The House at the End of Hope Street - By Menna van Praag Page 0,7

distract onlookers from the broken, blackened pieces of herself she wants no one else to see. Her body is bruised underneath the dress; purple shadows that linger on, her olive skin scarred with cigarette burns, her heart cracked in so many pieces it’s a wonder it still beats.

“Hello,” Alba says, pleased that her sense of sight is already getting stronger.

“Ola.” The woman reaches out a delicate hand with long fingers. “I am Carmen.”

Alba hurries forward to take it, noticing the manicured nails and suddenly feeling self-conscious of her bitten-down stubs.

“Muito prazer.” Carmen smiles, wondering why this pretty girl is dressed so shabbily, why she hasn’t bothered to brush her messy hair or put on makeup. Carmen doesn’t understand why a woman would want to hide her own beauty. A gift from God should be put on display. Even though she barely believes in God anymore, after all that she’s been through, she still believes in this. “Okay,” Carmen says. “You come for breakfast now?”

“Well, um . . .” Alba stalls, not at all sure what she’s doing. “I—”

“It’s a special day.” Carmen cuts her off. “The day you come, and Peggy’s birthday. She will make a cake and—qual e a palavra?—yes, pancakes with cherries and cream. She is crazy for this stuff. You will stay for this, celebrate with me and Greer, nao?”

“I’m not sure . . . I don’t know,” Alba says. “Who’s Greer?”

“She lived here a few weeks already.” Carmen leans against the wall with a little sigh, apparently tired from standing for so long. “She is an actress, tall, long red hair, green eyes. I not met her yet but Peggy say she very glamorous.”

Oh, great, Alba thinks, another beautiful one. I’ve stumbled into a cult of extraordinarily beautiful women and I’m their sacrificial virgin. “Greer’s a funny name.”

Carmen shrugs, swallowing a comment about pots and kettles she recently heard but can’t now quite recall. “She is named from an actress, English with also red hair and many awards.”

“Oh.” Alba frowns. She finds films frivolous and knows nothing of actresses. “I’ve never heard of her.”

Carmen regards Alba curiously, still not quite able to make sense of her. The new girl seems so timid, so careful, shut up tight as a clam, that Carmen longs to shake her up. She wants to take this little mouse to the bar where she works, get her drunk and see her dance on table tops. Resolving to fulfill this ambition before she leaves the house, Carmen smiles, flashing bright white teeth against olive skin. “You will join us for this, nao?”

Unsettled by the directness of the question, Alba gathers herself and considers her options: she’d rather live on the streets than see her family again or, more specifically, her siblings, who will be utterly horrified by what happened. They will interfere, demand to know the truth, and she can’t tell them. Her mother is a different matter. She won’t throw around threats, in fact she won’t say a thing; she’ll just stare at her daughter until both are soaked in sadness. And that is more than Alba can bear at the moment.

“Yes,” Alba replies, “I’ll join you.”

—

Greer is nearly forty and has no home, no career and no fiancé. Two weeks ago the abysmal play she was struggling through finally closed. That same night she’d come home to find her fiancé with a twenty-two-year-old on the kitchen table. After throwing saucepans while he declared his love for this new girl, Greer ran out of his flat, wandering through a fog of tears until she finally found herself on Hope Street, standing in the garden of a house she’d never seen before.

After nearly two weeks Greer still isn’t completely used to its strange ways, but it no longer scares her. Like every other resident who lives there—breathing its air, eating its food, drinking its water—she has become entirely enchanted by her new home. Slowly, her heart is beginning to beat in time to its gentle pulse, and her lungs fill with its soft breath.

Now she sits up in bed to see something new in her bedroom: an enormous wooden wardrobe filling the opposite wall, with its doors flung open. Greer stares at rows and rows of clothes, at every kind of theatrical costume she could possibly imagine. To the left are those from her favorite era, the screwball comedies of the 1940s: dozens of A–line dresses and flared trousers, fitted shirts and pencil skirts. To the right, costumes from the 1950s: puffball