The Boy in the Suitcase - Lene Kaaberbol [2]
“Yes. I accept.”
“Good. Here are your instructions.”
He listened to the brief, precise sentences, wrote down numbers and figures. He was polite, like the man on the phone. It was only after the conversation had ended that he could no longer contain his disgust and defiance. Furiously, he flung the phone away; it arced over the fence to bounce and disappear on the heathered slope beneath him.
He got back into his car and drove the rest of the way up to the house.
LESS THAN AN hour later, he was crawling about on the slope, looking for the damn thing. Anne came out onto the terrace in front of the house and leaned over the railing.
“What are you doing?” she shouted.
“I dropped something,” he called back.
“Do you want me to come down and help?”
“No.”
She stayed out there for a while. The wind tore at her peachcolored linen dress, and the updraft blew her fair shoulder-length hair up around her face, so that it looked as if she were falling. In free fall without a parachute, he thought, only to check that chain of thought before it could continue. It would be all right. Anne would never need to know.
It took him nearly an hour and a half to find the stupid phone. And then he had to call the airline. This was one trip he had no wish to let his secretary book for him.
“Where are you going?” asked Anne.
“Just a quick trip to Zürich.”
“Is something wrong?”
“No,” he said hastily. Fear had flooded into her eyes instantly, and trying to calm it was a knee-jerk reaction. “It’s just a business thing. Some funds I need to arrange. I’ll be back by Monday.”
How had they ended up like this? He suddenly recalled with great intensity that Saturday in May more than ten years ago when he had watched Keld walk her up the aisle. She had been fairytale pretty, in a stunningly simple white dress, pink and white rosebuds in her hair. He knew at once that the bouquet he had chosen was much too big and garish, but it hadn’t mattered. He was just a few minutes away from hearing her say “I do.” For an instant, his gaze caught Keld’s, and he thought he saw a welcome and an appreciation there. Father-in-law. I’ll take care of her, he silently promised the tall, smiling man. And in his mind added two promises that weren’t in the marriage vows: he would give her anything she wanted, and he would protect her against everything that was evil in the world.
That is still what I want, he thought, tossing his passport into the Zürich case. Whatever the price.
SOMETIMES, JUČAS HAD a dream about a family. There was a mother and a father and two children, a boy and a girl. Usually, they would be at the dinner table, eating a meal the mother had cooked for them. They lived in a house with a garden, and in the garden there were apple trees and raspberries. The people were smiling, so that one could tell they were happy.
He himself was outside the house, looking in. But there was always the feeling that any minute now they would catch sight of him, and the father would open the door, smiling even wider, and say: “There you are! Come in, come in.”
JUČAS HAD NO idea who they were. Nor could he always remember what they looked like. But when he woke, it would be with a feeling of muddled nostalgia and expectation that would stay with him all day like a tightness in his chest.
Lately he had dreamed the dream a lot. He blamed it on Barbara. She always wanted to talk about how it was going to be—him and her, and the little house just outside Krakow, close enough that her mother would need to take only one bus, and yet far enough away for them to have a bit of privacy. And there would be children. Of course. Because that was what Barbara wanted: children.
The day before it was to happen, they had celebrated. Everything was done, everything ready. The car was packed, all preparations were in place. The only thing that could stop them now was if the bitch suddenly changed her pattern. And even if she did, all they had to do was wait another week.
“Let’s go to the country,” said Barbara. “Let’s go find someplace where we can lie in the grass and be