An Uncommon Family (20 page)

“I don’t know if you could call her the ‘woman of my dreams.’ Right now, she’s rather the ‘bane of my existence.’”

“Well, let’s go to dinner and you can tell me all about her.”

They had dinner at an elegant restaurant along the lake. After sitting down at the window, Jonas remembered that this was the restaurant he had invited Anna to when they went to hear
Cavalleria Rusticana
.

Sitting opposite his cheerful, vivacious friend, who prattled on about all kinds of things, Jonas wondered why he had to fall in love with that cold, distant woman Anna. Why couldn’t it be someone like Martina? But he knew, of course, that a relationship with Martina was impossible. She was as unpredictable as the southern wind, blowing in and out of his existence. No, he was too old for that kind of youthful, uncommitted, off-and-on love affair. However, what Martina lacked in severity, Anna had too much of.

“Now, tell me,” Martina said after they tasted the wine. She put her hand on Jonas’s and gave him an encouraging smile.

So Jonas told her how he had met Anna by chance, that she was the aunt of  a student of his, how they had gotten to know each other more closely and how his feelings for her had begun to change. He told her about Anna’s fear of betrayal, his unfortunate confession of an incident in his own past, and her rejection of him.   

“Well, Jonas,” Martina said in an atypically serious tone. “The woman is marked for life; what do you expect?” She took a sip of wine. “She seems paranoid about dishonesty, so your story didn’t exactly sit well with her.”

“Tell me about it.” Jonas sighed.

“Then again, I think you did the right thing telling her. I, of course, wouldn’t have told her, no way. But you and I are different. You would’ve felt guilty not doing it. You’re a little more scrupulous than I am.” Martina shrugged.

“It seems to me the ball is in her court, now. And, Jonas, if she can’t forgive you for that blunder in your past, she isn’t worth your affection. You’re better off without her. And if you end up heartbroken, then come to Italy for a while, and we’ll engage in debauchery and wild sex. That’ll cure you.” Martina laughed out loud.

“Sounds like a deal,” Jonas said with a quick smile.

Later that evening, after making love, Jonas wondered if having sex with Martina was a betrayal of Anna.
To hell with it
, he thought.
She’s made it clear she doesn’t want me. So what should I do? Live the rest of my life like a monk?
He bent over Martina and kissed her. She gave a sleepy moan, then turned and wrapped her arms and smooth, soft legs around him.

Chapter 38

“There’s Jonas,” Karla called.

Anna and Karla were in town, shopping. They were walking along the Rennweg, a side street of the Bahnhofstrasse, the main shopping street. Anna looked across the street to where Karla pointed. Jonas stood in front of a store, talking to a woman, his longish white hair tousled by a nippy September breeze. He smiled, gave the woman a kiss on the cheek and a close hug. Anna’s heart skipped a beat.
A relative? A girlfriend?

“Who is she?” Karla asked.

“I don’t know,” Anna said.

“Don’t.” She put her hand on Karla’s shoulder, trying to prevent her from getting Jonas’s attention, but it was too late. Jonas saw Karla wave at him and waved back. Karla ran across the street, which was closed to traffic. Anna sighed and followed at a slow pace.

Jonas gave Anna a quick smile and hugged Karla. “Hello there, I didn’t expect you today. Class is only in two days.”

“We’re shopping for some stuff,” Anna explained.

“I see,” Jonas said. He seemed a little embarrassed. “Anna, this is Martina, an artist friend of mine.” He turned to Martina. “Anna is the aunt of my favorite student.” He gave Karla a pat on the back.

Jonas and the woman exchanged a quick glance.

“I’m pleased to meet you,” Martina said, and stretched out her hand.

“Pleased to meet you, too.” Anna shook hands with her. She surreptitiously checked the woman out. She was younger than Anna, attractive, with shoulder-length mahogany hair. She was wearing boots and was dressed in a somewhat outlandish outfit, a green-and-yellow pantsuit and a longish matching scarf, which fluttered in the wind.
I wonder if she dyes her hair
.

“Martina is in town for a few days. She came to visit me. We haven’t seen each other for a long time. She has an exhibition and some paintings in a gallery. We’re just on the way there,” Jonas went on.

“Oh, how nice.” Anna felt awkward. Why did Jonas feel the need to explain all this to her? “Well, I guess we should be on our way. We have some more shopping to do.”

“All right,” Jonas said with a smile. He seemed relieved. “I guess I’ll see you in a couple of days.”

“Karla will probably come by herself. I may be too busy,” Anna said.

Jonas gave her a quick questioning look, then turned to Karla. “See you soon then?”

Karla nodded. “Bye, Jonas.”

Anna was surprised that Karla didn’t say good-bye to Jonas’s visitor. Since nobody seemed to pay attention, Anna let it go. The woman smiled at both of them. “Bye then . . . Oh, since you’re both interested in paintings, I would love to see you at my opening. Here’s an invitation. Or if you can’t make it, drop by anytime after that. The paintings will be up for a few weeks.”

She handed Anna a card, who accepted it with a forced smile. “Thank you.”

Jonas and his friend walked up the street and Anna and Karla continued in the other direction. Karla turned a few times, looking after them. Anna forced herself not to look back. She glanced at the announcement for the opening, then stuffed it into the pocket of her jacket.

“I wonder who she is,” Karla murmured.

“A friend, as Jonas said. I don’t know her either.” Anna tried not to sound irritated.

“Do you think she’s his girlfriend?”

“I don’t know, Karla. Probably not. And if she is, why do you care?”
Why do I care?

“You sound upset.” Karla peeked at her, her forehead wrinkled. Then after a pause, “I want you to be his fiancée.”

“Karla, stop, please. I’m not in the mood.”

“I know why you’re upset.”

“Karla!”

“All right, all right.”

They went to their usual art store to buy some art supplies for Karla. On the way there, Anna secretly tossed the invitation into a trash can. They picked out a few items at the store. However, Karla’s usual display of enthusiasm at the display of painting paraphernalia was lacking. She barely glanced at the hundreds of different crayons, paints, pens, canvasses, and the large selection of drawing pads. Anna wasn’t much in the mood either. After they paid for the stuff and left, they decided to skip their usual hangout at the coffee shop and go home early instead.

The trip home was quiet. Karla stared out the window with a morose face. Anna watched the houses flip by and focused on the fields with the ripe corn and golden wheat, on the ponds near their home, trying not to think of the woman.

Chapter 39

Karla sat on her bed, holding the phone and punching Maja’s number. It was the evening after her and Anna’s shopping spree in the city. “Come on, Maja, answer,” Karla murmured, nervously tapping her hand on the bed and staring out the window.

One of the windows in her bedroom faced west and she was able to see the sunset. Normally, she loved to watch the moment when the sun just disappeared behind the hills and the forest and the sky erupted into a lively display of color. As a young child, she had heard a story that it was the sunbeams that painted the sky. During the day, they painted the sky blue, or when storm clouds hovered in the sky, the sunbeams would hide behind the clouds and toss buckets of black and gray paint onto them. In the evening after the sunset, the beams would take their favorite paints and color the evening sky red, orange, and purple and shake the clouds, so they looked like puffy cotton balls. Karla loved the idea that the sunbeams were painters.

This evening, however, such childlike fantasies were far from her mind. “Finally,” she said, as she heard her friend’s voice at the other end.

“What’s the matter?”

“Jonas has another woman,” Karla blurted out.

“What are you talking about? How do you know?”

Karla told her how she and Anna met him and this other woman in the city and how he had hugged and kissed her.

“Like a real kiss? On the mouth?” Maja asked, all excited.

“No, on the cheek, but I have a bad feeling. Anna was upset, too. I noticed but of course she won’t do anything about it,” Karla said, exasperated.

“Is she sexy?” Maja asked.

“I don’t know. She’s pretty good-looking. She has this long, dark-reddish hair—”

“Red hair?” Maja’s voice rose to a high pitch. “That’s bad.”

“Why?” Karla asked.

“Well, I heard my older cousin once say that women with red hair are hot in bed.”

“Really? Oh God. We have to do something.”

“Yep. This calls for action. We have to have an emergency meeting. Can you sneak out tonight?”

“No, it’s too late. I’d just get into trouble.”

“Okay, tomorrow at school then.”

“Okay.”

“And Karla, don’t worry, we’ll come up with something.”

“’Kay,” Karla murmured. “See you tomorrow.” She punched the disconnect button and put the phone on the nightstand. Although she was a little worried about Maja’s sometimes crazy plans, she was even more worried about Jonas slipping through her and Anna’s fingers. Seeing him with that other woman in town had made her aware once again how much she wanted him to be part of her family. She had noticed, too, that for the last couple of years, her aunt had become more cheerful and she knew that Anna enjoyed Jonas’s company. She would laugh more when he was around. At least, until that day a few weeks ago, when Jonas had left on her birthday, although he said he would spend the night. And ever since then, Anna had acted strange whenever Karla mentioned Jonas. Something had happened. Adults were so complicated and unpredictable.

Jonas was an important presence in her life. He wasn’t just her teacher but he was like a father or an uncle to her. She was still in touch with her real father, Arturo. She had gotten to like him during his visit and she loved the presents he sent her. But he was so far away. Having seen him only once, she didn’t really know him. It was Jonas who listened to her and gave her advice when she had a problem. He was like Anna in this respect. Sometimes, she even told him things she kept from Anna.

One day, she hadn’t done her homework for the following day. It was a series of math problems. Karla hated math, so she had put the homework off until the last moment. During her painting lesson on a Sunday, she told Jonas that she was worried she didn’t have enough time to do her math homework for the following day and Anna was very strict about homework.

“Well, too bad you don’t have the problems with you. You could do them now,” Jonas said.

“I have them in my bag,” Karla said. “I took them along, so I could do them on the train, but I only got one done.”

“Well, take them out.”

“But . . . the painting?”

Jonas lifted his hands with the palms facing up and raised an eyebrow, his typical expression meaning
Well? What is it going to be? Make up your mind.

“All right,” Karla said and pulled out her notebook. She sighed as she looked at the scribbles on the page. Truth was, Karla didn’t quite understand the new set of math rules they had been taught.

“That’s math?” Jonas said as he looked at what Karla had written down. “That looks more like hieroglyphs or modern art.”

Karla grinned, then took a deep breath and pointed at one of the problems. “I don’t really understand this.”

“Okay, let me see.”

The following two hours, Jonas helped Karla with her math. Jonas could explain them much better than her teacher. He drew pictures and made them more visual for her. At the end of her lesson, she had done all of the problems and felt she finally understood the concept.

Before she left, Jonas pointed his finger at her. “Next time, bring them to me earlier, not at the last moment. And as a punishment for your procrastination, I’ll give you painting homework for next time, since we didn’t have time today.”

“That’s not a real punishment,” Karla said.

“I know.” Jonas chuckled.

Yes, Jonas was her best friend, Karla thought as she got ready for bed. And if Anna was such a stick-in-the-mud and didn’t realize that they would all be happy together, then Karla had to make her realize it. Whatever it took.

The following day, Karla and Maja met after school and took a walk along the pond, discussing the situation of “that other woman.”

Maja was in her element. She skipped once in a while and waved her hands to underscore a point she made. She scrunched her forehead as she thought of possible solutions to “the problem.”

“We have to find ways to get Jonas and Anna together. Didn’t you say Jonas had an exhibition coming up?”

“Yes,” Karla said, “the opening is in two weeks, I think.”

“Hmm. Is Anna going?”

Karla shrugged her shoulders. “Don’t know. Normally she does, but lately she’s been avoiding Jonas.”

“Okay, we have to find a way to make her go.”

“How?”

“Don’t they send out invitations to people? When one of my relatives played in a band, they had a concert, and he sent out flyers.”

“Yeah. Jonas has invitations printed out. I saw them at his place.”

“Good.” Maja nodded. “That’s a possibility. Can you get ahold of an invitation?”

“I guess so. Jonas would give me one, I’m sure.”

“Okay. Get one and bring it home. We’ll put a personal message from Jonas on it and send it to Anna. Something like,
Anna, my love, I really want you to come to the opening. Can’t live without you.
”

Karla shook her head. “That’s stupid. Jonas would never write anything like this. Anna would know right away it wasn’t him.”