The Safekeep

Isabel spends the week taking care of domestic tasks. On Thursday, she goes to have tea at her boyfriend Johan’s family home. She does this to prevent Johan from coming to see her at her home, which she dreads. She feels nausea whenever she is around him, but Hendrik has informed her that she is supposed to feel nauseous around the person she is dating. 

When she gets home, she is surprised to see Louis’s car in the driveway. Inside, she finds Louis and Eva. Louis tells Isabel that he will be away on business for a month or so and asks if Eva can stay at the house with her during that time. Isabel is confused and resistant, wondering why Eva can’t stay with friends or family instead. Louis insists that Eva does not have friends or family and that since the house is technically his inheritance (promised by their uncle Karel), he has the right to let Eva stay there. He also reveals that Eva is the one who suggested staying with Isabel.

After she thinks that Eva and Louis have gone to bed, Isabel checks to see that nothing in the house has gone missing. She suspects that maybe one teaspoon is gone but isn’t entirely sure, so she begins to count everything. Just then, Eva walks in and asks her what she is doing. When Isabel is unresponsive, Eva leaves. She recalls how her family acquired the house: In 1944, during a period of famine at the end of World War II, Uncle Karel bought it as a place for the family to stay fed and safe. She and her brothers fled Amsterdam before their mother did and came to the house with little adult supervision. 

During this period, Isabel wrote to her mother about all the things she had found in the house, including a chest full of toys that Karel said was from Saint Nicholas. She also remembers how many people came to the house asking for food and other resources. 

One particular evening in 1946 (after the war ended) stands out to her. The family heard an insistent knock at the door. Their mother told the children to go upstairs, and from her window, Isabel saw two women standing outside, the older one screaming at their mother. Louis said that the women wanted their stuff. Now, Isabel recalls how quiet life has gotten after both of her brothers moved away and her mother passed away but convinces herself that she is content with her lonely life. She is terrified, however, by the prospect that Louis will eventually kick her out of the house.

Eva’s mannerisms continue to profoundly irritate Isabel; she touches many things that Isabel does not want her to touch and asks many questions that Isabel does not want her to ask. Isabel tries to avoid her but also watches her obsessively from an upstairs window. She is frustrated by having to keep track of both Eva and Neelke, the maid. 

Neelke is the younger sister of Isabel’s former classmate Silke, whom Isabel had once tried to befriend. When it became clear that Silke was preoccupied with a crush on Louis and not all that interested in Isabel, Isabel bit Silke’s arm in frustration. This incident led to Isabel being ostracized for the remainder of her time at school.

Isabel tells Eva that she will have to move out of her mother’s room and into another bedroom. Eva refuses, saying that Louis gave her permission to stay in the room. She also tells Eva to keep a close eye on Neelke and implies that Neelke might try to steal things. Isabel goes to visit her aunt Rian, an old friend of her mother’s, who spends the visit complaining about a neighbor’s request for her to return an oven dish that had been loaned to her (possibly as a gift) during the war. When she returns home, Isabel has a confrontation with Eva about Neelke, whom Eva admits to having helped while Isabel was away. Isabel imagines that Eva would have been one of the popular girls who was mean to her during her school years. 

During the conversation, Eva notices the plate shard sitting on the mantelpiece and asks whether it has a rabbit on it. Isabel cannot read Eva’s expression or figure out the meaning behind her words and goes upstairs to the room that Eva has been staying in. She looks at all of Eva’s things and notices a diary, which she is about to open when Eva comes in and discovers her. Isabel reiterates that Eva should move to a different room, but Eva insists on staying. She reassures Isabel that she will not take anything from the house and takes the diary back from Isabel. Panicked, Isabel returns to her own room and bites a shirt. Later, she counts the teaspoons again and finds that one is missing.

A week after Eva arrives at the house, Johan asks if he can come to visit. This makes Isabel feel sick, and she insists that she cannot see him because she is hosting a guest. She makes a written inventory of everything in the house and keeps it in her pocket. Eva asks to borrow a bike to go into town and asks if Isabel would like to come with her. Isabel refuses. 

When Eva leaves, Isabel runs upstairs to Eva’s bedroom and tries to open the locked door where Eva is keeping the diary. Unsuccessful, she notices that Eva has placed a picture of her own mother in the same frame as a picture of Isabel’s mother: Both women appear lounging in their gardens. Isabel considers where Eva might have come from. She shifts to reviewing the inventory and notices that a pencil box is missing. She goes into town by herself to send a postcard to a cousin and asks the post office worker if a young woman with bleached hair had come in at some point that day. The worker is not able to offer a certain response.

Isabel returns home and finds Eva sitting at the dining table eating a pear. There is a second pear that Eva has bought for her, and Isabel takes it in her pocket to eat later. She runs upstairs to her bedroom, holds the pear in her hands, and considers eating it. She decides to eat the whole thing, and the juice spills over her arms and clothing. Later, she notices that a silver candle holder has gone missing but finds it underneath a cabinet. 

Tension builds between Eva and Isabel, and Isabel continuously resists Eva’s attempts to get to know her better. In a particularly charged moment, Eva asks, “Does nothing bring you joy, Isabel?” (54). The question rattles Isabel, and she tries to consider what “joy” might actually mean, unable to forget her wartime trauma. She thinks that Eva has no concept of these struggles.

More things go missing. One day, Isabel catches Eva alone in the office with something shiny in her hands, which she tries to hide behind her back. Isabel grabs Eva’s arm forcefully and is dismayed when she discovers that it is only Eva’s earring. Eva tries to reassure Isabel once again that she is not a threat to any of the things in the house, and she gently tucks Isabel’s hair behind her ear. In her room, Isabel reels from the physical contact with Eva.

More things go missing from the house. Eva watches as Isabel carefully washes the hare china, noting how carefully she goes about her task. At church, the pastor delivers a sermon about Saint Augustine and the episode detailed in Confessions in which he stole pears as a youth. Isabel begins to taste pears in her mouth and abruptly leaves the church because of her discomfort. 

At home, Isabel accuses Neelke of stealing things, and Neelke is reduced to tears. Eva tells Isabel to be nicer to Neelke, and Hendrik agrees when Isabel brings the subject up with him over coffee. Hendrik asks about Johan, and Isabel is immediately uncomfortable because Johan has asked her out on a dinner date. She is also nervous about leaving Eva alone at the house.

Back at home, Isabel overhears Eva on the phone with Louis. The romantic tone of the conversation leaves Isabel flustered. More things go missing. Returning home one evening after a visit with Uncle Karel, Isabel discovers Eva and Neelke in the kitchen together, laughing and listening to popular music while Eva braids Neelke’s hair. Isabel is angry that Neelke has not left and confronts them. 

When Eva reveals that she invited Neelke to stay and asks Isabel to join them, the confrontation escalates. Neelke tries to leave, and Eva reluctantly lets her go. Once she is gone, Isabel and Eva begin to yell at each other. Eva is exasperated by Isabel’s controlling behavior. Isabel is irritated by how all-consuming Eva’s presence has become to her. They begin to push each other, and Isabel announces how much she dislikes Eva. After Eva leaves the room, Isabel realizes that she used one of the hare plates for her food.

Johan picks Isabel up for their dinner date. She recalls that Johan first took romantic interest in her after seeing her hair down for the first time, and she was immediately made nervous by his attention, which always seemed overbearing. When she asked Hendrik about the nausea that Johan made her feel, he said that it was a good thing and that it was how she was supposed to feel. 

During the date, Isabel considers what a future with Johan would look like and finds the prospect unenticing, but she decides to let him kiss her later, nonetheless. He gropes her thigh during the car ride home, which she does not like. He asks her if she had a good time and gets in her personal space. Isabel begins to shake and pushes him away, hurrying into the house. He asks her if they will go out again soon, and she half-heartedly agrees. 

Inside, she has another tense exchange with Eva when she begins asking questions about Johan. Isabel becomes overwhelmed as Eva moves closer, and Eva tells her that she should just let Johan kiss her and see how it feels. The two women begin to kiss. Isabel excuses herself to go to bed, but upstairs, they begin kissing again.