The Weekend Read Online Free Page B

What
had they done with Jan? Had they abducted him? Abducted and murdered him?
    Ilse set down her notepad and pen and looked out of the window. She and Ulla had been in a frenzied state back then. All the things they had tried! The search for the client with whom Jan had been most involved over the previous weeks, and about whom he had occasionally dropped dark hints. The shadowing of her by the office, which refused to let go because of the files. The trip to Normandy. No hypothesis was too absurd, no speculation too abstruse. Until after a year the giddiness had run out and with it their friendship. Ulla was insulted because Ilse didn’t agree with her that Jan had, as the result of some foul play by his office or a client, been driven to suicide or abducted and murdered, but insisted that he had only faked his death and was now living a new life. They still met, still called each other, but the intervals between meeting and calling grew longer, and in the end each was relieved that the other stopped.
    Ilse understood why Ulla had fallen into that frenzy. It enabled her to sail swiftly across the dark water of grief; once the frenzy was past, she had got over Jan’s death. But why had she too been caught up in the frenzy? Was it a longing for common ground that found fulfillment in her dealings with Ulla? But if that was the case why didn’t she also share Ulla’s conviction that it had been suicide, or an abduction-and-murder plot? Was it a desire for adventure? Was it megalomania? There had been moments back then when she reallythought she was on the trail of something big. Whatever it was that had drawn her into that frenzy—where was it? Was there something within her that she had since suppressed? Something that had really yearned to be experienced, and perhaps still wished to be?
    When Ilse finally heard the repeated ringing of the bell, it was seven o’clock and high time. There was no mirror in the room; Ilse opened the window and sought her image in the window. She resisted the temptation to adjust her hair or her face; her reflection was too vague and in any case she wasn’t good with comb, mascara and lipstick. But she didn’t avert her eyes from herself. She felt sorry for the woman that was her, always too inhibited to be entirely present wherever she happened to be. Except at home—she was homesick, even though she was a little ashamed of the meagerness of her domestic happiness with cats and books. She smiled ruefully at herself. The evening air was cool, she breathed deeply in and out. She summoned all her strength and went downstairs to join the others.

Six
    Christiane had made a seating plan, and in front of each plate stood a little card with a name and a picture—a picture from the old days. The pictures were handed around and marveled at. “Look!”—“The beard!”—“The hair!”—“Did I look like that back then?”—“But you’ve changed too!”—“Where did you get the pictures?”
    Ilse had not yet greeted anyone apart from Margarete and Henner, and did so now. Jörg seemed just as awkward as she felt herself. When he didn’t return her hug, she thought at first that it was her fault. Then she told herself that in prison he had missed developments in etiquette and hadn’t learned to hug by way of greeting.
    His place was on one of the long sides of the table between Christiane and Margarete. Opposite him sat Karin, flanked by Andreas and Ulrich. Next to Andreas and Margarete, Ulrich’s wife and Karin’s husband sat facing each other; next to Ulrich and Christiane were Ilse and Henner. On one of the short sides Ulrich’s daughter sat between Ilse and Henner, on the other a place was set for Marko Hahn, who could only come later. Karin tapped the glass with her fork and said, “Let us pray,” waited until they had all got over their amazement and were quiet, and prayed. “Lord, stay with us, for evening is on its way and the day has declined.”
    Henner looked around;