Something about Love

Karin sat down slowly at the small table in the cramped kitchen. “There’s one more thing.” She spoke softly, barely letting the words utter out of her mouth.

“What?” Marta answered. She glanced to her husband, and then turned back to Karin. There was a pause and a thick silence filled the warm air. Karin lifted her head and turned to face them both; two souls staring blankly into her eyes. She shifted in the chair and tried to straighten herself as her toes clutch tightly together in her buckled shoes, accumalating all of the tension she was hiding.

“The baby. I can’t let you keep her with you. It’s too dangerous.” The thick silence shattered around them, daggers of stillness piercing the air around their heads.

“What are you talking about?” Marta replied, her words sharp.

“It’s too dangerous. She’s so young. She’s too little for you to explain to her that she has to be quiet."

"I am not leaving my child.” Marta’s quivering voice cut the already humming air.

“Marta, please….” Peter whispered, “Please keep your voice down.”

“This is for your safety as well as mine. You put my life at risk if you take her.” The same thick silence filled the air again.

“I can’t leave her, I wont. How could she forgive me if she knew that I’d left her behind? No one can harm her if we’re there to protect her.”

“How do you think you can protect her if you can’t even protect yourselves? They don’t care about anyone and they won’t care about you.” The abruptness of Karin’s voice shocked even herself. She was taken aback by her shortness with Marta. Marta looked at Karin's face. Her round eyes filled with the first drops of fear and pain which she would later come to know only too well, and which would eventually become a part of her. She closed her eyes and felt the warm bundle of her tiny daughter weighing heavy in her arms. How could she give her up? How could she leave her to stay with a woman who was barely out of childhood herself? Anguish poured into her heart. Peter leant to his daughter, cupping the crown of her head in his hand. Those soft, long hands that usually brought such sweet comfort to Marta. He let out a tiny breath of air, barely audible in the already noiseless room. He tilted his head up, to face Marta.

“This is right. You know it is, we both know it is.” Karin leaned forwards to rest her forearms on the scratchy muslin cloth. The bright colours of the floral embroidery seemingly fading with every word she uttered.

“I won’t let her forget you.”

“Let’s give her a chance to see us again. Please, Martha.” Peter pleaded quietly with his wife, almost muttering the words peacefully into her ear. As he did so, Karin saw Marta’s body give up. She sighed out her pain and nodded slowly towards them both. Karin leant back in her chair and glanced over at Peter. His eyes welling with the deep ache of not being able to protect his family.

Karin Spielmann was not a particularly patient person. She was neither patient by nature nor patient by choice. The kind whose flailing limbs, still left-over from puberty, were constantly flinging themselves into inanimate objects. Following this, of course, a verbal symphony of every brash word she could think of. At twenty-one years old, her mind was firmly drawn to many other things than bringing up a child. She was petite but tall, and always wore her dark hair up, in one swift movement to form a loose and haphazard knot at the back of her head. Strands of hair swung loosely around her face and framed her bright warm eyes. She traipsed along the street, thudding her boots firmly on the cobbles and looking up to open her heart to the cheerful summer sky. She breathed a sigh of content as she rushed forwards, already late for work.

She worked in a bookshop just off of the main square. A quaint and cosy establishment, up a crooked and uneven staircase. Her employer was the elderly Mr Meyer. An almost mouse like man, with wisps of white cotton wool hair growing down the sides of his head, which he liked to sweep over to cover bald patches. He had worn the same tweed suit for the past twelve years. Why anyone would buy a new coat every winter, he could not fathom... His little eyes shone at Karin from behind tortoise-shell glasses resting pertly on the bridge of his nose.

“Ah! Good morning, good morning,” he tuttered as he flicked through the shelves organising and dusting off some old brick of a book bound in thick, ornate leather.

“Good morning, Martin!” Karin replied, flashing him a smile before placing her coat on the hook behind the door. She flicked past him, collecting books to be sorted that morning as she patted him swiftly on the head, being quick to dodge away before his playful hand swatted at her.

They had known eachother for quite some years now. Karin had enjoyed visiting the bookshop while she was at school, and as soon as she was able to, she asked for a job there with him. Their relationship has blossomed and every day at 3 pm, they drank a cup of tea together. He appreciated the company and found comfort in the click clack of the typewriter as Karin typed out the receipts for the books. And then inwardly smiled to himself when she cursed after making a mistake, and had to start over again. Karin enjoyed his company too, and she empathised with his pangs of loneliness. She felt guided by him, even though she often avoided listening to his advice.

Today, at 3 pm, she poured the contents of the whistling kettle into an old teapot before sinking herself into one of the two almost-threadbare armchairs at the back of the shop. She sighed deeply and let her eyes close gently. She could hear Martin’s shuffling feet making his way over before lower himself in the chair opposite.

“Any updates this week, girl?” he asked coyly. She smiled as she flicked her eyes open to meet his; two bright globes meeting two sharp beads.

“Not this week. You know I have no desire for any of that nonsense, Martin, so you might as well save your breath.” He chuckled lightly. He often felt like he had grasped her, but as soon as he did, she would slip right back out of his hands and he would have to search for her again.

“Nonsense is not the word I would use for it, girl. You can’t live your life all by yourself. It’s not natural. Human beings need companionship.”

“There’s a difference between that and being stuck. I don’t intend to get stuck.” He smiled again.

“You can intend all you want, girl. That only gets you so far.” She chuckled back at him, before closing her eyes again, lowering her head back and clasping her hands to rest on her stomach.

After flashing Martin a wave at the end of the day, Karin stood in the middle of the square. Her shoulders hunched up to meet her ears, whose tips were being tickled by the cold wisps of the night air. A brush of air teased the hairs on the back of her neck, like a splinter of cold stroking her skin. She glanced up. The clouds loomed over-head, parting in places to reveal a now battered and bruised sky. She was still. Her heart beat steadily and slowly. She breathed and headed home.