You Disappear by Christian Jungersen

Author:Christian Jungersen [Jungersen, Christian]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-385-53726-1
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2014-01-06T16:00:00+00:00

18

Soon we won’t be living here anymore. I look at my white house. The black-stained timbers, the light shadows on the wall where I scrubbed away the graffiti. I take it in as if I’m not looking at a real house, just paging through an old photo album.

Someday, years from now, I’ll point to this page and say, We used to live here.

It looks so charming, so homey, a future acquaintance will say, sitting beside me on the cheap ugly couch I’ll have then.

Yes. We were happy living there.

And then a stillness will descend between us. She won’t say, That must have been before it all went south—and really, what else could she say? And I won’t say, That was when I kissed another man. What else would there be for me to say?

The house back then, the photo poster you can faintly make out through Niklas’s window, the wicker enclosure I built around the garbage cans with my own hands.

I continue to leaf through the album as I walk down the flagstones to the front door. Yes; we were happy living here.

Before I pass the FOR SALE sign, I wipe my lips off on my sleeve one more time. Bernard also wanted to, didn’t he? Should I call him, text him? Have I done something awful? Have I wrecked the good working relationship we have with our lawyer?

In the living room, Eurosport is on with the sound turned down. I switch it off. On the floor lie three books, two of them open. I leave them lying there but pick up the plate with the jam sandwich, one-fourth eaten.

I place it in the kitchen, where I find another plate with bread and jam, this one half eaten. I yell up to Frederik, who’s in his workshop, no doubt. “I’m home now! It was a lovely apartment—just the thing for us!”

He doesn’t answer.

Our folding clotheshorse is also in the kitchen. For once, Frederik’s remembered to hang up the clothes that don’t get tumble-dried, just like I’ve asked him to.

“It’s great that you’ve hung up the laundry!” I shout. “I really appreciate it!”

Back in the living room, I see some circulars spread out on the dinner table. A plate protrudes from the top bookshelf, and when I take it down I discover a jam sandwich that looks like it’s been there a couple of days without me spotting it.

Then I notice that one of the papers on the table is damp. I lift it up and see my cream-colored Odd Molly blouse lying beneath it. Frederik must have gotten distracted when he was about to hang it up. I walk back into the kitchen and hang it on the clotheshorse. Some of the printing ink has rubbed off on it, so it’ll have to be washed again. Perhaps it can still be salvaged.

“Niklas?” I call out.

There’s no answer.

Upstairs, I knock on his door. I look inside, but he’s out. Of course.

So I go into Frederik’s workshop, but he’s gone too. On the floor is a rolled-up poster that used to lie in my closet.

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