Tante Eva by Paula Bomer

Author:Paula Bomer [Bomer, Paula]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9781641292221
Google: qBLyDwAAQBAJ
Amazon: 1641292229
Publisher: Soho Press
Published: 2021-05-17T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 20

The next morning, early, there was a knock on the door. Eva got up, bleary, she’d stayed up late, thinking, listening to music. It seemed almost impossible to get her robe on, but she managed. It was Krista.

“I have a letter for you.”

“You still have my mail key?” Eva panicked. She needed her coffee. Her pills. She couldn’t think.

“No, but I happened to be downstairs when the mailman came and so I told him I’d bring your letter up to you.”

Eva couldn’t think yet. She walked back into her room, without saying anything. Krista followed, sitting at the table. Eva poured herself a water from the sink and took her pills. Just knowing they were in her made her feel a bit better. She put water on the stove for coffee. “I can’t think yet. I’m just waking up.”

“I’m sorry. It’s eleven already, and I thought . . .”

“You know I often sleep later,” Eva interrupted. She was not pleased. She took the envelope from Krista and looked it over, to see if it had been opened. It was from Liezel. Then she looked properly at Krista. Her face wore an expression of contrition. Perhaps even of pleading. She was young and small and fragile-seeming in that moment. But Eva looked harder at her and the image of her mean and drunk, being tossed around by nasty men came clear to her. Both victim and perpetrator. It happened. Then she gathered herself. This was her neighbor. She wasn’t going to make an enemy of her just now. “Willst du einen Kaffee?”

“Sehr gerne.”

“Wie geht’s deiner Mutter?”

“Ganz okay. Nicht grossartig, aber okay.”

Eva looked at her sternly. “Milch und Zucker?”

“Bitte.”

For a moment, they sipped their coffees in silence. Then Eva stood up and put on her new Nina Simone record. Anything to distract from the awkwardness.

“Did you put this by my door? Someone put it by my door. I am grateful, as I wasn’t here to receive it.” Eva didn’t mention it had been opened.

“Nein, das war nicht ich.” The girl lied.

“I’m sorry, I forgot you don’t like this music. I can take it off.”

“No, that’s not true. I mean, it’s not my favorite. But don’t take it off.” Krista looked into her coffee cup. “Is Maggie here?”

“Yes. She’s staying with Elena in Kreuzberg. But she will come visit me. I hope you’ll be here and can see her.”

“That would be great!” Krista’s face lit up, and she nervously wiped a strand of greasy hair from her forehead. “I have so many things I want to talk to her about, about America. Maybe I could visit her someday.”

Eva was startled, but tried to hide it. “Well, Krista. It’s now easy to travel to America.”

“Not for me. Not for people like me.”

“That’s not true. If you want a job there, that’s different, that’s harder, but to visit is not hard.”

“I want a job there,” the girl said grimly. “I want to move.”

“I see.” This was news.

“I have lived here with my mother my whole life.

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