The undertone of this last remark made Katherina give him a sidelong glance. For the first time she seemed to detect a touch of regret in Jon's voice. His eyes were fixed on the road ahead, but they seemed to be looking further. When his face was lit up by the headlamps of oncoming cars, she could see the muscles of his jaw moving slightly, and if she listened closely the sound of his teeth grinding was audible. There was anger and sorrow in his expression, and she wished she could make these feelings vanish. Maybe he noticed she was looking at him because he turned his face towards her. She immediately looked away.
'There's a lot I need to catch up on with regard to my father,' he said. 'It's been years since I last had any contact with him, and things didn't go very well on that occasion, to put it mildly.'
It was strange to be sitting there talking about Luca with his own son. In many situations Luca had been like a father to Katherina, and in that sense Jon was like a brother, but they had both known him for only part of their lives. Jon for the first part of his, and Katherina for a later part of hers. Together they might be able to form a more complete picture of the man to whom they both, each in different ways, owed their life.
'What happened the last time you saw Luca?' she asked cautiously.
'He rejected me,' said Jon. 'I had just turned eighteen at the time and was no doubt surly and irritating, but we didn't talk long enough for him even to find that out.' He cleared his throat before he went on. 'First I called the bookshop. I'd never understood why he had sent me away when I was in my early teens. Now that I was all grown up, in my opinion, I thought I had a right to an explanation. So I rang him up, with my heart pounding, my hands sweaty, the whole business. At first there was a long silence on the other end of the line, and for a moment I thought we'd been cut off. But then he said there must be some mistake because he didn't have a son. Then he slammed down the receiver.'
Pau grunted drowsily from the back seat, but a more regular snoring soon started up again.
'It had taken me months to muster enough courage to make that phone call,' Jon continued. 'So when I heard the dial tone on the other end, I went berserk. I took the next bus to Vesterbro and crashed open the door to the shop. Iversen was there that day. He was standing behind the counter, helping a customer, but when he saw me, his whole face lit up with a big smile and he gave me a friendly greeting. That made me calm down a bit, and when the customer left the shop, Iversen patted me on the shoulder and said that he'd go and get my father. Then he disappeared downstairs. It took a long time for Luca to appear. He came walking slowly towards me with a kind, inquisitive look in his eyes. For a second I thought that everything was going to be all right again, but then his expression changed and he asked me what I was doing there. I had no reason to be there, he said, and I should never come back.'
Katherina shifted position uneasily. This description of the man whom she had considered her foster father for so long was light-years from her own experience. It sounded like two totally different people.
'I can't understand that at all,' she said, shaking her head.
'Me neither. It made me stubborn and I wanted to know why. After all, he couldn't deny that he was my father, since Marianne was my mother. I suppose I said a number of stupid things and hurled a lot of accusations at him, but he remained utterly calm and just let me vent my rage before he played his trump card.'
They had reached the bookshop. Jon parked the car at the kerb and turned off the engine. He sat there with his eyes fixed on the shop.
'What did he do?' asked Katherina.
Jon grimaced.
'He said he couldn't stand the sight of me. I reminded him too much of my mother. Every time he looked at me, he was reminded of how she died, and that he hadn't been able to prevent it.'
Katherina had heard about Marianne's suicide from Iversen, but Luca himself had never said a word about it.
'Whew,' she exclaimed. 'What can you say to that?'
'As an eighteen-year-old, nothing,' said Jon, taking a deep breath. 'I shut up and walked out of the shop – and out of his life.'
They sat there for a moment, listening to Pau's snoring. As if on cue, it became erratic and he woke up, uttering a grunt, followed by a loud yawn.
'So, are we there yet?' he asked, stretching as best he could in the cramped space.
'We're back,' Jon confirmed.
Pau leaned forward between the seats and looked first at Jon, then at Katherina.
'So aren't we going to get out?'
Katherina opened the door and climbed out, followed by Pau.
'I'll drop by tomorrow,' said Jon before they said goodbye and slammed the doors shut.
Pau shivered in the cold, while Katherina watched Jon's car drive away.
'Are we going the same way?' asked Pau, heading for his bicycle.
'No, I'm staying here tonight.'
'Is that a good idea?' he asked. 'They might come back.'
'Exactly,' she replied.
Pau shook his head.
'Go ahead and play the hero, if you want. But I've really got to get some sleep,' he said, sounding apologetic. 'Will you be okay on your own?'
Katherina nodded in reply.
When she woke the next morning, it was dark all around her, and it took several minutes for her to figure out where she was. The boards over the windows of Libri di Luca kept out the morning light. The folding camp bed under her creaked at the slightest move, but that hadn't stopped her from sleeping. She recalled wrestling with the bed the night before, but she didn't remember taking off her shoes or climbing in.
The sound of traffic outside penetrated the darkness, and she lay listening to it for a while before she untangled herself from the blanket and sat up. After putting on her shoes and woollen sweater, she went over to switch on the light in the ceiling lamp.
The shop was a sorry sight. The missing piece of carpet was like an open wound, and the barricaded windows and bed made the room look like an improvised hiding place for antiquities during a bombing raid rather than a bookshop.
She unlocked the door and went outside. Not a cloud in the sky, but the shop was still in the shadows of the other buildings, so it was bitterly cold. For the first time since spring she could see her own breath, and for a moment she jumped about on the pavement in front of the shop to stay warm. It was past eleven, and Libri di Luca should have opened two hours ago, but the pitiful state of the facade had no doubt kept any potential customers far away.
Katherina left the door ajar and began cleaning up inside. The books that were normally displayed on tables just inside the entrance had been tossed on the floor further back in the shop, so she started by setting up a table where she could put them. Unable to sort them by author or title, she indiscriminately piled them into stacks.
She spent the rest of the day cleaning and waiting for customers, with a lunch break at a nearby pizzeria. Only two braved the barricades to have a look inside, but it was clear to see that the devastation bothered them, and they left the shop without buying anything.
Jon turned up late in the day. He had dark circles under his eyes and it didn't look as if he had shaved. His clothes, on the other hand, were impeccable, up until he took off his tie and opened the top button of his blue shirt.
'Hard day?' asked Katherina after they exchanged greetings and Jon plopped down in the leather chair, heaving a big sigh.
'I suppose you could call it that,' he said and closed his eyes. 'What about here? Any problems?'
Katherina gave him a summary of her day, which took less than a minute.
'All right,' said Jon, opening his eyes. 'We have to see about having the windows replaced. I'll try to get hold of a glass company tomorrow.'
'Have you heard from Kortmann?' asked Katherina.
'He rang just as I was leaving. There's a meeting in…' He glanced at his watch. 'Half an hour.'