The Ditch by Herman Koch

Author:Herman Koch
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crown/Archetype
Published: 2019-06-10T16:00:00+00:00

18

All signs indicated that the female journalist across from me in my office was about to ask one final question, when there was a knock at the door and my secretary stuck her head inside.

“We’re almost finished,” I said.

Mrs. Schreuder and I always agreed beforehand that, one hour after an interview started, she would knock on my door to say that I was expected at the next meeting or at the opening of a new bridge. But my sense of time told me that that hour wasn’t over yet. It was a tough call, though; to my taste, all interviews last too long anyway. I always tried to outwit time by not looking at my watch, and my secretary always popped in to rescue me earlier than I’d expected.

“It’s your father,” she said, glancing at the journalist.

“Tell him I’ll call him right back.”

Mrs. Schreuder raised a hand to her mouth, cleared her throat, and looked at the journalist again. “He’s not on the phone. He’s…he’s here. He’s waiting outside, at the reception desk.”

This was something new. This had never happened before. In all my years as mayor, he had never shown up unannounced at city hall.

“Just tell him that I’ll be…” But I didn’t finish my sentence. Something, a premonition that felt as though my heart had sagged a few inches, made me get up out of my chair.

For the space of half a second, I thought about asking the journalist whether she would mind waiting in the hall, so I could talk to my father in here—but that was not a good idea. Maybe she would want to include it as an “atmospheric detail” in the interview. Maybe it would annoy her. A hint of that annoyance would seep into the article.

“Do you have a moment?” I said, smiling at the journalist. “I’m sure this won’t take long.”

She didn’t smile back at me: she glanced at her iPhone, which she was using to record our conversation, and tapped the screen with her thumb. “I was actually more or less finished,” she said. “There’s just one little thing…No, go ahead. I’ll wait.”

My father was standing beside my secretary’s office, his hands in his pockets, in front of the king’s portrait in the hall. That portrait was originally meant for my office, but I couldn’t stand the thought of seeing that face first thing each morning. I knew what would happen then. In the course of time, maybe after only a couple of weeks, I would grow accustomed to that face, and I wanted to avoid this at all costs. In our former home we’d had a bathroom from the 1970s, brown tiles with a floral motif. That’s the first thing we’ll rip out, we told each other during the viewing. But it didn’t happen. We kept postponing it. Renovating a bathroom is different from painting over floral wallpaper. You can’t shower there for a few weeks, you actually have to look for a place to stay temporarily, or else you have to let the builders come in while you’re on vacation.

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