Your Perfect Year(69)

Forbidding herself from completing the sentence, she turned back to the entry. For January 14 at seven p.m., she had noted a talk by Sebastian Fitzek at the Kampnagel theater. Fitzek was Simon’s absolute favorite author; he idolized him and had devoured all his thrillers with gusto.

Hannah couldn’t understand how anyone could of their own free will fill their head with murder and death (Watch your thoughts!), but Simon had always explained it by saying that, for him, it was a kind of mental hygiene. “After a good read by Fitzek, I’m immune to all the horrific stories I have to read or write as a journalist, day in, day out. Unlike thrillers, those are real and true.”

She had been delighted to discover in September that the author would be coming to Hamburg to give a talk. She had seen it as a fateful sign (rather a pompous description of an author talk, but that was how it had felt), hoping that going to see his favorite author would gently ease Simon in the direction of finally starting his own book. She’d immediately bought two tickets online. She had originally intended to give them to him for Christmas, but soon repurposed them for his perfect year.

The tickets would be available on January 14 at the box office, with reference 137, as she had noted in the diary. She had wanted to leave it to Simon whether he would ask her to go with him or, if he’d prefer, S?ren, who shared his liking for grisly stories. She wouldn’t have minded, either—as she entered the event in the diary, it had suddenly occurred to her that with Fitzek’s stories she might be trading one living nightmare for another.

Now she would put up with any number of nightmares, and Simon could spend the evening with whomever he wished. She hoped at least that the man who had found the diary hanging from his bicycle would turn up at the theater box office to see who came to fetch reservation number 137.

But there were ten days to go—a painfully long time! She couldn’t wait that long; she’d go mad by then. Why hadn’t she made more specific arrangements? Why had she wanted to take things slowly at first, and after the “kickoff” with Sarasvati had chosen mainly tasks that Simon could do at home, alone?

Assuming that they’d have to plan for a lot of doctor and clinic appointments in the early days of the new year, she’d kept the days free from activities. Besides, she’d still had to consider her own work, which she was now seriously neglecting, albeit with the blessings of the others—but she’d had no inkling of that when making entries in the diary.

Now she cursed herself for failing to arrange something for this very day, something with a specific time and coordinates precise to a fraction of an inch, something there was no way anyone could miss. But here, too, it was a case of if only.

If only, if only, if only. If only she had half a clue how to find this stupid jogger!

This stupid jogger?

Sarasvati’s words echoed in Hannah’s ears. Apparently, on January first, like every other day, he went jogging by the Alster. THAT was it!

Twenty minutes later she went tearing down the stairs to the front door, clutching a box of thumbtacks and fifty posters she had printed out on Simon’s computer.

She ran along Papenhuder Strasse and turned onto Hartwicus Strasse so quickly that she almost fell, keeping herself on her feet with great effort. She could see the lake at the end of the street and headed straight for it with her posters. She intended to plaster every bench, every tree, every bush, and every single blade of grass with her notice, which showed a picture of the diary that she had downloaded from the manufacturer’s website, and a photo of Simon. Underneath, she had written in bright red, Has anyone seen this man or this diary???

If the guy who turned up at Sarasvati’s really did come running here every day, Hannah didn’t want there to be the slightest chance that he would miss her notices. And even if the man himself didn’t stumble over them, someone—anyone!—must have seen Simon. Because her boyfriend had been there on New Year’s morning!

Gasping for breath, Hannah stopped by the Alsterperle restaurant. She’d begin at the popular day-trip destination. As she pinned the first poster to a tree, she began to feel better. At last there was something she could do!





31

Jonathan

Thursday, January 4, 11:16 a.m.

Dressed in his running gear, Jonathan N. Grief was sitting on the small telephone-table seat in the hall, putting on his jogging shoes for his rather belated riverside run, when he paused, laces in hand.

Was this the right thing to do? Carrying on as he always had, after the previous evening? Acting like a wet dog that shakes the water drops from its coat and then trots on its way without a care, as if it hadn’t seconds before been chasing after a tempting bone only to find it was a stupid stick?

That was just how Jonathan felt. Disappointed, cheated. With a hint of guilt and shame, as he feared he was not completely innocent in the matter of Leopold’s relapse. He’d made sure his valuables were safe, and that he didn’t come to any physical harm, when he would have been better off ensuring that Leo didn’t have access to his well-stocked liquor cabinet. He wondered if he had even provoked the man to run off into the night and the fog with an assortment of wines and spirits. Would it actually have been better if he’d refused to take Leopold in, and simply left him there in the recycling container? But of course he’d never have dreamed of doing that. Jonathan silenced his self-reproach with a sigh.

He had believed it would all be so great—so refreshing, so invigorating. He and Leopold, an oddball pair of housemates. The hobo and the publisher—his father would have had something to say about that! At least, he would if he was having one of his more lucid moments when Jonathan told him about his new friend, and could actually grasp that there was something worthy of comment.