Read Online The Lie by Petra Hammesfahr - Free Book Online

external appearance: a good hairdresser to give Susanne’s mop a professionally casual look and a dye that wouldn’t wash out; a top-class beautician to teach her the tricks Nadia could do in her sleep; Nadia’s perfume, plus deodorant and body lotion; a jeweller to pierce her ears; then a few sessions in a
solarium to give her a seamless tan. Naturally Nadia would bear all the costs.
    It went without saying that they’d have to spend a few hours together to enable her to copy Nadia’s gestures and vocabulary, to learn a few standard phrases, with which to counter Michael’s remarks, and to absorb a few patterns of behaviour. Two or three weeks of intensive training ought to be sufficient to enable her to pull the wool over the eyes of a man who had known Nadia for ten years and been married to her for seven, as long as she didn’t let him get too close.
    â€œBut I’ll see to that,” Nadia promised. “I’ll see to it that the atmosphere is decidedly cool before you go on stage. Then Michael’ll make sure he keeps out of your way. Nothing can go wrong. Come on, say yes.”
    Something inside her had switched off minutes ago. Nadia’s explanations washed over her like long-awaited rainfall in the desert. At least five hundred euros a month! It wasn’t a dream come true and it certainly wasn’t what she really needed, but as long as Nadia’s affair lasted she wouldn’t have to dip into her mother’s account. With a thousand she’d even be able to start paying back, if she continued to keep her expenses to a minimum. And perhaps Nadia would be able to help her find a job. Once she looked the part. She nodded hesitantly.
    Nadia registered her agreement with an exhalation of relief and went on with her explanations. The way it would go would be that they’d meet in the city on a Friday afternoon, she would take Nadia’s car and - Susanne had another fit of coughing, after which she wheezed, “I’ll probably need a few driving lessons before I can handle a Porsche…”
    Nadia broke in with an amused laugh. The Porsche wasn’t hers, she only used it for business. That was why she’d had to go, to take it back and get her own car which, at the moment, was parked a couple of streets away. Its engine couldn’t quite match the Porsche’s, it was only an Alfa Spider. It sounded as if she felt she had to apologize for it. “But of course you can have a few driving lessons,” Nadia said, “that’s no problem.”
    Nadia spent the last thirty minutes showing her the photos she’d seen outside the door to the surgery but not paid any attention to. The Polaroids had presumably only been taken to show to her once she’d accepted. To help her they had descriptions written on the back. Nadia had put a note on the back of the other photos as well.

    The revelation of Nadia’s home surroundings reminded Susanne of a school excursion to a castle where they’d slid round the parquet floor in felt slippers, admiring carpets, the names of which no one could pronounce. Nadia explained various details, regretting that she couldn’t show her round the house personally. “Too much of a risk, because of the neighbours.”
    She also showed her photos of the neighbours, taken at some social gathering. Joachim, Jo for short, and Lilo Kogler, both in their fifties, pleasant and easy-going, but with an unfortunate tendency to organize parties at short notice.
    â€œThe idea usually occurs to Lilo in the morning,” Nadia said. “Then she orders a buffet and rings round for a few people. Mostly it’s impossible to get out of going. And Jo’s a genius, there’s nothing he doesn’t know about. He has two or three patents currently under consideration, technology and electronics. The things he’s done with my house, fantastic, I tell you, it’s absolutely secure. You’ll