Katherine Carlyle Read Online Free PDF Page B

other. Her dark hair is piled messily on top of her head, and the top three buttons of her black cardigan are undone, showing off her cleavage. She has a sloppy, sensual look about her, as if she just got out of bed. Does Klaus find her attractive? I push the door open. The waitress looks round. Her instant, natural smile surprises me. I took her for one of those women who reserve all their seductive energy for men.
    I sit by the wall and order a coffee and a croissant, then I take out my notebook and my pen. Klaus has chosen a table in the middle of the café, and is partially obscured by a woman eating a slice of cake with a fork. Klaus shakes his paper open. This is the closest we have ever been, and once again I wonder what I want from him. Absorbed in the
Frankfurter Allgemeine
, Klaus remains quite unaware of me.
    I make a quick sketch of his head. His eyes are too small for his face, and his lips have a plumpness that could seem either generous or sulky, depending on his mood. His hair, which is wavy and light brown, starts high up on his forehead. Afterwards, I jot down a few simple observations. His hands are large and workmanlike, not elegant at all, though he takes good care of his nails, which are filed straight across and show no sign of being bitten. His glasses, which he removes whenever the waitress speaks to him, have turquoise frames. They look expensive. He wears a watch, but no rings. I estimate his height at one meter ninety, his weight in the region of eighty-five kilos. If I had to guess his age I would say mid- to late thirties.
    I sip my coffee. Something about his appearance disturbs me. It’s true that he in no way resembles the Klaus Frings of my imagination, but that’s not it. No, what I find unsettling is that, even though I have now set eyes on him, he still feels like a made-up character. When I first heard his name — in another city, fifteen hundred kilometers away! — I saw him not as a real person but as an opportunity, a trigger. That feeling persists. To be in the same room as him, to have narrowed the distance so dramatically — to have discovered that he
actually exists
: it’s hard to believe I’ve managed it. But somehow there’s a gap between the idea of Klaus Frings and the man himself.
    /
    The clock ticks heavily, sumptuously. Though Klaus Frings has left the café I can’t seem to move. I see my father lying on his back in an air-conditioned hotel room, hands linked behind his head. His eyes are open. His flak jacket, his dusty desert boots …
    I whisper in his ear.
I’ve gone
.
    If people love you enough, can they hear you?
    He has been up all night, traveling with an aid convoy. Endless checkpoints, everyone on edge. Young boys with semiautomatics. His room is tinted with the first lurid flush of dawn. Through the sealed window comes the metallic wail of the muezzin. He’s so tired that he can’t sleep.
    I’m not here anymore. I’ve gone
.
    In front of the window is a round table and two chairs with low backs. On the table is a half-empty bottle of brandy and two water glasses. One of the glasses has a smudge of lipstick near the rim. Once, a few hours after my father returned from covering a storyin Eritrea, I heard him arguing with my mother. She was accusing him of having an affair. He was denying it.
    He sits up, puts his feet on the floor and rubs his face with both hands, then he reaches for the phone and dials my number. The screen on my phone lights up. Rocks and sludge. A few tin cans, a bicycle wheel. A woman’s shoe. What happens when you call a phone that is lying at the bottom of a river? Does it sound as if it has been switched off? Does it sound dead?
    My father calls, and I don’t answer. He thinks nothing of it. I’m busy or else I’m talking to a friend. Or maybe I lost my charger. But what if he tries again tomorrow, and I’m still not answering? And then again, the day after? What will he think when he keeps failing to get hold of me? How