Sleeping Brides Read online

  Such a place was not typical of Tilburg. The city was a favorite amongst kings, with streets named after musicians and artists, a reverence for lime trees, and a spirit of renewal. There was history in Tilburg, and there was urban redevelopment, but it all had flavor. The café did not.

  If Anton chose this place, he must be stale too, I decided, regretting my decision to meet him here, or anywhere. At least stale bread is easy to throw out.

  I did not know Anton. I had never met him before. I had talked to him for the first time that afternoon, when he had called the office for a quote. He was a sculptor and wanted to ship some pieces abroad. He was easy to talk to, unhurried and a little reckless. I liked it, and he must have liked me too, because he asked me to meet him.

  “Ready to order yet?” the barista called, barely looking up as he flicked the side of a cinnamon container on the counter, his head in his hand.

  “Are you required to ask me that every five minutes?”

  “Probably, but you seem a bit anxious. Maybe coffee isn’t for you.”

  I drew in all my patience as a mother. I was anxious, very little was keeping me from leaving, but I didn’t need a boy telling me so. “I’ll order when the person I’m meeting arrives.”

  “Maybe she stood you up.”

  I smirked. “She?”

  “Yeah. The rainbow bracelet.”

  Finding no need to correct him, I looked down at the beads around my wrist—a bracelet I had made one afternoon by the lake when I was with Daan, days that were long gone. It didn’t occur to me how unsophisticated the bracelet was for a first date, but I left it on. It was me. If the bracelet went, so did I.

  What was keeping me from leaving? I didn’t really know. Dating had never been a priority. Bringing a man home to meet my daughter made me uncomfortable, no matter how well I knew him. But Rosalind was gone three years now. My house was empty. Franklin was a good companion, but he couldn’t make up for my daughter’s laughter, the music blasting from her room, or the fights we shared. I needed another human voice.

  Babetta visited most Sundays, always with a bottle of wine and a pack of cigarettes, which she’d smoke sitting on the countertop of my blue kitchen, her feet floating in the air as she poured the wine. She clung to our Sundays as tightly as I did. Her marriage was good, but Babetta liked the idea of a sisterhood. She was a femme fatale without the disaster.

  A man walked into the coffee shop. With dark hair cut short and stylish, and hooded amber eyes that were bright enough to scorch water, he looked like he had stepped straight off the beaches of the Mediterranean, but he wasn’t immaculate, not like the Mediterranean men in the perfume ads. There was a ruggedness about him. The calluses on his hands spoke of a man willing to work hard, and the lines around his eyes told me his life had not been easy, but he was friendly and casual, wearing slacks with a thermal shirt.

  “Storme?” he asked doubtfully.

  “I am. You must be Anton.”

  Smiling broadly, he approached me. “My God, you are so beautiful. I didn’t expect you to be so beautiful.” Quickly, he kissed me on both cheeks. It was tame, but it left a murmur across my skin. “Thank you for coming.”

  “It was hard to resist. You’re quite the talker.”

  “It’s easy to talk when someone is listening.” He looked around the café with discernment, much like I imagined he did with his sculptures when he finished them. “This place is awful. I read a review in the paper that said the coffee was some of the best in the city, but no espresso is worth drinking in the middle of a mud pit.”

  “Mud has more character,” I mused.

  Anton chuckled. “It certainly does. I have to work later this evening, but I have time to squeeze in a concert. Have you heard of Homme Simple? They’re a French Lynyrd Skynyrd tribute band.”

  I had never heard of Homme Simple, but the music of Lynyrd Skynyrd pulsed in my blood. “Sure,” I said, standing, relieved to be free of the table. “Let’s go.”

  “Bring me back a T-shirt,” the barista muttered. “It’s the least you can do for not ordering anything.”

  Anton pulled a few notes from his wallet and stuck them in the barista’s tip jar. “Have a good night,” he bid the boy, and then he politely led me out the door.

  It was early but it was dark; the days were starting to wane. We walked down a street bordered by saplings in wooden boxes and a millhouse renovated into apartment buildings, the lights of which guided us on a journey as young and eager as the saplings.

  “I’m not often in the city,” I told him.

  “I believe you. I’m here all the time, and I know I would have remembered you if I’d seen you before.”

  I was used to flattery, but when Anton spoke, I didn’t feel like he was trying to charm me into anything. There was nothing to charm me into. He’d already established he had to work later. We would not be spending the night together.

  “Do you speak French?” I asked, thinking of the band. Homme Simple.

  “Sí, hablo Fancés.”

  “Do you speak Spanish?”

  “Oui, je parle Espagnol.”

  I laughed. “I’m the same. I could never get my head around languages.”

  “I never gave it the time,” he confessed. “My work is intense—mentally and emotionally. When I’m not working, I want to zone out. Eat. Drink. Meet new people. Nothing academic.”

  “Is that why you asked me to this meeting?”

  Without hesitation, he took my hand. “Don’t be so formal, Storme. It’s the new millennium. We both know this isn’t a meeting. This is a date, a date I was very much looking forward to after our conversation on the phone. You have such an optimistic spirit. It was a touch of sunlight to my day.”

  It had been a long time since I’d held a person’s hand. The last had been Rosalind’s, when she was little. Anton’s hand could never replace my daughter’s, but it was nice, even if it was under false pretenses. I had been pleasant over the phone, but it was my job to be pleasant. I wasn’t sunlight; I was a sleeping tempest.

  “When you say drink, do you mean wine or beer?”

  He was insulted I asked. “Beer. Of course.”

  “Right on. And eat?”

  “Pizza. Burgers. Goat heads.”

  I nudged my shoulder against his. “You don’t mean the last one.”

  “Got me,” he said.

  We didn’t talk much after that, nor did we talk much once we reached the little theater where Homme Simple was playing. We’d spent the afternoon talking. With Lynyrd Skynyrd consuming us, all either of us wanted to do was lose ourselves in the music. It didn’t matter that we didn’t know French. The music spoke for itself. Being with Anton, surrounded by the pulse of sweating bodies, I felt something I hadn’t thought I’d feel again—I was young.

  By the time the concert was over, Anton had me. Like a queen to a god, I was willing to offer myself to him, if even for just one night, but he had to work. He wanted to walk me back to my car, but it would mean he would have to backtrack to his studio where his sculptures waited, so I declined. It was enough that he had taken me to the concert, that he had renewed me.

  With the dance of the night charging me, I drove to the office, unwilling to face an empty house. I wanted to call Babetta to see if she would meet me for a drink, but I didn’t own a mobile phone, and the payphones in the city never worked. They were like rotting relics, disintegrating one at a time. The office was closer than home. Mr. Hartono wouldn’t mind if I stopped in to make a call. His employees were his family, and the office was our second home.

  A small light in the window gave away Mr. Hartono’s presence. No one else would stay this late. He burnt the midnight oil for us, trudging to keep the company afloat. I was loyal to Mr. Hartono, but I also prepared for the inevitable. I had to. I had a daughter to look after, no matter how independent she had become or how long she drifted, so I’d recently enrolled in an online course in Business Management.

  Every Tuesday
after work, and during some lunch breaks, I used the computers in the library to submit my assignments and download new ones. I would only earn a certificate at the end of it all, but it was enough. If the company went under, as I suspected it eventually would, a certificate looked better on an application than blank space. It was nothing to be ashamed of, but I kept the course a secret, even from Babetta.

  “Hello, Mr. Hartono,” I greeted as I passed by his office on the way to my desk. “Late night?”

  Mr. Hartono checked his watch. “Not yet. It’s still early.”

  “Is there anything I can get you?”

  “No,” he said, kind but tired. “You do what you came here to do. Then you go out and enjoy yourself.”

  “Are you sure? I was going to call Babetta to meet me for a drink, but it can wait. What are you working on?”

  “Honestly, Miss Cloet, nothing you can help me with.” He closed the folder in front of him and went to the kettle. “But I could use some tea to keep the peepers open. Would you like a cup?”

  “Sure,” I said. If Mr. Hartono was depriving himself of a social life to save our jobs, offering him some company over a cup of tea was the least I could do.

  “And how was your evening?” he asked, settling back into his seat after handing me my tea, which he served to me in a fine porcelain cup. I held it as an accessory only, my distaste for tea as resilient as ever.

  “Eventful. I went to a concert.”

  “As you do in your youth.”

  “I’m a breath away from forty. I’m young, but I’m no youth.”

  “I’m a breath away from fifty, so trust me when I say you’re youthful. You’ve been through a lot, Miss Cloet, but you’ve kept your heart open all these years. That’s not an easy thing to do.” He took a sip of tea, but it only seemed to make him more tired.

  “I have to disagree. I have struggled financially being a single mother with no education, that is true, but I don’t think I’ve been through a lot. Raising Rosalind was a joy. She’s had her moments, but she’s a good girl.”

  “She’s a good girl because of the way you raised her. Do you remember when you first brought her into the office? Her eyes were the size of a cat’s saucer. What a keen and inquisitive child. I never minded you bringing her into work, even when she was little. No one ever did.”

  There was a sadness in his adoration, a regret I’m not sure he knew was there. “Why didn’t you have children?” I asked.

  “I wanted to be a businessman. A businessman can be many things, but a father is not one of them, not if he’s doing his job properly.”

  “Was it worth the sacrifice?”

  “Then, yes.” He sipped his tea, his motions automatic, having spent many nights like this, sipping tea from his desk when others were out or asleep.

  It was a good moment to leave so that he could get back to his work, but I summoned his role as my confidante and told him about my date with Anton. “If he turns out to be as stellar as he seems, I really think I may have found something here. Something wonderful. But I’m not sure I want to give him that chance. I don’t think I could survive another broken heart. If there’s anything I learned from Daan, it’s that love never goes away. It can morph into something ugly or beautiful, but it doesn’t leave.”

  “The bond you have with Daan is the child you have together. It’s not romantic. It’s maternal.”

  “So you think I should give Anton a chance?”

  Mr. Hartono frowned. “I didn’t say that. There is a well-known proverb that says, ‘Look before you leap, because snakes among sweet flowers do creep.’ But there’s also no reward without risk.”

  I was confused. “So what does that mean?”

  “That no one knows jack shit.” He laughed. “Let your heart guide you, but let your instincts govern you.”

  “Is that a proverb too?”

  “I don’t think so,” he said, finishing his tea. “Just the ramblings of a sleep deprived businessman.”

  ***

  I did give Anton a chance. For months, we met within the textile halls of Tilburg, hopping between minor venues to listen to music I had never heard live but had always carried in my soul. The further the days stretched, the younger I felt. I was not reliving my youth. I had no youth to relive. I was finding myself again, learning it was still possible to soar, even within the confines of a mortgage and a career.

  It was difficult to predict who Anton was. He had a talent in his hands. I was rarely in his studio. When I was, his sculptures were unfinished, mud about to become mountains; but his work was strewn throughout the city, pulling his audience in with their craftsmanship, such as his granite statue of a maiden from the ancient folklore of Heer Halewijn, a lord who sang out to women to lure them into the forest where he turned them into stone. In the statue, Anton had skillfully captured the betrayal and the sorrow frozen within the maiden, but he was not affected by his talent. He was down-to-earth—a hibernator, like me. The longer we dated, the cozier our time together became, until we eventually left Tilburg to its gestation, preferring the seclusion of my house, like lovers on a stranded island, continuing to soar as we found solace in each other’s arms. Sometimes, inspired by the concerts we had gone to, I’d put on an album and jam in my own little world while Anton played video games, dressed like a man of sophistication in his long-sleeved shirts and slacks, but maintaining the vices of a boy.

  Anton was not a snake amongst sweet flowers. He was the risk that came with reward. He made me timeless, a creature who existed outside my previous loneliness and insecurities. The small moments between us were our biggest. I was hooked, convinced the reason I had been reluctant to love since Daan was because I was waiting for Anton, that my heart had somehow connected to the heart of the universe and told me the man I was meant to be with was on his way, and now he was here.

  One day, with gentle devotion, Anton sat me down on my sofa and wrapped a piece of fabric around my eyes, turning the front room dark. “My mother is blind,” he revealed to me. “I want my art to be enjoyed by all, even those who can’t see.” His affectionate hands folded over my own, and when they parted, a tiny object remained on my palm.

  “What do you think it is?” he implored.

  “Something you made.”

  “But what?”

  I spun the object around the tips of my fingers, but I could not work out what I held, only that it was indented and made of a heavy metal. “I once put tomato chunks in Rosalind’s salad when she was little, and for whatever reason, she was convinced they were strawberries, which made her happy,” I recalled, hoping to prevent the disappointment I knew Anton would feel. “Art is meant to inspire the imagination. This could be anything. A dragon. A mouse. A turtle. It doesn’t matter. Either way, it still inspires, like your work does.”

  Anton was not put off. “You say you do not know, but you are much closer than you think.” Tenderly, he lifted the blindfold from my eyes. “See. It’s an animal. Your hands told you so, even when your mind did not.”

  It was a golden trinket of a dog. “Franklin,” I said, delighted. Anton had captured Franklin perfectly, even the crook in his left ear.

  “The gold is real,” he told me. “Storme, you could find gold in the most barren of mines. You’re so warm and bright, like the sun. I don’t know how I existed before I met you. You summon me away from the darkness of my art. I know it’s not much, but you deserve all the gold I can afford.”

  I absorbed Anton’s compliment quietly, unsure of how to respond.

  He continued. “It’s also a clue to somewhere I’d like to take you. I recently did an installation for an extension at the zoo, and they’ve invited me back to see the new tiger cubs. I’d like you to come with me.”

  “Of course,” I said, standing to set the figurine of Franklin on top of my stereo, where the dog of a child of rock belonged.

  The following weekend, we left the sanctity of my house and drove to the zoo, taking Anton’s convertible, which h
e’d bought new when he’d sold his first major installation, but the car had become tarnished with the years. It rattled and it lurched, but I thought it was stellar. As we drove, I stuck my arm out and let it dance with the wind.

  As promised to him, Anton’s installation at the zoo earned us a private visit behind the tiger enclosure where a friendly brunette woman in a lab coat met us, introducing herself as Dr. Hollis. A maze of thick bars separated us from the inside of the enclosure, where sunlight from windows too high for the tigers to reach streamed down on a mama tiger resting on a mat of straw, bedding for the discomfort of nursing. A handful of cubs slept around her.

  “It’ll be awhile before we introduce the cubs to the public,” Dr. Hollis said.

  Anton flashed her a smile. “These are Sumatran tigers, correct? They’re endangered, like pretty women in lab coats?”

  “I’m not sure about pretty women in lab coats, but yes, Sumatran tigers are endangered, and critically so. They’re bushier than other tiger subspecies, especially around the neck, making them attractive to poachers. It’s why the breeding programs we have between the zoos is so important.”

  Anton put his arm over my shoulders, drawing me closer to the moment, embedding it into our future memories. “What are their names?”

  “That’s why we’ve brought you back here. You get to name one of the cubs, but there’s no pressure to name it today. When you think of a name, you can email it to the zoo.”

  That wouldn’t happen. Anton was too spontaneous to wait. “Tell me something special about yourself,” he requested of her.

  “Something special about me?” Dr. Hollis asked, surprised. She quickly glanced at me before looking down. “I like to fly kites. I go to the beach every other weekend.”

  “Perfect. We’ll call it Kite,” Anton decided.

  “Are you sure?” Dr. Hollis glanced at me again.

  “Of course,” Anton insisted, squeezing my shoulders. “Your work here is phenomenal.”

  “I agree,” I said, putting her at ease. “It’s really great what you do.”