Your Perfect Year(91)
“So you think that my mother’s return is a long-buried desire of my father’s?”
“It seems so. Clearly there’s something there that he hasn’t fully processed.”
“I can imagine. How can you possibly process the fact that the woman you love simply vanishes overnight?”
“Hmm.” Renate Krug sighed. “It’s difficult.”
“Anyway,” Jonathan said, “it doesn’t feel right to reinforce my father’s delusions.”
“I don’t think we’re doing any harm or making his situation any worse.”
Jonathan thought about it. “No,” he said. “Probably not. It’s just so sad to watch that brilliant mind falling apart.”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“Don’t you think there’s also some good coming from your father’s illness?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, he’s much easier to be around than he was.”
“I’m surprised to hear you say that. I thought you got along well with him.”
Renate Krug laughed out loud. “Your father was a tyrant!”
“To you too?” He would never have believed that the apparently loyal Renate Krug would think so critically of his father.
“Especially to me, I have to say it. He took it all out on me—every mood swing, every little irritation.”
“So why did you stay with him? I’m sure you could have found another job.”
She lowered her eyes. “Because, apart from all that, he was also a great man. A striking personality, someone who knew exactly what he wanted. That’s a rare find.”
“Huh. Others would call it pigheaded.”
“Weren’t you just talking about the new plans you have for the publishing house?” Jonathan looked at her in surprise, while Renate Krug averted her eyes in embarrassment. “I was standing outside the door for a while. I couldn’t help . . .”
“You were listening in,” Jonathan said.
“I wouldn’t say that. I simply didn’t want to disturb you, and I happened to overhear a thing or two.”
“Ah.” Jonathan couldn’t suppress a grin. “So, since you ‘overheard a thing or two,’ I’d value your opinion.”
“My opinion?” She looked stunned.
“Of course!”
“Oh.” She waved him away, blushing a little. “I’ve got no idea about such things. I’d rather stay out of it.”
“Frau Krug,” Jonathan insisted, “I’m not expecting you to give a detailed analysis. I’d simply like to know what you think about Grief & Son Books bringing out a few popular novels.”
“I really couldn’t say—”
“Come on! What do you like to read yourself?”
Her color deepened a touch more. “Um . . . it’s a bit embarrassing.”
“As bad as that?”
Renate Krug nodded. She reached for her purse, fumbled it open, and took something out. “This, for example.” She handed Jonathan a small tattered book.
He looked at it, suppressed a gasp of surprise, and tried to compose himself. “Oh.”
Renate Krug quickly tucked the book back into her bag.
They spoke no more about it and continued on their way in silence. Jonathan was fighting back peals of laughter, giving them free rein only once they had reached Renate Krug’s apartment in Eimsbüttel and his assistant had left.
By the time the taxi stopped in front of Jonathan’s villa fifteen minutes later, he was still laughing. Loudly and cheerfully. Renate Krug had surprised him more than once that afternoon. But the fact that she read novels with such titles as In the Heat of Passion was the icing on the cake.
What was he supposed to say to that? And above all, what would his father say?
48
Hannah
Wednesday, January 24, 12:03 p.m.
“And my soul spread its wings out wide, sailed o’er quiet lands as though in homeward flight.”
Hannah silently mouthed the words as the pastor spoke them at Simon’s grave to conclude the funeral. She had chosen a quote by Joseph Freiherr von Eichendorff that Simon had loved.
So here she was, at the graveside of the man with whom, until recently, she had thought she would spend the rest of her life. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.
Standing next to her, Lisa squeezed her hand. True to her word, she had stayed by her friend’s side during the recent days and lived through everything with her. Together with Hannah’s parents, she had accompanied her to the meetings with the undertaker and the pastor, had helped her choose a plot for the grave at Ohlsdorf Cemetery, and had drawn up and sent the invitations.
More than two hundred people had come to pay their final respects to Simon. The editorial team of the Hamburg News had turned out in full, and of course all his friends had been there, as well as the pitifully few remaining relatives: an uncle and a cousin.
They all filed past in an endless line of condolences. Hannah shook hand after hand, let one expression of sympathy after another wash over her, and wondered how much longer it would be before she could at last be back at home on her own and give in to the next emotional crisis.
She felt like she would break down at any moment, collapse into herself like a burst balloon. She had managed to hold it together fairly well until the previous afternoon. But then the nice policewoman who’d given Hannah her number stopped by her house and gave her—Simon’s “fiancée”—the confidential results of the postmortem.