Читать книгу Justine - Iben Mondrup - Страница 13

Ane doesn’t answer. I let it ring a time or two. She said that I should just let it ring. If that doesn’t work, I should call again, because now that she’s nursing she can’t always reach the phone. She sets it down in various places. That’s mommy brain for you, she says. C’mon. Pick up. Now she’s picking up. Nope. That was just the answering machine. Now she’s picking up.

She’s spent the day with the baby, who got through an entire feeding without any problems, she says. Now he’s down for a nap. I tell her I’m in the city nearby. I don’t mention the fire.

At the door she already notices my hands.

“Oh no,” she says. “You’ve burned yourself.”

She’s been waiting for tragedy to rain down like fire, and now it’s happened.

“I can’t help it,” she says. “All I really want is for you to have a chance at a normal life. Why did something like this happen to you? Honestly, Justine. Can it get any worse?”

Now we’re in the kitchen of her apartment. The baby is awake and on its stomach across her arm, she rocks it soundly up and down.

“I just don’t get it,” she says. “It’s just too disturbing. Let me see your hands. They’re completely burned. Who wrapped them? Don’t you think you should have someone look at them?”

It’s not all that bad. In some ways, it’s actually quite wonderful that my hands hurt.

“Could someone have done it on purpose?” she asks.

The baby closes his eyes. I shouldn’t have come here. I knew that beforehand, and now Ane tells me that Torben is on his way home. He had a gallery meeting.

“I mean it,” she says. “You can stay at The Factory for a couple of days until you find some other place. There’s a kitchen in the hall where you can cook.”

“Star-crossed love is a costly thing,” I say. “She disappears, before long she’s completely white.”

“That’s a strange thing to say. Why did you say that? Did something happen with Vita?” she asks, putting a hand to my cheek.

I’m not a little child. Take that hand away, no, leave it there.

Ane disappears into the bedroom with the baby. She peppers me with questions while I sit in the kitchen waiting on answers, on her, on an exit.

“Thanks for not asking if you can live here,” she says, handing me a sleeping bag.

It’s Torben’s.

“You can have it. He won’t need it anymore. After all, he’s a father now.”