Shadows Over Paradise by Isabel Wolff

Author:Isabel Wolff [Wolff, Isabel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-345-53317-3
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2015-02-10T05:00:00+00:00

Twelve

On Wednesday morning Klara and I covered a lot of ground, though I’d found it hard to focus. We would soon come to the part about Peter’s death, and I dreaded it. I needed to think of him being alive, surviving, growing up.

“Are you still not sleeping well?” Klara asked as I turned off the recorder. “You look pale.”

“I’m sleeping better, in that I go to sleep—I think the valerian helps—but the problem is, I have these … dreams.”

“What do you dream about?”

I hesitated. “Peter,” I answered quietly.

Klara looked puzzled. “You dream about my little brother?”

“I do. It’s as though your memories of him have brought him to life. I feel that I know him myself, and I’m worried about what’s going to happen to him. In fact I can’t bear to think of it … because …” Klara’s face had blurred. “I’m sorry,” I whispered.

Klara looked bewildered. “You don’t have to apologize, Jenni—I’m very touched; it’s as though you feel my sadness, and just as deeply.”

“I do feel it—and I know how hard it’s going to be for you to talk about what happened to him.”

“It will be. But then it’s hard for me every day—even without this memoir it’s still so much on my mind.”

I wondered again why Klara’s grief seemed not to have been softened by time. Then I remembered something I’d once read about trauma: that if a traumatic event isn’t integrated into a person’s life, so that the person can at least accept it, then they’re destined to relive it, again and again.

Evie … Evie …

“I dream about someone else too,” I went on softly. “Someone I knew a long time ago.”

“Your father?” Klara asked after a moment.

“No.” My voice fractured. “It’s …”

Klara looked shocked. “Jenni, my dear, please don’t cry.” I groped in my bag for a tissue. “I don’t know who this person is, but couldn’t you perhaps get in touch again, if not seeing them upsets you so much?”

“I can’t. It’s too late.”

“Well, I … wish I could help you, Jenni.”

I fought the urge to tell Klara everything, fearful that if I did, it might destroy our rapport. In any case, I was here to do a job, I reasoned, not to talk about myself. I blinked back my tears, then looked at my notes.

But the time was going to come when I would.

“Klara, you talked about having faced a dilemma; I wondered what you’d meant by that.”

She grew pale. “I had to make a very difficult choice—one that’s haunted me ever since. I do want to tell you about it, Jenni, but I’m not ready to do so yet. So please bear with me until I am.”

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