Read Online Tonio by Jonathan Reeder - Free Book Online Page A

with Tonio for nearly twenty years, the last sixteen of them in this house. Perfectly normal that now, two years after his final exams, he would leave the parental nest in order to live on his own. So normal that the drama of it all — for a drama it was — more or less escaped me.
    It was during those two-plus years he lived in De Baarsjes that my life, I imagined, became busier than ever. A new book came out, and I started accepting speaking engagements again. And on top of that: a weekly column, the guest teaching, an essay assignment … not to mention the work already on my plate. After his holiday in Ibiza, summer 2009, we fetched him from Schiphol by car, and dropped him off at his house on the Nepveustraat: the only time I saw it, and then only from the outside. We didn’t get asked in. He was clearly in a hurry to share his adventures with Jim — the British girls he’d mentioned in passing on the way back. He’d nearly been thrown out of the hotel for letting them stay overnight in his room without checking in.
    He left his bag of dirty laundry in the car. ‘I’ll come by on Sunday to pick it up.’
    Nor did I ever write to him at his new address. In the past, if I was working at Château St. Gerlach, I did send him the occasional pep note around exam time. If I was so bent on working with ‘old stuff’, rather than computers and email, why not write an old-fashioned letter, handwritten and delivered by post?
    My publisher asked me a while ago, perhaps not entirely selflessly, how many letters I thought I’d written in the past forty years. I came up with an estimate of ten thousand. Short and long, typed and handwritten, personal and business. During those two years that Tonio lived in De Baarsjes, the copies in my archive numbered a good four hundred — and not a single one of them to him.
    It needn’t be too late. If Tonio survived his accident and operation, I would write to him every day of his convalescence. At first, if his mind had to recuperate, simple letters that a nurse could read out loud to him. Gradually, more elaborate ones. And once he was back on his feet, I would never stop — even if he didn’t write back.
    4
    â€˜We’ve lost him, Adri,’ came the high, singsong voice beside me. ‘I just feel it.’
    When had I last seen and spoken to Tonio? Last week, twice in short succession — atypical since his move.
    On Wednesday, I worked until four. I went downstairs, hoping to catch some sun out on the veranda: after a chilly first half of the month, the weather had turned the previous day. The French doors leading from the library to the terrace were open. I recognised Miriam’s voice; she was talking to someone, but since the curtains, billowing in the breeze, were still closed, I couldn’t see to whom. I stepped out onto the veranda. There sat Tonio. More relaxed and self-assured than I was used to seeing him. When he noticed me, a mildly mocking grin spread across his face.
    â€˜So, up to your ten pages a day yet?’ he asked.
    After an overconfident glass some time ago, I expressed this as my target for my current novel. He asked it teasingly, but I thought I also heard in it something of the old polite interest.
    â€˜Five’s the minimum,’ I replied. ‘Six, seven is doable. Eight is a banner day. So cut me some slack.’
    He had been to visit grandpa Natan, his ninety-seven-year-old grandfather who lived on the Lomanstraat, and since he ‘was in the neighbourhood anyway’ he took a short detour to drop in on his parents. I suspected there was more to it than that.
    â€˜Grandpa Natan’s going to have a cataract operation,’ he said, suddenly serious.
    â€˜Oh?’ Miriam and I knew nothing about it.
    â€˜Yeah, crazy, actually … putting an old man through all that.’
    â€˜I’m about to take him over to Beth Shalom,’ Miriam said, glancing at