Love Is Pink!

“Why did he lie to her?” asked Emma.

“Because he . . .” David paused to clear his throat. Then he grimaced, apparently at a loss for words. “Because all he really wanted was to kiss her.”

“And why didn’t he kiss the queen?” Emma said.

David laughed. It didn’t sound nice at all. “I’m sure he kissed her, too. And probably others. He was a really big kisser.”

I’d come out of my shocked paralysis. “How can you tell such garbage to your child?” I was incensed.

“Who started this idiotic fairy tale to begin with?” David said just as harshly. “No poor princess with half a brain believes that a king will leave his queen to marry her, when all he wants is to—”

“Kiss!” Emma chimed in. “That stupid king always just wants to kiss every woman he sees.”

“No!” I yelled in despair. “Valentin isn’t like that! He is decent and extremely conscientious!”

David snorted. “And he buys the poor princess a castle in the clouds and a small carriage so that he can secretly visit her? Nobody’s buying your fairy tale, Michelle.”

A thick knot formed in my throat. Everything was swimming before my eyes. I sat back down and hid my face in my hands. Tears rolled down my cheeks.

Emma squeezed between the two front seats and grabbed my hand. “Don’t be sad! It was a beautiful story.”

I sobbed loudly.

“And when the princess finds out that the king is really a dum-dum,” Emma said, “she can look for a real prince. One who really loves her and is also a good kisser.”

That didn’t really console me.





13


The road was beginning to flatten out. The tall mountains stood behind us; the snowfall had subsided. The sun was shining, its rays infinitely refracted by the snow crystals covering the magical winter landscape.

Not a car or a person, far and wide. We seemed to be the only living beings in this enchanted world.

Emma and I were dozing off. My eyes shut. Maybe I even fell asleep for a few minutes. I can’t say for sure. And then the background noise changed. The engine got louder and louder until it was thundering.

“Something’s not right,” David replied to my questioning look.

He slowed down, pulled over on the right, and turned off the engine. He looked worried.

“I’m sure it’s nothing bad,” I said, trying to cheer him up.

“We’ll see.” He stepped out of the car and opened the hood.

“Papa can fix it,” Emma said from the back.

“I’m sure of it,” I said.

“Papa has his own workshop in his garage.”

“That must be useful.” My tone wasn’t very convincing. The noise hadn’t sounded good. Not good at all.

David removed his jacket and hung it over a guardrail, so he could bend far into the engine.

This will take a while, I thought.

“Do you want to get out and stretch our legs?” I asked Emma, who was raring to go.

I helped her button up her jacket and put on her pom-pom hat and gloves, and together we got out of the car. Once outside, I slipped into my ski jacket. It was already warm.

“OK,” I said. “While David mucks around, we’ll take a walk.”

We made our way through the deep snow a short distance from the car, and Emma began making snowballs—which she proceeded to throw at me with impressive skill. I retaliated as best I could, but my aim wasn’t as precise as hers. In any event, we quickly forgot David, the car, and the noisy engine.

“Michelle, Emma!” David called to us after awhile. We looked around and spotted him standing at the rear end of the Citro?n, looking helplessly at the ground.

Once we made our way over to him, I noticed his considerable distress.

“Were you able to fix it?” I asked him anyway.

He shook his head and pointed to the muffler. It was no longer hanging in place, but was in between the rear tires on the ground.

“Is it completely broken?” I asked.

“No, but the mount is broken and rusted.”

“Is that bad?”

“Without it we won’t even make it two kilometers before the engine dies.”

I knelt down to get a closer look. “Couldn’t we tighten the part that holds it up? At least in a makeshift way. So that it holds until we get to a garage?”

“I’d need a thick wire for that. Strong enough to fix the muffler to the bottom surface. With that provisional fix we could drive for a few kilometers. But where would I get a wire in the middle of nowhere?”

“Can’t you just use a piece of cloth?”

“Impossible. The muffler will get too hot. The cloth would turn to coal after a few meters. And then we’d be in the exact same place we are now.”

I thought about it and suddenly got an idea. “One moment!” I said, standing back up. “Turn around.”

David looked at me, annoyed.

“I’m serious. Turn around! Emma, make sure that Papa doesn’t cheat.”