To the Back of Beyond(28)
Astrid had been afraid the children would be less able to cope with Thomas’s absence than she, but it turned out to be the opposite. On that Saturday morning she had told them their father was doing fine, but that he would be gone for an unspecified time. It wasn’t that he was unhappy with them, or with the family, it was a simple necessity. If their father had been a ship’s captain, it would be completely normal for him to be gone for two or three months at a time. That idea seemed to make sense to the children: Their father was on a big trip, having adventures and seeing different parts of the world. And all the time he was thinking about them every day, and if he had been able to, then he would have sent them postcards too, or texts, or called them. But where he was, there were no postcards, no stamps, no mailboxes. And he had gone without his cell phone. Sometimes Konrad drew pictures of his father on a pirate ship, or a desert island, or at the top of a high mountain. When Astrid mentioned Thomas to them, both children reacted surprisingly apathetically, as though their chief interest was not to be robbed of their fantasies, even though they secretly knew that that’s what they were.
The secretary from Thomas’s place of work called several times and asked how he was doing, and if there wasn’t a doctor’s note. Finally Astrid was forced to make an appointment with his boss. When she walked in on the morning in question, the secretary greeted her with a hesitant smile and asked if Thomas was doing better. Astrid shook her head, and the secretary started talking about her mother’s shingles again.
Thomas’s boss hadn’t been there for long. His predecessor had gone into retirement just a year ago, and there had been considerable competition for his job. In fact, the only one not to throw his hat into the ring had been Thomas, who said he’d rather work with his clients than deal with various personnel issues. In the end, the old boss had brought in an outsider to succeed him. The situation had resolved itself, but the new boss was not popular. Astrid felt relieved that she didn’t have to talk to one of Thomas’s long-term associates, most of whom she knew and with whose wives she went on company trips and other jollies.
The boss jumped up and stepped out to greet Astrid. Shall we sit at the low table? Would you like some coffee? Astrid declined and dropped into one of the low chairs around the table. Thomas has disappeared, she said quickly, to get it behind her. The boss looked at her inquiringly. What do you mean disappeared? Astrid explained the situation to him. She was surprised at how cool she sounded. The boss remained perfectly practical and offered no reaction. He suggested not telling any of the others for the moment. We’ll just say he’s sick. He won’t be gone forever, after all. He’s not coming back, said Astrid. The boss looked at her, as though he thought that was her wish. I’m sure he’s not coming back, she said. Well, let’s just wait and see for now, said the boss. We’ll continue to pay his salary during the normal severance period. And so long as it’s not more than a month or two, we can treat the whole thing as time out, a sabbatical. In view of Thomas’s long service, there’s nothing out of the ordinary about that.
Astrid hadn’t even thought about the money. While she slunk through reception, hoping not to run into the secretary again, she calculated that by November at the latest the company would stop paying his salary. Thomas had always dealt with their money matters, after all that was his job. He didn’t earn badly, but they hadn’t any great savings salted away, and there was a mortgage on the house.
Astrid spent the rest of the morning trying to gain an insight into their financial position and to estimate how long they would manage to survive on their reserves. The sums left her confused and frightened, until eventually she scooped up all the papers and stuffed them back into Thomas’s desk drawer.
What she would most have liked would be if no one else had known about Thomas’s disappearance. But of course Manuela had to mention it to her parents. Thomas’s mother had phoned. She didn’t even seem to be that alarmed. In the course of a long and mostly nonsensical conversation, she tried to apologize for her son’s behavior. She related episodes from his childhood that Astrid had heard dozens of times, talked about Thomas’s problems with authority, his thick skull, his obstinacy, as though Astrid didn’t know all that herself, and as though it could explain anything. At the end of their conversation, Thomas’s mother claimed that he would be back soon, and it was all just a misunderstanding, probably. Astrid didn’t even bother to argue with her. If we can do anything to help, she said. Thank you, said Astrid, I’ll call you if I need anything. After that she heard nothing more from Thomas’s parents. Manuela called from time to time offering her help and sending her best wishes from the parents. We’re fine, said Astrid, thanks all the same, but we’re doing fine. She hadn’t told her own parents anything, and one time when visiting them, she dinned it into the children not to say anything either. Astrid’s mother asked how Ella and Konrad would like to spend a few days in the fall vacation with them. The children were thrilled, but Astrid rudely turned down the offer. Are you going away then? asked her mother. I don’t know yet, said Astrid, we don’t know.
Patrick hadn’t called since the aborted search. So Astrid was surprised to see him standing outside the door one afternoon in late September with a solemn expression on his face. Even before she could ask him inside, he said, We’ve found him.
Thomas’s initial sensation was of a burning pain. Thereafter cold and damp. He was lying bent double on a sloping surface, his whole body hurt. He tried not to move, producing in his mind an index of everything that hurt him, from superficial things that felt like scrapes and cuts, to his throbbing ankle and shoulder, and a deafening pain in his head, dull sensations in his hands and feet, which felt like shapeless lumps. Then there were little pinpricks of snowflakes falling on his face, tiny contacts. When he opened his eyes, he saw that he was lying on a wide and fairly deep shelf of rock. He must have fallen twelve or fifteen feet. The slice of sky over him was gray with falling snow and the oncoming dark. It was eerily quiet. Thomas thought about the snow grouse that had caused his fall. He asked himself how it managed to survive in such bleak country, where it found anything to eat in winter when everything was covered with snow, how and where it spent its time. Cautiously he twisted his head first one way then the other, and as he did so, he realized he was lying on the little mossy, ferny spot he had glimpsed while falling. Next to him was a little outcrop of rock, and the crack narrowed and led on down. Everything was thinly covered with snow, his jacket was ripped, and there were dark bloodstains on his pants. Cautiously he pulled himself up, moved first his arms, then his legs. He seemed not to have any major injuries. His ankle was swollen, but presumably sprained, not broken. He had abrasions over a wide area but no deep wounds. His head hurt, possibly he had a concussion. He kept thinking he might easily have died, but he pushed the thought away in order to be able to concentrate on the moment and on the danger in which he still found himself. When he stood up, he felt so dizzy that he had to grab hold of the cold rock. He swung his arms back and forth like pendulum weights until the feeling returned to his hands. His first impulse was to climb out of the crack right away, but after brief reflection, he decided to spend the night down here, where he would at least be slightly protected from the weather. He wouldn’t have been able to go for long in the dark over the karst with his damaged ankle. If he pressed himself right up against the cliff, he was hidden under a small overhang. He spread his rain jacket over him, and ate bread and dried fruit and a whole bar of chocolate. He didn’t drink much, though, he needed to economize on his water, he only had half a flask. After eating, he rolled himself up and tried to sleep. The heavy snowflakes landed on the thin material of his jacket with faint sounds like little sighs.