Silence by Mechtild Borrmann Read Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Mechtild Borrmann
kindergarten age, his father had been the hardworking man who would stroke his cheek with a callused hand that smelled of sweat and cement dust. He would take him to the bar after church on Sundays, where he would drink beer with other men in ill-fitting suits, argue, buy his son a lemonade.
When Robert started school, his father was busy setting up his own business. They would sit together at the breakfast table in the cramped kitchen every morning, and while his father drank coffee and smoked, he would ask about his grades, urge him to study hard, and look anxiously at his mother when he felt, again, that his son was not eating enough. On Sundays they would go to church together, and when the weather was fine, they would go for walks in the afternoon. His mother was wearing a camel-hair coat by then, and his father a wide-brimmed hat, which he would raise briefly when other walkers came toward them.
Just before he went to high school, they moved out of the small apartment in the center of Essen and into the villa on the edge of the city, and in that big house, it seemed to him today, they got lost. The big dining-room table alone, at which each person got a breakfast tray of his own because it would have been impossible to reach the butter without standing up, suddenly appeared to him, here in the hotel bar, symbolic.
“Now you have a big garden, all to yourself,” he heard his mother saying enthusiastically, and the words “all to yourself” were still resonant. He sighed. Everything was too big, he thought, and he was glad the house had now been sold.
But it was precisely during that time, as they were moving apart at the speed of light, that there had been those moments of intimacy in the study, when his father had told him about his escape, about his fear. Sometimes his mother had knocked on the door and reminded both son and husband, in a way that almost expressed jealousy, that it was bedtime.
And now he had exposed those few moments of intimacy to a journalist. A wave of heat flowed through his body, and he did not know whether it was the cognac or the thought of his betrayal.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. His Dutch colleague and friend, Piet Noyen, praised his presentation that afternoon. They talked about the potential of gene technology in the treatment of tuberous sclerosis and the high hopes they had for it. This distracted him and restored the self-confidence he had lost in the last few hours.
It was past midnight by the time he showed his key to the man behind the counter and charged the drinks to his room. As he made his way to the elevator, his resolve stood firm. He would drive by Kranenburg again the following day and talk to Rita Albers. She would have to return the copies of the files. She had obtained them from him under false pretenses. She wanted to make money out of the story. So be it. He would buy them back.
Chapter 11
April 22, 1998
Therese Mende had had a restless night. As she tossed and turned in bed, it was as if an unseen hand were flinging more and more tiles from a mosaic at her, random fragments of a picture, and when at last she had fallen asleep, the life she thought she had forgotten still filled her dreams.
It was still early; Luisa would not come to work for another two hours. She went into the kitchen and made herself some tea. Bearing the teapot, cup, and milk jug precariously on a tray, she made her way to the end of the terrace and put the tray down on the little round table by the balustrade. Here, the cliffs plunged almost vertically downward, and one could be deceived into thinking one was directly over the water, as if on a wide diving board. It was still cool, and she pulled her thick white terry-cloth bathrobe tighter. It was going to be a clear, hot day. The curved outline of the sun was thrusting itself gradually upward on the horizon, rolling out a reddish, glittering, and ever-widening carpet over the sea.
What had any meaning? What had any meaning
When Robert started school, his father was busy setting up his own business. They would sit together at the breakfast table in the cramped kitchen every morning, and while his father drank coffee and smoked, he would ask about his grades, urge him to study hard, and look anxiously at his mother when he felt, again, that his son was not eating enough. On Sundays they would go to church together, and when the weather was fine, they would go for walks in the afternoon. His mother was wearing a camel-hair coat by then, and his father a wide-brimmed hat, which he would raise briefly when other walkers came toward them.
Just before he went to high school, they moved out of the small apartment in the center of Essen and into the villa on the edge of the city, and in that big house, it seemed to him today, they got lost. The big dining-room table alone, at which each person got a breakfast tray of his own because it would have been impossible to reach the butter without standing up, suddenly appeared to him, here in the hotel bar, symbolic.
“Now you have a big garden, all to yourself,” he heard his mother saying enthusiastically, and the words “all to yourself” were still resonant. He sighed. Everything was too big, he thought, and he was glad the house had now been sold.
But it was precisely during that time, as they were moving apart at the speed of light, that there had been those moments of intimacy in the study, when his father had told him about his escape, about his fear. Sometimes his mother had knocked on the door and reminded both son and husband, in a way that almost expressed jealousy, that it was bedtime.
And now he had exposed those few moments of intimacy to a journalist. A wave of heat flowed through his body, and he did not know whether it was the cognac or the thought of his betrayal.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. His Dutch colleague and friend, Piet Noyen, praised his presentation that afternoon. They talked about the potential of gene technology in the treatment of tuberous sclerosis and the high hopes they had for it. This distracted him and restored the self-confidence he had lost in the last few hours.
It was past midnight by the time he showed his key to the man behind the counter and charged the drinks to his room. As he made his way to the elevator, his resolve stood firm. He would drive by Kranenburg again the following day and talk to Rita Albers. She would have to return the copies of the files. She had obtained them from him under false pretenses. She wanted to make money out of the story. So be it. He would buy them back.
Chapter 11
April 22, 1998
Therese Mende had had a restless night. As she tossed and turned in bed, it was as if an unseen hand were flinging more and more tiles from a mosaic at her, random fragments of a picture, and when at last she had fallen asleep, the life she thought she had forgotten still filled her dreams.
It was still early; Luisa would not come to work for another two hours. She went into the kitchen and made herself some tea. Bearing the teapot, cup, and milk jug precariously on a tray, she made her way to the end of the terrace and put the tray down on the little round table by the balustrade. Here, the cliffs plunged almost vertically downward, and one could be deceived into thinking one was directly over the water, as if on a wide diving board. It was still cool, and she pulled her thick white terry-cloth bathrobe tighter. It was going to be a clear, hot day. The curved outline of the sun was thrusting itself gradually upward on the horizon, rolling out a reddish, glittering, and ever-widening carpet over the sea.
What had any meaning? What had any meaning