Night Work by Thomas Glavinic Read Free Book Online Page A

him. Thereafter she merely moved her lips. His father, who resembled his wartime photos, had been jogging along behind her on a treadmill. He hadn’t looked at Jonas.
    But there was something else.
    He sluiced his face in cold water and looked up at theceiling. A damp patch had appeared there some months ago, but it hadn’t grown any bigger of late.
    Going straight back to bed was out of the question. He turned on every light in the flat. And the TV, whose flickering screen he now accepted as normal. He put in a video but killed the sound. It was the highlights of the Berlin Love Parade of 1999, which he’d inadvertently tossed into his trolley at the supermarket.
    He blew his nose, then squeezed a throat pastille out of its blister pack. He made himself some tea and sat down on the sofa, cup in hand. Sipping, he watched the gyrations of the young people aboard the floats streaming past the Victory Column at a walking pace. Their half-naked figures twitched in time to inaudible music.
    He got up and wandered around. His eye fell on the wardrobe. Again he had the feeling that something was wrong. This time he realised what it was. Hanging inside was a jacket that didn’t belong to him. He’d seen it in a shop window some weeks ago, but it was too expensive.
    How had it got there?
    He put it on. It fitted.
    Had he bought it after all? And forgotten it?
    Or was it a present from Marie?
    He checked the front door. Locked. He rubbed his eyes. His cheeks burnt. The longer he thought about the jacket, the uneasier he felt. He decided to shut it up in the wardrobe for the time being. The explanation would occur to him of its own accord.
    He opened the window. The night air was refreshing. He looked down at the Brigittenauer embankment. Once upon a time the night had been filled with the steady hum of passing cars. The silence that now weighed heavy on the street seemed to be trying to drag him down there.
    He looked left in the direction of the city centre, where here and there a lighted window could be seen. The heart ofVienna. History had been made there once, but it had since moved on to other cities. What remained were broad streets, grandiose buildings and monuments. And people who had found it hard to distinguish between past and present.
    Now they had gone too.
    When he looked straight ahead at the 19th District, he saw a light flickering in a window several hundred metres away. It wasn’t a Morse signal, but it might be a message of some kind.
    *
    He had never known such darkness. A windowless room could be very dark, but it was an acquired, unnatural kind of darkness quite unlike the gloom prevailing here in the street. No stars were twinkling in the sky. The street lights had failed. Cars nudged the kerb like dark mounds. Everything resembled a heavy mass vainly endeavouring to move.
    While covering the few yards from the front door to the Spider, he glanced round several times and called out in a deep voice.
    He could hear the Danube Canal lapping against the embankment wall.
    *
    Although he had only a vague idea of the direction in which the building in question lay, he didn’t take long to find it. He pulled up three car-lengths away, with his headlights illuminating the entrance. Then he got out, shotgun at the ready.
    Crouching down beside the driver’s door, he listened intently for a minute. Nothing broke the silence but an occasional puff of wind.
    He locked the car, leaving the headlights on, and counted the storeys to the lighted window. Then he took the lift to the sixth floor. The passage was in darkness. He felt for a light switch.
    Either there wasn’t one or he failed to find it.
    Holding the shotgun out in front of him, Jonas made his way cautiously along the passage. He kept stopping to listen. There was no sound, no indication of where to look. It wasn’t until his eyes had grown accustomed to the gloom that he saw a shaft of light at floor level. It was the door. When he pressed what he took to