The Weeping Girl Read Online Free PDF

are you?’ she asked. ‘Your dad. Where does he live?’
    ‘Lejnice,’ said Mikaela. ‘He’s in a home just outside the town. I’ve rung and spoken to them – they know I’m coming. So they were going to prepare him .
. . Yes, that’s what they said. Prepare him. Ugh, I’m scared stiff. But I know it’s got to be done.’
    Moreno tried in all haste to find something consoling to say to her.
    ‘You have to do what you have to do,’ she said. ‘Is it really the case that you didn’t know you had a dad until yesterday?’
    Mikaela smiled briefly again.
    ‘Yes. Obviously, I know that a virgin birth isn’t all that common nowadays. But I’ve had a stepfather since I was three, and known that he wasn’t my real father since I
was fifteen. And then . . . Well, I had to wait for another three years until my mum told me who my real father was. Arnold Maager . . . I don’t really know if I like that name or not . .
.’
    ‘But why?’ Moreno couldn’t help herself from asking. ‘I mean, it’s nothing to do with me, but . . .’
    ‘I don’t know,’ said Mikaela.
    ‘You don’t know?’
    ‘No, I don’t know why she couldn’t tell me. Or didn’t want to tell me. She went on and on about responsibility and maturity and all that, my mum did, but . . . No, no
details at all. Something happened when I was very young, that’s all I know.’
    Moreno looked out of the window, and saw that they had now come to Boodendijk. Not far to go to Lejnice. A couple more stops, probably. Behind the row of buildings she could already see the sand
dunes. The sky seemed almost hysterically blue.
    What the hell can I say to her? she wondered. The poor girl must feel completely abandoned.
    ‘Did you consider taking somebody with you?’ she said. ‘If you feel worried about it. A friend . . . Or your mum . . .’
    ‘I wanted to meet him on my own,’ said Mikaela. ‘My mum didn’t want me to go to see him at all – but once you’re eighteen years old, you do what you have to
do.’
    ‘Quite right,’ said Moreno.
    A few seconds passed. The train set off again.
    ‘I don’t understand why I’m sitting here, telling all this to somebody I’ve never seen before,’ said Mikaela, trying to look a little more cocksure. ‘You must
think I’m a real crackpot . . . Not to mention my mum and dad. A real crackpot family. Maybe we are, but I don’t usually—’
    ‘It can be a good thing to talk to strangers now and then,’ said Moreno, interrupting her. ‘You can say whatever you like, without having to take other things into
consideration. I often start conversations like this one.’
    The girl’s face was consumed by a smile, and Moreno registered that she was even more charming when the all-pervading worry dispersed momentarily.
    ‘You’re right! That’s exactly what I think about my dad. About meeting him, I mean. We’re strangers, after all. I don’t want to have anybody else present when I
speak to him for the first time. It would be . . . It wouldn’t be right, somehow. Do you see what I mean? It wouldn’t be right as far as he’s concerned.’
    Moreno nodded.
    ‘So you’re getting off at Lejnice, are you?’
    ‘Yes. Where are you going?’
    ‘I’m getting off at Lejnice as well. It’ll all turn out okay, trust me! That business with your dad, I mean. I can feel it.’
    ‘So can I!’ said Mikaela optimistically, sitting up straighter. ‘I think we’re nearly there – I’d better go to the toilet and wipe away my tears. Thank you
for letting me talk to you.’
    Moreno suddenly felt that she needed to blink away a few tears as well. She tapped Mikaela’s thigh and cleared her throat.
    ‘Do that! I’ll wait for you. Then we can go into the station together, okay?’
    Mikaela stood up and headed for the toilet at the far end of the carriage. Moreno took a deep breath. Put her book back into her bag and established that you could see the sea through the
window.
    Checked her watch and