When we arrived they were already sitting gathered in front of the television in the living room, with the window open, sipping cappuccinos while watching a Christmas special. Joachim’s mother Agnes and her boyfriend Bjorn, and Joachim’s twin brother Peter. Joachim headed into the living room and slumped down into a spare place on the sofa, without so much as a single word of greeting. As soon he sat down he opened the TV listings magazine, a double edition for Christmas, and started to go through it. Agnes and Bjorn said hello to me. When I’d visited Agnes briefly three years ago, she’d had a different boyfriend. And I’d never met Peter before. Joachim had never even spoken all that much about him. I’d thought they might be identical twins, but I could see now that they weren’t.
“Cappuccino?” Agnes asked, getting up from her seat. I nodded and thanked her. “How was your trip?” Bjorn asked, turning to look at me.
“It was okay. But the constant rain meant we couldn’t go outside much.”
“Oh, it rained? Here we’ve just had snow.”
When he laughed he let his mouth open wide. Peter’s gaze was fixed on the television screen as if there was something gluing it there. He greeted me only briefly, his hello stiff and formal. He didn’t look at Joachim and Joachim didn’t look at him, but then Joachim didn’t look at anything—he just sat there selecting chocolates from a glass dish on the side table, peeling off the silver paper and popping them into his mouth one at a time, with his face buried in the TV guide. A violinist appeared on the television and began to run through a series of popular Christmas pieces, his features arranged in an expression of generic happiness.
“André Rieu, there’s really no one like him,” Agnes sighed, gazing at the television while she settled back down on the sofa. “Don’t you agree?” she asked me. “He’s so attractive, and the music is just wonderful, don’t you think?”
“I’m sorry?” I asked. I hadn’t quite caught the name. “Who are you talking about?”
“André Rieu, the violinist. He has his own orchestra. He’s Dutch.”
“I’ve never heard of him.”
The violinist was clearly putting a lot of effort into his facial expression and body language; no matter what he was playing, that happy smile never left his face. While he played he moved elegantly about the stage, making sure to hold the violin at a graceful angle. His long curly hair was pulled back with a stylish purple hair-tie, and each of his on-stage gestures were carefully calculated for a specific effect, like those of a gifted actor. Agnes gestured toward a shelf of books.
“I’ve got an André Rieu album—photos, you know.”
“Oh?” I tried to sound polite rather than genuinely enthusiastic in case she suggested I have a look through the album, which I’d spotted next to a large, thick volume entitled Princess Diana: Her Glory and Myth. But then my gaze landed on something else, on the same shelf as the books: a black and white photograph in a small, finely carved wooden frame. It was a waist-up photograph of a young woman; it appeared to be quite an old picture, and the woman to be around fifteen. She was wearing a dark dress, probably black, and her blonde hair was tied back; it gave the impression of having been taken to mark a special occasion. A handful of pale-cultured roses were clutched to her chest, and her lips were curved into a smile that was both delicate and sharp, matching the contours of her face. The girl was standing in front of what looked like the door to a building. Her face looked pale and drawn for one so young. Overall, the impression was of a strange combination of cunning and freshness, of time flowing past in water. There was no question about it—this was Agnes, a long time ago. All the same I asked Joachim:
“Is this a photo of Agnes?”
“How would I know?” he responded brusquely, without even glancing at the photograph.
After the meal, when Agnes had finished the dishes and came to join the rest of us in the living room, I pointed out the photograph on the shelf and asked if it was a photo of her.
“Yes, that’s right. It’s a photo of the old days.”
“Agnes, you were really pretty.”
“There’s no need to lie,” Joachim said, without looking at me.
“It’s not a lie, it’s true. How old were you?”
“I was thirteen. 1963. The day of my First Communion. That’s an important day in the Protestant church, you know.”
“So that’s why you were wearing those fancy clothes? The black dress?”
“That’s why I wore the black dress, yes. And the roses were a gift.”
“Were they white?”
“Hmm, no, they weren’t white. I can’t remember all that well. Were they yellow, maybe? Just a minute.”
She disappeared into the bedroom and came back with a big cardboard box. Joachim tossed aside the magazine he’d been reading with an expression of annoyance, and Peter stubbed out his cigarette in the ashtray, keeping his eyes on the television. From the box, Agnes produced a headband that looked as though it hadn’t been worn for years. “The very same,” she said, indicating the one in the photograph. The box also contained a thick, black album, the photos glued to its thin white pages. They were all scenes from weddings. On the first page was a young Agnes, dressed in a pale two-piece and wearing cat-eye glasses. The man standing at her side was a little shorter than her, had clear, pale skin, and hair styled into the same shape as a sailor’s cap. Agnes explained that this was in the government office, right after the wedding ceremony. “That was my first wedding,” she added, reaching out to take the glass of spirits Bjorn was offering her. Compared to the previous photograph, this Agnes had cheeks that could almost be called plump. It wasn’t just her cheeks—her shoulders too, in fact her whole body was filled out nicely. She and the other women, who I guessed were her sisters, all had bouffant hairstyles and glasses of the same distinct shape, and were wearing two-pieces cut to the same pattern. I recognized the style, having seen similar things in photos of my mother when she was young. It was the style adopted by Jacqueline Kennedy when she was the wife of the American president. It was all very evocative of a certain distinct period, which I suppose must have been one of those historical moments where young women the world over got married in similar clothes. The wedding reception had been attended by Agnes’s sisters, their husbands, and her older brothers, the men all in suits. They were young, every one of them, and incomparably beautiful; there was even something brave in their youth and their beauty. They were like flowers daring to bloom amid the ruins of a city devastated by war. Moreover, this was a city that seemed to have been a humble place of woods, lakes, and simple, unembellished houses. These women had nothing to obscure the bright freshness of their youth; no makeup, no accessories, not even any coquetry. The square in the city center was truly vast, and the wide, straight road looked as though it might well stretch all the way to distant Poland. On this road, flanked by a seemingly endless forest, people from all walks of life stood holding hands and smiling brightly. It was as if I could hear their laughter and their song.
“I was seventeen then. He became ill, afterward, and died.”
“Do your siblings still live around here?”
“I’m not sure.