by Dora Heldt
Before I went back to the restaurant, I had a quick look at my cell phone. Nothing. Johann hadn’t answered my text. Maybe he didn’t have any reception on the beach. But he could at least have shown some sign of wanting to see me. That was only right after spending your first night together.
“Christine, wait up.”
I turned around and saw Gesa jump from her bike, letting it fall to the ground.
“Do you have time for a quick cigarette with me?”
“I have to get on with work.”
“Oh, come on, I’ll give you a hand in a minute. We’ll get it all done easily. Where’s Heinz?”
For some reason I got the impression she needed to talk to me urgently. Her face looked red, and her hair was pulled into a scruffy ponytail.
“Has something happened?”
Gesa avoided my gaze. “No, I was just at the gym, and…I want to have a quick ciggie and a drink before I get submerged in cleaning cloths. Come on, just ten minutes.”
I peeked discreetly through the window. Onno was up on the ladder, Kalli was handing him screws, and my father and Carsten sat next to each other at the bar, sketching something on a piece of paper. Presumably they were creating plans for the furniture movers that were the complete opposite of Nils’s original drawings.
“Okay, coming.”
Gesa fetched two glasses and a bottle of water from the kitchen and sat down next to me. She seemed nervous and kept glancing at me from the side. But she said nothing. After a while I lost my patience. “Gesa, is something wrong?”
She swallowed and lit a cigarette. “I go to the gym at the Georg Hotel twice a week—have I already told you that?”
“No. And?”
“They have a huge fitness studio there and I’m a member. I go to the gym first, then have a sauna. It’s fun.”
“Oh, well, good for you.”
“I just ran into Gisbert there. He was sitting out on the terrace with a visor cap and sunglasses and spying on Johann.”
I put my hand on her leg. “And? You do realize that Gisbert’s an idiot, right?” Then I suddenly realized what she’d said. “Johann? In the Georg Hotel?”
Gesa’s voice sounded tense. “Yes. He was there too.”
I patted her leg. “He went for a ride down to the beach. I guess he just got hungry or thirsty and stopped off there.”
So then why hadn’t he replied to my text? There was reception in the hotel.
“Oh, Christine, I thought Heinz and Gisbert were nuts too, but Johann was sitting in the hotel restaurant with an old woman who looked rich, and she was clearly smitten with him. She kept touching him.”
My brain suddenly felt as heavy as lead. “What do you mean? Touching him how?”
“Pressing his hand, stroking him on the cheek, the whole shebang. Christine, I’m so sorry.”
“And what about him?”
“What do you mean?”
“What was Johann doing?”
“Well, he was smiling. And he kissed her when he left.”
“Are you sure?”
Gesa nodded sadly. “Yes. And Gisbert photographed the whole thing on his cell phone.”
“There must be a rational explanation for it.” Stay calm, I told myself.
“Of course.” Gesa stubbed out her cigarette in frustration. “There must be. Oh, Christine, I do like him you know, and I can’t really imagine that Heinz and Gisbert are right, but it seemed so obvious.”
She looked as distraught as I felt at that moment.
“Come on, Gesa, we’ve got cleaning to do.”
My father had brought me up to be disciplined.
Over the next hour, I concentrated on scrubbing all my thoughts into the wooden floorboards. Neither my father nor the rest of the crew had lifted their heads as Gesa and I walked in with our buckets and mops. Carsten was the only one to notice. “Ah, the cleaning ladies,” he said.
I suddenly realized what it was that my father was concentrating on so hard. Having no sense of spatial imagination whatsoever, he had always had a habit of drawing every piece of furniture on lined paper, cutting them out, and then pushing them around on true-to-scale plans. For hours on end, again and again. Little paper cutouts of my parents’ furniture were neatly arranged in an old praline box. Before my mother rearranged anything, my father always did a test run. And my mother rearranged the furniture a lot.
As he pushed the sofa suites around over the restaurant floor plan, with his eyes scrunched up and the tip of his tongue poking out of his mouth in concentration, I wrung out my cloth and carried on scrubbing the walls. Gesa looked over at me from time to time. Perhaps she’d remembered that people used to behead the bearers of bad news. And to top it all off, my cell phone was still silent. As I went up to the bar to change the water, a little paper cutout fell in front of my feet. “Chair/Leather/Red.” My father and I bent down to pick it up at the same time and banged our heads together.
“Ow! Christine!”
My eyes closed, I rubbed my temple and felt my father lifting my chin.
“What’s wrong?”
Tears shot into my eyes and I turned away.
“Nothing, I’m fine. Sorry.”
“But you’re—”
“I’ve got it!” Gisbert shot into the restaurant like a rabbit being chased by a fox. “The photographic evidence! I’ve finally got it!”
He stopped in the middle of the room, stretched his neck back, and reached his weedy little arms toward the ceiling. He clearly felt like the Terminator, but to us he looked the same as always.
My father reluctantly pulled his gaze away from me and went over to join the master private eye.
“Let me see.”
Gisbert grandly pulled his cell phone out of his shirt pocket and held it up like a trophy. “Here’s the criminal, caught in the act!”
Gesa slowly stood up from her crouched position and looked over at me worriedly. Gisbert was staring at me too, but with a look of triumph. “There you go, Christine, here’s the proof. I guess you’re too trusting of people.”
I didn’t really want to hear it, let alone see it. But I couldn’t stop myself from going over there. Gisbert pressed the buttons on his phone.
“Wait, how does it work again? Menu, then Settings, no…” His fingers were moving frantically. “First Extra, Enter, no. Okay, yes, back, then…”
He was getting those red blotches on his neck again. Kalli, Heinz, Carsten, and Gesa formed a circle around us.
“Back to the start. No…oh, it’s gone again.”
A small wave of hope grew within me. The others came a step closer. Our resident technology guru stared around apologetically.
“It’s just that the phone’s new and I’m not sure…”
My father stretched his hand out. My hope grew even more. If he got hold of the phone, then the photos were sure to be deleted. I pushed my father a little closer to Gisbert.
“No, wait, I’ve got it now. Menu, Gallery, Photos. Look. Here they are.”
Breathing a sigh of relief, he held the display right in front of my face. Motionless, I stared at it. Johann, smiling at a woman who had to be at least seventy years old. In the second picture she was touching his hair. The next shot showed him bending over to kiss her.
“Yes, okay. Good picture quality. It’s a great camera.”
I pushed Gisbert’s arm aside and wondered why people talk such nonsense when they’re in shock. While the others jumped on the phone like vultures, he kept on at me.
“So? That’s him, Thiess, isn’t it? The guy you thought was so wonderful? And you thought I’d gotten him mixed up with someone else?”
“No, that’s him. Anyway, sorry, but we’ve still got work to do here.”
Forcing myself to keep my composure, I went back over to my bucket. My father followed me.
“Tell me, Chrissie…”
“Yes?” I was wringing my cloth dry, tighter and tighter, so much so that I had to dip it back in the water again.
“What is it?”
“You didn’t believe us, did you?”
“What?”
“That this guy wasn’t completely kosher.”
“Well, I’ve seen it for myself now, haven’t I? So you can save the I-told-you-sos.”
I slapped the wet cloth against the baseboard. My father took out his handkerchief and wiped it dry again.
“That wasn’t what I was going to say. Is he…I mean, did he…how should I put it?”
“Dad, you don’t have to worry, I haven’t been a virgin in twenty-eight years, and it’s not like we were engaged or anything. So, what did you want? Are we going to stand around chatting or actually get some work done?”
He looked at me sadly. “Oh, Chrissie.” He stretched his back. “If he thinks he’s going to get away with it he’s got another think coming. He’d better watch his back now, I can tell you that.” He turned around to the others. “We have to talk. Kalli, Carsten, I’ll fetch us a beer. Gisbert, help me carry them.”
For the next ten minutes I feverishly wracked my brain for any possible harmless explanations for the photos I’d just seen, but I couldn’t think of a single one. Despite that, I knew I had to talk with Johann as soon as I had the chance to slip away. I’d go and look for him. Heinz was right—Nordeney wasn’t that big a place.
Suddenly, the door flew open. Hannelore and Mechthild, clad in violet jogging suits with matching visor hats and white sneakers, marched in and stopped at the bar, visibly agitated.
“Christine.” For some reason, Mechthild always pronounced my name as Christinie. “It’s unbelievable. Gisbert told us everything. What do you say to it all?”
Wondering whether I could get them with the cloth through a subtle hip flick, I stayed silent. Gisbert, however, didn’t, coming over to stand in front of my father.
“Ah, you’re already there. Heinz, I told the ladies earlier about the results of my stakeout. And they had a great idea.”
He was grinning like a Cheshire cat. Hannelore Klüppersberg was bobbing around so excitedly on tiptoes that she almost fell over.
“Yes, and we’ll be the decoys.”
Carsten and Kalli started to choke. I stood up.
“Dad, I have to go across to the apartment and put in my eyedrops, and then I’m going to lie down for a bit afterward.”
“Yes, of course.” He gave me a concerned nod. “Take your time. We’ll take care of everything.”
I crossed the room quickly; I just wanted to get out of there and not hear another word about their plans and strategies.
Just before I got to the living room door, my cell rang.
“It’s me, Johann. I can’t stop thinking about you. What are you doing at the moment?”
A dull ache shot across my stomach. My voice sounded icy.
“I have to see you right away. Do you hear me? Immediately. In ten minutes on the bench in front of the Milk Bar.”
I hung up and tried to steady my breathing.
Bittersweet
* * *
Even though I was practically running, chills ran down my back. When I got there, I sank down onto the bench, breathing heavily and squinting against the glare of the sun. Before I had time to properly calm down, Johann was already there. Smiling as though everything was fine.
“Well, it seems like you were just as keen to see me as I was you!”
He leaned over to kiss me. I turned my head to the side, and his lips grazed my cheek. Then he sat down and put his arm on the back of the seat. I moved forward.
“What’s wrong?” He sounded baffled; what a great actor he was. I turned so I could look him right in the face. Sometimes, you can tell when people are lying just by looking in their eyes.
“Where were you all day?”
“On the beach. Why?”
“Not in the Georg Hotel?”
Johann sat up straight. All of a sudden he seemed indignant.
“Hey, what’s all this about? Just yesterday we were saying what nonsense all this con man stuff is, you were even laughing about this Gisbert von Meyer guy, and now you’re suddenly suspicious of me again. Did I miss something?”
“Were you in the hotel, yes or no?”
“Yes, good God, I had a drink there. Is that a crime?”
He was even admitting it.
“You were seen.”
His eyes flickered. He hesitated for a moment before answering.
“I don’t understand how you can have so little trust in me after last night. Why are you being like this?”
“Why am I being like this?” I could hear how shrill my voice was, but I didn’t care. “Who were you having a drink with?”
Johann looked at me thoughtfully. “Look, Christine, I really can’t stand inquisitions like this. Everything felt really different between us this morning.”
It was as if Gisbert had scripted that sentence; it seemed exactly what a con man would say to try to get out of the situation. He had been caught in the act and was turning the tables on me. But why did he have to have such beautiful eyes? And those lashes…
“You were seen, and you weren’t alone. You told me you didn’t know anyone here. And you also said you were going to the beach.”
“Well, perhaps your master detective misunderstood. He isn’t exactly an expert at this spying lark.”
“Then tell me what you’re doing here. Why you’re having coffee with old women, why you’re so interested in Marleen, why you kept taking photographs of the guesthouse. I want to—”
Johann’s cell phone rang, but he made no move to pick it up. After three rings, I lost my patience: “Go on, answer it.”
He did so, but without breaking eye contact. The voice at the other end was so clear that I could make out the words. “Hey, where are you?” it said. “We were supposed to meet a quarter of an hour ago. Come up, room one twenty-six.”
Johann rolled his eyes. “Pookie, now’s not a good time. Go to the bar and I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
I was already standing up by the time he’d put away his phone. Johann reached for my hand.
“My aunt.”
He smiled wryly. I was overcome with rage: the voice had sounded young. Slowly, and demonstratively, I pulled away from him.
“You know what, Johann? I don’t need you messing things up in my life. I don’t give a toss what kind of game you’re playing, but you’re not playing it with me. If I were you, I’d leave before my father and Gisbert run into you. Go to the Georg Hotel; I’m sure things are much cozier for you there. Or just go straight back home, wherever that is.”
“Christine, this is ridiculous. I can explain everything to you, just not right now.”
Of course not. After all, Pookie was waiting for him.
“I’m sure you can.”
I turned on my heel and left him standing there. I’d learned a long time ago that you always had to walk away with your head held high, that you had to have the last word. But I couldn’t help but wonder why it felt so wrong this time. Not looking back, I walked briskly off toward the guesthouse, gritting my teeth.
The windows and doors of the restaurant were wide open. My father was singing at the top of his voice, as usual. Dorothea came out with two bags of garbage just in time to see me burst into tears. She dropped the bags at once and ran over to me.
“What’s wrong?”
I couldn’t answer.
“Your mother?”
“My…father…was…right. He’s…a…con man…” I was almost choking.
Hubert was singing the deep notes, and one of the others was hammering in tune.
“Come on, Christine, let’s go to the apartment.”
She pulled me along next to her; I didn’t try to argue.
A little later, we were sitting in the small kitchen of the apartment. Dorothea had made a pot of tea, while I’d worked my way through two boxes of tissues and was slowly regaining the ability to form coherent sentences. She listened to me, her eyes wide. I tried not to
leave out any of the details, apart from just a few intimate ones, and described the previous evening and the night that had followed it chronologically, my heart still pounding. At one point in the story she sighed. “Just like in a movie.” Tears filled my eyes again. The part about the conjunctivitis made her laugh out loud. Then, when I got to the part about Gisbert and his photos, she sat up straight.
“And? What were they of?”
“Well, what do you think? Johann and an old woman, dripping in jewelry, dressed in expensive clothes, and being very cozy with him.”
“And who was it?”
“How would I know? His next victim probably…”
Dorothea looked skeptical. “Didn’t you ask him who the woman was?”
“Of course I did.” I thought back to our conversation. “But he didn’t answer.”
“Well, perhaps you didn’t ask him properly. Did you even give him the chance to explain?”
“Of course.” I suppressed the memory of my interrogation technique. “And besides, there was nothing to explain. And then this Pookie woman phoned him.”
“And?”
“He said she was his aunt. But her voice sounded too young for that.”
“Aunt Pookie? You couldn’t make that name up if you tried.”
I rubbed my eyes, smudging the last of my mascara in the process. “Whose side are you on, anyway? I found all the con man stuff ridiculous too, but then this happens. I just don’t understand.”
Dorothea stirred her tea thoughtfully. “I don’t know, something doesn’t seem right.”
“It certainly doesn’t.”
She waved my comment away. “I don’t mean it like that. Think rationally for a moment. You meet a really nice guy, you fall for him, he seems to fall for you, and you have a really great night together. The next morning you have to work, so he goes down to the beach by himself. And on the way back he has a coffee and ends up sharing a table with some old woman. If it wasn’t for crazy Gisbert thinking he’s James Bond and your father having a bit of an overactive imagination, then there wouldn’t be anything wrong with that, right?”