Stillness of the Sea Read Online Free Page B

turned their heads in the street when she walked by in a short skirt. Her shins were blotchy, blue or brown in places, and didn’t matchthe rest of her body. He often wondered about the bruised areas, since he never saw her banging into the edge of the bed or the table legs.
    Her eyes were still closed as he examined her pale skin and sensed the soft wind sweeping over her and making her shudder a little. He told her that he had never loved another woman as he loved her. He insisted that he loved every single thing about her and began to list what he meant. Then, on their day by the Baltic Sea, he did not tell her that she seemed utterly untouchable and that, for a moment, he had wondered if ever a man had made love to her, pushed into her body and held her down by her slender wrists. Then, he could not believe that he had done just this. Nor could he understand his desire for her body, a desire that was new to him. Afterwards, seeing how he had left marks on her skin, he would ask himself if he could possibly have caused her pain. This idea came back to alarm him, as he saw her bending over him with her anorak half-opened.
    He took her hands in his and looked at her in search of some small irregularity, a blemish, but knew that she had none. She had to straighten up so as not to lose balance. Her fingers were much thinner than his, her neatly cut nails covered with a layer of colourless varnish. He took her hands in his and wanted to warm them. But she could not be warmed. In this, her fingers were like her toes. Whenever he touched her, or she him, these parts of her were always cold. He simply couldn’t get used to it. Often, he took her hands in his or made her put them into his pockets or held them against his cheeks or wrapped them around a hot cup of tea.
    On that day by the Baltic Sea, he had clasped her hands tightly, as if to squeeze the cold out. He pressed them so hard that she opened her eyes in fright andlooked at him. Her face was so close to his and her black hair lifted in the wind, which, he thought, was surely invigorating. “You’re hurting me,” she said. And he told her that he would do anything to make her happy. “Tell me, how can I make you happy?” But she just looked at him with her large, dark eyes. He knew that if she asked him the same question, he would answer, “Stay with me.”
     
    Counsel for the defence rises. He is Mr Nurzet, a man with short, blond hair and strikingly large hands.
    “The men who entered the house had robbed all of you and carried out other acts as you have just described them, but afterwards you nonetheless stayed in the house. You were prepared to sleep there, rather than flee. After the thefts, did you not realise the danger? Weren’t you frightened?”
    She looks down at the tabletop.
    “What can I tell you? They took everything from us, leaving only our souls. We didn’t think that they would take them away, too. We felt that we were all human beings and that we would learn to live together again. We could never have imagined that they would do what they did.”
    “Tell me, have I understood you correctly? As a group, you did not leave that house because you believed that no one else would come for you?”
    “Yes.”
    “When the men drove away, did you see the car they used? Did you see the car they came back in?”
    “I didn’t see the car they arrived in, but I heard it. The exhaust was broken and made a lot of noise.”
    “And are you sure that it was the same car each time?”
    “I don’t know if there were other cars. I think it was the same one, but I never saw it, only heard it.”
    “Can I put it on record that the only evidence for the car the men arrived in being the same as the returning one, is that you believe that you were able to recognise the noise of the exhaust?”
    She nods.
    “You nod. May I take this as yes?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did you recognise the men who returned at night?”
    “No, I didn’t. But members of my family said