Your Perfect Year(23)

“Yes,” she replied. “But I’m afraid I can’t have heard you right. Did you say your mother?”

“I did,” Jonathan confirmed. “I mean Sofia Grief. Or Monticello, maybe.”

“What gives you that idea?”

“Papa said she’d been there.”

Another brief pause, followed by “Oh, Jonathan.” She never used his first name, or at least she hadn’t since he’d reached the age of eighteen. Renate Krug was completely old school. But now she spoke to him as if she were talking to a young child she was looking after. “You know how it is with your father.”

“Of course I do,” he hastened to reassure her, immediately feeling stupid for broaching the subject. “I just wanted to make sure. Papa . . . well, he seemed so lucid at the time. Not confused at all.”

“Yes, that’s what’s so tragic about his illness.” He heard her swallow loudly. “The sufferer believes that everything they experience is the absolute truth. They think it’s real.”

“So you haven’t heard anything about my mother being in Hamburg, now or recently?”

“No, Jonathan. I’m quite sure she isn’t—or hasn’t been.”

“Have you . . .” Since he’d already made a fool of himself, he might as well go whole hog. “Have you heard or seen anything of her at all recently?”

“No, I haven’t,” Renate Krug replied. “No more than you or your father have.”

“Do you know where she’s living now?”

“In Italy. Somewhere near Florence, as far as I know.”

“Even I know that. I just wondered if you had a current address for her.”

“Unless it’s the one she always had, I’m afraid I don’t. Have you tried to contact her?”

“No,” he admitted. “I didn’t have any reason to before.”

“And now you do?”

“Not really. It’s just that . . . Well, after my father said she’d been to see him several times at the Sonnenhof, I just . . .”

“Well, if that’s what’s bothering you, I can assure you one hundred percent that it’s impossible.” She paused, as though wondering whether she really could rule it out. “In any case, how would Sofia know where your father is? She’s never contacted me to ask. Has she been in touch with you?”

“No,” Jonathan said. “Of course not.” Not for many years, he added silently.

“There you go,” Renate Krug said. “It’s not only unlikely, but impossible that your mother went to the home.”

“Hmm, yes, okay. Thanks!”

“Of course.” She hesitated. “Is there anything else I can do for you?”

“No.” He was about to hang up when something else occurred to him. “I mean, yes, there is.”

“Yes?”

“My father mentioned that my mother had forgiven him something. Do you have any idea what he could have meant?”

“Not in the slightest,” she replied.

“You don’t know anything about an argument they might have had? Something that could have come between her and my father?”

“No, Jonathan, there was nothing of the sort. She wasn’t happy here in the north and wanted to go home. That was all.” She paused. “And it seems she’d imagined a rather different life for herself than to be with a man who worked as many hours as your father. As an Italian, she had a different set of values. I think that’s what your father must have meant if he spoke of forgiveness—simply that he’d neglected her.”

“Did my mother talk to you about it?”

Renate Krug laughed out loud. “Hardly,” she said. “We weren’t exactly friends. She was simply my boss’s wife. But your father told me, and I saw no reason to doubt what he said.”

No reason to doubt what he said. Well, there was something that had changed.

“Hmm,” Jonathan said. “It’s probably all just a figment of his imagination.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“Nevertheless, it’s rather bewildering. He’s never talked about her in all these years. And today he suddenly claims that he sees her often? It’s weird!”

“Don’t take it so seriously,” Renate Krug replied. “People with dementia live more in the past than the present. It’s completely normal. Things that happened many years ago suddenly seem closer to them than things from a moment ago.”

“I know.” He wondered briefly whether he should also tell his father’s assistant about the mysterious diary, but he decided against it. They weren’t particularly close, even though he had known her since he was a boy. “Thank you for the information, anyway.”

“You’re welcome.”

“So, till next time. And, um, Frau Krug?”

“Yes?”

“Your New Year’s bouquet is on its way. I’m sorry I forgot about it today.”

Renate Krug laughed softly. “I don’t mean any offense, Herr Grief, but I’ve always hated those carnations. I’ll be delighted if they’re not cluttering up the office this year.”

“Really? Why didn’t you tell my father?”