Your Perfect Year(42)
He shrugged. “In a way.”
“Uh-huh.” She really didn’t understand a thing. “So who’s forcing you? Are you leading a secret life as a spy that I know nothing about? Do you need to go underground? A witness-protection program?”
“No, Hannah.” He looked at her, full of sadness. “But I want you to be happy. And you won’t be with me.”
“What the hell are you saying?” Now she really was about to cry. None of it could be true; she must be dreaming. She was having a nightmare!
When you walk in a dream but you know you’re not dreaming . . .
“The thing is, Hannah . . .” He cleared his throat again, picked up his napkin, and began to knead it nervously. “It looks as though I’ve got less than a year to live.”
She stared at him. Stunned. Waves of hot and cold ran through her and she felt dizzy. She felt bad. Very, very bad.
“What?” Her voice shook. “I don’t understand what you just said.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll probably be dead before the year’s out.”
“Allora!” The curtain was whisked aside and Riccardo approached the table. With a flourish, he held a bottle under Simon’s nose. “The Gavi!”
19
Jonathan
Wednesday, January 3, 10:47 a.m.
No, it wasn’t right. What had Madame Sarasvati advised? From now on, he should say yes to everything and pluck up the courage to face the year head-on. What he was intending to do now was the exact opposite of that. It was a clear no. He nevertheless parked outside the lost-and-found office and considered handing the diary over to some official and having nothing more to do with it.
That was definitely the sensible thing to do, sure. But was it the right thing?
What if the diary contained a secret that Jonathan ought to get to the bottom of? The fortune teller had talked about something like that, about a secret that was connected with his emotions and his soul . . .
With an expansive gesture, Jonathan tore his car door open and put his feet firmly down on the sidewalk. He wasn’t about to take the groundless musings of a psychic seriously!
He was standing by his car, diary in hand, ready to march into the lost-and-found office and plonk the thing down on the counter—or wherever you handed over found articles—with a decisive clunk. The little book didn’t belong to him, so there wasn’t the slightest reason for him to have anything more to do with it.
But he found himself hesitating again. Right or wrong? Wrong or right? He sighed, sat back down behind the steering wheel, and closed the door. If he simply handed in the Filofax now, he would never know what it was all about. Who did it belong to? Who had filled out the pages? Who was it intended for? And how on earth had it landed on the handlebar of his bike? Would the uncertainty continue to plague him? To drive him mad, never leave him in peace? Ever?
He had no need to answer those last two questions, since the diary was already doing just that: driving him mad, giving him no peace.
However improbable it was, he couldn’t completely shake off the possibility that his mother, Sofia, might have something to do with it. And the possibility that, even if that were not the case, Jonathan might be missing out on something interesting.
Or maybe not. He picked up the diary and opened it once again. He leafed through to the entry for today, January 3:
There are only two days in the year when nothing can be done.
One is called Yesterday and the other is called Tomorrow. Today is the right day to Love, Believe, Do, and, mostly, Live.
Dalai Lama
Oh yes, whenever people were unable to think of anything else, they quoted—or misquoted—the Dalai Lama; they’d always find something there. Jonathan had to admit that he could see the logic in this one. Of course you couldn’t do anything yesterday or tomorrow; you didn’t have to be a genius—or even the Dalai Lama—to send such wisdom out into the world. Such sayings were little more than pop philosophy. But it sold well.
He thought of the books by Paulo Coelho, Sergio Bambaren, Fran?ois Lelord, and the like, whose sentimental scribblings drove hordes of people into raptures and sat on the bestseller lists for months. His father, Wolfgang, had always called that kind of thing “the opium of the people,” after Karl Marx, and stressed that Grief & Son Books had no need for that sort of “cheap success,” since good money could also be made from serious literature. At such times his father always nodded toward the leather-bound volumes of Hubertus Krull’s works that stood proudly in a prominent position on his bookshelves.
Well. If Jonathan interpreted the words of his CEO, Markus Bode, correctly, it seemed the press urgently needed a few successes. Especially cheap ones. Or quick ones, at least.
Before he could digress again, he turned his attention back to the diary, since there was more on the page for January 3. The writing was so small here that he had to reach into the glove compartment for his reading glasses. He put them on and studied the rest of the text.
A task for every day from now on:
Every morning, in the “Notes” section at the back, write down 3 things for which you’re grateful. Something from the heart—the sun is shining, your friends, love, the fact that you can walk, anything that occurs to you.
In the evening, write down 3 things that were good today: a nice meal, a friendly conversation, hearing your favorite song on the radio.