Read Online The Truth About Julia: A Chillingly Timely Psychological Novel by Schaffner Anna - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Schaffner Anna
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out the parental sounds of discontent. Lots of parents got up and left the hall in protest. When she’d finished, Julia raised her right fist and smiled triumphantly – she looked stunning at that moment. Her long hair shone in the limelight, she had put on mauve lipstick that emphasized her pale, delicate skin, and she wore a simple black shift dress with old Doc Marten boots. Everyone who was still in the hall stood up and cheered. It was a totally memorable event, and even the local newspaper ran an article about the ‘beautiful communist graduate’ who had ‘transformed a traditionally dull and peaceful ceremony into a generational battlefield’.
Just a couple of weeks later, Julia packed the super-light green backpack that my parents had given her together with a plane ticket as a reward for her amazing A-level results, and left for India. Before she departed for her gap year, we made a deal: Julia promised to email me as often as possible, and in return, I had to promise her to eat. In the few weeks between her breakup with Jeremy and her departure for India, we had grown a bit closer again. For the very last time, I felt like I was an important part of her life. She told me some pretty hilarious stories about Jeremy and his phony champagne-socialist friends – I think they all ended up really annoying her in the end. But otherwise, she focused all her energies on planning her trip. We’d sit cross-legged on the floor in her room, looking at maps together, deciding on routes and marking up her Lonely Planet guidebook. Her plan was to travel the country for three months and then join a volunteer organization based in Punjab that fought for fairer trade rules and economic justice for the agricultural labourers of the region. We ended up deciding that she’d spend three weeks in Mumbai, then travel south to Goa, where she was planning to visit some alternative communities and two yogis whom some friends had recommended to her. After about two months, she’d travel north, along the coast by bus and train, passing through Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan until she reached her volunteer post in a small village on the border with Pakistan.
I accompanied her on numerous shopping trips to buy her travel equipment: together, we chose heavy watertight walking boots and a pair of strong sandals; two sets of khaki-coloured cargo pants and white linen shirts; one fleece pullover; a good-quality rain-jacket; a pocket knife; pepper spray; a sleeping bag and a sleeping mat; a lightweight one-person tent and a tiny gas cooker. We’d often lie on her bed and she would read aloud to me the texts she was studying in preparation: histories of India and various books about economics, globalization and the fair-trade movement. She also started to read Salman Rushdie, but gave up on him almost immediately. She never really liked fiction.
My parents and Julia clashed over something a few weeks before she left. I heard their raised voices in the kitchen one night, long after supper, and I think I also heard Julia crying, but I never found out what it was all about. The door was firmly shut and I couldn’t hear the details, no matter how hard I tried. She seemed strange and distant after that for a few days, wandering around dazed, like a sleepwalker, but then she gradually switched back to her normal lovely self.
We all accompanied her to Heathrow on the day of her departure. Even Jonathan had joined us to say goodbye. I’m pretty sure he was secretly relieved that she was leaving the country for a year. But I just couldn’t stop crying. I simply couldn’t believe that I wouldn’t see her for twelve months. I had no idea how I’d even begin to get through the year without her. I was kind of hoping that she would hate it in India and miss me so badly that she’d come back early. I even secretly hoped that she’d get malaria or cholera or some other hideous disease, so that she’d be forced to come home and I could nurse
Just a couple of weeks later, Julia packed the super-light green backpack that my parents had given her together with a plane ticket as a reward for her amazing A-level results, and left for India. Before she departed for her gap year, we made a deal: Julia promised to email me as often as possible, and in return, I had to promise her to eat. In the few weeks between her breakup with Jeremy and her departure for India, we had grown a bit closer again. For the very last time, I felt like I was an important part of her life. She told me some pretty hilarious stories about Jeremy and his phony champagne-socialist friends – I think they all ended up really annoying her in the end. But otherwise, she focused all her energies on planning her trip. We’d sit cross-legged on the floor in her room, looking at maps together, deciding on routes and marking up her Lonely Planet guidebook. Her plan was to travel the country for three months and then join a volunteer organization based in Punjab that fought for fairer trade rules and economic justice for the agricultural labourers of the region. We ended up deciding that she’d spend three weeks in Mumbai, then travel south to Goa, where she was planning to visit some alternative communities and two yogis whom some friends had recommended to her. After about two months, she’d travel north, along the coast by bus and train, passing through Maharashtra, Gujarat and Rajasthan until she reached her volunteer post in a small village on the border with Pakistan.
I accompanied her on numerous shopping trips to buy her travel equipment: together, we chose heavy watertight walking boots and a pair of strong sandals; two sets of khaki-coloured cargo pants and white linen shirts; one fleece pullover; a good-quality rain-jacket; a pocket knife; pepper spray; a sleeping bag and a sleeping mat; a lightweight one-person tent and a tiny gas cooker. We’d often lie on her bed and she would read aloud to me the texts she was studying in preparation: histories of India and various books about economics, globalization and the fair-trade movement. She also started to read Salman Rushdie, but gave up on him almost immediately. She never really liked fiction.
My parents and Julia clashed over something a few weeks before she left. I heard their raised voices in the kitchen one night, long after supper, and I think I also heard Julia crying, but I never found out what it was all about. The door was firmly shut and I couldn’t hear the details, no matter how hard I tried. She seemed strange and distant after that for a few days, wandering around dazed, like a sleepwalker, but then she gradually switched back to her normal lovely self.
We all accompanied her to Heathrow on the day of her departure. Even Jonathan had joined us to say goodbye. I’m pretty sure he was secretly relieved that she was leaving the country for a year. But I just couldn’t stop crying. I simply couldn’t believe that I wouldn’t see her for twelve months. I had no idea how I’d even begin to get through the year without her. I was kind of hoping that she would hate it in India and miss me so badly that she’d come back early. I even secretly hoped that she’d get malaria or cholera or some other hideous disease, so that she’d be forced to come home and I could nurse
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