Page 71 of The Winter Princess
Père and I receive an invitation to dine withSehorFornasari. Since Père has prior commitments, he sends me with half a dozen bottles of barrel-aged ’57anau,his best wishes, and Freddie, who watches me from the curb.
I turn to the door, pressing a finger against an ornate doorbell next to the nameplate reading “Fornasari.” Though the night is wet and dark and the street is quiet, music is playing from one of the flats. The bell emits a harsh buzz and I step back, shifting slightly to adjust the weight of the bottles. The door swings open, sending a shaft of light across my skirt.
“Good evening,SehorFornasari.”
“Uncle Timo,” he corrects, kissing my cheeks while reaching for the box. “Come in, come in. Your man—”
“My security detail. He’ll wait outside.”
He takes my coat and leads me through the modest tiled lobby down a narrow hall toward the source of the music.
Dinner, he told my father when the invitation was made. I chose a plaid wool skirt and crisp white blouse with the expectation thatdinnercould mean anything from a formal occasion with courses and candlelight to a plate balanced on my knees in front of a fireplace with an electric heater set in the grate. From the energetic sounds emanating from the apartment, it’ll have the numbers of a union strike. I smooth a hand over the wool and hope it’s up to the job.
Uncle Timo propels me through his tiny entryway and into a moderate-sized sitting room, where I find clusters of people on the sofa and chairs, another group on the floor cutting up tissue, and more standing in the center, arguing loudly over what my bad Pavian ear translates asboneless lamps. Other guests scurry in and out of the kitchen, halting in the hall. I don’t see a table.
He whistles for silence and gets it. Even in Sondish, his speech is flowery. “It is my profound honor to introduce a sister of Pavieau, Her Royal Highness, Princess Freja.”
I lift a hand. “Just Freja,” I smile. There is a general murmur of welcome before the noise kicks up again. I haven’t been made a fuss over. That’s good.
Uncle Timo holds my elbow. “Oskar should be here,” he says, looking around with lowered brows as though doing so will conjure him. Only then do I admit that I’ve been looking for him too, every time the kitchen door swung back.
“Where is he, anyway?” This from a girl sitting with her legs crossed on the carpet. She’s wearing high-waisted slacks and a slouchy sweater, dark hair spilling over her shoulder. Her Sondish is perfect, casual in a way only a native speaker can achieve. A Uni student is my guess. Second generation. She would be indistinguishable from her Sondish classmates except for the faintly olive skin. Her slightly narrowed eyes rake over my face and clothes. She’s interested in Oskar, and I wonder how I could be so precisely attuned to that.
Uncle Timo waves his hand. “Help your cousin set out the cutlery, Adeline. Freja,” he presses my arm, “go see if you can coax Oskar down from his tower. We won’t eat for a while. You have plenty of time.”
Adeline scoots past with a sharp smile, eyes level with mine, holding them too long for friendliness. “Does she even know where he lives?”
Uncle Timo shakes his head. He points a finger to the ceiling. “Number Six.”
I follow Uncle Timo’s directions up three flights to the topmost floor. Tissue paper Christmas buntings—a Pavian tradition Père has passed down to us—crisscross the open stairwell as I climb up and up. Reaching the top, I’m slightly winded as I rap on a deep green door with a gleaming brass number six.
“Come in,” a voice calls, muffled but unmistakable. The sound sets off reverberations through my nerves, the price that must be paid for spending any time around Oskar. I push open the door, as silent as a scout entering a foreign kingdom.
It’s a nice kingdom. The floors are bright Scandinavian pine, and the rug running down the hall, faded in a pleasing way, has a graphic Pavian print. Other than the faint music of the party, the only sound is the heavy wash of rain against the roof.
I see no one to interrupt my rank curiosity so I tiptoe down the hall to where it opens onto a sitting room with a massive bookshelf on one side and a perpendicular bank of windows. From these I see golden lights sweep along the contours of the harbor and the brilliance of the Summer Palace high on the headland.
Mentally I orient the building along the points of a compass and a smile touches my mouth. The windows are north-facing—good for painting. Perhaps this is a coincidence. Perhaps Oskar’s a better liar than I am. He claims to be no artist, but there’s a drafting table set in one corner. Grimly I measure the distance between me and it. Six meters of Scandinavian pine. I weigh up the desperate need to discover what he’s been working on and balance it against the mortification of being caught snooping. I can almost hear the metallic clang of the second option banging to the ground.Vede.
From the relative safety of my position, I note more prosaic details. The furniture is old but sturdy. Good bones. There isn’t an overabundance of it, and there aren’t any Christmas trimmings. Oskar’s flat is comfortable but spare, as though he’s on a short-term lease and hasn’t decided to stay or go.
“I told you, uncle. I’m busy,” his voice calls. I jump slightly, my heart hammering in my chest. Three long, silent strides take me back to the kitchen door. I shake feeling back into my hands and push the door open to find Oskar sitting at a small table with a pile of notes and a textbook perched against a stack of others. A cup of coffee rests on a coaster.
He’s wearing a blue button-up and a dark sweater with leather elbow patches, hair falling forward over his forehead. I take a breath before speaking, trying to find a frequency that sounds normal.
“Too busy for Saint Luz’s Day?”
His head snaps up, and the book clatters to the floor. He rises, picks up the book, closes it, and dusts the cover.
“What are you doing here?”
I swallow. Even though I’ve been walking into his studio for weeks, coming into his home is more intimate.
“SehorFornasari invited me for dinner. He wondered where you were.” I look over the neat lines of the kitchen with its vintage tiles in black, cream, and ochre. I look at anything but the way his sweater stretches over his shoulders.
“I’m working.”
Taking a few steps into the room, I crouch and run a finger along the spines of his books.Freud and the Fairy Tale,A Thousand Stories: Folk Tales of Sondmark,The Secret Meaning of Goblins, Gorgons, and Golden Balls.
