Pentimento

Chapter 3 - As far away as possible

28 years later – as far away from Zwolle as Rose could get.

During class, the sentence that her therapist had said was beating in her head like a bad DJ track the kids listened to these days.

"You need to stop trying to forget, Rose."

She had spent the rest of the session explaining that forgetting was the only way. Her therapist, although she nodded kindly throughout the whole monologue, disagreed. Maybe she should look for a new therapist. Rose wondered if there were any left in the city that she hadn't been to yet. None of them could make her forget, most of them had the same stupid advice as her current one. She sighed deeply, trying to get rid of the bad feelings rushing through her body. Years ago, this job had seemed like the way out. At her lowest point, she'd found a business card in her pocket of a certain Dr. Headley, who had, months before the heist, told her to go and teach if she was ever in doubt. In doubt she had been, so now she was here. She wasn't particularly glad about it.

Watching her students leave the room, one student came up to her desk. In front of their body, they held a printed piece of paper with an article.

"I take art classes and so I read some art blogs..." Rose tried to look at her watch without Austin seeing it, checking how much time she had for this conversation. They noticed the glance.

"I found this article of you. I printed it out, I know you aren't a big fan of the internet." They handed her the paper and hurried to the next lecture, leaving Rose standing alone in the middle of the room, looking at a black and white, pixelated version of her 23-year-old self.

She put the paper on her desk with the blank side up when her next class sat down in their seats. During the rest of the afternoon, Rose glimpsed at the paper occasionally, like it could spring up and attack her any minute. In her mind, she'd drawn up a picture of what could possibly be in the article. There were so many possibilities that her brain couldn't focus on that and the lesson she had prepared. Frustrated, she let her last class go early.

Alone, she sat down behind her desk staring at the paper. Did they catch the thieves? Had she made it all up in an alcohol-fueled night terror? She was prepared for whatever it would tell her. She got off campus before any of her colleagues had let their students go.

She sat down at a quiet table at Harry's Coffee, the place to go for all caffeine depended teachers, with a big mug of tea. The rush would start soon, when other teachers would find their way, almost automatically, from their desks to the counter. For now, Rose was one of only three customers. She laid the article flat in front of her. First, Rose let her eyes glide over the italics. Marjorie Finlay had written the piece, all the way from England.

The picture's caption was short: Rose Clementine, victim. Victim. Rose read that word a few times, it was odd to see it next to her own name. At the time, no one had really seen her as a victim. James was the victim; he lost his life. The museum was called a victim too. So was the public, robbed of a chance at seeing four famous artworks worth millions. She had just been the security guard who didn't manage to call the police.

And later, when police posed their theories, she turned into the possible women on the inside, suspected of working with the thieves. In the picture, Rose was still lying in a hospital bed. She didn't try to smile, as she had no reason to. Rose couldn't remember when or how this photo was taken and it was almost as if she was looking at someone else. But she remembered how she felt during those days, you could see it in the picture. That feeling of defeat that seemed to darken the photo was still with her now.

When she spotted an exhausted colleague hanging onto the counter, she quickly made her way outside, where she put on the hood of her yellow raincoat. She chose the small streets next to the city center over the main roads and thankfully, she didn't see any familiar faces.

The street was quiet, the air wet and cold. The peace provided by the darkness once made her relaxed. Now it evoked her fight or flight response. To shake off the unnerving feeling she bought herself a big bag of fast food and hurried home.