Strangers: A Novel(31)

Will I ever hear that again?

Frau Schwickerath from HR explains to me over the phone that it will be fine if I bring the sick note with me when I come back to the office; it’s only two days, after all. Then she wishes me a speedy recovery.

I make myself some coffee and sit at the kitchen table, the steaming cup in front of me. Again and again I go over the events of the past two days, desperately searching for just a hint of an explanation. But all that comes to my mind is irrational nonsense.

After a while, my mind wanders to G.E.E. and Gabor. Not a very pleasant subject either, right now, but still I follow the train of thought. Because it’s something different, at least. What had made Gabor exclude me from this huge contract? All the projects I’ve headed over the past few years have gone well. Of course there were delays here and there, which we simply couldn’t have reckoned with during the run-up. But that’s normal, and it happens with all the larger contracts. It was certainly no reason to give me the cold shoulder all of sudden if something big was coming in.

Maybe Bernhard has something to do with that? After all, he called Gabor from the airport and told him about what happened at our house.

If I was you, I’d think twice about coming into the office tomorrow morning, he’d said to me, pretending to be concerned. Asshole.

By now my coffee’s just lukewarm swill. It seems I’ve lost my sense of time as well.

I walk into the living room, without really knowing what I intend to do in there. So I go back out into the kitchen, then the hallway. The boiler pops into my mind and I climb the stairs, my heart thumping.

It looks like a bomb exploded in the bathroom. There are towels lying on the floor, some of Joanna’s cosmetic products scattered among them. The bottles and small tins on the shelf next to the sink have fallen over. What exactly were the firefighters up to in here?

The lower section of boiler has been bared; the cover is lying on the tiled floor in front of it. The tangle of copper tubing, fittings, and wires looks like a body that’s been cracked open, ready for autopsy.

Had someone been here who tampered with it, or was there another explanation for the scarves in the exhaust vent? And who were they trying to get at? Joanna? Me, maybe? Or didn’t it matter?

Which once again brings up the crucial question of why. I walk down the stairs and stop in the hall. Stare at the door. It’s possible that a stranger was in our house. In our most intimate place. It feels like an act of desecration. Maybe he was in our bedroom as well, touching the covers we’d pulled over our naked skin after we … No, he didn’t. If he did, he could only have touched Joanna’s covers, as mine are no longer there. It’s enough to drive someone insane.

I go into the kitchen again. This turmoil inside me; I feel like I’m losing my mind. I look at the clock and try to figure out how much time has passed since I got out of the taxi. Although, for that, I’d need to know what time it was when I got out. And I have no idea.

“Fuck it.”

Did I just say that out loud? Yes, I think I did. Does that count as talking to myself? A sign that my mind’s giving up?

I can’t bear to be in this house anymore. It feels wrong to be here while Joanna’s lying there in the hospital, poisoned. Left all alone with the terrible fear she must be feeling.

She’s going to need fresh clothes. Underwear, towels.

Half an hour later I’m behind the wheel and on my way to see her.

* * *

That afternoon and for the next two days, I’m with Joanna most of the time. I only leave the hospital in the evenings to sleep and at some point during the day to go get food.

I tell her a lot about us. At first, my sentences always start with the words, “Do you remember…?”

She silently shakes her head every time. After a while I decide to stop using that painful introductory question.

Sometimes I just sit by her bed in silence and watch her sleep. Or pretending to sleep. I can tell the difference from the way she’s blinking, but I let her rest.

As for Joanna, she only speaks very little, apart from on one occasion when she tells me about Australia. About her childhood and her friends. She barely mentions her father. I don’t interrupt her; I simply listen.

On the afternoon of the second day, when I get back from a walk through the small park next to the hospital, Joanna is sitting in the chair where I’ve spent the majority of the past two days. She’s dressed.

“I’m allowed to go,” she says. She doesn’t say I’m allowed to go home.

I take one big step toward her and pull her into my arms. I can’t help myself. I expect her to push me away, but that doesn’t happen. She doesn’t hug me, but neither does she resist being close to me. I close my eyes. It’s amazing how little you need for a simple moment of joy when there’s no longer anything you can take for granted.

We don’t talk much during the drive. Joanna sits there looking out of the window on her side, and I’m scared that a single unmindful word could destroy the small moment of joy I just experienced.

Finally we’re home. I carry the bag with her things and instinctively put my hand on her back as we’re walking. She doesn’t push me away this time either, but I can feel her body tensing up, and quickly drop my arm again.

Joanna tells me she’s very tired and wants to go lie down for a while.

Half an hour later, she’s back down in the kitchen with me. She can’t sleep, she says, even though she’s so tired.