Strangers: A Novel(83)

I look at Erik from the side. “What do we do now?”

He blinks up at the sky, looks around him again in every direction, and then reaches for my hand. “I know a place we can go.”





38

We leave the park and turn right. I estimate that going by foot will take about twenty minutes. Joanna walks next to me in silence. She’s feeling just as anxious as I am, I’m sure. She rubs her arms. It’s quite cool outside, even with the sun appearing for a few brief moments every now and then. It’s already so low in the sky that some of its strength has ebbed away. But we’ll be in the warm soon.

Again and again I find myself looking around frantically. I think I see movement where there is none. The shadow of a small tree makes me jump in fright when the sun peeks out from behind the clouds for a few seconds.

You’re paranoid, a voice whispers to me.

You’re not paranoid, this is deadly serious, another one retorts.

Joanna’s looking around now too.

“Was something there?” she asks.

“No,” I reply tersely.

“How much farther is it? And where are we going, anyway?”

“Just come with me. We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

Fortunately, she seems satisfied with that answer. If I tell her now where we’re going, she’s going to ask me questions I’m really not in the mood for. We already discussed that particular topic some time ago, but of course she won’t remember that.

I push the thought aside, focus on my surroundings again. I keep a lookout for men hiding behind a corner or a wall, waiting to kill us. Kill us. My God, how can all of this be happening? A bombing at the central train station in Munich, and I was almost right in the middle of it. Men breaking into our house at night, trying to finish us off. It’s just impossible. That kind of story belongs in an action movie, not in my life.

And Nadine, too. She’s dead. That seems even more unreal than everything else. Ela said that apparently she jumped out of a window. Because she couldn’t deal with the news of my demise.

No. Not Nadine. I think, no, I know, that she loves … loved me in her own particular sort of way. But I know for sure there’s nothing that could make Nadine take her own life. Not even my death.

No, if she really fell from a window, somebody had a hand in it. The thought of how ruthless people can be sends a cold shiver down my back.

And in the middle of it all, my boss. The man who I’d always seen as the epitome of normality, of everyday life. I’d thought my life with Joanna to be the same. But none of that’s true anymore. Some sick twist of fate has torn me from my real life and dropped me in this poor, evil imitation of it. And from the way things look, there’s no way back.

We turn the next street corner, and we’re there. Only a few feet separate us from the large building. I stop and look up at the weathered facade.

“A church?” Joanna says next to me, as puzzled as I’d expected.

“Yes. It’s always open. It’s warmer inside, and I definitely don’t think they’ll look for us in there.”

She looks at me from the side. “Are you religious? I mean … do you believe in God?”

I take a deep breath. “No.” I nod toward the entrance. “Let’s go inside.”

As soon as I’ve closed the heavy door behind us, I stop for a moment and take in that distinctive atmosphere that abounds in nearly all Christian churches. Daylight falling through the colorful ornamentation of the stained-glass windows and bathing the interior in a unique kind of half light, the faint smell of frankincense, exalted silence in contrast to the exterior world with all its sounds … A seemingly tangible sense of spirituality. It slows the flow of time. It creates the space for a journey into our innermost being. Even without a god.

I came here often after my parents died. Not because I’d wanted to be close to some tacky, white-bearded god, but because of that particular atmosphere. Here I’d felt like I was close to them.

“Shall we sit?”

I jump, startled, then look at Joanna. “Yes, let’s go to the nave up front,” I whisper, without knowing why. “If anyone takes a look inside the church, they won’t see us up there right away.” We opt for the aisle on the left and sit down on one of the pews toward the back of the nave. Joanna takes a look around, contemplates the stone figure of a saint perched on a pedestal by one of the enormous columns.

“You’re right, they’re definitely not going to be looking for us in here.”

I don’t say anything, but instead wait for the question that will surely follow.

“Why don’t you believe in God?”

Oh, I know her so well.

“I do believe in something,” I say, looking at the nearly life-size likeness of Jesus on the cross behind the altar. “But not this type of god.” I decide to nip the whole conversation in the bud. “I like being in this church because I like the atmosphere. And because I can find a special peace in here. I don’t need a god to do that. I know that you’re not overly religious, but that you do believe in God. And that’s fine.”

“But if you don’t believe in him, aren’t churches just huge halls that smell funny?”

I’m really not in the mood for this discussion, even though it was obvious to me that it would come up.