Читать книгу The Reunion - Литагент HarperCollins USD - Страница 15

I’ve forgotten a lot about my time at high school. When I read back through my diaries or listen to Robin’s stories, I come across completely unknown events, as if another person was living then in my place. And yet a recollection can suddenly knife its way through my mind, a spark that lights up the grey matter of my memory for an instant. I don’t understand how memory works. I don’t understand why it lets you down in one instance, then confronts you with something you’d rather forget.

The flashback I get when Olaf mentions Isabel’s name isn’t pleasant. I see myself standing in the school canteen, looking for somewhere to sit and eat my sandwiches. My classmates have settled not far away. Isabel is sitting on the edge of the table and leading the conversation. I’m twelve and until recently I was part of this group. I take a chair and walk towards them. They don’t look up but I see the exchange of glances, as if they were surrounded by a magnetic field which launched an alarm signal as soon as I broached it.

I go to put my chair down with the others, but there’s a scrape of dragged chair legs and the circle closes. I sit down at an empty table right by them and watch the minutes tick by on the clock until lunch is over. One time my eyes meet Isabel’s. She doesn’t look away; it is as if she is looking right through me.

‘Wasn’t she your friend?’ Olaf sips his beer.

‘Isabel? At primary school she was.’ I inhale deeply on my cigarette.

‘They still don’t know what happened to her, do they?’ Olaf says. It’s a statement, not a question, but I still answer.

‘No. Her disappearance was just recently on Missing.’

‘What do you think happened to her?’ Olaf asks. ‘Didn’t she have some kind of illness?’

‘Epilepsy.’ Images from the past come flooding out. I try to stop them, to break away, but Olaf carries on.

‘Yes, epilepsy, that was it. Could she have had an attack?’

‘I don’t think so. An attack doesn’t last long. You feel it coming on and when it’s over, you need a while to come round. If it is a light attack, at least. I know all about it, I was so often with her when she had one.’

‘So you don’t think the epilepsy had anything to do with her disappearance?’

I signal to the waiter for another glass of beer and shake my head. I really don’t think so and never have done.

‘I can barely remember anything from those days around Isabel’s disappearance,’ I tell him. ‘It’s weird, isn’t it? I mean, you’d think I would remember the first time I heard she didn’t come home. Her parents came around to talk to me the following day, hoping that I might be able to tell them something. It got a lot of attention, at school and in the media, but I only know about it through hearsay.’

Olaf looks sceptical. ‘You must remember something.’

‘No.’

‘The entire school was talking about it!’

‘Yes, but I really don’t remember much more. I always feel so wretched when I think back to that time. Now, I get the feeling that I’ve forgotten things. Important things. I think I knew more then than I’m conscious of now, but it’s all gone, lost.’

Olaf sprinkles icing sugar over his pancakes.

‘Is that why you wanted to go to Den Helder?’

‘I was hoping that it would all become clearer if I was there, but it didn’t work. It is too long ago.’

Olaf stuffs five mini-pancakes into his mouth at the same time. ‘Perhaps you were in shock and got through those early days in a kind of daze. I can understand that. Isabel used to be your best friend. It must have had an effect on you.’

I stab my fork into a clammy, cold pancake.

‘Last year, just after I’d gone on sick leave, I asked my mother how I’d reacted to Isabel’s disappearance,’ I say. ‘She couldn’t tell me much. When Isabel went missing, my father had just had another heart attack and was in hospital, so she had other things on her mind.’

Olaf’s light blue eyes look at me.

‘My mother thought that Isabel had run away from home at first,’ I continue. ‘She’d often had older boyfriends, even some in Amsterdam. God knows where she found them. Who knows, perhaps she did run away.’

‘Do you really believe that?’

I think about it and shake my head. ‘Why would she? Her parents gave her an enormous amount of freedom. Sometimes even a bit too much, my parents thought. They never said anything but I think they were relieved when Isabel and I didn’t get on so well anymore. Isabel could go out as late as she liked, with whoever she wanted. Her parents didn’t go on at her about her homework. They’d let her go out with a vague group of friends to Amsterdam. That kind of thing. It didn’t surprise my mother that something happened to Isabel, of all people. She’s always believed that something happened to her in Amsterdam.’

‘That’s not likely,’ Olaf says. ‘She disappeared during the day, after school.’

I look up, surprised that he’s so familiar with the facts.

‘Yes, that’s right. I was riding home behind her. She was with Miriam Visser and when Miriam turned off, Isabel went on alone. I was going the same way, but I rode really slowly because I didn’t want to draw attention to myself and then I took a side street to avoid her. I rode back through the dunes, but it wasn’t as nice as I’d thought it would be. I was completely out of breath when I got home. It’s funny, the kind of thing you remember. But I’ve no idea what I did for the rest of day. I might have gone to the library or something. Or done my homework.’

‘But the next day? Or after that, when it was clear that Isabel really was missing? It was the biggest topic of conversation at school!’

‘It is as if there’s a hole in my memory. Now and then a bit of it fills in, but then I lose it again.’

‘Hmm.’ Olaf leans back and lights up another cigarette. He offers me another one too but I shake my head.

There is a long silence. I drink my beer in large gulps. I’m not used to silences, I don’t know how to react to them, even though there’s nothing uncomfortable about Olaf’s silence. He’s not waiting for an explanation, expects no further emotional outpouring and I don’t make the mistake of babbling inanely. He doesn’t say anything and neither do I.

So we just sit there while he smokes his cigarette and I finally cadge another. Smoking a cigarette at the right moment can make you look like you’ve got purpose.

‘Did you know Isabel well?’ I let my ash fall into the ashtray.

‘Not really. I used to see her walking around at school and I spoke to her occasionally. Robin told me that you used to be friends. But that was before I came to your house, I think, because I didn’t ever see her round yours.’

‘Our friendship was over by then,’ I say.

Olaf’s gaze rests on me. He doesn’t say anything, just looks me straight in the eye—always a good way of unnerving someone and keeping them talking.

‘The last years of primary school were really great. The first years of secondary were a shock, but later on it was good.’ I’m rambling. ‘I’d really changed then. I was relaxed, didn’t let anyone bully me anymore. I was a completely different Sabine, the other me. You wouldn’t think so would you? You never knew me like that. You know, sometimes I have the feeling that I’m several different people, all with different personalities that take over without me having any say in the matter.’

What am I saying? I tap my cigarette against the side of the ashtray and let out a forced laugh. ‘I sound like a schizophrenic, don’t I?’

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Olaf says. ‘I recognise that myself. Aren’t we all made up of different personalities? For each situation you put on a different face, a different manner, a different way of talking. You’re constantly adapting. At work I show a whole different Olaf.’

It’s quiet again. The waiter comes to collect our plates. He doesn’t ask whether we’ve enjoyed the food but looks at us questioningly.

‘Two coffees, please,’ Olaf says.

The waiter nods and walks away.

‘And it was delicious, thank you,’ Olaf adds.

The waiter doesn’t react and Olaf rolls his eyes. ‘He’s thinking, it’s only pancakes, man.’

‘Which is why they should be delicious.’

‘Exactly.’

We wait for the coffee and finish smoking our cigarettes. It is difficult to suddenly change to a new, lighter topic of conversation.

‘What do you actually remember from the day of Isabel’s disappearance?’ I ask.

‘Not that much,’ he says, ‘apart from that I had a maths exam. It was boiling in that sports hall. Luckily the exam was easy. Maths was my best subject, so I finished quickly. I didn’t wait for Robin but got on my moped and went home. That’s all. Later that evening he called me to ask if I’d seen Isabel at all.’

‘Robin called you? Why?’

‘Isabel’s mother had probably just called you.’

‘But why would you have known where she was?’

‘No idea. Robin knew that I knew her too. Isabel used to go out with…what’s he called again? That bloke in my class, the one with the denim jacket and black hair. Bart! Yes, Bart de Ruijter. I told him he should call Bart.’

I’m shocked, but I try not to let anything other than interest show on my face. ‘And did he?’ I ask.

‘He gave Bart’s telephone number to Isabel’s mother but Bart had been sweating away at that maths exam all afternoon, he hadn’t seen Isabel at all. He was interviewed by the police later though.’

The waiter sets down two tiny cups of coffee in front of us.

‘Espresso,’ I say in disgust.

‘Don’t you like it?’

‘No. Here, take mine.’ I push my cup towards Olaf.

‘What would you like? A milky coffee?’

‘No, don’t worry. I don’t really feel like coffee. Do you think they’ve got anything stronger here?’

Olaf laughs. ‘There are tonnes of pubs around here. We’ll go soon, okay.’

The blue of the sky takes on a darker tone. The neon lighting feels almost aggressive. I light a cigarette and watch Olaf drink his coffee. He stares into space.

‘Robin was really mad about her,’ he says after a while.

I look up with a start. ‘What, Robin? In love with Isabel? No!’

Olaf looks at me in astonishment. ‘But you knew that, didn’t you?’

‘No, and I don’t believe a word of it. Robin and Isabel? That’s ridiculous!’

‘Why? She was good-looking. If you’d said she was eighteen, I would have believed it. I didn’t realise that she was so young until Robin told me that she was in your class. But I know for sure that he had his eye on her, even if he didn’t do anything about it. No one could understand it because she made such a play for him.’

‘Didn’t he do anything about it?’ I ask, moved.

‘No,’ Olaf’s eyes are soft. ‘No, he didn’t do anything about it, but I could see that it was a real struggle for him. He was attracted to her and she knew it. If she liked someone, she had to have them, even if it was only very briefly.’

I remain paralysed in the red bucket seat. Robin was in love with Isabel. He was in love. With Isabel!

‘He hated her,’ I say. ‘He told me so himself.’

Olaf empties his cup.

‘Yes,’ he agrees. ‘He hated her too. Love and hate are quite close to each other. Why does it affect you so much?’

I look at him with dull eyes. ‘You know why.’

Olaf leans forwards and lays his hand on top of mine. ‘Yes,’ he acknowledges, and after a short silence adds, ‘Was it that bad for you?’

I look away, at a tram ringing its bell at a cyclist.

‘Yes,’ I hear myself say. ‘Until Robin got involved. But before that it was really bad.’

The relaxed feeling seeps away and the familiar pains in my shoulders and stomach return. My hand shakes as I put out my cigarette.

Olaf notices. His eyes meet mine, but he doesn’t speak. I’m grateful to him for that.