Read Online The Reader by Bernhard Schlink - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Bernhard Schlink
Tags: Fiction
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had we never met each other by accident, what should I do? Then I stood up. And in that briefest of moments in which I took my eyes off her, she was gone.
Hanna in shorts, with the tails of her blouse knotted, her face turned towards me but with an expression I cannot read at all—that is another picture I have of her.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
N EXT DAY she was gone. I came at the usual time and rang the bell. I looked through the door, everything looked the way it always did, I could hear the clock ticking.
I sat down on the stairs once again. During our first few months, I had always known what line she was working on, even though I had never repeated my attempt to accompany her or even pick her up afterwards. At some point I had stopped asking, stopped even wondering. It hadn’t even occurred to me until now.
I used the telephone booth at the Wilhelmsplatz to call the streetcar company, was transferred from one person to the next, and finally was told that Hanna Schmitz had not come to work. I went back to Bahnhofstrasse, asked at the carpenter’s shop in the yard for the name of the owner of the building, and got a name and address in Kirchheim. I rode over there.
“Frau Schmitz? She moved out this morning.”
“And her furniture?”
“It’s not her furniture.”
“How long did she live in the apartment?”
“What’s it to you?” The woman who had been talking to me through a window in the door slammed it shut.
In the administration building of the streetcar company, I talked my way through to the personnel department. The man in charge was friendly and concerned.
“She called this morning early enough for us to arrange for a substitute, and said that she wouldn’t be coming back, period.” He shook his head. “Two weeks ago she was sitting there in your chair and I offered to have her trained as a driver, and she throws it all away.”
It took me some days to think of going to the citizens’ registration office. She had informed them she was moving to Hamburg, but without giving an address.
The days went by and I felt sick. I took pains to make sure my parents and my brothers and sisters noticed nothing. I joined in the conversation at table a little, ate a little, and when I had to throw up, I managed to make it to the toilet. I went to school and to the swimming pool. I spent my afternoons there in an out-of-the-way place where no one would look for me. My body yearned for Hanna. But even worse than my physical desire was my sense of guilt. Why hadn’t I jumped up immediately when she stood there and run to her! This one moment summed up all my halfheartedness of the past months, which had produced my denial of her, and my betrayal. Leaving was her punishment.
Sometimes I tried to tell myself that it wasn’t her I had seen. How could I be sure it was her when I hadn’t been able to make out the face? If it had been her, wouldn’t I have had to recognize her face? So couldn’t I be sure it wasn’t her at all?
But I knew it was her. She stood and looked—and it was too late.
PART TWO
CHAPTER ONE
A FTER HANNA left the city, it took a while before I stopped watching for her everywhere, before I got used to the fact that afternoons had lost their shape, and before I could look at books and open them without asking myself whether they were suitable for reading aloud. It took a while before my body stopped yearning for hers; sometimes I myself was aware of my arms and legs groping for her in my sleep, and my brother reported more than once at table that I had called out “Hanna” in the night. I can also remember classes at school when I did nothing but dream of her, think of her. The feeling of guilt that had tortured me in the first weeks gradually faded. I avoided her building, took other routes, and six months later my family moved to another part of town. It wasn’t that I for got Hanna. But at a certain point the memory of her stopped accompanying me wherever I went. She stayed
Hanna in shorts, with the tails of her blouse knotted, her face turned towards me but with an expression I cannot read at all—that is another picture I have of her.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
N EXT DAY she was gone. I came at the usual time and rang the bell. I looked through the door, everything looked the way it always did, I could hear the clock ticking.
I sat down on the stairs once again. During our first few months, I had always known what line she was working on, even though I had never repeated my attempt to accompany her or even pick her up afterwards. At some point I had stopped asking, stopped even wondering. It hadn’t even occurred to me until now.
I used the telephone booth at the Wilhelmsplatz to call the streetcar company, was transferred from one person to the next, and finally was told that Hanna Schmitz had not come to work. I went back to Bahnhofstrasse, asked at the carpenter’s shop in the yard for the name of the owner of the building, and got a name and address in Kirchheim. I rode over there.
“Frau Schmitz? She moved out this morning.”
“And her furniture?”
“It’s not her furniture.”
“How long did she live in the apartment?”
“What’s it to you?” The woman who had been talking to me through a window in the door slammed it shut.
In the administration building of the streetcar company, I talked my way through to the personnel department. The man in charge was friendly and concerned.
“She called this morning early enough for us to arrange for a substitute, and said that she wouldn’t be coming back, period.” He shook his head. “Two weeks ago she was sitting there in your chair and I offered to have her trained as a driver, and she throws it all away.”
It took me some days to think of going to the citizens’ registration office. She had informed them she was moving to Hamburg, but without giving an address.
The days went by and I felt sick. I took pains to make sure my parents and my brothers and sisters noticed nothing. I joined in the conversation at table a little, ate a little, and when I had to throw up, I managed to make it to the toilet. I went to school and to the swimming pool. I spent my afternoons there in an out-of-the-way place where no one would look for me. My body yearned for Hanna. But even worse than my physical desire was my sense of guilt. Why hadn’t I jumped up immediately when she stood there and run to her! This one moment summed up all my halfheartedness of the past months, which had produced my denial of her, and my betrayal. Leaving was her punishment.
Sometimes I tried to tell myself that it wasn’t her I had seen. How could I be sure it was her when I hadn’t been able to make out the face? If it had been her, wouldn’t I have had to recognize her face? So couldn’t I be sure it wasn’t her at all?
But I knew it was her. She stood and looked—and it was too late.
PART TWO
CHAPTER ONE
A FTER HANNA left the city, it took a while before I stopped watching for her everywhere, before I got used to the fact that afternoons had lost their shape, and before I could look at books and open them without asking myself whether they were suitable for reading aloud. It took a while before my body stopped yearning for hers; sometimes I myself was aware of my arms and legs groping for her in my sleep, and my brother reported more than once at table that I had called out “Hanna” in the night. I can also remember classes at school when I did nothing but dream of her, think of her. The feeling of guilt that had tortured me in the first weeks gradually faded. I avoided her building, took other routes, and six months later my family moved to another part of town. It wasn’t that I for got Hanna. But at a certain point the memory of her stopped accompanying me wherever I went. She stayed
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