Love in Case of Emergency by Daniela Krien

Author:Daniela Krien
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperVia
Published: 2021-02-19T00:00:00+00:00

Part Four

Malika

Malika tightens the bow.

She runs the bow hairs across the rosin, places the violin in position, and warms up with a few scales. Her feet are bare and hip-width apart. The long, colorful, flowery dress swings to the rhythm of her movements.

For days her sister’s suggestion has been rattling around her head. A suggestion that only Jorinde could make. As if everything were possible. As if there were no boundaries. As if a person were a blank piece of paper that anything could be written on.

She’d declined. Of course. And yet the idea won’t stop nagging at her.

The bank of clouds has passed, and sunlight falls onto the tear-shaped glass crystal by the window. Felicitas is lying between two flowerpots. She stands up and stretches, then swipes the crystal with her paw. Rainbow-colored dots begin to dance on the bookshelf opposite.

Malika puts down the violin, loosens the bow screw, and returns the instrument to its case. There’s no point in practicing today.

She runs her finger along the spines of the books. The spectral colors on her hand quiver in time to the swinging crystal. She stops when she gets to a slim volume, takes the book from the shelf, and opens it. Yellow Post-its are stuck to many of the pages. Malika knows entire passages by heart.

Recently, when she heard about the novella’s publication, she cycled that same day to the bookshop in the city center. She took the escalator to the first floor and saw the red locks of the bookseller emerge from behind a table of books. Her pregnancy was evident, which made Malika feel a twinge.

As soon as she caught sight of Malika she raised a hand in greeting and said without prompting, That’s good timing! We’ve got a new book by your favorite author. With her bulging belly she waddled to the table with the new releases, picked up a volume with a dark-blue jacket, and held it out to Malika. It’s a big love story, she said.

Shortly afterward Malika left the shop with a signed copy of One Summer. Before she got on her bike she ran her index finger over the name written in blue ink.

Brida Lichtblau.

She doesn’t know how many times she’s read One Summer now.

In Brida Lichtblau’s first three books the male characters occasionally had some of Götz’s features, but they were still very different from the man Malika was looking for in each line. This book alone got him just right.

She opens One Summer at random.

Oda cried in her sleep again. She suppressed her sobbing as best she could to avoid being heard through the thin wall that separated her from Hans and Lydia.

Malika smiles. She hopes that fiction overlaps with reality here, that Brida is Oda and that she suffered just as Malika did.

It still hurts, even after so many years.

Felicitas senses everything. She jumps down from the windowsill, lopes over, and presses herself against Malika’s legs. Her tail stands straight upright and her purring demands a stroke.

Crouching down, Malika ruffles the cat’s fur.

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