Glittering Shadows (11 page)

“Aren’t you even going to mourn her at all?”

“We had quite a history,” he said heavily.

She just cried against his chest briefly, and he stroked her hair. He handed Nan her wineglass over Sigi’s shoulder, but he looked uncomfortable, as though he wasn’t used to sharing
emotions with his daughter.

Nan shifted her feet, trying to seem invisible during this private moment. The apartment was disheveled, with shoes sitting in the middle of the floor and the remains of what looked like a small
dinner party at the table and around the kitchen. Each wall was dominated by a large painting—an abstract, a portrait of him, a modernist café scene.

“Sig, do you need a place to stay?” he asked, his voice rough but gentle.

“No, I could use a little money, though. I don’t have anything. My camera, my clothes…”

“Money, camera, clothes. All you ever needed, right? You can take my camera or anything else. Look in the closet, see if any of Gretchen’s clothes fit you.”

Sigi wrinkled her nose. Whoever Gretchen was, she didn’t seem pleased at the idea of taking her clothes.

“Are you sure you don’t want to stay?” he continued. “For dinner, anyway. I’d like to know you’re safe. It’s crazy out there. I was just heading out the
door to check on a friend. Can you hang around for a bit? Sit back, finish up the wine, eat anything you want. I’ll be back in no time.”

He opened a drawer and tossed her a pair of keys, which she didn’t catch and had to pick up off the floor. He grabbed his coat and paused before leaving. “I love you, kid.”

“I love you, too,” Sigi said. She looked pained as he closed the door, and took a deep, shuddering breath. “I knew he wouldn’t want to hear it,” she said. “He
can’t deal with the bad stuff. He never wants to talk. I bet he doesn’t even have a friend to meet. He doesn’t want me to see him cry. He’ll go have a drink and talk to a
bartender about it instead.”

“I understand,” Nan said. “I knew some of those men at the club. They’d come talk to me, and sometimes they’d comment that they could talk to me but not their own
kids. I don’t know why that is.”

“Well”—Sigi wiped a few tears away—“should I look at
Gretchen’s
clothes?”

“Does he have a lot of mistresses?”

“A revolving door.” She took a long drink of wine. “In some ways, though, I’m comforted that he’s acting exactly the same as he always does, even as the world
crumbles around him. Can you believe my mother married him?”

“I’ve seen stranger matches.”

“Oh, you would have stories about that, too.”

“So many. Thea tells them better, though.”

“I guess I’ve seen it all, taking my photographs, but I don’t take many of couples,” Sigi said. “Maybe I should. I like the old people sometimes. When they’re
holding wrinkled hands together. It’s sweet. My parents would never last that long with anyone. Should I top off your glass?”

“I’m good.”

As Sigi started to walk toward the bedroom, she paused in the living room. The sofa faced the balcony. The entire wall was glass, filling the room with sunlight. All the furniture was angular
and new. Sigi’s mother’s house had been full of older well-crafted wooden chairs and tables; this stuff was not so much crafted as designed, each lamp and table like pieces of a puzzle
that you’d imagine might somehow fit together into a giant cube. Sigi paused and tapped her fingers to her lips.

“I could photograph you
here
,” she said. “If you still want me to photograph you.”

“I do,” Nan said. “I definitely do. But why here?”

“You fit into this room perfectly. Cool and modern.”

“Ironic,” Nan said, “considering I am apparently ancient.”

“This room captures what you want to be, doesn’t it?” She held up her hand, twitched with sudden purpose, and rushed into the bedroom.

Nan was about to follow when she caught a glimpse of her reflection. She had almost forgotten she was wearing this shapeless dress.

I certainly don’t want to be immortalized in this ugly thing
. She glanced at the hall where Sigi had disappeared, hearing rummaging. Nan wasn’t self-conscious, but Sigi might
be alarmed to walk back in and find Nan standing in her underwear.

The idea of making Sigi blush was tantalizing. Was it attraction to Sigi herself, or was it attraction to the idea of attraction?

She imagined Sigi’s kiss and the world flooding with color.
That’s all I want
.

Her skin was warmer now. She ran a hand along her neck, looking back at her reflection. She was more accustomed to her face with makeup on, but Sigi had never known her that way. Her bare face
was more androgynous. It was still hard to believe that one guard underground had taken her for a boy.

Nan Davies
, she thought.
That’s who you are
.

She reached for the hem of her dress, crossing her arms to sweep it over her head. Loose as it was, she didn’t have to struggle to get it over her shoulders. It was crumpled on the floor
in a moment, baring her thin shoulders to the mirror. She was still wearing underwear from her imprisonment, a plain cotton chemise and drawers, and stockings Thea had loaned her that morning.

“Okay…” Sigi’s voice moved into the hall. “He got a new camera, so—” She broke off when she reached the doorway. “Um—”

“I’m not wearing that ugly old thing for the picture,” Nan said.

“What if my father comes back?”

“It doesn’t
show
anything.”

“It sure implies a lot.” Sigi was flushed, but she couldn’t stop staring. “You really want me to photograph you in your underwear?”

“Why not?”

Sigi’s eyes clicked over into a mode Nan recognized, from surprise to thinking about the shot. “Sit down on the couch,” she said. She moved to the window, fussing with the
curtains. Nan sprawled across the cushions. Even though she had not been nervous about changing for gym in school or wearing a short skirt at work, this moment felt different.

Sigi messed with the camera for a little while, her lips pressed together thoughtfully. She looked up and caught Nan’s eyes.

“Stay like that,” she said softly. “Just like that.” She took one picture, told Nan to look toward the dining table for a profile shot, and took another. “Maybe put
an arm up over your head. Lean back?”

After a few more shots, Sigi stopped and regarded Nan for a moment. “I don’t usually take photographs like this. I’m a street photographer. I like to look for the beauty in
ugly things, but you’re just…beautiful. I don’t know if I can do you justice.”

“You can certainly flatter.”

“I mean it,” Sigi said. “You don’t seem real. A photograph might ruin you, might turn you into an ordinary girl.” Then she suddenly looked pained. “I’m
sorry. That’s actually what you wanted, isn’t it?”

“If you see that in me…I don’t mind. I don’t see it. I see that I’m different, but not the beauty.”

Nan didn’t know how to describe the way Sigi looked at her. The word “hungry” sounded too crude. Closer to awe, but also more than that. She felt as though in giving Sigi
permission to look at her so closely and capture her on film, she had offered Sigi some of her power.

“You know,” Sigi said, “the thing about art is that it’s like a quest that never ends. You always have something in your head that is so beautiful, and you never manage
to create it. Sometimes you come close. And that moment…is madness. It’s so fleeting. If you’ve tasted it once, you have to keep searching. You look like that moment.”

“Like madness?”

Sigi just looked at her.

Nan stood up from the couch and kissed her hard. She kept her eyes open. Colors flashed in her vision—gold and brown furniture and the blue sky out the window. Her heart hammered.
Just
let me hold on to this…let me feel.

Sigi’s mouth was yielding and tasted like tears. Her eyes were closed and Nan heard a little catch in her throat. She touched Nan’s back, lightly, like she didn’t want to trap
her. Nan ran her fingers through Sigi’s wild hair.

Nan was afraid to stop because she didn’t want to lose the colors. Or this feeling.

Sigi was the one who pulled away. “Nan…” She looked like she knew it was about more than her.

“I don’t ever want to go back,” Nan whispered. The colors in the room had muted, but they weren’t gone, and Nan couldn’t stop staring. The room was so different
now. There was the gold upholstery and a blue vase and a green houseplant. Everything was brighter. “I don’t want to see Ingrid again.”

“I understand,” Sigi said. She didn’t need to say
but
. It was already in the room with them.

Nan walked over to the crumpled dress, picked it up, and slipped it back on. When she poked her head through the collar, the room was gray again.

“T
his was one of my old haunts,” Sigi said, pointing at what appeared to be an old carriage house converted into a restaurant, wedged
between crumbling mansions that had been converted into apartments. The sign said
THE BIRD
’
S NEST
. It was open and appeared crowded and dim
inside.

“I didn’t know you lived in the Pinsel-Allée district. This isn’t far from where I grew up. I was just over on the bad side of the university.”

“It’s bad here, too, sometimes. Artists like to fight more than you’d think.” Sigi grinned, shoving the door open so a wash of noise and cigarette smoke came over them.
Hardly anyone was sitting at the tables; students and bohemian types were standing around talking about the protests and the workers and criticizing the Chancellor. Some looked roughed-up or even
had blood on their clothes.

Sigi waved Nan to the bar. They perched on stools. “Two glasses of wine,” Sigi said. “A decent red. We’re honoring the dead.” She smiled briefly at Nan. “That
rhymed. Unintentional. It’s the poetry in the air. I hope you like wine—I think we need something classy for our toast.”

“I agree.” Nan put an elbow on the bar counter, enjoying the atmosphere. The thick air reminded her of the Telephone Club. “They must not have power here either,” Nan
commented, noticing candles flickering on the bar. As they had shared an awkward meal with Sigi’s father where he mostly talked about his own life, the sun had climbed down the sky.

“Here you are, ladies.” The bartender put down their glasses.

Nan had no more taste for wine than she had for food these days, but she lifted the glass. Sigi met Nan’s eyes. She swallowed. Nan could see she was just trying not to cry.

“To life,” Nan said softly.

“To sunrise,” Sigi replied, even softer. She took a drink. “You know, we could still stay with my father, if you don’t want to go back to Ingrid. As you can see, he and
my mother both like to talk about themselves—he’s harmless.”

“I have to go back. I don’t think they’ll let Freddy leave, and Freddy and I both suspect Ingrid put Thea under some kind of enchantment.” Nan kept her voice low. She
didn’t trust anyone, even in the anonymity of a noisy restaurant.

“You didn’t tell me about that!”

“I was going to—I just wanted to think about other things. We don’t know much more than that, anyway. Thea just isn’t acting like herself.”

“Do you think Ingrid has some power to make people forget, the way we did underground?” Sigi asked, swigging more wine.

“I don’t know what Ingrid can do,” Nan said. “That’s the problem with magic. You never know what it can do. Maybe that’s why I seem to have trouble using
mine. I don’t like the idea of it much.”

“If we got Thea out of there, do you think the spell would fade?”

“But what if it didn’t?”

The door of the Bird’s Nest was constantly opening and closing, with some people popping in just to skim the room looking for friends, while others joined the conversation. One young man
who had just walked in suddenly approached them and looked at Sigi.

Then he stepped back as if he’d seen a ghost, his pale face dumbstruck. “Sigi,” he said.

“Helmut? What’s going on?” Another fellow approached the first. Everyone seemed edgy, ready to react at the slightest sign of distress.

“Hel,” Sigi said, quickly putting down her drink and lifting her hands. “It’s all right.”

“You were dead!” Hel pointed at her. “Were—were you underground?”

“No.”
Sigi’s eyes darted around the room as strangers turned to look at her. “Hey, why don’t we step outside and talk?”

“You can talk in here,” a girl said. “Is it true what he’s saying? Did you find a way to come back from the dead? They’re lying to us, aren’t they? The
Chancellor? About the spell?”

This barrage of questions seemed to paralyze Sigi. Nan stood up. “Everyone, please, calm down. It’s a simple mistake. She’s fine. I’m not sure who you
are”—she looked at Hel—“but she isn’t, nor has she ever, been dead. I’ve been with her. Who is this, Sigi?” She shot Sigi a dramatic, accusatory glance,
hoping everyone would see this as a case of misunderstanding, that Sigi had lied to an old lover or something.

“She was dead,” Hel said. “I saw her body. Margie—her roommate—rang me up when she found Sigi dead in her apartment.”

Sigi seemed to snap into awareness, snatching up her camera bag, grabbing Nan’s arm, and rushing for the door.