Gimsen for a few years, she had a post at a Catholic school for girls. I used to phone her once a week, but we never met.”
“Why did she move to Maardam?”
“I don’t know. The job, perhaps. I don’t think she liked teaching only girls. The atmosphere became a bit like a nun-nery, I should imagine.”
“I can understand that. And Janek Mitter-what do you think about him?”
“Nothing. I’ve never met him. My daughter sent me a post-card from Greece saying that she’d remarried.”
“Were you surprised?”
“Yes, I think I was. I was pleased as well. But then things went the way they did. .”
She shrugged again.
As if life were nothing to do with her, Van Veeteren thought. Maybe that wasn’t such a silly approach.
“So you don’t know anything about their relationship? Eva didn’t tell you anything?”
“No. I think I only spoke to her twice on the telephone since she came back from Greece. Oh, Mitter answered the phone one of those times. I thought he sounded nice.”
When he emerged into the square it had started raining again.
A few of the stall-holders were busy pulling plastic covers over their wares: vegetables, an array of fish, some glass jars with what looked like homemade confectionery. They nodded as he passed by, but that was the limit of their contact.
He pulled up his collar and sank his hands into his pockets.
Stood beside his car for a while, wondering what to do next.
The rain was merely drizzle, not really falling, just floating around in the wind like a damp veil. Like a caring and sensitive hand stroking the low roofs, the modest, whitewashed town hall, caressing the lonely church spire-the only thing that dared to stand up and challenge the all-powerful sky.
The meeting with Mrs. Ringmar had not really gone
according to expectations. It was not easy to say exactly what he’d expected, but he had certainly had expectations. .
He left his car keys in his pocket. Glanced at the clock and set off toward the sea. Walked out to the end of one of the jetties, stood at the extreme edge, and watched the choppy waves thudding apathetically against the concrete foundations. The air was a trinity of dampness, salt, and seagull cries. He suddenly noticed that he was freezing cold.
There’s something, he thought. Something compelling me to stay here.
Then he dug his hands even deeper into his pockets, and started walking back toward land.
15
He’d asked for some paper and been given a whole ream.
Right at the top, her name; and then a single line. Nothing else. One line. He stared at it.
How do I not miss her?
It was a peculiar formulation. He underscored “how.”
Underscored “not” as well.
Even more peculiar. The longer he stared at the question, the more telling the implications became; not the opposite, which would have been more reasonable. He smiled, concentrated, and did not let go for even a second, neither with his eyes nor his thoughts. Way back in his unconscious, the answers had already begun to form.
In the same way as I don’t miss the past.
In the same way as I don’t want things that happened in the past to happen now.
When I am found not guilty, or let out on parole, he thought, I shall go to her grave and sit there. Sit there with cigarettes and wine.
Guilt, punishment, mercy. Guilt, punishment, mercy. What did it matter if you were punished for something else?
Sentence me! Sentence me harshly, but be quick about it!
He threw the pen away. Curled up on the bed again, with his knees drawn up and his hands tucked away, just like a little child. He closed his eyes and the images came floating into his head.
June 25, a Thursday.
“Do you know what happened to me today, Janek?” she’d said. “I had a proposal.”
His blood had stood still. His smile was in cement.
“Yes, a man I didn’t know came up to me while I was waiting for the bus and asked me to marry him. Some people certainly know how to seize the moment.”
“What did you say?”
“That I’d think it over.”
She had also smiled, but he knew that her womb was wide open and there was blood between her teeth.
“Let’s get married, Eva.”
And that was that.
He pressed his forehead against the wall. It felt good. At any moment he could choose to be completely normal; it was an act of the will, nothing else-to choose the thinnest and most durable and grayest of all the lines of thought and cling to it like a blind priest.
How did he not miss her?
In the same way as you don’t miss the unbearable.
As a young tiger doesn’t miss its own death.
This man.
Who existed. Who didn’t exist.
Who kept phoning but replaced the receiver when Mitter answered. Time after time.
Whom she spoke to when Mitter was not at home.
Who didn’t exist, and about whom she used to have nightmares. Who made her say, “If I die soon, please forgive me, Janek! Forgive me, forgive me!”
Whom she renounced over and over again.
“There is no man. There
It was so damned theatrical that it must be true. For it had to be the blood and the pain and her death that was the truth. . not the lie. And when she welcomed him between her legs, that could be nothing but the truth. There were no questions. It must be strength, not weakness. Guilt and punishment and mercy had no place and no name in all this.
Forget me! Let us forget each other when we’ve gone!
Could we ever make love if there were no such thing as death?
What was your quarrel about?
What did you talk about out there on the balcony?
He thumped his head against the wall. Roared with laughter and wept.
16
“What is your full name, please?”
“Gudrun Elisabeth Traut.”
