Johanna felt guilty when she cleared Manfred’s desk, even though he had been dead for seven years now. But she would have to do it sooner or later. She needed the room for Felicitas, who sometimes came to stay for a day or two. Thus far, the little girl had slept in her bed with her, but now she was six, and it seemed to Johanna that she needed her own bed and somewhere to keep her things.
The top drawer was full of the stuff that had been so endlessly fascinating to Adrian when he was a boy. Sometimes Manfred had set him on his lap and pulled one thing after another out of the drawer and told him its story: the Red Sox baseball he had bought during his first trip to America, the Lapland knife, the papier-mâché elephant, a slide rule, a broken pocket watch. Some of these items dated back to Manfred’s childhood, others Johanna knew where they came from and what they had signified to Manfred. She held each item in her hand a long time, unable to decide what to keep and what to throw away. Finally she put everything back in the drawer and shut it again. She would ask Adrian if he wanted any of it. She didn’t need any of it herself, those things only made her sad.
In the second drawer were files of all sorts of documents, office furniture catalogs and instructions, old papers of no sentimental value that Johanna unhesitatingly threw in the recycling. In one of the folders there were a few issues of a 1970s magazine. On one cover was a black woman with an Afro hairstyle and pointy breasts. Johanna flicked through them. She was surprised by the innocence of the pictures, even though she was bothered by the fact that Manfred had hidden their existence from her. When she hoisted the empty files from the drawer and dumped them in a garbage bag, a bundle of letters slipped out and fell to the floor. Johanna picked it up and pulled off the rubber band that held it together. There were perhaps twenty small envelopes, addressed to Manfred’s office in an attractive hand. The letters had been sent within the space of a single year, the date on the cancellation stamp was perhaps thirty years old. Johanna hesitated, then she took one of the letters out of its envelope and began to read.
ADRIAN DIDN’T HAVE much time. When Johanna opened the door, he was in the process of saying good-bye to Felicitas. He greeted his mother perfunctorily and said Iris was waiting in the car. We won’t be that late, he said. She can stay the night if you like, said Johanna, I’ve cleared out the office. You’ve got your own room now, she said to Felicitas, who had taken her hand and was beaming at her. Is that really OK? asked Adrian. Come to breakfast tomorrow, said Johanna, there’s something I want to talk to you about. Thanks, said Adrian, and kissed his mother on the cheek. He stroked Felicitas’s head and said, See you tomorrow, sweetie. You can stay here yourselves if you like, Johanna added, but Adrian said over his shoulder, going down the stairs, he would rather go home, thanks all the same.
When Felicitas was in bed, she started to ask her grandmother about her grandfather. She always tried anything not to have to go to sleep. Johanna had often told her what a good man Grandfather was, and how he had helped lots of people, but on this occasion she was curt, she didn’t feel like thinking about Manfred now. Why did he die? Felicitas asked. We all have to die, said Johanna, he smoked too much. My papa smokes too much as well, Felicitas said. Does everyone die if they smoke too much? If you’re unlucky, said Johanna. Your grandfather’s in heaven. I don’t think he can see us. A little while ago, Felicitas’s guinea pig had died, and now she was picturing it up in heaven along with her grandfather, a vision that was clearly too much for her. Go to sleep now, said Johanna, and sweet dreams.
In the morning they were speaking about something else, but when Felicitas caught sight of a photo of her grandfather on the sideboard, she asked if that was taken in heaven. No, said Johanna, that was in Italy, in Tuscany, where we were on vacation. You’ve been there too, remember, with your mama and papa last year. I don’t remember, said Felicitas. It seemed to make her sad. And there followed another round of questions about heaven that Johanna couldn’t answer. No one knows what it looks like. No one has ever come back from there. It’s farther away than the stars. Yes, she said, I’m going to go to heaven as well, and so will your papa and mama, and you too.
At breakfast Felicitas started again. Grandfather’s in heaven, she said, and I’m going to go to heaven too. Iris looked at her mother-in-law critically. Adrian didn’t say anything, it still wasn’t possible to talk to him about his father’s death, even though the two of them hadn’t been close. I’m going to go to heaven too, Felicitas said again. Sure you will, said Iris, but there’s plenty of time until then. Then she wanted to leave, and Johanna only had a moment in which to show Adrian Manfred’s things. She watched his face, and for a moment saw a boyish joy that suddenly was extinguished. He took out the slide rule and slid the scales along each other. I’ve never understood the principle of these, he said. Look, Felicitas, this is how people used to do calculations before there were computers. Do you want any of it? asked Johanna. Adrian hesitated. We’ve got so much stuff already, Iris said. What about the watch? asked Johanna. It doesn’t work, said Adrian. Johanna felt disappointed, even though she herself didn’t want to keep any of it either. She accompanied them out to the car. Iris put Felicitas in her car seat. Adrian hadn’t got in yet. Are you all right? he asked. I’ve been a bit tired recently, said Johanna, I’m not sleeping well. Wasn’t there something you wanted to talk to me about? he asked. She said it wasn’t urgent, later when he had time. Call me, he said.
Johanna called Hedwig, the secretary, and they met at a cafe. Johanna got a shock when she saw Hedwig. She had stopped dyeing her hair, and she was in flat shoes and glasses. She couldn’t deal with the contact lenses anymore, she said. The two women had nothing to say to each other—they never had. Manfred’s office had been a world of its own, Johanna had never had anything to do with it. Manfred hardly ever brought his work home with him. When Johanna asked him about it, he would gesture dismissively and say, Oh, the usual. Sometimes she would pick him up from the office and caught him seeing out a client or bantering with Hedwig, and each time she thought he was an utter stranger. He seemed different there from the way he was at home, more decisive, more humorous, more alive. It was this man who had got those letters, and written others whose content Johanna could only guess at, from the replies of his mistress. Your last letter made me blush. Your erotic fantasies turned me on. I think about you all the time. Johanna had meant to ask Hedwig about the woman, but she couldn’t now, she would have felt too ashamed. And would his secretary know anyway? Johanna couldn’t imagine that Manfred would have let her into the secret of his double life. In fact she couldn’t imagine the double life itself.
She only went to the cemetery out of a sense of duty. When she tended his grave before, she had felt very close to Manfred. Now it was as though he really was dead, as though the bond between them had torn, the connection that had lasted beyond his death. It occurred to her to track down Manfred’s mistress and demand the return of his letters, so as to undo the deception. But it was all such a long time ago, and the woman had signed using her first name only. And what difference would it have made to destroy those relics? In the end it hardly mattered who Monica was. Perhaps she was one of many. Johanna thought of one of Manfred’s clients, the manager of a restaurant where they sometimes ate. She had cried at the funeral, at the time Johanna hadn’t thought anything of it, but now she was suspicious. Many of Manfred’s woman clients had gone to the funeral.