He stood. “Anyone want a glass of wine?”
Franza shook her head. Dorothee didn’t move. He went into the kitchen and returned with a glass and an opened bottle. “Maybe I should get used to the idea of drinking more. They say it makes everything more bearable.”
“Only at the start,” Franza said. “Only at the start. It all gets harder later on.”
He nodded.
“I know,” he said. “I know. It was supposed to be a joke. But this isn’t the time for joking.”
“Carry on with the story,” Franza said.
He shrugged. “That was it, really.”
“No,” Dorothee said. “No, that wasn’t it.”
She took a deep breath. “I was so shocked when he appeared there suddenly at the door. We hadn’t heard a thing from him for three years! And suddenly . . . there he was. He of all people. With his usual grin on his face. His lightheartedness. And there we were . . . with all that going on in the house.”
She shook her head. “I didn’t want to let him in. I told him it was a bad time. He should look for somewhere else to stay. He just looked at me blankly, pushed me aside, and was in. He asked after the girls. That was always his first question: ‘How are the girls? Where are the girls?’ I didn’t know what to say. I went after him, and that was when he heard Lilli. She was hungry and crying dreadfully. Gertrud came down the stairs with her to make up a bottle. Jonas was thunderstruck. He looked at the baby, looked at me, looked at Gertrud. ‘My daughter,’ she said. ‘My daughter, Lilli.’ Jonas was shocked and said, ‘But I had no idea that you . . .’ And she countered with: ‘Why would you? You haven’t been here for ages.’ That floored him—at first, but then . . .”
She took a gulp of her husband’s wine.
“He settled in, as at home as ever. The next day it became clear that Hanna was also there, sick in bed. ‘Why don’t you take her to the hospital?’ he asked, and I said, why should I—after all, I was a doctor. He said we should anyway, since she was so unwell—a blind man could see there was something wrong. And he looked at me as though I was a criminal. And I felt like one.”
She fell silent.
“I’m pretty sure he knew by then,” Brendler continued. “That evening he came into my study, sat down, said nothing for a while. Then finally he said, ‘Nothing’s ever as it seems, is it?’ I didn’t deny it. I was angry, asked him what these insinuations meant, would he kindly drop it. But he said, ‘Enough! Don’t give me that bullshit, Hans! I know you too well.’”
He fell silent, took a deep breath. “What could I do?”
“You did the wrong thing, Hans,” Dorothee said.
He nodded. “Yes. The wrong thing.”
He looked at her. There was no warmth between them anymore.
“I told him everything. Everything. I knew even as I was telling him that it was a mistake. I looked into his eyes, saw his horror, his disbelief, but I couldn’t stop talking. And I felt such a relief to be getting it all out . . . to be unloading.”
He fell silent, drank his wine, and poured himself some more.
“We sat there for a long time in silence. Didn’t look at each other. Eventually he said he was broke. And that he’d had enough of roaming around the world. He’d found a woman who would stick with him and there was a gallery in Strasbourg he could take over. But that he was broke at the moment.”
Wow, Franza thought. Wow, so that’s where friendships can lead—up a dark one-way street. Where there’s no going back. Not a step.
“I asked him how much. He named a sum. A substantial sum. I got out my checkbook, wrote a check, and laid it on the desk. Then I went to bed. I slept like I hadn’t done for days.”
He sighed deeply. “The next morning I went into my office first thing. The check was no longer there. And Jonas . . . Jonas was also gone, vanished, just as he had come. Three days later the check was cashed.”
Silence.
I’ve had enough of this, Franza thought. I’m tired of hearing all these goddamn stories over and over.
“What happened then?” she asked.
He shrugged. “Nothing more. It was like a final blow. Our friendship was over. Neither of us tried to make contact again. He didn’t come to the house anymore. And we didn’t go to see him. We never went to that gallery in Strasbourg. It was the last time we saw one another.”
“Until six months ago,” Franza said.
He looked up, nodded. “Until six months ago. He looked bad. Ill. I hardly recognized him.”
Franza stood. “Thanks for being so open. We’ll be in touch.”
She moved to go, paused, and then turned back and looked at Dorothee. “Weren’t you ever worried that Hanna would come back to claim her daughter?”
A brief moment’s silence.
“Yes,” Dorothee said. “Yes. Always. Every second of the day.” There was a dull grayness in her voice, resignation, the end. “But things were as they were. We’d made our decision. There was no going back.”
Franza nodded. Yes, that was how some things happened. Irreversible. Some decisions were for life. Irreversible. No going back.
She was finally about to go, when Dorothee’s voice held her back. “What about Lilli?”
“Just give her a bit of time,” Franza said, pausing briefly. “And her mother.”
Tears were running down Dorothee’s cheeks, but Franza no longer saw them. Her cell phone beeped. It was a text from Sonja. My husband’s a goddamn asshole.
92
It would have been so easy if she had just kept quiet. If she’d kept quiet like she had for all those years. Sometimes you just had to keep quiet.
But she had to talk, spill it all out. She had to accuse him—he, who, after all, had done the least wrong, who had just slipped into the story by a stupid chance.
He had only come to the house because he’d hoped she would know where Hanna was, since those incompetent police officers hadn’t gotten anywhere with finding her.
But everything had gotten out of hand. And somehow he’d seen red. As she started her threats to tell Hanna that he’d accepted vast amounts of money, which meant his wealth was ultimately based on Hanna’s misfortune, and that she’d never forgive him for it—on the contrary, she’d send him packing—he’d seen red.
“Send me packing?” he had asked. “Me?”
Suddenly, she had gone quiet, totally cold. He felt the chill as it drifted toward him. It made him think of the river, swathes of mist, frost on windowpanes.
“Are you scared now?” she had asked. “Are you scared that your precious Hanna will destroy you? That if she knows everything, she’ll crush you underfoot like a small, hideous mealworm?”
He saw himself as a small, hideous mealworm. He saw the image like he always saw images—him in the dust and Hanna standing over him—big, powerful Hanna, her red hair gleaming like a bad omen.
He had to defend himself. Not against Hanna. No, not against her. Against Gertrud. Against Gertrud’s coldness and her dreadful allegations.
“You made sure they bought your silence,” she said. “Do you really think I don’t know? You made sure my damn father bought your damn silence and you believed you could somehow make things right by marrying Hanna.”
She paused, considered, and then shook her head. He thought everything would be all right. They could still make it right.
“No.” He tried to contradict her. “I married her because I loved her. And I still do. And I wanted to be there for her, especially since she’d already lost Lilli.”
He halted, helpless. “I also wanted it for you . . . And for your parents . . . We were friends, after all. We always were.”
She had merely laughed, not loudly, not maliciously. It was a light, helpless laugh, but it was a laugh all the same.
“Friends?” she echoed. “You really believe that? No, surely you can’t believe that. Your friendship vanished into thin air the minute you accepted that check.”
“But what should I have d
one? Gone to the police? Denounced my best friend?”
“Yes,” she said quietly. “Yes, maybe that’s what you should have done. Maybe it would have been the best thing for all of us. Perhaps then we would all have had the chance to live honestly and sincerely, to be free. Perhaps that would have been your task, the reason why fate chose to send you to our house at that very moment.”
She fell silent and folded her arms, lost in her own thoughts.
“And now?” he asked.
“And now,” she said, “now you’ll lose Hanna. Just like I’ll lose Lilli. It’s only fair.”
That was the moment when his despair got the better of him. When he knew that he would defend himself with all his might. He wouldn’t let anything else happen.
“You’ll lose her,” she repeated, her voice indicating such certainty that he began to shiver. “We’re all going to lose.”
That was what she said. She of all people. She who had benefited from it all, she who was the reason for all this . . . fuss.
He saw the last twenty-two years of his life pass before him. It all passed, it all faded: his longing, his concern, even the illness that was devouring him, the cancer that was destroying his insides, that had eaten its way into him over the years, like a silent animal that had recently begun to roar, leaving him ever less space.
But . . . it didn’t matter. Nothing mattered.
The glint of the knife caught his eye. The silvery blade. And then . . .
93
She had to get rid of it all, couldn’t keep it in any longer.
She said I was a plaything in an evil game, a chess piece moved back and forth. Jonas knew everything from the start and money changed hands. A lot of money. The gallery, in which my pictures hang. Where I spent so much time. Blood money.
It was so long ago when I met Jonas again. So long ago.
I’d known him almost all my life. He used to come to our house when Gertrud and I were still children. He was a friend of Gertrud’s father. We liked him. He came and went at will, sometimes staying a long time, sometimes only briefly.
At one point he went to England, became a famous photographer, and exhibited in galleries all over the world. We must have been fifteen or sixteen; I don’t remember. I thought it was all so wonderful—his photos, his traveling around the world. The years passed, studying in Munich, loving Tonio, holidays in Greece, on the island, Tonio’s death, my own travels around the world, the pregnancy, Lilli. No dreams left to be dreamed.
What an effort it was to fight against my illness, to return from it, from that dark hole in which I had languished. How much energy it drained from me, but ultimately I emerged much stronger. I completed my studies and then I set off again, roaming the world again, searching again for pictures, impressions, life.
My first exhibitions, my first successes. And suddenly he appeared. Jonas. Elegantly dressed in black with a silk scarf around his neck. He had grown older and so had I, but I recognized him immediately.
Later he told me I was one of those women he found beautiful because they’re hesitant, far from perfection, their heads not totally together. It made me laugh, and for some reason, I don’t know why, I needed that so much. It did me such good, laughing with Jonas like that.
“Hanna,” he said, brushing his hand against my face, nodding. “Yes,” he said softly. “Yes.” Nothing else. Something in him seemed to understand me.
“My photos,” I said. “The exhibition. Can I show you them?”
He said no, I didn’t need to. He knew my photos; he knew me, so he also knew my photos. Art shouldn’t be explained.
I said nothing, a little hurt. He noticed that and tried to appease me. “Hanna, I came here by chance, just for the weekend. To think things over a little. Then I saw your poster and I had to come for a few minutes.”
He waved toward the door, where a taxi was waiting. “I have to go, Hanna. My flight.”
He shrugged regretfully, put his wine glass down on the shelf near the door, and left.
Years later, I received a letter. He had given himself a lot of time. I saw you in the paper, he wrote, a wonderful photo, too. And I read your interview. Do you still remember me?
I had to smile, while shaking my head in amazement. Did I remember him? Coquettish, I thought. He’s being coquettish.
Even if I hadn’t known him since childhood, even if he hadn’t been in and out of our home, I would have known who he was. He was a big name in his field, at the zenith of his career. I was just beginning mine. To put it simply, you could say he was old and I was young. Later, much later, he would talk about himself as someone coming to the end, but I didn’t let him get away with it.
His letter lay on my desk. I waited a few days, tapped it regularly with the nail of my index finger. Finally, I typed in the address in an e-mail window and wrote with trembling fingers. I said I was surprised by his message. That I . . . was pleased by it. I also liked myself in the photo, which was rare. And I clicked “Send.”
His reply came immediately. He’d like to meet for a coffee—anywhere, in my town, in his, somewhere in between.
We went for the middle ground.
He talked. I listened. His life affected me. I listened. It all affected me. Fine pins and needles. I don’t know why. I sat in that October wind, listening.
He looked a bit worn out, fighting for the last vestiges of a long-held love, battling lost dreams. He was full of the breakdown of his relationship. For years he had held the rip cord in his hand but never had the courage to pull it. Now his wife had beaten him to it, and surprised, he’d fallen through darkness, through hard times, and he had still not found his way back to the light.
“You’ve gotten thin,” he said.
“No, not at all.”
“You have,” he said. “And your hair. So short.”
“Yes.”
The wind blew the ash from the cigarettes, put goose bumps on our arms. We were insufficiently dressed, not warm enough.
“I’ll take you to the Tuscan sun,” he said and smiled. I looked at him with shining eyes and shook my head.
He didn’t relent. “But yes,” he said. “It warms the heart and soul.”
I laughed. “Quite the poet, Jonas.”
He turned serious. “I’m not doing photography anymore,” he said.
I hadn’t known that. I hadn’t seen any new works by him for a long while, but that he had given up completely was news to me.
“You mean you’re taking a break.”
He shook his head. “No, not a break. Finished.”
“Why?” I was a little dismayed. He noticed that and gave me a placatory smile. He touched my arm lightly.
“It’s not a bad thing,” he said. “And in any case, we have you now. And you’re better than I am. You’ve overtaken me.”
I held my breath. What was he saying to me?
He nodded, as if to reinforce his statement, and smiled a little sadly.
“I have a gallery,” he said. “It takes up a lot of my time. Yes, I’ve been settled for years. Will you visit me?”
We drove back, each to our own town, and exchanged a few e-mails.
I started traveling again, enjoying the flights, the train journeys. I enjoyed that which Jonas had long since grown bored of. Eventually I started taking my Waiting Hall photos. Sitting in airport departure lounges or station waiting rooms, resigned to hours of waiting because the flights or trains were delayed.
I took photos. Tiredness, hope. Sketches of waiting. Views of trains, airplanes, platforms, the broad corridor between the gates, passengers scurrying past, lonely footsteps in the darkness.
I often sat alone in the twilight, in the evenings or nights, my work done, commissions fulfilled, exhibitions over, hours away from home, laptop and notebook in my luggage. I felt the frequent specter of memory, the storm, the man, the child, her crying, but I never let it touch me, always pushed it quickly back and with it that tug in my belly and hands, that light pain in my
heart. I would grab my camera and go out on the streets at night, taking pictures, as I knew that way I could bridge time, set time back to zero.
The strangeness of the flight passengers toward one another was like snowflakes that only touch one another when they land on the ground, when they fall onto one another and there’s no going back.
French chansons sometimes played in the background; I found them fitting. It was as though they were about me—about me and my lover, about me and my child. The sad songs of failed lives and failed loves blended with the constant chatter of telephone calls playing out before me. Calls with friends, mothers, bosses. Agreeing to meetings, perhaps on Thursday, perhaps tomorrow, let’s see what’s in the schedule. The voices were sometimes young, sometimes old, sometimes tired, sometimes excited. Nothing was surprising: the dialects were familiar, a laugh was a laugh, astonishment was astonishment.
I stopped counting the hours spent traveling, eventually also stopped the exhibitions, and came to concentrate only on those moments at the airports and rail stations, waiting in readiness for the pictures, the photos, when they arose, when they were there before me. Snapshots merging into a long, endless journey inside me.
I had the clear, certain feeling that it was right, that I was on the move so that the photos could form their routes inside me, in my camera, in my eyes. All around me were people waiting to move on, the chatterers, the laughers, the newspaper readers, the telephoners, the texters, the online chatterboxes. Every now and then was the crackle and hum of alarms, of officials’ radios.
Eventually, I chose only aisle seats, no longer window seats, no views of rain, fog, clouds, lights, sun, snow, whatever. I chose aisle seats so I could cross my legs, feel a little freer, a little more relaxed, not so alone. I could bear the loneliness of the hotel rooms, but it never became routine.
I always began to feel a little sad before the end of my journeys. The sadness of work completed, finished. A longing began to creep through me, displacing the magic of the beginnings.
Raven Sisters (Franza Oberwieser Book 2) Page 30
