“I think that report is going to take her back to a dark place, Carl. Do you think it’s such a good idea? Can’t I write it for her?”
Carl looked worried. He could imagine the result. Only Assad had ever understood what his reports actually contained.
“Assad, that’s good of you, and of course we need to keep an eye out for Rose, but she needs to be able to cope with that assignment. I’m afraid I don’t have time to discuss it further.”
He looked at the clock. The witness statement in the district court was scheduled to start in twenty minutes, so he needed to get going. It was the final hearing before sentencing in one of their cases, and who was going to write up the report for that? Him, who else? Carl, who hated every form of routine except smoking and taking a nap with his feet up on the table.
He had just made it to the hallway when Rose, looking as white as a sheet, appeared in front of him and made it clear that if he pushed her to have anything to do with that report, she’d go home sick.
Maybe he mouthed off a few unchoice words, but blackmail wasn’t going to cut it with him; and then he left.
The last thing he heard on his way up the stairs was Rose’s shaky voice shouting that she’d do what he expected but that he would damn well have to live with the consequences.
7
Wednesday, May 11th, 2016
“Haven’t you got anything in the fridge, Denise?”
He sprawled himself on the mattress without covering anything. His skin was glistening, his eyes wet, and he was still out of breath. “I’m dying of hunger here. You know how to drain a man of energy, honey.”
Denise wrapped her kimono tightly around her. Rolf was the one of her sugar daddies who came closest to giving her a feeling of what one might call intimacy. The men were normally halfway out the door before they’d even come, but this one had no wife waiting for him at home and no job where he needed to be at any given time. She had met him on an all-inclusive vacation to Alanya, which turned out to be the cheapest holiday she had ever been on.
“Come on, you know I haven’t, Rolf. You’ll have to make do with the crumbs in that bag there.”
She pointed at the crumpled paper bag as she walked over to the mirror.
Had his grip on her neck left a mark? Her other sugar daddies wouldn’t be happy about that.
“Can’t you pop down to your mother’s and see what she’s got? I’ll pay you handsomely for it, sugar baby.” He laughed. He was all right as far as that area was concerned.
She stroked the skin under her chin. There was a slight redness but nothing that would draw attention.
“All right then, but don’t go expecting room service next time. This isn’t a hotel, you know.”
He tapped the sheet lazily, sending her a commanding look. A little resistance always turned him on, and the fee would reflect this.
—
It smelled stuffy down in the apartment, and all the lamps were turned on. It was dark out on the street, but it was like daylight in here; her mother had kept it like this since her grandmother died. She seemed to be frozen in time.
Denise noticed her mother’s arm first, hanging over the edge of the sofa, holding a burned-out cigarette, a pile of ash on the carpet next to her, before noticing the rest of her pathetic decay. Her mouth was hanging open, her wrinkled face without makeup, and her hair matted with the woolen blanket under her. What else could you expect when you turned up unannounced?
The kitchen was complete chaos. Not just the usual, where the washing up, empty liquor bottles, packaging, and scattered food remains bore witness to laziness and a lack of discipline, but a totally surrealistic inferno of colors of the sort you would expect from rancid food, spread over the walls and every available surface. Her mother had apparently gone on a bender right in the middle of things; that’s the way it was when she had been drinking and decided to sod the consequences. She’d have a chance to think about those when she sobered up.
Naturally, the fridge was almost empty. If she was going to feed Rolf, it would have to be with sour yogurt and eggs from God only knew when. It wasn’t exactly what he’d paid for, but who knew what he’d want when he was ready for action again?
“Is that you, Denise?” croaked a rough voice from the sitting room.
She shook her head. She’d be damned if she was going to listen to her mother’s drunken rambling at this time of night.
“Won’t you come in here? I am awake.”
Wasn’t that exactly what she was afraid of?
They both looked at each other for a moment, neither of them with any particular sympathy.
“Where’ve you been the last couple of days?” her mother asked, with dried spit in the corners of her mouth.
Denise looked away. “Here and there.”
“The coroners are finished, so your grandmother’s body will be released soon. Will you come with me to the funeral director’s?”
She shrugged her shoulders. That would have to be answer enough for now if she wanted to avoid a discussion. After all, she had a man lying in bed upstairs on the top floor.
8
Thursday, May 12th, 2016
The crumpled newspaper on the kitchen table reminded him of what he had lost. In the space of four years, he had gone from being a happily married man, with a job that demanded respect and offered exciting challenges, to this abyss of loneliness. In these four years, his reduced status and increased lack of self-awareness had become more acute in a way he couldn’t have predicted. He had been through an awful period of illness with the best friend he had ever had. He had witnessed his beloved wife wither away, holding her hand for months while she cried in agony, just as he had also held her hand when the pain shot through her one final time before allowing her to finally find peace. Since then, he had smoked sixty cigarettes a day and not done much else. Everything in the apartment smelled of stale tobacco, his fingers resembled mummified leather, and his lungs wheezed as if they had a puncture.
His elder daughter had warned him four times that if he didn’t mend his ways he would soon be joining their mother in her grave, a statement hidden in the clouds of smoke, waiting for him to act on it. Maybe that was what he actually wanted—to smoke himself to death and free his tortured soul, eat until he popped and just let himself go. What other option did he have?
But then that newspaper had turned up out of nowhere. The front page alone had thrown him off-balance. His curiosity awakened; he had put his cigarette down in the ashtray and picked up the newspaper from the pile under the mail slot. He even ventured the impossible, holding the newspaper half a meter in front of him in an attempt to read it without his reading glasses.