The African Equation (3 page)

About midday, alerted by Emma, Hans Makkenroth came to see me. He was deeply shocked by what had happened. ‘What a tragedy!’ he said, putting his arms around me.

We sat at the table in the kitchen and listened to the rain drumming on the window pane. Without saying a word. Without moving.

After a while, Emma arrived. She was appropriately dressed in a black tailored suit. It was clear from her red eyes that she had been crying. She was kind enough not to overburden me with her condolences, which might have proved awkward. Instead, she busied herself fetching us something to drink.

By the time night fell, the three of us were so lost in our own thoughts that it hadn’t occurred to any of us to switch the light on in the room. We hadn’t eaten anything all day, and our glasses were still full. I told Emma she should go home.

‘My children are with my mother,’ she said. ‘I can stay.’

‘It really isn’t necessary.’

‘Are you sure you don’t need me?’

‘I’ll be all right, Emma.’

Before leaving, she reminded me that I had her mobile number and that I could call her whenever I liked. I promised her I would.

Then I turned to Hans.

‘I’m not leaving you alone,’ he hastened to announce in a commanding tone.

He called Toni and ordered dinner for us.

It was drizzling in the cemetery, and the greyness made the place all the more melancholy. The ceremony took place on a square of lawn demarcated by stony paths. The friends who had come to see Jessica to her last resting place huddled together beside the brown grave, some carrying umbrellas, others in raincoats. Jessica’s father, Wolfgang Brodersen, stared intently at the coffin in which his daughter lay. He had arrived that morning from Berlin and had preferred to get in touch with the undertakers rather than contact me. From the way he was keeping his distance and saying nothing, I realised that he was angry with me. We had never been especially friendly. A former soldier, trained to be stoic, he spoke little and kept his opinions to himself. He had hesitated for a long
time before consenting to Jessica marrying me, and hadn’t stayed long at our wedding. I couldn’t remember seeing him at the reception. A widower, solitary and stubborn, he avoided weddings and parties at all costs. On the rare occasions when Jessica and I had been in Berlin, he had given the impression that we were in his way. I had no idea why he was so hostile to me. Maybe that was how military men were: forced to live far from home, they developed a hard shell that made them resistant to the joys of family life. Or maybe, having no one else since his wife’s death, he had felt possessive towards Jessica and hadn’t looked kindly on the idea of someone taking his only remaining relative from him. I admit I hadn’t blamed him or looked for excuses. Not that it would have changed much in our relationship. It was a pity, that was all. He loved Jessica. Although he hated showing his feelings, I just had to see him looking at his daughter to know how much he loved her. And Jessica loved him. In spite of her father’s excessive reserve, she had no qualms about running to him and flinging her arms around him every time she saw him. He would stand there for a moment, his arms rigid at his sides, in the grip of an inner struggle, before returning her embrace.

Among the friends present at the funeral was Hans Makkenroth. From time to time, he would give me a sign of his support. Behind him, Emma shivered under her umbrella, the tip of her nose red with cold. Beside her, Toni was almost invisible behind the collar of his coat. To his right, Claudia Reinhardt, a colleague of Jessica’s, kept wiping her tear-stained eyes with a tissue. She had been great friends with my wife and spent more time at our house than with her family. Claudia was a lively, funny
girl. It was she who had urged Jessica to join a gym, and they had gone to aerobics classes together. She gave me a sad little smile, to which I responded with a slight nod, then plunged her nose back in her tissue and didn’t look up again.

After the ceremony, people dispersed. Doors started slamming, and one after the other, the cars left the cemetery. I was aware only of the crunching of tyres on the gravel. When silence had returned, Hans Makkenroth came to me and said in a low voice, ‘It’s over, Kurt. Let’s go.’

‘What’s over?’ I said.

‘What started one day.’

‘Do you think it’s as simple as that?’

‘Nothing’s simple in life, Kurt, but we have to make do.’

I threw a last glance at the grave. ‘You may be right, Hans, but that doesn’t tell us how to make do.’

‘Time will take care of that.’

‘I don’t believe you …’

Hans raised his hands in surrender. The fact was, he had no answer for that, and realised that saying the wrong thing would only make things worse. He was sorry he hadn’t found the words to comfort me, and was angry at himself for not keeping quiet.

Emma, Claudia and a few of my neighbours had come back to the house. Much to my surprise, my father-in-law, Wolfgang Brodersen, was there too, sitting slumped on a chair near the balcony. I had been thinking he had already left for Berlin. He stood up, put his glass down on a chest of drawers and waited for me to approach him before he opened the French window and suggested I follow him
onto the balcony. He began by looking up at the coppery sky, as if trying to get his thoughts into some kind of order, then turned his piercing eyes on me and let me have it: ‘How could you have allowed her to get into such a state of despair?’

‘I can assure you I didn’t see it coming.’

‘Precisely,’ he said, ‘precisely … You should have been paying attention. If your mind hadn’t been elsewhere, you might have been able to avoid this tragedy. There are signs we can’t ignore. People don’t kill themselves on a whim. Jessica was a strong character. She wouldn’t have given in to some stupid little problem. She was my daughter. I knew her better than anyone. She was a fighter, she always got back on her feet … What could have driven her to such an absurd, violent end?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘That’s not the answer I expected from a husband. You were the person who was closest to her. She must have given you some kind of warning. Of course, she wasn’t the kind of girl who would panic over just anything, but she was intelligent enough to confide in her husband. If you didn’t see it coming, it was because Jessica was suffering in silence. You had your mind on other things, I assume, and that’s what led her to such a monstrous act.’

‘How can you possibly know that?’ I said, outraged at his insinuations.

‘I was married too. My wife didn’t need to draw me a picture.’

‘That’s enough!’ I interrupted. ‘Jessica was my wife and I loved her more than anything in the world. I understand your grief, I feel it just as much as you do. I don’t know
what Jessica was hiding from me. I don’t know what was wrong with her. Not a minute goes by when I don’t ask myself why she did what she did.’

Wolfgang looked at me in silence. On the balcony, his breathing replaced the murmur of the rain. He unclenched his fist and stood there facing me, his eyes fixed on mine. ‘May I ask you an indiscreet question?’

‘You might as well. Go ahead.’

‘Will you answer me honestly, man to man?’

‘I have no reason to lie to you.’

He took a deep breath. ‘Were you cheating on Jessica?’

The bluntness of his question came like a slap in the face. But what broke my heart was the tone in which he voiced his suspicions: it was thick with such suffering, such helplessness, such fear that I felt sorry for him. The Wolfgang I had known, the rock-solid ex-soldier, was crumbling before my very eyes, right there on the balcony, which had suddenly taken on the dimensions of a battlefield. I was certain that if I’d touched him with my finger it would have gone right through him.

I waited for him to recover a little of his composure and said, ‘No … I wasn’t cheating on Jessica. I had no reason to look elsewhere for what I had within reach.’

His eyes grew moist. He leant on the rail and struggled to hold back his tears. He took a deep breath, nodded and said in a hoarse voice, ‘Thank you.’

He went back into the living room and out through the hallway. From the balcony, I saw him leave the house and walk back along the street, heedless of the rain. He was dragging his feet, as if weighed down with a heavy burden. It was the first time I had seen him defeated: in spite of his age – seventy-five – he had always made it a
point of honour to stand erect, and to give the impression in all circumstances that he could withstand any tragedy, any hurricane.

My neighbours and colleagues started to take their leave. Someone whispered, ‘I’m with you all the way, doctor.’ It was kind of him, but I didn’t believe it. What did he know of my solitude? My grief was too personal to be shared; it made me insensitive to all such expressions of sympathy, all those customary phrases and actions that bear no relation to the situation at hand. Grief is a parallel universe, a horrible world where the sweetest words, the noblest gestures seem absurd, inappropriate, clumsy, stupid. I was irritated by those sympathetic little taps on the shoulder which reverberated inside me like hammer blows.
I’m with you all the way, doctor
… For how long? Once my guests were gone, my house would close over me like a fist; I would hold out my hand, searching for support, for a shoulder to lean on, and find nothing but empty air.

Evening arrived. In the darkening living room, only Hans, Emma, Claudia and I remained. The two women finished collecting the glasses and paper plates left scattered by the guests. They tidied the living room, put away the dishes and took out the bins, while I walked from room to room without knowing why. Wolfgang’s words throbbed in my temples …
Were you cheating on Jessica?
…
Were you cheating on Jessica?
… Now that Jessica was gone, would our paths ever cross again? Would we end up making peace? Were we actually at war? I had the feeling I’d failed in my duty as a son-in-law, that I’d missed an
opportunity for a possible reconciliation with Wolfgang … I tried to get a grip. What was I inflicting on myself now? Why add an illusory guilt to my widower’s grief? Even if I had fallen short in my behaviour towards Wolfgang, there were surely more important things to worry about while I was in mourning.

I went back on the balcony. I needed fresh air. The cold lashed my face. I leant over the rail and gazed at the streams of water in the gutters. Every now and again, a car passed. Watching it move away, I had the impression it was taking a little of my soul with it.

Claudia joined me, a glass in her hand. ‘Drink this,’ she said. ‘It’ll buck you up.’

I took the glass and lifted it to my lips. The first sip felt like a trail of lava, the second shook me from head to toe.

‘You should eat something,’ Claudia said. ‘You haven’t touched a thing since we got back from the cemetery. I’m amazed you’re still standing.’

‘I’m walking on my head.’

‘I can imagine.’

‘Can you?’

She placed her hand on mine, a gesture that made me feel ill at ease. ‘I’m really sorry, Kurt. I haven’t had a wink of sleep in the last few nights.’

‘I’m only just starting to wake up. And I don’t understand what I see around me.’

She strengthened her grip on my fingers. ‘You know you can count on me, Kurt.’

‘I don’t doubt that. Thank you. You were great with the guests.’

‘It’s the least I could do.’ She took her hand away, leant back against the rail, and sighed. ‘You think you’re
prepared for anything, and when it happens, you realise how wrong you were.’

‘That’s life.’

‘I still can’t believe that Jessica could have done something like that. Over a promotion … Just imagine! Over a job … A job she would have got one day anyway.’

An electric shock couldn’t have given me a greater jolt … Promotion? … Job? … What was she talking about? Claudia’s choked voice immediately sobered me up.

‘What job? What’s all this about a promotion?’

Claudia looked at me in astonishment. ‘Didn’t she tell you?’

‘Tell me what?’

‘Oh, my God, I thought you knew.’

‘Please just tell me.’

Claudia was completely thrown. She knew she had gone too far to pull back. She looked around in panic, as if searching for support. I wouldn’t let her avoid my gaze; I needed an explanation. I grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her angrily. I knew I was hurting her, but I wouldn’t let go.

‘For heaven’s sake, tell me.’

She said, in a tone that seemed to emanate from somewhere deep inside, ‘The board of directors had promised her she’d be put in charge of external relations. Jessica had been working towards the position for two years. She wanted it more than anything. And she really deserved it. Our CEO even name-checked her during an EGM. Jessica was the kingpin of the company. She went well beyond the call of duty. She was the one who’d negotiated the biggest contracts in the last few years, with
great success. All our colleagues agreed on how efficient she was … I thought you knew all about this.’

‘Please go on.’

‘Three months ago, our marketing director, Franz Hölter, also started campaigning to be head of external relations. He’s a careerist, ambitious, willing to go to any lengths to leapfrog his way to the front. He knew Jessica had a head start on him, and he did everything he could to catch up with her. He even torpedoed a couple of projects to discredit her. It was like a war to the death. At first, Jessica had no problem handling the competition. She knew her subject. But Franz had managed to win over the CEO and was starting to gain ground.’

‘So that’s why Jessica wasn’t herself these last few weeks?’

‘That’s right. She was very worried. Franz did whatever he wanted. A real shark operating in dirty waters. He put every obstacle he could in her way. It’s no surprise Jessica ended up cracking under the strain. Her final negotiation, with a Chinese group, broke down because of a file that had supposedly disappeared. The board were furious. And Jessica realised she had made a fatal mistake. A week ago, the verdict was delivered, and Franz was appointed to the position she’d wanted so much. When I went to comfort Jessica, I found her sitting crushed in her office. The blood had completely drained from her face. She told me to leave her alone and went out to get some air. It was about nine in the morning. She didn’t come back. I tried to reach her on her mobile, but all I got was her answering machine … My God! … It’s so unfair.’