The Safekeep

The story moves back in time to Isabel’s teenage years after the war, when she observed Hendrik taking piano lessons. Hendrik was enamored with his new piano tutor, a tall man in his twenties who lived in town. He practiced his music obsessively and waited intently at the window for the tutor to arrive at the house before each lesson. 

After one lesson, Isabel realized that Hendrik had left with the tutor, and she went out to find him at her mother’s request. She discovered Hendrik and the tutor having sex under a tree on some farmland. The sight stunned her, and she refused to tell her mother where Hendrik went when she got back home. 

When Hendrik returned, he did not realize that a mark was visible on his neck. The piano tutor did not return, but Isabel caught Hendrik sneaking out of the house late one night. The next morning, the police arrived at the house, having arrested Hendrik for drunkenly causing a disturbance in a residential neighborhood. When Hendrik tearfully told Isabel that the tutor did not love him, Isabel told him that the romance was wrong. Hendrik said that she was just like their mother, and he left home shortly afterward.