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for a language. She could sometimes guess ahead of her grandmother what the next sentence was going to be.
    For the first time in her life she entered her grandfather’s library, to her simply a vast oaken door secured by a Gothic black lock while she was growing up. Beyond the door stood high bookcases, beautifully fashioned in mahogany, containing wall-to-wall leather-bound volumes accessed with the help of a sliding ladder.
    Henk touched her shoulder, the reassurance and strength flowing from his digits into her soul. ‘Stay in here as long as you want, Eva.’ His voice was gentle and mellow, his Polish still carrying a Dutch cadence. It had made her laugh as a child. She loved its sound; it reminded her somehow of treacle.
    She whiled away the autumn and winter months there. Henk procured a large well-worn leather armchair for her to coil up in. She read by the firelight. Aga would leave food and tea for her, stepping in quietly and touching Eva’s arm gently, as silent as a ghost.
    Henk moved in the piano, a family heirloom, upright and ornately inlaid with delicate flowers, and Eva discovered old studies she’d learned as a child. All the manuscripts of sheet music Eva uncovered were dusted down for her. Sitting at the stool, she set the old wooden metronome and began to learn how to play again. She would lose herself for hours in the music of Johan Sebastian Bach, beginning with the Anna Magdalena notebook.
    Slowly as a flower buds, Eva’s soul began to heal.
     
    * * *
     
    The following spring semester brought Theo Kassinski. He was tall and lean. Dark curls flowed around his handsome features and he had an innate assurance of his place in the world. He was an unkempt, handsome artist with a smile for her every time he came up to borrow a book. He was looking for a model to draw and he guessed correctly that under her shapeless clothes Eva was a goddess. He asked her to model for him, assuring her he wasn’t interested in her other than her being his contract model. At the desk he had scratched out a quick pencil sketch of her to prove that he could draw. She merely glanced at the sketch - it didn’t move her in any particular way - and agreed with the briefest of nods. On the back of the page he wrote out the address of his studio and handed it to her.
    That Saturday she went to the address. The studio, a reconditioned garret above a warehouse, contained a cold water sink, a brass bed and basic kitchenette. Trestle tables lined the far wall with the paraphernalia of his vocation. The room had a co-ordinated chaos about it, where food, drink and clothing lay piled amid oils, canvas, brushes, reams of paper and sheets of hardboard. A screen covered an ornate ancient commode, though rarely as their relationship developed did they avail themselves of it, preferring to take a break at the small caf é across the road, Theo more often than not dappled from head to toe in paint.
    She disrobed in the spring sunshine in his studio, moving in poses as Theo sketched her quickly. Both subject and artist took a dispassionate view of each other, and yet Eva found herself every weekend in the studio. They were alone for hours on end, the scratching of pencil, charcoals and pastels marked by the passage of the sun across the wooden floor, the easel a barrier between them.
    She allowed her mind to close. Every breath was measured, timed - sometimes short, other times for as long as her lungs would allow. She started to push the limits of her body, twisting herself into complex poses, this breathing exercise making her focus her concentration on the pose relishing, the challenge it presented. A subtle chemistry developed between them where she could almost guess what he was going to ask next. At the end of each session, he would proudly display his renderings as he turned the easel around to her.
    For Theo, this arrangement was perfect. Eva never uttered a word, nor sighed, nor complained about having to stand still. He was a