arrogant but intelligent boy who is probably already regretting what he did. Maybe Jan is right and I’d only make it worse by reporting it.

I don’t know how long I sit in my car, but at some point I wake up from my stupor and drive home.

5.

I’ve always felt the need to make the world a better place. As a five-year-old, I took the new kids at school under my wing, and this protectiveness carried on into middle and high school. For the bullied kids, my support made the difference between a quiet, unremarked existence and being the butt of classroom jokes. I was popular at school and other children followed my lead.

When I was fifteen, I started working on the school magazine. Before that, no one read the magazine; afterwards I’d see copies in school bags and on the tables in the canteen. My complaints about teachers discriminating against the immigrant students made me a kind of school heroine.

I’d take on anyone, whether it was about headscarves being tolerated in the classroom or smoking on school grounds.

I’ve only ever wanted to help.

As I drive home, I remember Bilal’s face as I fled the classroom, the aggression in his eyes, the complete arrogance of his manner. What I usually see with my Moroccan and Turkish students is that they’ve lost all sense of direction. These kids are born in the Netherlands, they grow up watching Sesame Street and Disney cartoons, but feel that they’re considered second-class citizens. They don’t feel Turkish or Moroccan, but don’t feel Dutch either. Caught between the culture of their parentage and the country they live in, they’re wrestling with their identity, anxious because there are no jobs to go to when they leave school, angry because they feel discriminated against.

If a student is having problems, I offer to buy them a drink, sit down with them, and discuss what’s going on, while respecting their social codes. We almost always find a solution. My teacher training didn’t prepare me for today. We were taught pedagogy and maintaining discipline, not how to handle aggression or violence.

I’m almost home when I think of how empty it will be there: the silent rooms, nobody to tell my story to. Should I go to Raoul instead? It’s ten past three, he’ll be in a meeting right now. To Elisa’s then? If she’s busy she’ll make time. You can always drop in on her.

Elisa is my twin sister. We’re identical twins, but I’m fifteen minutes older; perhaps that’s the reason I’ve always protected her – first from the school bullies and later from a crowd who liked to spike your drinks with ecstasy and cadge money from you.

When Elisa set up a photography studio, I soon realised that her lack of business acumen would stand in the way of success. She wasn’t assertive enough to get new clients and she let the clients she did have barter her prices down. In any case, the studio didn’t attract much custom. Not that it really mattered, neither of us has to work. We come from a wealthy family; wealthy and old and noble. It’s not something that particularly interests us – we never talk about it.

But money can’t buy everything. Our parents always impressed on us that we should study and get jobs, that it was more comfortable to have wealth, but that shouldn’t be the guiding principle in life. We weren’t spoilt as children; we got the same pocket money as the others, did Saturday jobs and had to take on a paper round if we wanted extra money. It was an education I feel deeply grateful to my parents for.

I would have got by on my salary, but my husband’s company would never have got off to such a flying start without the cash injection from my parents. I wonder whether Elisa could actually make a living from her photography.

To help her along I regularly have a series of portraits of Valerie taken. She never wants to charge me, but of course I pay the going price.

My husband has a successful software company and I asked him to give Elisa as many advertising commissions as he could. It turned out he’d been doing that all along, which I should have known because Raoul and Elisa get on really well.

I’m happy about that because Elisa is just as important to me as Raoul, perhaps even more so. The idea that identical twins have a special connection is true for us.

I’m often asked what it’s like being a twin. It’s a curious question. It’s not that I’m unaware of how unusual it is to have an identical twin, but other people’s reactions always remind me of how disarming our likeness is. I do see the physical resemblance, of course, but we are so different in nearly everything else. For example, Elisa is sportier than me. I rarely wear trousers, and she rarely wears a skirt. I’m extroverted, energetic and spontaneous; Elisa is relaxed and self-contained. I like shopping and going out, she’d rather go for a long walk in the countryside, and I could go on…

Elisa’s studio is on Karel Doorman Street, next to the Coolsingel Canal and Raoul’s offices. I park at Software International because finding a parking space in the centre of Rotterdam is nigh on impossible. When I get out of my car, my eyes follow the fire escape up to the third floor, to Raoul’s office. I half expect his face to appear at the window, as if he might have sensed that I need him, but he’s not there. Should I text him? Perhaps the meeting has finished or was cancelled.

I hesitate for a moment and then decide not to. Even if Raoul isn’t in a meeting, he doesn’t like to be disturbed at work. We made a deal about sharing the household chores and looking after Valerie and he never breaks it. If it’s my turn to do the shopping and I forget the milk, I have to go back to the shop to get it, I mustn’t bother Raoul. If I have a problem picking up Valerie from school, it’s not his problem. It works the other way too though: I can always count on him getting Valerie to school on time each morning, with her gym kit, a boxed drink and a biscuit. She’s just turned six and is in the second year of primary school. Two weeks ago she went on a school trip with her class. I was on a course that day, so Raoul was the one who carefully read the instruction sheet from the school and made sure that Valerie had everything she needed. They were first in the queue at the playground waiting for the bus, and when I got home from my course, she’d already had her bath and was eating her dinner. That’s what Raoul is like. You know exactly what you’re getting with him. Right now I only want one thing – to tell him what happened, and for him to comfort me and reassure me that I did the right thing by not going to the police.

I cross the Coolsingel in low spirits and walk towards Karel Doorman Street. Elisa occupies the ground floor of a small, narrow building with Elisa’s Photographic Studio painted on its window in pretty black lettering. It’s not a very imaginative name for someone as creative as my sister, but she thinks it works.

I push open the door and a bell tinkles. I always feel like I’ve wandered into an old-fashioned grocer’s shop, like the ones in the television adaptation of Pippi Longstocking. When we were children, Elisa and I used to be mad about Pippi Longstocking. For at least a year I got up to the same kind of tricks as Pippi, with Elisa following in my wake like a second Annika. Whenever I hear the theme tune, I get the urge to do something rebellious.

The front room of the studio is empty. That’s to say, the walls are covered in photographs, but Elisa isn’t here.

‘Elisa?’

‘I’m out back.’

I make my way out the back. She’s at her computer, dressed sportily as usual, wearing khaki trousers and a white sweater. Her brown hair is gathered up in a ponytail and she pushes one escaped curl away from her face.

‘Hey, sis,’ she says. ‘Don’t you always finish much later on Mondays?’

‘Yes,’ I say simply.

My twin looks at me in alarm. ‘Has something happened?’

Elisa
6.

The emptiness is waiting for me after the funeral, a terrible, apathetic emptiness. In the first few weeks after her death, I was too dazed for it to really sink in. It was as if I’d run full speed into a wall and just stood there swaying, too stunned to feel the blow.

I didn’t hear a word of my father’s funeral address, which made me more keenly aware of his pallid face and quivering voice. I tried to listen, leaning against my mother, mute with distress. She gripped my hand; her other arm was wrapped around Valerie. Raoul sat doubled over, his face buried in his hands.

Every pew in the church was full. And the sea of flowers! Lilies everywhere, giving off their heavy, sweet smell. The procession to the grave crossed a sun-drenched yard. It was early May and already twenty-five degrees.

We stood around the coffin, Raoul in his black suit, holding Valerie’s hand. She wasn’t crying; she didn’t seem to understand. She clutched a lily, Lydia’s favourite flower, which she didn’t want to leave behind at the grave. We let her take it. She’d already done a drawing which we’d put inside the coffin.

I remember the warmth, the birdsong, the fresh green leaves on the trees, and Raoul’s tears when he threw the first shovel of soil onto the coffin. My father’s contorted face, and my mother, who appeared impassive, a heavy dose of valium helping her get through that day.

I was wearing an orange and pink skirt and a matching sweater, and the boots Lydia had bought for me. Both inside the church and in the graveyard, I’d been conscious that I looked like I was going to a party and I felt many shocked glances directed towards me, which made me feel ill at ease. Should I have worn black?

It was only after the funeral, at the restaurant, as I caught my reflection in the window, that I understood the real reason behind those glances. I looked so much like Lydia right then. It shocked me too.

The last time I saw my sister, I was aware of the irreversibility of each passing second. I studied her dead face through a mist of tears – my twin sister.

They sometimes say that people who have died look like they’re asleep, but it’s not true. Lydia looked like what she was: dead. Her eyes were closed, her hands were folded and her skin pale. But the most shocking thing was the rigid way she lay on that white satin.

Suddenly the meaning of the expression ‘deadly silence’ sank in. And of the word ‘forever’.

Before the funeral I was numb. Afterwards my new reality began to take shape. Despair overwhelmed me and dragged me under. For the first few weeks, I barely felt like I existed. May had promised a beautiful summer, but I spent the month in bed, staring at the white walls and ceiling. White is a comforting colour: so calm, empty and pure.

I found myself in a state that could be called neither sleeping nor waking. In any case, real sleep was elusive. The nights were only distinguishable from the days by a paper-thin film. Sometimes I barely knew whether I was awake or dreaming. I listened to the silence, to the indescribable lull in which I found myself, safe in my own little world.

Before her death, I had felt that something was about to happen, something that would have far-reaching consequences for me and for those dear to me. Something unnameable, but nevertheless unavoidable. The feeling had been strongest when I woke up in the mornings.

When I woke up that Monday at the end of April, I remained very still and didn’t open my eyes. As if my childish refusal to look at the day would have any influence! Of course I did have to open my eyes eventually. My gaze went first to the alarm clock – it was still early – and then to the ceiling. For a quarter of an hour I looked at that white surface and tried to rationalise my feeling of discomfort. Where was it coming from?

Lydia.

Something had happened to Lydia.

I could have thought about any number of people who were dear to me: my parents or Thomas or Raoul. But Lydia’s name was the one that burned itself into my mind and, in a fit of panic, I grabbed my mobile from the bedside table and called her. There was no ring tone, it wasn’t switched on.

But of course it wasn’t, it was a quarter past eight, her first lesson had already begun.

Had I dreamed something that had made my head so full and heavy? It was possible; if only I could remember the dream, it might explain the feeling that something was wrong.

That day I was going to Capelle aan den Ijssel, to photograph a wedding with Thomas. Thomas is a photographer as well, and his sister, Laurien, was the bride.

By the time I got out of the shower, I was late. I raced out of the house dressed in green combats and a white sweater, my hair still wet. I grabbed my stuff, it was all there ready – my camera, tripod, light reflector. I was soon in the car; it belonged to my friend Sylvie. She lives and works in Rotterdam, where she can walk everywhere, so she lends it to me at times.

If you are a photographer, there’s always some family member with something to celebrate and they remember you just in time. Because of course you don’t charge them the full rate – you wouldn’t do that to family. You’d be invited anyway, so while you’re there, you might as well take pictures, right?

I’m positive that another professional photographer wouldn’t get as many requests for ‘just one more shot with Uncle Jim’ or of the five girlfriends of the bride with their children, who look so pretty in their new clothes.

A commissioned professional records only the official events: the church, registry office, reception and a few posed pictures in the park. They wouldn’t be asked to stay until the bitter end, because that would be much too expensive. But you, dear friend or family member, you can’t leave until the grand finale – the guests standing in a ring around the married couple, waving their lighters in the air, bellowing ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’, which you can’t join in with because you’re supposed to be taking pictures of it.

I hate weddings and so does Thomas. That’s why we go together. We’ve agreed never to shoot them alone.

So off we went together that Monday, which was a good distraction from my vague sense of dread.

‘Do you think you’ll ever get married?’ Thomas mumbled.

We’d greeted the bride and the rest of Thomas’s family in his parents’ house and were drinking coffee while we waited for the groom to arrive. We sat a little apart and barely had to lower our voices through the constant chatter of Thomas’s mother and grandmother.

‘I don’t know,’ I said.

‘I can imagine you in a white dress,’ Thomas said, a touching seriousness in his brown eyes.

I looked away with a smile on my lips, it was something I couldn’t imagine at all and for various reasons the subject made me feel embarrassed.

‘It would suit you.’

‘I’m not getting married.’ My voice sounded a little too harsh and the crash as I put my cup down on its saucer was perhaps a little over the top, but Thomas didn’t seem bothered.

‘I know that,’ he said calmly. ‘It doesn’t mean that much to me either. Why shouldn’t you just live together? That’s much simpler, isn’t it?’

‘But our society is set up so that it’s easier if you get married,’ I said. ‘If you just live together there’s a lot more red tape to get the same rights.’

Something that looked like pain flashed across Thomas’s face. ‘Red tape? Rights? What on earth happened to romance and being faithful until you die?’

‘They don’t exist. You’ve settled down until you die, that’s all.’

Thomas glanced at his sister. ‘But Laurien looks really happy.’

‘Wait and see whether her fiancé turns up,’ I said, and he had to laugh.

I didn’t really think the groom would fail to show up, that’s just the kind of conversations Thomas and I have – a little rebellious, kicking against the establishment. If we’d been young in the seventies, we would have fitted in quite well. I pictured Thomas cycling to the registry office, dinking his bride-to-be. Or even better, Thomas carrying his bride on a delivery bike, swerving along the canals. Only I didn’t see myself as that bride, though for some time I’d been getting the impression that Thomas did.

We’d been hanging out together for years because we’d both gone to art college in Amsterdam; even back then we’d been really close.

‘There’s Cyril. Thank god!’ Thomas winked at me and stood up. He took his camera from the table and walked outside. I began to mount my camera on the tripod.

7.

Thomas is a great guy, but he’s difficult, a real artist. You wouldn’t call him handsome; his eyes are a bit close together for that and his face is long and thin, but his dark eyes and athletic build make up for quite a bit. If he had a more cheerful personality, he might be really attractive, but Thomas and light-heartedness don’t go together. When we were students, he was a loner. He suffered from depression and he didn’t make friends easily. During his depressive episodes, which could last for weeks, he would withdraw and become unreachable. I only discovered that when I got to know him better, and it was years before he told me that his father had had similar mood swings. His father committed suicide. Thomas wasn’t as bad as that, thanks to drugs and intensive therapy, but you would never call him carefree.

I didn’t like him at first. I thought he was a grouch, an egoist, uninterested in other people – but then one day he came to my rescue. I was in a crowded tram, blocked in by the crush of people and unable to get away from the man behind me, who took the opportunity to make a grab at me and have a feel. People around me saw it happening, but nobody said anything or intervened, until Thomas pushed his way over to me. I hadn’t known he was on the tram. At the next stop he pressed the button to open the doors, punched the guy in the face and threw him out, shouting after him, ‘Go fuck your mother, you prick!’

There was a round of applause in the tram, but Thomas sat back down with a miserable look on his face. When the tram was less packed, I made my way over to thank him, and that afternoon we worked together on a project at the art college. It was the beginning of our friendship.

It was an unusual kind of friendship, none of the other students understood why I hung out with Thomas. I didn’t really understand it that well myself. I’d probably felt sorry for him at first, until I got to know the real Thomas and made a friend for life.

‘If you go back and process the pictures we’ve taken, I’ll take care of the reception and the party,’ Thomas said to me early in the afternoon. The lunch was over, the guests were leaving the restaurant and the bride’s curls had already dropped out of her hair.

‘I don’t mind helping you. I’ve still got space on my card.’

‘It’s fine. You look a bit tired, are you feeling all right?’ Thomas’s eyes glided over my face in concern.

‘I didn’t sleep very well last night.’

‘Well, get an early night then. I’ll see you tomorrow.’ Thomas put his arm around my shoulders and pulled me towards him, holding me tighter and for slightly longer than was strictly necessary. Not that it bothered me, but I wondered if he considered every instance of bodily contact as a point in his favour.

I knew the feeling, only it wasn’t Thomas who inspired it.

I drove back to Rotterdam, to Sylvie’s, and left a note of thanks under the windscreen wipers, then caught the tram to Karel Doorman Street. I’d have preferred to go home and settle down on the sofa with a cup of tea and packet of fudge – my addiction – but I’d promised Thomas I’d get to work on the pictures straight away.

I unlocked the studio door and went through the exhibition space to the back where I’ve got an office and a small kitchen. The kitchen opens onto a badly kept garden. It’s overrun with weeds, which always winds my father up. My father loves gardening and made several attempts to tame the plants shooting up in all directions, but each time he came back, he had to start all over again. Finally he had to accept that this garden would never amount to much unless he spent more time in it, and he already looks after the garden of my summer house in Kralingen, as well as Lydia’s, which is huge. And his own garden.

I looked over my computer screen at the garden and sighed. First a cup of tea.

I made a pot of camomile tea – I swear by herbal tea when I’m anxious – and took it out into the garden.

It’s actually quite nice. I don’t like stylised flower beds and themed areas. Just give me a garden that’s alive, even if it’s so exuberant you can hardly get into it. Lawns with a few rickety bistro chairs are not really my thing.

I wandered through the jungle, pulling out a few random stalks, and finally went inside to do some work.

For a while I concentrated so hard that I forgot everything else. Even my tiredness slipped away. When the doorbell rang, my concentration was shattered and the uneasiness rolled over me again. I didn’t need to get up to see who it was.

‘Elisa?’ Her voice was higher pitched than usual.

‘I’m out back!’

Lydia’s footsteps came towards the office, dragging a little. I swivelled around in my desk chair and got up. Lydia appeared in the doorway, groomed from top to toe as usual, with a tight black skirt and a fairly sexy black wraparound top. She seemed tired and irritated.

I pushed my hair back out of my face.

‘Hey sis,’ I said cautiously. ‘You don’t usually finish until much later on Mondays.’

‘Yes,’ she said simply.

Then I knew for sure. ‘Something has happened,’ I said softly.

Lydia
8.

I’m no longer surprised that I don’t need to explain much to Elisa. A single word, a single glance at my face is enough for her to know that I’m not paying a social call.

‘Lydia? What is it? Here, have my chair.’ She pushes me into her place and strides into the kitchen. Within a few seconds she’s back with a glass of cold water, exactly what I need. I drink deeply while my sister stands there with her arms crossed and peers down at me.

‘What happened?’ she says again, as soon as I’ve emptied the glass.

‘Bilal Assrouti.’

Only my parents – who’ve both taught difficult children in the past – can understand what it feels like to matter to another person, to make a difference, and what you have to go through to get there. Apart from my parents, Elisa and Raoul are the closest people to me, but they’ve never understood what drives me to work in a profession that takes so much energy and delivers so few rewards. That’s my own fault for being so open about how bad it can be. I don’t tell them enough of the nice things that happen: the flowers my class gave me on my birthday, how they sing the national anthem in the proper Dutch way, with their arms around each other, to prove that they’ve picked up something from my lessons.

When I talk about my work, the most memorable things are the bad things: one of the students punching Vincent in the jaw, or the attitude of some of the students when I wear a short skirt. I’m afraid I’ve dropped the name Bilal more than once because Elisa reacts immediately. ‘Bilal? What’s he done?’

I look at her for a while without speaking and she crouches down next to me. ‘You’re not hurt, are you?’

‘No,’ I whisper. ‘He only threatened me. With a knife.’

Elisa takes my hand, but she doesn’t have to do that for me to know that I’m not on my own in this. I feel some of her life-force and energy flowing into me and I take a deep breath.

‘Tell me about it,’ Elisa says gently.

I tell her. Every detail, every minor and major incident of the day. I don’t even leave out my own ill-advised reaction to Bilal’s provocative behaviour and Elisa listens without interrupting. When I’ve finished at last, she says, ‘Lydia, this is not your fault. Please understand that. I’m wondering why you’re here instead of at the police station. Or have you already been?’

‘No, that could have enormous consequences for the school.’

My sister gives me a look of incomprehension. ‘For the school? And what about you? This has enormous consequences for you too!’

‘Bilal is going to be suspended and transferred to the other site,’ I say. ‘I won’t have to see him anymore.’

‘Is that all?’ Elisa says in astonishment.

‘He didn’t stab me,’ I remind her. ‘He only threatened me.’

‘Only threatened!’

‘We have to deal with worse things at school, you know.’

‘And so it’s normal? I don’t understand this.’

‘I’ve never had a problem with that boy, Elisa. Not of this magnitude, in any case. In some ways, I’ve only got myself to blame. If I hadn’t looked at his crotch, he wouldn’t have flipped. A thing like that is an enormous provocation in the Moroccan culture.’

‘So what. We live in Holland, and it’s not normal here for a teacher to be called a whore because she’s wearing a short skirt.’

‘I do know that, but I have to work with these boys day in, day out. You still have to take their views into consideration.’

‘I suppose it’s easier to blame yourself.’ Elisa shrugs. ‘Would you like a cup of tea?’

She goes into the kitchen without waiting for an answer and I stare out of the window at the neglected back garden. She’s right, of course, it is much easier to blame yourself. If you blame yourself, you feel less powerless.

Elisa returns with two steaming mugs of tea.

‘What next?’ she asks. ‘Does Raoul know already?’

‘No, he’s in a meeting. I’m not going to bother him with this now. He can’t do anything about it, after all.’

‘I suppose not,’ Elisa says.

The doorbell tinkles and we look at each other.

‘Hi-i!’ A voice with a rather exaggerated sustained note rings out in the exhibition space.

Sylvie.

‘Hiiii,’ I imitate quietly.

‘Shut up,’ Elisa says, and then in a louder voice, ‘I’m out back.’

There’s a click clack of high heels on the wooden floor and then Sylvie Roelofs appears in the doorway. Sylvie is quite a good friend of Elisa’s, though I’m not sure why. It’s not that Sylvie is unpleasant, but she’s…fake, that’s the word. And instead of keeping any kind of distance, she does her best to please me, which is even more irritating.

She once came on to Raoul while I was there. Luckily Raoul doesn’t go for women like her so she had little success. Since then she’s behaved more normally, but we’ll never be friends.

‘Oh,’ Sylvie says. ‘You’re here too, are you? How are you?’

‘All right, thanks.’

She looks me up and down critically. ‘You don’t look that great.’

‘Why, thanks.’ I say.

‘Lydia’s had a bit of a difficult day,’ Elisa says. ‘She’s been threatened by one of her students.’

‘Really? How dreadful! What happened?’

‘He pulled a knife,’ I say.

‘Lord! What did you do? I think I would have died of fright, wouldn’t you?’ Sylvie says, directing a look of horror at Elisa.

‘The only thing I could think of doing was to leave the classroom,’ I say.

‘Well, that was probably for the best,’ Sylvie says. ‘You know, something like that happened to me once. I was on the tram and a man sat down next to me, right up against me. I moved towards the window and he shifted too so that I was clamped in. And then he opened his legs wide so that our knees were touching. I couldn’t sit anywhere else because the tram was full, so I pretended not to notice. And then, I swear it, he put his hand on my leg!’ She shudders.

‘Oh gross,’ Elisa says. ‘What did you do then?’

‘Nothing. I should have hit him, but I was completely overwhelmed. I wriggled around in my seat to get rid of his hand. Then he gave me a really letchy look. “I’ve never seen such a beautiful woman,” he said. “You’ve really made my day.” I had no idea how to react!’

Sylvie gives me a glance that suggests that now we have a shared trauma, we might become better friends.

‘Wow,’ I say simply, because I only ever half believe Sylvie’s stories. She’s always experienced everything you mention herself, although the similarity with your own story is usually quite hard to find. Worse still, she always finds it necessary to give a very detailed account, which means that you can’t finish your own story. People like that drive me insane.

‘I have to go.’ I get up from my chair.

‘No, stay a while,’ Elisa says at once. ‘We’ve hardly talked.’

‘It’s important to talk,’ Sylvie comments. ‘It helps you get over things. I once—’

‘Another time.’ I get my bag, give Elisa a wave and I’m gone.

9.

At half past three, I’m standing in the playground at Valerie’s school, waiting for the bell to go and for her to come running out. I usually chat with the other mothers and the odd father, but today I keep to myself.

There it is, the shrill noise of the bell and the first children come streaming out. Valerie is often the last one, I don’t know why. She comes sauntering out at her own cheerful pace when all her classmates are already on the back of their parent’s bike, or strapped into the back seat of their car. I couldn’t find my beaker, I lost my scarf, I had to go to the toilet, I wanted to tell the teacher something.

It’s not something that bothers me today, but if I’m waiting in the rain it’s a different matter. And there’s rarely a parking space near enough to wait in the car.

She comes ambling out at twenty to four today too, drawings in her hand and her beaker stuffed into her coat pocket.

‘Hi Mummy!’ she says, standing on tiptoe to greet me.

I bend down to kiss her warm, red schoolgirl’s cheek. ‘Hi darling, have you had a nice day?’

‘No, what are we going to eat tonight?’ she says in a single breath as we walk to the car.

‘I’m not sure yet. There’s lots of things in the fridge, we’ll look when we get home.’

‘I want chips.’

‘Maybe we’ll have chips then.’ I open the back door so that Valerie can climb in. She fastens the seatbelt herself and says, ‘I’ve made some nice pictures, Mummy. Do you want to see them?’

She passes me a couple of scribbled drawings that I admire at length.

‘They’re for Grandma.’ Valerie checks my expression. ‘Do you mind?’

‘Well, maybe a very tiny bit,’ I admit. I once said that I really didn’t mind and had to spend the next hour making up for my lack of interest.

‘I’ll do another one for you at home. A really pretty one.’

I slide behind the wheel. ‘What did you do at school today, sweetheart?’

‘Played in the standpit,’ Valerie says, without taking her eyes off her artworks.

I can’t help laughing at her corruption of sandpit, but her second remark wipes the smile from my face. ‘And I bit Christian.’

‘What?’ I look at Valerie in the rear-view mirror. ‘What did you do that for?’

‘He wanted to play cops and robbers,’ Valerie says. ‘But I didn’t want to. I always had to be the robber and he kept poking me with his sword, like that’ – she makes a stabbing gesture and pulls the kind of face that over-enthusiastic boys make when playing – ‘and then he wanted to tie me up and then I bit him.’ Valerie folds her arms.

‘You can always go to the teacher,’ I suggest as I turn out of the street.

‘You know what I don’t understand, Mum?’

‘What?’

‘I’ve been going to school for ages and I still can’t write.’

‘You’re only in your second year,’ I say. ‘Nobody learns to read and write until the third.’

‘That’s too long!’

‘It’s soon enough,’ I say. ‘Cutting and gluing things is nice too, isn’t it?’

‘But I’ve been able to do that for ages! I could do that in creche!’

I study my daughter’s defeated face in the mirror. She’s quick for her age, always trying to do things she’s a little too young for. I recognise that – it’s exactly what I used to be like.

‘Shall I teach you to write a few letters?’

‘You can’t do that,’ Valerie giggles. ‘You’re not a teacher!’

‘Yes, I am. For big children.’

‘Oh yeah,’ she says. ‘Well, all right then. When we get home?’

‘When we get home,’ I promise as I turn on the radio. Valerie joins in with Robbie Williams’ latest hit. ‘Sing, Mummy! Sing!’

We sing until we turn into Juliana van Stolberg Avenue in Hillegersberg and park in front of the house. And then I realise that I’d managed to forget about Bilal for the past fifteen minutes.

‘I’ve told you enough times that you should leave that place! This cannot happen again!’ Raoul says.

I didn’t make chips, but a curry dish as a treat. Raoul got home at half past five and it was really hard not to assail him immediately. I waited until we had finished dinner. Afterwards we stayed at the table chatting as usual, while Valerie watched TV, leaving us to talk in peace.

‘How many times have I told you to look for a better school? That bunch aren’t worth wasting your time on. I hope you’ve finally realised that. You’ve got a child of your own here who needs you, you know.’ Raoul leans back a little, one hand on the table, one on the arm of his chair and looks at me with a mixture of compassion and exasperation.

‘Excuse me, are you trying to say that it’s my fault? That I asked for this?’

‘No, of course not.’ Raoul leans over the table towards me and places his hand on top of mine. He asks if I can deny that I work in the kind of environment where this kind of thing happens. He’s always been worried about something like this, he says, and he hopes I’ll finally see sense.

‘See sense?’ I repeat.

‘You can start at Software International right away if you like.’

I sigh and study the congealed curry on my plate, the grains of rice on the white tablecloth, and the yellow stains around Valerie’s place. I’ve never managed to convey the satisfaction I get from teaching to Raoul. He only seems to see the problems. He calls my work ‘farting into the wind’. If I were to transfer to Saint Laurens College, a private school in Hillegersberg, he might be able to understand it, but a poor, state school.

‘It’s not all trouble at school,’ I say. ‘I have a great time with most of the students. I feel like I can affect their lives in a positive way, and I don’t just mean in terms of their education. You know that.’

Raoul doesn’t look like he does know. He remains silent.

‘So you’re just going to carry on,’ he says eventually. ‘Despite the students you’re working your ass off for coming at you with knives. Are you surprised that I find your logic hard to follow?’

‘I do understand your point, but every profession has its risks,’ I say. ‘If you were a policeman, I wouldn’t keep banging on at you to find safer work, would I?’

‘I sell software,’ Raoul reminds me.

‘But you wanted to be a pilot and you would have been if your eyesight had been good enough,’ I say. ‘That’s not a job without risks.’

Raoul raises his hands in the air and lets them drop. ‘Fine! Go and teach those half-wits tomorrow. Pretend that nothing has happened. But tell me how I’m going to explain it to Valerie when her mother gets seriously injured one day.’

‘Don’t exaggerate, Raoul. You’re acting like this happens on a daily basis.’

‘Once is enough as far as I’m concerned.’

I’m bewildered. I’d have been better off saying nothing. Instead of being worried and supportive, he’s twisted it into proof that I shouldn’t teach. Don’t get me wrong, I love Raoul dearly, but sometimes he’s got the sensitivity of a grizzly bear. A memory flashes through my mind: Valerie wanting to cycle without training wheels and being too impatient to wait for Raoul after he’d unscrewed them. She rode off and of course she crashed. There she was on the ground with a bloody nose and grazed knees. The first thing Raoul did was to ask her why she hadn’t listened to him. He picked her up and consoled her afterwards, but I would have done it the other way round.

I stack up the plates and dishes and take them to the kitchen where I rinse the scraps of food off the plates. I finish clearing the table with agitated movements and shake out the tablecloth outside. Raoul doesn’t get up or come over to me until I’ve put the vase of peonies back on the table and pushed the chairs in. He wraps his arms around me and pulls me towards him. I let him kiss my neck, but don’t react to his tenderness.

‘I’m upset by it, don’t you understand that?’ Raoul says softly.

I lean back against him and feel his body warmth through my clothes.

‘I’m upset too,’ I say. ‘A bit of understanding and support would be nice.’

‘Sorry,’ Raoul says, his cheek against mine. ‘Have the police already done anything?’

I take a deep breath. ‘I didn’t report it.’

‘Oh?’

I hear the amazement in his voice and brace myself, but his reaction takes me by surprise.

‘Oh well, I don’t suppose there’s much they could do.’

Raoul pulls me even more tightly towards him, ‘If he’d really stabbed you, he’d have gone to prison, but I think they’d only caution him and let him go for this.’

I study the bright peonies on the table. ‘Yes,’ I say finally, after my day of turmoil, reflection and changes of mind. ‘That’s what I think as well.’

10.

We go to bed late. I have a hot, soothing shower and as I dry myself and apply night cream, I hear Raoul checking the locks more attentively than usual and I’m glad that he’s here to make me feel safe. I snuggle against him in bed and close my eyes with a deep sense of security.

‘Sleep well.’ Raoul kisses me on the forehead.

‘Sleep well,’ I murmur.

I’m exhausted, but after an hour I’m still curled up against Raoul, waiting to fall asleep. I roll onto my other side. Raoul is snoring lightly and I tap him before it gets any louder. I know what’s coming next.

‘What is it?’ Raoul mumbles, drunk with sleep.

‘You’re snoring,’ I say quietly. ‘Lie on your other side for a bit.’

‘I’m not snoring.’

‘You were snoring, I could hear it.’

‘I’m not even asleep,’ Raoul says.

‘You were asleep.’

‘So why didn’t I hear anything if I was awake then?’ Raoul asks, also irritated.

‘Because you were asleep! You were asleep and snoring!’

Raoul mutters, turns over and after a few minutes is asleep again. And snoring.

I sigh and get some earplugs from the bedside drawer. But even my earplugs can’t combat the number of decibels Raoul can produce at night. After fifteen minutes I give up and take my pillow to the spare bedroom. I set the alarm clock on the bedside table and close the curtains with a single swipe. As I’m doing it, my subconscious registers something strange. I open the curtain a chink. Someone is standing outside our house, on the other side of the street. A dark figure with a cigarette in his hand. I presume it’s a man – I can’t imagine that a woman would stand there smoking a cigarette in the middle of the night.

Bilal comes to mind.

I try my hardest to make him out, but I can’t from this distance. Finally the figure moves off, with the slouchy, indifferent walk so typical of my students. Shivering in the cool night air, I watch until he has disappeared. What should I do? There’s no point calling the police – even if they find him, there’s nothing illegal about staring at a house in the middle of the night.

I turn back the duvet and slide into bed, but the chances that I’ll fall asleep now are virtually nil. The image of the sharp point of the knife forces itself into my mind and is amplified many times in the darkness.

I’m up at the crack of dawn the next morning and leave the house half an hour earlier than normal. Raoul and Valerie are usually getting up when I put on my coat, and I give them a quick kiss before I get into my car. This morning they are still asleep, but I enjoy the quietness of my departure. Thoughts race through my mind: I want to go to school and yet I’m dreading entering the building. What am I going to do if I come across Bilal? Jan might have suspended him, but that won’t necessarily keep him away.

I drive through the misty Rotterdam rush hour with a sense of foreboding. A grimy figure jumps out in front of the car at a red light. He holds up a sponge and a bucket. I nod, and he washes my windscreen with sweeping strokes. It only takes him a minute. I gaze sympathetically at his neglected appearance, his long knotted beard and worn-out army jacket. I let my window down slightly and say, ‘Hi, Tom!’

Tom gives me a smile that’s missing at least two teeth and holds out his hand.

I press five euros into his hand. ‘Get yourself a good meal for once, Tom.’ Sometimes I give him one euro, others two and occasionally even a ten euro note. It depends how cold it is outside and how bedraggled he’s looking.

‘Thank you, miss,’ Tom says. ‘You’ve got a good heart.’

I smile because he always says that and I suspect he uses the same line on everybody.

‘I mean it,’ he says. ‘There are enough people who spit in my face or try to run me over. It’s dangerous work, lady. Dangerous work for just a few euros.’ Before I can say anything back, he’s walked off, still talking loudly.

Tom is always at the same crossroads. He usually walks along the queue of cars with a bucket and gets a bit of loose change without having to get his sponge out. I find it impossible to drive on and ignore Tom. In fact I can’t ignore anyone.

A while back, the action group ‘Keep Rotterdam Safe’ called on Rotterdammers not to give money to beggars. The morning before that, I’d given Tom ten euros, a bag of currant buns and Raoul’s windproof ski jacket. I can still picture him standing there with them.

‘Now I’m all set!’ he’d said.

The following day he was at the crossroads, wearing the red jacket. I’ve never dared tell Raoul about it – he’s not that keen on beggars and tramps – but he’s never missed the jacket.

‘No one has to live like that in Holland,’ he always says. ‘They could look for a job, and if they don’t want to, I’m sorry, but they shouldn’t hassle people who do work for their money.’

The topic keeps cropping up in our conversations and occasionally causes rows. But it’s also how we met in the first place.

11.

I was twenty-two and still a student. Raoul was twenty-six. I was in my final year of teacher training at college in Rotterdam and travelled in from Berkel & Rodenrijs, where I lived with my parents.

My train was a commuter train, full of passengers who were delighted if they could find a seat and doze unashamedly or open up their morning newspaper. But the majority went through the daily torture of standing, packed together.

It was usually quite quiet when I got on and I’d be fortunate enough to get a window seat, safely out of reach of the pointy elbows in the central aisle. Engrossed in a book or course material, the time passed quickly and I barely noticed my fellow passengers.

One bright spring morning in March I was staring out of the window at the cows in the meadows and the clouds that seemed to rise up out of the mist. A loud shout broke my reverie. It came from the area next to the doors, where a few people were standing. Two young men stood facing each other. One was wearing a tracksuit, he was bald and had a nose ring; the other was dressed in a smart coat and had neatly combed hair – the picture of decency and good sense. But that must have been just show because the bald guy was shouting, ‘What did you say? Mind your own business, you prick!’

Everyone in the carriage was pretending not to have noticed.

The well-dressed man said something back, at which point the bald guy flew at his throat, pushed him against the corridor wall and punched him in the head.

I pushed past the man sitting next to me and rushed towards them.

‘Stop that!’ I threw open the glass doors. ‘Both of you!’

I threw myself between their fists. That stopped them momentarily – the scruffy guy looked at me in amazement, then irritation, and gave me a harmless shove. The well-dressed man seemed to be wondering if I was in my right mind. The scruffy guy tried to push me aside, but I didn’t let him. I grabbed his arm, looked him in the eye and said, ‘Stop! Please! Can’t you just discuss it?’

His expression was so full of fury I was frightened he’d hit me, but at that moment someone behind me said, ‘She’s right. Come on, lads, this isn’t the way.’

I looked around and saw the tall, dark-haired man who’d been sitting opposite me in the carriage. The fight was stopped, the two parties separated with final hateful glances at each other and I returned to my seat.

The man who’d come to my assistance sat back down opposite me. ‘That was brave of you,’ he said, ‘but also a bit foolish.’

‘Everyone pretending not to notice is the obvious solution, isn’t it?’ I snapped back, my cheeks flushed.

‘One of them could easily have had a knife.’

‘Don’t be silly, not everyone walks around with a knife.’

The man looked like he doubted that. ‘It can’t get much worse than it is.’

His words turned out to be prophetic. At the time knife-incidents were on the rise – these days the ticket inspectors won’t get involved in arguments on the trains.

Nowadays every suspect character who comes into Rotterdam is preventatively searched, street shootings have become banal, many secondary schools are equipped with surveillance cameras and metal detectors, and children who witness crimes are shot dead when they’re out playing. The violence is mounting and paralysing us all.

‘Why did you get up then?’ I asked my rescuing knight.

He shrugged. ‘I could hardly have stayed in my seat while a girl was sorting it out, could I? They might have stabbed you.’

‘They might have stabbed each other too.’

‘Yes,’ he agreed, in a way that suggested it wasn’t something he would worry about.

We got out together at Rotterdam Central Station, said goodbye and went our separate ways. Then he came back towards me.

‘I’ll walk with you a while,’ he said. ‘We don’t know where those guys are now.’

He accompanied me to the tram and I began to suspect ulterior motives. But he didn’t ask for my phone number or suggest we meet for a drink. He put me on the tram, the tram moved off and that was that.

At least, for that day. I saw him again the next day, standing on the platform, and happiness swept through me. He came over as soon as he spotted me.

‘Hey,’ he said. ‘It’s me. You know, from yesterday.’

‘Yes, I do remember. Sometimes, if I really try hard, I can even remember things that happened the day before yesterday.’

He laughed and we took the train together. His name was Raoul and he’d just set up his own software company in Rotterdam. From the way he told me all of this, I could tell that he was single.

I was telling him about my course when three scruffy-looking musicians entered our carriage. Two played a brisk off-key tune on the guitar while the other one went around with a smelly cap. Raoul shook his head, but I gave the man some small change. Quite a few people gave me irritated glances.

‘See those dirty looks,’ I muttered to Raoul.

‘Some people find it annoying, they want to read their papers in peace in the mornings,’ Raoul commented. ‘Giving money only encourages begging.’

‘I’d rather they asked for money than pickpocketed my purse,’ I replied.

Raoul grinned. ‘I bet you give a euro to those people who don’t have quite enough cash for their train ticket.’

I blushed and Raoul shook his head pityingly. ‘You’d have been better off training to be a social worker.’

The train came to a standstill. The conductor announced that we’d be delayed for an indeterminate period of time, regretfully. I didn’t find it at all regretful.

As we continued talking, I studied Raoul. Was anything unattractive about him? By the time we pulled into Rotterdam station, I still hadn’t found it.

We went out a couple of times and during the course of one of those evenings, Raoul told me that he never usually took the train to work. The morning we’d met, smoke had poured out of his car engine and he’d had to take the train. A few days later his car had been repaired, but he’d kept taking the train to see me.

He was lodging temporarily with his parents in Berkel & Rodenrijs because he’d been able to get a good price for his house and hadn’t found a new one yet. He wanted to move to Rotterdam to be closer to his work.

A few dates later, I invested my feelings in him and six months later I invested my money in his company. We moved in together and two years after that we got married. Raoul’s business went well, particularly well, so that after we got married we could move into the chic Hillegersberg area, into a beautiful, spacious house with high ceilings and old wooden floors.

Raoul wanted me to be at home far more than I did – he didn’t want me to work, especially not in a teaching job. But I didn’t study education for four years to sit at home. His complaints got worse when Valerie was born. She’d been going to the crèche for two years, and was very happy there, when Raoul came home one evening and threw a letter down onto the work bench, where I was making pizza.

‘Look what I’ve got for you! An invitation to have a chat!’ His smile was broad.

‘Do you need to write me an invitation? Are things that bad between us?’ I joked.

He laughed and kissed my throat. ‘No, you idiot. There’s a vacancy in our PR department and it’s made for you.’

‘Public relations? Why would I want to do that?’

‘Don’t you like the idea? I think it would be perfect for you,’ Raoul said. ‘It’s a shared part-time job, you can choose between two or three days a week.’

‘Raoul, I’ve got a job.’

‘But you’re not going to be a teacher for the rest of your life.’ Raoul spread his fingers, a gesture that expressed his incomprehension.

‘Why not?’ I turned the oven to 200 degrees and took two purple placemats out of the cupboard. All the accessories in our home are purple; it’s my favourite colour.

‘Come on, Lydia! You don’t mean that Rotterdam College is your goal in life, do you?’

‘Any school is all right,’ I said, ‘as long as I’m making a difference for my students. And I don’t just mean in terms of their education. Do you get it?’

Raoul didn’t say anything, but he didn’t look like he got it. He stood there staring at me, his hands in his pockets.

‘So you’re not coming to work at Software International?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘I know you don’t like Rotterdam College, but I’m happy there.’

‘I’m not so sure,’ Raoul said. ‘You always look so tired. I’d rather you didn’t work at all.’

I smiled at him. ‘Darling, I am always tired, just like you. But I don’t suggest that you sell your company, do I?’

He didn’t buy it. ‘I just don’t think it’s good for Valerie.’

My smile disappeared. ‘I’m always home when she finishes school.’

‘But she has to have lunch at school four days a week.’

‘She really likes having lunch at school!’ I shouted. ‘Why are you pulling a face? You knew beforehand that I wanted to keep on working. I don’t understand why you keep complaining about it. Why don’t you resign from your job?’

We’re still having this kind of conversation. Raoul is a modern man who will help with the housework and believes in sharing the load equally. He likes modern women who work for a living and contribute to society, but it’s something he appreciates in other women, not me.

12.

I drive into the school car park at twenty past seven. It’s still very empty. I don’t get out immediately; first I look around. There’s no one to be seen, the playground is deserted. The beautiful wisteria covering the fence is blossoming early this year.

I walk across the playground. The door is still closed to the students, but Dan, the caretaker, unlocks it for me.

‘You’re early!’ he says.

‘I just couldn’t wait any longer,’ I say with a weak smile.

‘I can imagine,’ Dan chuckles. ‘I find the silence at this time of the morning difficult too.’

‘It won’t last much longer.’ I glance at the clock in the corridor. ‘Shall I fetch us some coffee, Dan?’

‘Lots of milk, lots of sugar.’ Dan goes back to his caretaker’s office where the phone is ringing.

I watch him with affection. Dan Riemans could have retired long ago, but instead he’s still faithfully guarding his post. He’s a small, plump man with light blue eyes that usually sparkle with fun. He’s often telling jokes to the students; they like him. But if he’s angry, it thunders through the corridors. The students aren’t afraid of him, but they like him too much to want to cause trouble. With a few exceptions, of course.

‘If you want to skive off, you’ll have to do a better imitation of your mother’s voice, Ayesha,’ I hear him say as I bring our coffees back from the staffroom. ‘I’ll be expecting you at exactly five past eight. Bye, Ayesha, see you soon.’

He hangs up and smiles at me.

‘Thanks, lassie. Sit down and tell me what that was all about yesterday.’

‘Did you already hear about it?’

‘The school’s buzzing with it.’

Dan sinks into his comfortable chair from where, with a swivel, he can survey the corridor as well as the playground.

I sigh and blow onto my coffee, then tell him all. Dan listens in silence, shaking his head from time to time. I also tell him about my conversation with Jan. When I get to our disagreement about whether to go to the police, Dan looks up.

‘And? Did you go to the police?’

I shake my head and think I glimpse something of relief in Dan’s eyes.

We drink our coffee and gaze out at the playground where the first children are arriving on their bikes.

‘Assrouti won’t get in here anymore, don’t worry about that,’ Dan says.

‘Did Jan ask you to make sure?’

‘Yes, very clearly. You just go and teach, lass, and I’ll personally make sure that Bilal Assrouti doesn’t set a foot inside this school.’

I smile gratefully at him. Dan once had to face a student with a knife and I know that it made a deep impression on him. Bilal will have to use all his resourcefulness if he wants to force his way in.

At seven-forty-five I see Jasmine approaching. I finish my coffee, ready to leave, then pause in the doorway.

‘Dan?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Do you think I should have gone to the police?’

Dan looks at me. I’m expecting him to say ‘no’, but he doesn’t. ‘For you, personally, perhaps you should have.’ He pauses. ‘But I’m glad you didn’t for the school.’

I wait for Jasmine in the corridor and as we go to the staffroom I find myself talking about it again. I once read that people who have had a traumatic experience need to remember every detail of the event and find an explanation for it. Coming up with answers is a way of processing the trauma.

‘I hardly dared get out of my car once I’d parked,’ I tell her. ‘That’s bad, isn’t it? And I’m constantly looking at the playground. Do you think Bilal would have the nerve to simply show up, as though nothing had happened?’

‘I don’t think so,’ Jasmine says. ‘No, we won’t see him again, Lydia. Don’t be scared.’

I’m not scared, I want to say, not here with my colleagues in the staffroom where there’s a large cake box in the middle of the table. We arrive just in time to see people wishing Hans, an older colleague, a happy birthday. I join in, but before Hans has finished cutting his cake, I tell everyone about Bilal.

‘Hey you, can’t it wait?’ Jasmine says, but I won’t be deterred. It’s weighing down on me too much, it has to come out.

The atmosphere changes immediately. Not everyone knows about it yet and the consternation among my colleagues is great. Everyone is talking at once. Hans sits there with a plate of cake and a surly look. He’s one of the old guard on the staff. He’s not usually the most cheerful person, but now he looks like one of his test tubes has exploded and covered him in whatever type of acid corrodes a good mood.

I realise I’m ruining his birthday, but I can’t help it. It’s important that all my colleagues know what has happened. More important than singing happy birthday to one person.

‘I really wouldn’t have expected that from Bilal,’ Nora, my departmental head, says, shocked.

‘Didn’t he once throw a chair at your head?’ Luke asks.

‘That wasn’t Bilal, that was Ali,’ Nora says. ‘He’s gone off the rails. And he can’t aim either, that chair missed me by miles.’

‘Quite a feat,’ I say, not thinking anything of it until I catch Luke’s reproving look. Nora’s quite large. She gives me a cool look too. I’m about to apologise, but then a couple of colleagues come in and are immediately filled in on the Bilal situation by others.

Luke moves closer and smirks, ‘Ouch.’

‘It just popped out,’ I whisper. ‘I’ll make it up to Nora later.’

‘Don’t worry about it. She’s not that tactful herself,’ Luke says. ‘And another thing, why didn’t you just have a nice day at home today?’

‘What would I do at home?’ I say. ‘It would only make it harder to come back afterwards. If you fall off a horse, get back in the saddle.’

Luke nods understandingly. He teaches Dutch as well. He came to the school halfway through last year, replacing a colleague who’d had a serious burnout. In the beginning, I thought he was ten years younger than his thirty-two years, and I wondered whether the students would accept him. To my astonishment, he’s had no discipline problems at all and has even given me tips on how to keep my class quiet.

As well as being attractive, Luke is also gay, which thankfully he told me in the early stages of our friendship. That slammed a few doors shut in my mind – just as well. His preference is definitely a loss for womankind. I used to pigeonhole all gay men as pink-feather-wearers, dancing on boats on the Amsterdam canals during Gay Pride. I’ve got over that now. If Luke hadn’t told me, I would never have guessed, and I don’t think anyone else knows either. He’d rather keep it that way. At other schools he worked at, his contracts were terminated without clear reason and while he’d rather just tell people he’s got a boyfriend, this time he’s going to keep it quiet until he’s got a permanent contract.

Our shared secret quickly forged a bond between us and I’ve met his boyfriend Sven a few times. I’ve never told anyone. Apart from Jasmine, but that doesn’t count. Jasmine is my best friend and I know she can keep her mouth shut.

‘If you have any problems, just come to me,’ Luke says.

I smile at him and thank my lucky stars that he came to work at this school.

Elisa
13.

The school entrance was a sea of flowers. They set up a makeshift altar, with Lydia’s photo in the middle, surrounded by candles and flowers. The teachers and students held a minute’s silence for her.

The police investigation is still in full swing. Bilal Assrouti was questioned and released. Everyone Lydia knew has been questioned, including me. For the first few days, the newspapers were full of the brutal murder, and my sister’s photo was on the news.

Detective Noorda called around all the time after Lydia’s death. I would hear him ringing the bell, but I never opened the door. I didn’t answer the telephone either. Finally I let him in and heard him out. He asked me all kinds of questions and assured me that they’d find the murderer. He talked about gunpowder spores, ballistics and cartridge cases. In the beginning he’d talk to me for a long time, but now he gets up faster to leave and the intervals between visits are longer.

Sylvie and Thomas pulled me out of the black hole. They come round every day with shopping, and they talk to me even though I barely respond. They cook for me and open the windows from time to time so that the fresh spring air blows away the stale smell in the house.

Today Thomas is visiting.

‘Have you done anything recently?’ he asks.

I tell him that I’ve been keeping busy, that I don’t lie in bed the whole day. That I’ve made a collage of pictures of Lydia and myself, a collage covering a whole wall. I’ve used recent photos as well as ones from our childhood so that in the morning when I open my eyes our whole life stretches out before me.

Thomas goes into the bedroom and looks at the wall, speechless. Then he says that we’re going out to eat tonight.

Later I go out to dinner with him, dressed in my pink and orange skirt with the matching top. Thomas looks at me in surprise when he comes to pick me up, but all he says is, ‘You look…different.’

Once we’re seated in the restaurant, he says, ‘That’s what you wore for Lydia’s funeral.’

I nod without looking up from the menu.

‘Are you going to wear skirts now because Lydia wore them?’

I close the menu and put it down on the table. ‘Of course not. Why are you saying that?’

‘Because you’ve got one on now! Those are the clothes you bought with Lydia – that last time you went shopping together?’

I sigh and look to see if the waiter is coming. I should never have told Thomas about the shopping trip. It was a lovely afternoon – I’ve got precious memories of it – and it’s annoying that he’s bringing up that one false note. What does it matter if Lydia wanted to give me a makeover? What does it matter that she wouldn’t take no for an answer, that I was more or less forced to buy these clothes? She meant well. And I’m wearing the clothes a lot now.

Thomas had come round that evening after I’d been shopping with Lydia. The clothes were spread out on the sofa.

‘What’s all this?’ He held the bright skirt and top up, his eyebrows raised.

‘I bought them with Lydia.’

‘Aha,’ Thomas said.

That was all, but his voice was layered with many different things.

‘I like them,’ I said. ‘I’m not used to wearing skirts, but I don’t have to wear trousers my whole life, do I?’

‘No,’ Thomas said. ‘But you also don’t have to wear exactly what Lydia likes.’

Thomas used to make comments like that a lot. Of course I wasn’t blind to the fact that things hadn’t clicked between him and Lydia. It was a shame, but Thomas and Sylvie – who Lydia didn’t like either – were my friends and it wasn’t the end of the world if Lydia didn’t like them.

‘What do you like about Thomas?’ Lydia once asked when we were sitting in her back garden. ‘He sticks to you like a limpet. It’d drive me crazy.’

It was a hot day last year. Valerie was in the paddling pool and I was explaining how I’d helped Thomas to photograph a disgraced politician for the Rotterdam Daily. That’s to say, I was planning to tell her about it in detail, but Lydia didn’t give me the chance.

‘He might be a bit different,’ I said, ‘but he’s a very good friend.’

‘A bit different?’ Lydia’s manner was disapproving. ‘He’s a weirdo. He doesn’t look at you, he leers at you. And when he smiles it’s like his mouth is twitching.’

She was exaggerating, but the grain of truth in her words made me uncomfortable. Instead of defending Thomas or telling Lydia how horrible I felt when she attacked him, I kept silent. I turned my head away, in exactly the same way as she always did. I saw the movement reflected in the window of the house and Lydia did too. You could say a lot about her, but not that she didn’t pick up signals.

‘I guess you form a bond when you’ve known each other as long as you have,’ she said. ‘And you’ve never had that many friends.’

As if I was socially handicapped. But I didn’t feel like a fight, so I didn’t let my irritation show. Instead, I looked over at Valerie, who was stretched out on her stomach in the pool, and I pretended to be shocked every time she splashed me. When I looked up again, Lydia was studying me.

‘Elisa,’ she said. ‘You’re not in love with him, are you?’

‘Certainly not, we’re just friends.’

‘It just worries me. I don’t think Thomas is good for you, not even as a friend.’

I frowned and wanted to snap at her, which is unusual for me, but she changed the subject.

‘How do you like Valerie’s new bikini?’ Valerie stood up proudly. ‘Nice, isn’t it? She chose it herself!’

Lydia should see Thomas now. A warm tide of affection washes over me. So many people have tried to console me: some have tried to talk me out of my grief, others have ignored it. I’ve heard so many meaningless expressions – ‘life goes on’, ‘you’ve still got so much to be thankful for’. Thomas and Sylvie have never made that mistake. Well, Sylvie sometimes, but she’s also been so supportive that I forgive her. But Thomas has always been able to adapt to my mood. If I don’t feel like talking, he doesn’t either. If my tone is light, so is his. And if I need to cry, he wraps his arms around me and I see that his eyes are brimming.

I look on with some sympathy while Thomas pulls a beer mat apart, searching for something to talk about. I feel sorry for him through my grief. It’s the first time since Lydia died that I’ve worried about what another person is feeling. Perhaps that’s a good sign. I make an effort to chat, but after a while the inevitable silence descends. I look into Thomas’s eyes. Warm, brown, with a small splash of yellow-gold in the middle.

‘How’s the police investigation going?’ he asks.

The question sends us back to the subject he was just trying to avoid. ‘I don’t think the police are any further than they were at the start. First they cross-examined Raoul, then me, then my parents, Lydia’s colleagues and students, but I don’t know what they’re doing now. Bilal Assrouti has an alibi.’

‘That he was at a night club with a group of friends?’ Thomas says, his voice doubtful. ‘Don’t the police keep you informed about any new developments?’

‘If there’s been any.’

‘Perhaps it was random after all – a mugging gone wrong,’ Thomas says.

‘Someone lay in wait for her, someone who knew what time she’d get home, someone who waited for their chance and…’ My voice breaks and Thomas looks at me with concern. I swallow, take a sip of water. ‘You know what…’

Thomas looks at me.

‘Sometimes I get the feeling.’ I fall silent, but after a while I go on, choosing my words with care. ‘Every now and again I get the feeling that Lydia is here. Like she’s standing behind me and looking over my shoulder.’

Thomas involuntarily looks at the spot behind me.

‘When my grandfather died, I didn’t really feel like he was gone for good and I was just a child then. I had intense dreams about him and sometimes I got the feeling that he was in my bedroom.’

‘Really?’

I know what he’s thinking. Thomas is a down-to-earth person, he’s not that into mystical experiences.

‘You don’t believe in all that, do you?’

‘No,’ Thomas says, and I laugh. That’s why I like him so much. He’ll never agree just because he’s afraid of upsetting me, he always stays true to himself. It’s good. I don’t need my friends to be acting differently right now.

Thomas sips his beer. ‘There are so many of those stories. People have regression therapy and think they once lived in the time of the Pharaohs, people say they see spirits and communicate with them.’

‘Have you ever seen that program with Char?’ I ask.

Char is an American medium who claims to be able to contact the dead. I always watch her, but Thomas is clearly less impressed with her paranormal gifts. He pulls a face and does a good impression of Char, bending towards me, taking my hand and reciting all the letters of the alphabet in a serious tone. Then he imitates the client bursting into tears after a session with Char and sobbing, ‘Yes, M! My mother’s name is Johanna but her fourth middle name is Maria!’

I can’t help but laugh.

‘It’s all guesswork,’ Thomas says in his normal voice.

‘Yep.’ I survey the last piece of steak on my plate. After a long pause, I look up and say, ‘But I still believe in it.’

Thomas looks at me, his expression troubled again. ‘Well,’ he says at last, ‘it might be good for you to believe in that.’

14.

Raoul is the only person I feel comfortable with at the moment. He’s the only one who knows how it feels. And my parents, of course, but their grief is too large to leave room for me.

We go for a walk in the Bergse woods and end up having coffee on the outdoor terrace of a restaurant. Valerie’s spending the day with Raoul’s parents.

‘How are you getting on now?’ I say. ‘Are you coping?’

I’m asked that question so often myself that it makes me feel ill. How do people expect you to be getting on? And of course you’re coping, you have to, you can hardly give up breathing. But my own grief gives me the right to ask such a clichéd question and I have to because Raoul looks dreadful. So dreadful my stomach bunches up.

Raoul stares at the black liquid in his mug as if he’s wondering why he would have any need for it now. Why carry on eating, drinking, and all those other trivial acts when so much emotion and pain is racing through your body?

‘Do you know what kills me?’ he says. ‘All those people who say “time heals” or that I should be “grateful” for all the lovely memories I have of Lydia. That she’s gone to a “better place”. She’s lying under the cold ground!’

I remain silent, not at all taken aback by his outburst.

‘I don’t know,’ I say. ‘I constantly get the feeling that Lydia is close by.’

The very second I say that there’s a gust of wind. We should be sheltered by the restaurant building.

‘I keep dreaming about her,’ I continue. ‘About earlier, when we were little, and our childhood. We had so many rows.’

Raoul looks up from his coffee. ‘I always argued with my sister too.’

‘I know it’s normal, but I regret it now. Every nasty word I said to her, every mean thought.’ My voice quavers.

Raoul puts his hand on top of mine.

‘You mustn’t start thinking like that, Elisa, or you’ll go under. Do you think I don’t suffer from regrets?’

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