He did not feel the complexity of those objects and their history, no matter where he was he never looked anything other than a man at home. I smiled and squeezed his hand in return. That tranquility was what had drawn me to him, but at the same time I understood a little better the determination with which Gaby had decorated the place and filled it with her belongings, the degree to which she was trying to occupy a foreign territory, in that action I was able to see beyond the failed marriage, and further into Adriaan’s past.
