Your Perfect Year(93)
“You should go lie down,” Lisa said. Hannah had already said she didn’t feel like company.
“I will.” The two friends looked at each other for a moment in silence, then Lisa leaned forward, took Hannah in her arms, and held her tight.
“I’m so, so sorry,” she said softly. “I wish you’d been spared all this.”
“So do I.”
49
Jonathan
Friday, March 16, 2:23 p.m.
“La professoressa è nell’aula. Nell’aula ci sono anche gli studenti.”
Frowning with concentration, Jonathan repeated the sentences. He had no idea if he would ever be in a situation where he needed to tell an Italian that not only the teacher but—surprise, surprise!—also the students were in the classroom, but nothing was ever certain.
In any case, the authors of the Italian course he had downloaded to his cell phone must have intended something by it, even if the teacher, students, and classroom were only a device to drum into Jonathan those damned Italian prepositions. Nel, sul, dal, nella, sulla, dalla—his head was spinning as he tried to repeat the phrases as correctly as he could. At the same time he wondered whether he would have been better off enrolling in a course at the local college. But the idea of sitting at a row of desks with a bunch of suburban housewives (a cliché, but probably true) hadn’t appealed too much, and so when the Filofax suggested, a couple of weeks ago, that he should learn a completely new skill, he had opted for the electronic version.
He hadn’t done too badly so far, and had surprised himself with his progress to date. He was already able to ask for a room with a shower (una camera con doccia); an ashtray (un portacenere), although he didn’t smoke; and water with no ice (un’acqua naturale senza ghiacco). He could also introduce himself without mishap (Mi chiamo Jonathan Grief) and say where he was from (Sono di Amburgo in Germania).
Maybe it was because of his knowledge of the venerable Latin tongue that Jonathan found it relatively easy to get a grasp of Italian—apart from the pesky prepositions, which defied all logic. Maybe his origins gave him an advantage too. Every now and then, he even recognized a phrase or two from his childhood, although his mother had almost always talked to him in German, since his father didn’t believe in a bilingual upbringing but was firmly of the opinion that “the boy” should learn “decent German” above all. Whether Sofia’s German, which she had learned as an adult, could be considered “decent” was open to question, but she had nevertheless obeyed her husband’s instructions.
Only in the evenings, when Jonathan’s mother tucked him into bed, had she sat with him for a few minutes and sung him something from her homeland. Se sei felice tu lo sai, batti le mani. As he recalled those evenings, he could clearly hear her warm voice in his head. If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands!
Jonathan was strangely happy. Not enough to whoop for joy or go around shouting it from the rooftops, but when he thought about how he’d felt during the years since his separation from Tina (or longer, to be precise; things hadn’t been right while they were still married), he was feeling much better about life now. He was more satisfied. More balanced. At peace with himself.
Almost. He hadn’t made much progress with the business. Jonathan simply didn’t know what was the right course for Grief & Son Books. However often he weighed the arguments for a more popular list against those for maintaining the status quo, he remained undecided.
It was not only a matter of the publishing house’s reputation and tradition, but a fundamental issue of its economic viability. And he wasn’t convinced that all they needed to do to bring their accounts out of the red was to publish a few mainstream titles.
No, such a venture could fall completely flat if the trade and readers refused to accept their change of direction. They could become a laughingstock, have people telling them to stick to what they knew. It could be as though the magnificent Berlin Philharmonic suddenly released an album of show tunes—there would be uproar and indignation on the cultural scene, and rightly so! Jonathan strongly believed that if they went in that direction, it would make it impossible to match their earlier sales figures for more literary projects.
Markus Bode had suggested they simply establish a new imprint, a subsidiary press, for the popular titles. Sweeping aside Jonathan’s objection that such a move would be thoroughly hypocritical with an airy “Oh, everyone’s doing it!” he had added that it would make sense to test the market before discussing how to proceed from there.
Bode had set to work enthusiastically and asked a number of agents about suitable titles, even though Jonathan hadn’t given him a definitive go-ahead. One of the agents had already called Jonathan and asked him in some confusion whether his CEO’s email requesting a few “good reads from the ‘landscape of love,’ ‘happy tears,’ ‘urban fantasy,’ and ‘cozy crime’ subgenres” was correct.
“Oh, there must have been some mistake!” Jonathan had told the agent, thoroughly embarrassed by the mere mention of the subgenres. Cozy crime? What on earth was that, exactly?
“So, should I send you some manuscripts or not?” the agent had asked.
“Um, no, well, yes,” Jonathan said, backpedaling in confusion.
“Would you like me to send you something, or not?” he repeated.