Shadow Sister. Литагент HarperCollins USD

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