“Oh, Franzi, my dear Franzi,” Sonja said, throwing her arms around Franza.
Franzi! She had to laugh. Sonja was the only one who was allowed to call her that, and only every now and then at that. Franzi. A leftover from childhood.
“I’ve forgiven him,” Sonja sighed. “Whatever happened, I’ve forgiven him. And now let’s be naughty and smoke and drink!”
“And I’m getting a divorce,” Franza said.
“Yes, I heard.”
“He’s been to see you?”
“Yes. He thought the two of you might . . . He was hoping . . .”
“I know,” Franza said. “I know. But I have to make the break. Set myself free. I need clarity. Everything open. Not only for me, but for Max, too. And maybe . . . We’ll see . . . I don’t know . . . Maybe . . .”
Amazing, she thought. So much moves on, so little remains. At some stage I’ll notice that freedom can be cold.
The doorbell rang. Lilli. “Can we cook something?” she said, a little embarrassed. “Do you want to?”
“Of course I want to,” Franza said. “Sonja, come on, we’re going to cook!”
They cooked. They cooked for hours. Roast beef with carrots, celeriac, and mashed potatoes, and as if that weren’t enough, they added Franza’s famous gingerbread cookies.
“You just have to be able to make this, Lilli,” Franza said. “It’s a hard life without this gingerbread.”
They laughed, three women in the kitchen. They laughed.
Unfinished business everywhere, Franza thought, but sometimes we have to spread our wings.
Unfinished business everywhere, Sonja thought, but sometimes we have to spread our wings.
“Hanna can’t cook,” Lilli said. “Gertrud could cook.”
“I know,” Franza said, stroking Lilli’s back, “I know.”
“I’m going to train for the police,” Lilli said.
Franza smiled. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Lilli said. “Positive. As positive as it’s possible to be.”
“Let’s eat,” Sonja said, carrying the roast out onto the terrace. “Let’s eat until we burst.”
They sat beneath the evening sky, a yellow moon to their left among towering castles of clouds. They listened to Tracy Chapman, music from back then, music from their village days.
To be on the move, Franza thought, once she was alone, once the dishwasher was running and the fridge was heaving with food for three days, to be on the move in life, me in my life, never quite arriving, full of longing and with no idea of where the search—the longing—will lead.
Yes, she thought, I’m still the same, still me, Franza Oberwieser, forty-five, detective, soon to be divorced, with a son. Fingers burned by life, but still hot and thirsty. Still prepared to believe in the only constant—change. Still prepared to rush out into the harsh depths of life, sometimes sweet, so sweet that you hope you won’t choke on the sweetness.
Me, then, she thought. Still, and yet again. This is how happiness feels. Like this. Sometimes. A small piece of happiness.
She would spread her wings. Unfinished business everywhere, but from time to time she would keep spreading her wings. That’s how it should be. Like that.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Photo © Martina Hartl
Award-winning writer Gabi Kreslehner lives and works in her hometown of Ottensheim, Austria, located on the shores of the Danube. She became interested in theater and writing at a young age and now works as a teacher. Her previous novel, Rain Girl, was her English-language debut.
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Photo © 2014 Sandra Dalton
Alison Layland is a novelist and translator from French, German, and Welsh into English. A member of the Institute of Translation and Interpreting and the Society of Authors, she won the 2010 Translators’ House Wales-Oxfam Cymru Translation Challenge, as well as various short-story competitions for her own writing. Her published translations include a number of novels and nonfiction titles, and her own debut novel, Someone Else’s Conflict, was published in 2014 by Honno Press. She is married with two children and lives in the beautiful and inspiring countryside of Wales, United Kingdom.
Raven Sisters (Franza Oberwieser Book 2) Page 32