After work on Friday he went to visit his father. It was over two months since he’d last been, and it was a way of passing the time. The Oesterle Care Home was in Bredenbuijk, just outside Loewingen: he took the route via Borsens in order to avoid the worst of the traffic, and arrived just after the evening meal had finished.
As usual, his father was sitting in his bed, gazing at his hands. It often took some time to get him to look up, but on this occasion he did so more or less immediately. He had barely managed to move the chair to the side of the bed and sit down before his father slowly raised his head and looked at him with those bloodshot, watery eyes of his. Just for a second there was a sign of recognition, but perhaps that was wishful thinking.
Why should he recognize him today when he hadn’t done so for the last six years?
After half a minute his father’s chin sank gradually down towards his chest, and he returned to studying his hands, which were lying on top of the blue blanket and slowly rotating around each other.
He sat there for ten minutes. He couldn’t stand it any longer than that. He couldn’t see a nurse or care assistant he recognized, and didn’t bother to ask about his father’s condition.
How is he? Is he all right?
Such questions were pointless. Had been pointless for several years; it felt better not to ask them. He had often wondered what the point was of keeping him alive, but nobody at the care home had so much as whispered the word euthanasia, and he didn’t want to be the first to do so. Besides, his sister in America would be against it, he knew that without needing to ask.
So his father just sat there. Never spoke to anybody, never read a book or a newspaper. Never watched television or listened to the radio. Didn’t even get up nowadays to go to the toilet. The only sign he gave of being in some sort of a conscious state was that he opened his mouth when a spoonful of food was approaching.
My father, he thought. One of these days I shall be like you are now. Nice to see you.
And he made up his mind that he would make the most of life while he still could.
That Friday night became very difficult. Bearing in mind that Vera would be coming the next day, he gave the whisky a miss. He didn’t want it to become a habit. And he didn’t want to overdo the Sobran tablets either. He took a weak sleeping tablet instead, but it only made him feel sluggish and slightly sick.
His decision to wait for Monday’s letter before deciding what to do next was of course the right one — the only conceivable one: but in no way did it mean that he could stop thinking about it.
Those persistent gloomy thoughts and images of what would happen to him. Speculations about what kind of scenario ‘a friend’ would propose for handing over the money this time. And about what he would be forced to do. Again.
Whether there was going to be any possibility of doing it.
Killing him.
Killing one last time and drawing a line once and for all under his former life. Without needing to sum it all up or look back at all. Simply waking up to a new, blank day.
He wished he were already at that point.
Wished it were all over. So he could make the most of his life while he still could?
The last time he looked at the clock it was ten minutes to six.
It was raining when he woke up a few hours later. Persistent rain, and a strong wind hurling it at the windows. He stayed in bed for a while, listening to it. Then he got up and had a shower.
He spent the morning and the early afternoon preparing the evening meal. Did some vacuuming and tidying up, and opened some bottles of wine to breathe. Sorted out the laundry as well. Shortly after two he had a call from Smaage, reminding him that the next meeting of the Fraternity was due to take place the coming Friday; they chatted for a while, and afterwards he was surprised at how easy he had found it. How uninhibited he’d been. After all, it had been immediately after the previous meeting that it had all begun. After that damned meeting of the ‘brothers’ his old, secure life had been brought to a halt, and everything had shot off in different directions. He promised Smaage that he would be there, provided nothing unforeseen cropped up — and it was when he said ‘unforeseen’ that he suddenly felt a flash of dizziness. Smaage wished him a pleasant weekend, and hung up.
Then there was one more hour during which he had nothing to do but sit around, waiting for her. Between four and five, as darkness was falling and the wind seemed to ease off a little. But the rainbows kept coming and going. He spent quite a long time by the bedroom window, looking up at the low, restless sky over the strip of trees planted along the back of the row of terraced houses.
Stood there wrestling with a completely new thought.
I’ll tell her, he thought. She would understand. Then we’d both be in it together, and could give each other strength. Surely that would be a good thing.
She rang the doorbell at exactly five o’clock. When he went to open the door he suddenly felt weak at the knees.
It was their most difficult evening so far. At least at the beginning there was something reserved about her behaviour, and even though she didn’t say so straight out, it was evident that she was tormented by the situation between herself and Andreas.
Tormented by the need to tell her husband that she was in the process of leaving him for somebody else. He understood her difficulties. Realized that she still hadn’t put him on the spot, even though she had promised to do so. But he didn’t press her. Didn’t allow any impatience or disappointment he was feeling come up to the surface. Nevertheless there was a cloud hanging over them, something that he had never felt before; and it wasn’t until they had drunk almost three bottles of wine that they began to make love.
It was just as enjoyable as ever. Perhaps even better: for a brief moment he had the feeling that it was due to the bitter whiff of disaster in the air, but the feeling went just as quickly as it had come. He managed to give her four or five orgasms, and afterwards she lay with her head on his chest, weeping. His own head was as empty as if an atom bomb had exploded inside it.
They eventually shared yet another bottle of wine: it felt as if the blood was finally starting to flow through his veins again. Soon afterwards he took her one more time — slightly brutally, as she liked it — on the kitchen table, and then they each drank a glass of Glenlivet to round things off.
He would regret that glass of whisky for the rest of his life, as that is what made him lose his sense of judgement and embark on the path to ruin. He never thought there was any other explanation.
There couldn’t possibly be any other explanation.
As he stood in the bathroom, getting washed, he realized that he was quite drunk — more drunk than he had been that evening, for instance — but that there was something he must do. He needed to do it. The doubts that had plagued him earlier in the week seemed to have been blown away, and when he examined his face in the mirror all he saw was strength.
Strength and determination.
He grinned at his own image and went back into the bedroom. Sat down on the edge of the bed and played for a while with one of her nipples between his thumb and forefinger.
I’ll tell her now, he thought.
He realized that it had been a terrible mistake the moment he saw the look on her face.