Your Perfect Year(45)

No, he wasn’t ungrateful or unhappy, it wasn’t that. His life was . . . okay. But nothing more. His life simply happened, from one day to the next, without any particular highs or lows. It . . . functioned. He functioned. Even though, if he were honest, there was nothing important to function for. He had arranged his life to be as free as possible. Free of responsibility, perhaps, but also free of euphoria.

Depressing. Yes, he had to admit the thought was rather depressing.

He had finally snapped the diary shut in annoyance and decided to go back to the lost-and-found after all. Why should he bother with something that shook him from his comfortable middle ground?

The hours of the lost-and-found desk in the police station made him think again. He’d stood in front of the locked doors and registered with disbelief that it was closed all day on Wednesdays and Fridays, open just until one p.m. on Tuesdays, and only on Thursdays did the employees stay until six.

Jonathan’s annoyance had increased to anger. What kind of a dump was this? No wonder the country was going downhill, when the officials worked only half days or not at all!

In order to calm himself down, he had gone to the fitness studio he visited occasionally and worked out manically for three hours—in jeans and socks, since his gym bag was, of course, back at home, where Henriette Jansen didn’t want to be disturbed. So Jonathan had braved the looks of astonishment from his fellow gym-goers, doggedly pumping iron and telling himself over and over again that the gratitude list and other such nonsense was for little girls, not a fine figure of a man like himself.

In any case, what was the big deal about gratitude? Grateful to whom, for goodness’ sake? To fate? To almighty God? What did it mean, what was it supposed to achieve? If you weren’t grateful right now, would the world come to an end? And conversely, were you allowed to be ungrateful for everything that didn’t go your way? Of course, the same question applied: To whom were you supposed to be ungrateful?

Jonathan N. Grief sat in his car in the drive in front of his house turning crazy thoughts around in his head. The damned diary was still on the passenger seat, clinging to him like a ghost he would never be rid of. But he hadn’t summoned it! He hadn’t.

Or had he?

“Oh, to hell with it!” he swore out loud. Grabbing the Filofax, he got out of the car and marched up to the front door.

As he entered the hall, he was met by the fresh smell of lemons. He loved the way Henriette Jansen always finished her cleaning by polishing all the floors with that particular product, so the scent hung in the air for days.

And, crazy as it might be, at that moment he understood what it was about. The smell reminded him of his childhood, as his mother had always used the same cleaning fluid—always under protest from his father, who was of the opinion that none of the Grief women should turn her hand to menial housework. But Sofia had brooked no argument. As a true Italian mamma, she would never agree to handing over that part of her domain to a woman from outside the family.

His mood improved, Jonathan removed his jacket and hung it on the coat stand. He ran up the stairs to his study and threw the diary down on his desk.

He wasn’t about to be intimidated by this little book and allow it to spoil his mood. No way! He’d simply let it lie there on his desk until he once again felt inclined to seek out the lost-and-found office during the thirty seconds it was open. Until that moment, he wouldn’t give it another thought; he had better things to do. For example . . .

Jonathan’s eyes fell on the recycling bin.

On the empty recycling bin.

Empty.

How come?

Hadn’t he specifically told Henriette Jansen not to touch it?

Yes, he had.

As he felt a sudden light-headedness coursing through him, he couldn’t at first say what bothered him more—the fact that his cleaner hadn’t obeyed his instructions, or that the latest figures for Grief & Son Books were now lying somewhere in a heap of wastepaper. The latest alarming figures, freely visible to anyone who happened across them.

Jonathan shook himself from his paralysis, turned on his heel, and ran down to the ground floor. He tore the front door open, jumped over the threshold, and stumbled to the still-overflowing recycling container. As soon as he lifted the lid, he could see that Markus Bode’s documents weren’t there. On the top lay the little gift bag in which Tina had given him the chocolate chimney sweep (Jonathan had polished off the sweep himself; no point throwing something like that away).

But where were the budget figures? Where had Henriette Jansen put the contents of the box?

Jonathan stormed back into the house, snatched the telephone from its cradle in the hall, and dialed his cleaner’s number.

“Jansen.”

“Yes, hello, Jonathan Grief here.”

“Hello, Herr Grief! Did I leave something behind?”

“No, I just wanted to ask where you put the wastepaper. You know, the pile from the bin next to my desk.”

“The wastepaper?” She sounded surprised. “I recycled it.”

“I told you not to do that!” He could barely stop himself adding, “Why did you disobey my instructions?” But that hardly seemed reasonable.

Henriette Jansen laughed. “Oh yes, so you did. Nevertheless, I took the liberty of throwing it away.”

“Where, if I may be so bold as to ask?” He felt beads of sweat forming on his brow.