Arrhythmia (18 page)

“Well, even Pink has to sleep now and then,” Desiderio said, amused. “But I have her new album in the car if you think that will cheer you up.”

“What? No Iron Maiden?” I smirked.

“I mean, lady’s choice . . .”

“No, no! I was just joking!”

We got in the car and both fastened our seat belts at the same time. In the process, our hands touched, and we gave each other a scared look.

Now, it was pretty clear that something like that would make
me
feel awkward, but the fact that Desiderio seemed unsure for a moment was almost a little eerie.

As though we had rehearsed it, we both said, “Pink!”

We laughed a little artificially and then studiously looked in different directions. While he was fiddling with the car radio, I pretended that my shoelace had suddenly come undone. Only when the car started moving did I emerge from the footwell. As Pink began to sing, we listened, both of us lost in thought.

The silence between us was by no means unpleasant. That surely meant something, at least for me. It was easy to fill an awkward pause in a conversation with meaningless words, but to say nothing and feel comfortable was evidence of a strong interpersonal relationship.

After we had left Munich far behind, Desiderio turned the music down.

“May I ask you something?” he asked.

His tone of voice made me prick up my ears. Curious, I studied his profile, which was lit only by the faint light of the dashboard.

“Sure,” I replied.

He paused for a moment. I noticed that his fingers were ceaselessly tracing the seam on the steering wheel up and down nervously. The question seemed to mean a lot to him. I waited in eager anticipation.

Finally, he cleared his throat audibly and asked, “Did I use my chance well?”

I took a deep breath. A tingling sensation spread throughout my body and brought a smile to my face.

“Well, the evening isn’t over yet,” I said with astonishing composure.

Desiderio looked at me. “It isn’t?”

“No, I’m much too wired to go to bed.”

Now he was definitely nervous!

“Hm.” He fiddled with the steering wheel.

God, this was good! At last it was my turn to play the cool one!

“Of course, when we get back, all of Wollbach will probably be sleeping already,” I thought out loud.

“I’m sure,” he agreed, looking straight ahead.

I pretended to be thinking about the rest of the evening, even though I knew exactly where we were going.

“It might be better if we just go to bed,” I said slowly. I relished watching Desiderio’s anticipation turn to disappointment.

So this was how he’d felt all the time? It was very tempting to abuse my newly won power, but since I was no monster, I quickly relieved his disappointment.

“Oh, now I know where we can go at this hour!”

“Where’s that?”

“That’s going to be my secret for now,” I said sweetly.

Yes, revenge is sweet . . .

Desiderio gave me a disdainful look. “I get it. It’s payback time.”

I just grinned, turned the music back up, and didn’t say a word.

Chapter 22

I had come to a decision. The true answer to Desiderio’s question was: yes.

Yes, he had used his chance well, and I was finally ready to trust him. Just one place was perfect for showing that.

“Turn right,” I directed him just before we reached the Wollbach city limit sign.

Without questioning, he signaled and turned onto a side street.

“Now left.”

The corner of his mouth twitched as he recognized where I was guiding him.

We reached the Waldsee parking lot, and Desiderio was about to stop the car.

“No,” I said calmly. “Can you see that path over there marked ‘Private’? Head over that way.”

With his eyebrows arched in astonishment, he followed my directions. The car rumbled along on the neglected gravel path leading into complete darkness. My navigation surprised Desiderio more and more the farther we went, and he looked at me questioningly a few times. Maybe he was just concerned about his new sports car.

“Park here,” I said and pointed to the small space in front of the dilapidated house.

“You want to go inside that house?” Desiderio asked with some dismay.

“Of course not! Just follow me.” I laughed and got out. “Do you happen to have a blanket?”

“No, but I’ve got a beach towel. Will that do?”

“Perfect. Why do you have a beach towel?”

Desiderio opened the trunk and pulled out the folded terry cloth. “You never know when you might need a beach towel, right?”

I giggled and waited until he had locked the car. Then I took his hand and resolutely pulled him toward the briar.

“Wait, I’ve forgotten my machete,” he joked. “Where are we going anyway? To the gingerbread house?”

“Not quite. Just wait.”

I single-mindedly wove my way through the underbrush and yanked Desiderio behind me. He let it happen, although his quiet mumbling indicated that he was beginning to have doubts about my sanity. I couldn’t blame him, because in the dark it really did seem like we were in the middle of nowhere. If I hadn’t walked this trail a thousand times before, we would have gotten hopelessly lost. Also, it was kind of spooky in the middle of the forest at night.

“We’re here,” I whispered reverently when we had finally arrived at my clearing.

The sky was slightly cloudy, but the half moon was bright enough to bathe the place in soft light. Thousands of stars sparkled splendidly and reflected off the water’s surface. The weeping willow rustled in the wind and played us a magical melody in greeting.

Desiderio stood still for a moment and stared at me. I spread the towel at the foot of the willow, sat down on it, and signaled for him to join me.

For a while, we sat silently next to each other and allowed the indescribable beauty of nature to work its magic on us.

“I thought this was your secret place?” Desiderio finally asked softly.

My fingers had found a broken piece of branch, and I used it to draw small circles in the sand. “That’s right.”

“Thank you for trusting me,” he said.

A blissful shiver went down my back. He had understood my gesture.

“Please don’t disappoint me,” I whispered. My voice was hardly louder than the rustling of the willow, but Desiderio heard me.

“I won’t,” he promised.

I cautiously leaned against him and closed my eyes. He placed his arm around me and just held me tight. His touch radiated such intimacy that I was temporarily overwhelmed.

I didn’t know how long we sat there like that, and I really didn’t care, but at some point his soft voice brought me back to reality.

“Now will you tell me what disappointed you so gravely in the past?”

“OK.”

I picked at the seam of my jacket, searching for the right words to begin. Even after so many years, it was hard for me to talk about the greatest mistake of my life. Still, Desiderio needed to know about that part of my past in order to be able to really understand. I took a deep breath and began to tell my story in a calm and deliberate fashion.

“You already know about my parents’ divorce. And I have also mentioned that I was a difficult child. So, not a great start. My life really got complicated when I was seventeen. I was in high school, had a lot of friends, and my rule in life was: fun first, work second. In spite of all the partying, my grades were good, so I thought I was doing pretty well.

“One day I met him. Marek. He was a young, successful artist and was exhibiting his work at the art museum in Munich when my class happened to take a field trip there. It was love at first sight. I couldn’t believe it when he said he felt the same way. From that moment on, I was his muse and he wooed me like a precious jewel. Even though we could only see each other on weekends, I was blissfully happy all week. Nothing else in my life seemed real. When my mother told me that we were moving to Hamburg, my world came crashing down. I was supposed to leave him? My great love? Never. I ran away to Marek in Munich, and he promised the world to me: he would take care of me, be there for me . . . because I was his muse, after all! I believed it. After just a few weeks, he took me to Italy with him. He wanted to continue his studies, seek inspiration, discover new paths. It was wonderful at first. We had no worries, no problems. We lived for the moment. Marek was already becoming a well-known artist and had enough money that we could really live it up.”

I paused for a moment and laughed bitterly.

“It took me a long time to realize where Marek was actually getting his inspiration. I don’t know how many times he’d cheated on me, but one day I caught him in flagrante delicto. That day, my heart broke into a thousand pieces, and he didn’t even have the decency to show any remorse. He said he was an artist and a free spirit, that a soul like his could not be confined, and that I had to allow him his freedom if I wanted to continue being his muse. Well, of course, I didn’t. But I faced a huge problem: I was eighteen at the time and on my own in the mountains of Sicily without a cent. Marek refused to help pay for my ticket home. I didn’t have anywhere else to sleep, so I had to stay at his house for a few days and watch as his ‘inspirations’ came and went from his bedroom.

At some point, I couldn’t stand it any longer, so I packed the few belongings I had and somehow made my way to Palermo. I had met a young couple there a few weeks earlier, and I hoped they might help me. I guess I could have called my friends at home or my mother, but I felt much too ashamed. They had all warned me. They’d told me over and over that a charmer like that would just ruin my life, but I had gotten nasty and insisted they were all just jealous.

God, I was so ashamed to have disappointed my best friends and especially my mother like that! Fortunately, that young couple did help me. I didn’t want to accept money from them, but they let me stay at their place and found me a job waiting tables. After a few weeks, I had enough to buy a ticket to Germany. My mother had already moved to Hamburg, so I showed up outside Vera’s door one night. She took me in without hesitation and supported me as best she could until I got my life in Wollbach back together again. Since I had to start earning money as quickly as possible, finishing high school was out of the question, so I began training to be a nurse. Only six months later, when I had my life more or less under control again, did I have the courage to call my mother and confess everything to her.” I breathed heavily. “And that is the story of my screwed-up life.”

Desiderio had been listening silently the whole time and seemed to need a moment to digest all of the information. I gave him time. After all, it had taken me several years to come anywhere close to getting over the story.

“It’s amazing. In a very short time, you experienced more than many eighty-year-olds have,” he finally said.

“Yes.”

“And that prick is the reason you didn’t go to medical school?”

“Unfortunately.”

“Man.” Desiderio clenched his fist. “What a son of a bitch. I’d like to rip him a new one.”

Although I found his rage sweet, I placed my hand on his fist to calm him. “Don’t worry. He’s paid for it. Believe me.”

He looked at me, a little startled. “What do you mean?”

“Oh, someone sicced the tax man on Mr. Geinburg, and he had to spend two whole years in prison for tax evasion,” I said innocently.

“Wow, that’s . . . tough. But he did deserve it.” He thought for a moment. “Geinburg, Geinburg . . . You don’t mean Marek van Geinburg?”

“Yes?”

“Really? My God, I own a picture by that douchebag!”

“What? Are you sure?” I pulled away a little and looked at him in astonishment.

“Yes, very sure! I love that picture—no offense, but he really is a talented artist.”

I sighed deeply. “Oh yes . . .”

“It’s a charcoal drawing,” Desiderio explained. “Not the original, you understand, but still very beautiful. I think it’s called
The Woman by the Window
.”

The small branch in my hand broke. “Excuse me?”

“
The Woman by the Window
. Yes, that’s what it’s called. That makes sense, too, since it depicts a naked woman looking pensively out the window.” Desiderio had unclenched his fist and was dreamily playing with my fingers. “Whenever I look at that picture, I wonder what she might be thinking about as she looks out into the world.”

I could see the nude drawing as clear as day. In the foreground, a young woman stood by a high, open window. The gauzy drapes were blowing into the room, veiling part of her naked body. One hand was resting on the window frame while the other held aside the flowing drapes in order to clear the view of the hazily depicted landscape.

Yes, I knew that picture very well.

“At this moment, I’m asking myself what sort of picture you would own if I had just stayed behind in Germany all those years ago,” I said and gave Desiderio a crooked smile.

It took him a moment to understand my statement.

“That’s you in front of the window?” he asked, perplexed. “Unbelievable!”

“Really amazing. What a strange coincidence . . .”

“Yes, coincidence,” he repeated slowly. He watched absentmindedly how his own fingers drew imaginary lines on the back of my hand.

“Oh my God,” I exclaimed with mock dismay. “That means you’ve already seen me naked!”

Well, again rather than already, considering the scene in my bathroom.

“Hm. I thought your behind seemed somehow familiar,” he casually remarked. “A very attractive behind, mind you.”

Yes, the lothario was back. The self-confident Italian with the sly grin. And right away he had succeeded in making me blush!

“Oh, I was a few years younger then,” I said bashfully, putting him off.

“Well, at first glance, I didn’t notice any difference.” He leaned back and peered down. “And not on second glance either. Although it’s hard to judge when you’re in jeans.”

I punished him with a punch in the shoulder. “Please don’t tell me that picture hangs over your bed.”

“Uh, no. It hangs, what you might call enthroned, above the fireplace in the dining room. But you’ve just given me an idea . . .”

I punched him again, but this time he defended himself. Without warning, he began to tickle my ribs, causing a laughing fit.

“Stop! Quit it!” I pleaded with a cackle and rolled on the ground, virtually helpless to escape his hands. “Please!”

We were so busy with our little battle that we noticed the dark clouds only when the first raindrops fell. A heavy rain cloud hung over the whole lake. That, together with the wind that had suddenly sprung up, did not bode well.

“The weather god is showing mercy on you,” Desiderio said and let me be. He threw a glance at the ominous cloud cover. “We’d better get back to the car. It looks like it’s going to pour.”

He had hardly spoken those words when the clouds opened up. The rain was torrential.

I squeaked, scrambled to my feet, and grabbed Desiderio’s hand.

He threw the towel over my head and hastily followed me into the underbrush. The forest caught most of the rain, but I was quickly soaked to the skin.

“Eee! It’s cold!” I shrieked as we broke through the briar.

“Hurry!” Desiderio huffed behind me.

Sure, as if I was just taking my time! I dispensed with an appropriate retort only because I was so busy trying not to stumble over my own feet.

Finally, the car came into sight.

I let go of Desiderio’s hand and sprinted to the passenger side. I held the door handle and waited for the blessed blinking lights, but nothing happened.

“Hurry up and unlock the car!” I shouted through the thick curtain of rain.

“I can’t.”

What?

“Why not?” Raising the towel overhead, I scurried over to Desiderio, who was frantically going through his pants pockets.

“I can’t find the key!”

“Oh no!”

Desiderio began a frenzied search of the ground. “I can’t see anything, damn it!”

“This is useless,” I groused and grabbed his arm. “Come with me!”

I dragged him toward the ruined remains of what had once been a house. Unfortunately, the main house didn’t look like it could protect us from the rain. Then I spied the remnants of a shed. It had only two walls, but its roof looked relatively intact.

Completely drenched and out of breath, we stood in our makeshift shelter, facing each other.

“Shit,” Desiderio grumbled. “What are we going to do now?”

I looked around our shack. It definitely did not look inviting. There was really nothing there but a big pile of wooden planks and a cluster of nettles. Only the roof provided some scant solace.

“Well, I suppose we have no choice but to wait here until the rain stops and we can look for your key.” I sighed.

Desiderio said something in Italian that didn’t sound particularly polite.

“I do hope that wasn’t directed at me,” I admonished, just to be on the safe side.

“What? No, I was just railing against the German weather.”

“Oh yes, our naughty weather. If no one else is to blame, then it’s the weather. Especially German weather. Naughty through and through.”

He gave me a puzzled look before we both broke out laughing.