Martedi

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She's gone and there's a invisible weight on my chest, even though it haven't been more than a few minutes. She wanted to go buy groceries. Such a plain, mundane task. Nobody else would ever worry the same way I do.
Out of a habit I offered to come with her.
She said no, laughed, gave me a kiss and told me she wanted to cook for us today and it's going to be a surprise. I can't come.

And suddenly I realized that eventually, I'd have to let her go. I can't always be around her, to protect on every step that she'd make. Within the last weeks, we were always together, because of the sheer need to be, and because we wanted.

I'm out on the balcony and look down into the busy street. There's a small grocer on the other side of the street, only a hundred yards away.

Am I crazy, to sit her, watching her, like I watched Kim, twenty years ago, when I drove her to one of her dates? I stayed in the car. After a few yards of walking towards that house where she said the party would take place, she came back and angrily sent me away. Who wouldn't have. There's probably nothing more embarrassing to a teenager than dad sitting in the car, outside, making sure she'd be okay on the ten yards from the car to the front door.
I drove around the block and parked a hundred yards away, took out the night vision binoculars that were always in my CTU car and made it my mission for the evening.
Teri called me, angrily, an hour later, because she had expected me home much earlier. When I told her what I was doing, she started to laugh at me. You really think that's necessary, Jack?, I hear her say, and between the lines she added, unspoken, but at least you're finally participating in her life.
In the three months prior to that night, Kim had already been on four events like that one. My stomach cringed. Why hadn't Teri told me? The night vision binoculars showed me a white and green picture of a group of stupid 16 year old boys out on the terrace, each one with a beer. If they're anything like I was, back in these days, I wouldn't want Kim to be near them. She needed protection.
You can't protect her, Jack. Eventually she'll grow up and make her own mistakes.
Though I know now that Teri was right – she had always been right – I just got angry at her back then, for her permissive parenting style. While I thought I was finally doing at least something right for family, it only got me into one of the weirdest fights we ever had. You're never home… Don't show up every few months and then tell me how to manage everything… You have no idea what she is like, when you're gone…
I stormed out of the house, even before Kim was home again.
Teri called me, ten times, but I didn't pick up the phone.
Still thinking I was right, I went back to my mission outpost because I had no other place to go to and watched the place for another three hours, until on the green and white picture Teri's car showed up, picking up Kim again. They even drove into my direction. I hid behind the dashboard, hoping that they hadn't spotted the car. Well Kim, wouldn't, for sure. Should have a used another car… if this was an actual mission, I would have brought myself in grave danger, using a car that the target already knows. You can't drive away when they're already in visual range and you'd be the only other one on the street at 2 a.m.

I sit near the door to the balcony and try not to be visible. The balcony rail is old, a few cast-iron bars and ornaments only, you can easily see through.
Maybe I learned at least something, in the past twenty years. I wouldn't want Audrey to see me. Down there she is, the small spot down the road, the woman wearing sunglasses, her large straw hat and the yellow summer dress that she bought yesterday. Two more steps, then she disappears into the small grocer. I wished I had binoculars.

I'm not sure how she feels right now, alone on the streets, for the first time months. Probably even longer. In the three years before that, I'm sure she was never able to walk down a road without at least five Secret Service agents following her.
Does she feel free, finally? Was that the kind of freedom that she missed and talked about?

She needs to build back self-confidence. I don't know how long it took her, after her Chinese ordeal, to accomplish such mundane tasks as grocery shopping on her own again. Today she looked more than ready. She was a bit reluctant to ask me for money, but that had nothing to do with self-confidence.

She doesn't need me anymore.
It leaves me sad and happy at the same time.
There she is again, a bag in her hands. She looks happy, walking back.

At least now I can help her carry the groceries up to the fourth floor. Today, it seems, she hasn't really planned on exploring the city any further. She says she'll need at least two hours to prepare lunch, and judging from the other things that I briefly saw in the bag, she surely wants to spend a considerable amount of time in the bathroom, freshening up after so many months with no and weeks with only sparse opportunities to do so.

I offer her my help in the kitchen, but she throws me out, laughing. No way. Go find something else to do.

The apartment is built in an open, Italian style. It doesn't even have a kitchen door. I stay by the passage in the wall that leads to the hallway and from there, to the large living room.

Out. She says again, a smile on her face, pointing her finger at the place where I am, as if she was telling a dog to lie down.

I am out!, I defend myself, pulling my hands out of my pockets, pointing at the wall I'm leaning against.

Atta boy.

She's unpacking groceries. From over here, I have no idea what she'll be cooking. She opens some of the drawers. It looks like the kitchen of the apartment is stocked with basic supplies. Olive oil. Spices. Pots and everything you need. In one of the cupboards she finds a dark blue chef's apron that she shows me. There's only one, sorry…, she smiles.

Then I'll cook for you tomorrow.

She stops unpacking and comes closer. Really?, she teases me, something edible?

Yes. We talked about it, at the boat, often. She still remembered me being unable to do literally anything in the kitchen. I told you I improved. It was a necessary skill.

You'll get your try to shine, tomorrow, she laughs. Her kisses taste so wonderful. As she breaks away, I really want to follow her back inside. She knows how to tease me. Her eyes say get me, but I know she'd throw me right back out again if I made one step forward.

She loosens the button on her back, holding that yellow dress together. It slides off and exposes her naked back. But before she turns back around again, she puts on the chef's apron. It the only thing she's wearing now. You're still here?

You really know how to tease a man, Audrey.

I'm just looking.

She keeps unbagging the groceries and starts. Don't know how long I keep looking.

Go find something else to do, she says again. Must be half an hour later. I really better leave her alone. I wouldn't want her to stand by the door and watch me in the kitchen tomorrow. That'll make me nervous.

Find something else to do. Easier said than done. The large empty living room stares back at me the same way I stare at it. I've had enough long years in which I always did something else. Killing time. That's eventually how I learned to cook a decent meal. It was not just that I didn't have the money to eat out every day or to flee from the people. It was something that I did to kill time. Learning Serbian. Refreshing my German. The piano sits by the wall. No, that's one thing I'd never have used to kill time, no matter how boring or dull the days between the missions for Mehmet, Petrucci or Igor were.

There's a guitar mounted at the wall next to the piano. I take it and sit down at the couch. It's horribly out of tune. Seems like nobody played it in the past weeks. What people are usually here? Can't be the bottom feeders, for them, this apartment is way too expensive. For Petrucci himself, it looks a bit too decent. Is it a hideout or a safe house? Or is it one of the places he uses to meet women other than his wife?
I'll never know.
My mind draws pictures of all the options. It has become so damn good at painting all kinds of pictures, mostly attack plans or ways I could get myself killed if I didn't care for all the uncertainties. I neither know Petrucci's wife nor have I ever seen any other women around him. He's not the kind of drug dealer Ramon was. He lives a quiet life, it seems, that helps him maintain his cover.

Never heard you play before. Audrey is suddenly standing at the entrance to the living room.
She must have heard how I started to tune the guitar.

We never had a chance. She owned no guitar. Neither was there one in my apartment in DC. There wasn't even a guitar back in my former apartment in LA, those times. Last time I had owned one was when I still had the house, together with Teri. Last time I had used it – thirty years ago, when Kim was still a child.
When did you start playing again?, she asks.

Three or four years ago, something like that.
When I first arrived in Serbia, I had literally nothing to do. I was killing time and that has never turned out to be healthy for me.

Play something for me.

I haven't played in almost a year. At least four of my fingers have gotten broken in the meantime, the nail beds of two fingers of my left hand look awful and I'm not even sure I can still do this, after all. Later, okay?

Okay. She gives me a smile and heads back over to the kitchen.

It still works, surprisingly.

An hour later, lunch is ready. We eat at the large table in the kitchen. Audrey has put on her yellow dress again, instead of the chef's apron.

This is the best steak I've ever had. She still knows what I like, after all these years.
It were only handful of times, back fifteen years, when she cooked for me, back at my apartment in DC. I tried to help her, but I wasn't a big help. Back then, the only useful job for me was to wash the dishes.
The first time she ever cooked for me was because we had placed a bet and she lost it. Steak for dinner.

Fifteen years. If I could only turn back time.
No, I'd not turn it back, never. I'm glad that the past fifteen years are over. No force on earth could make me live through them again. They were the worst I could have. Losing Audrey. Losing Kim. Endless pain.
If I had only known fifteen years ago, that we'd be doing this again in fifteen years time… it would have made so many hard and painful nights easier. When you're in hell, you can only live off hope. But what do you do when your own brain turns against you, telling you to give up hope, because it's so unrealistic what you hope for?
Had I only known fifteen years ago, that today we'd be here. It would have changed everything.

She takes the bottle of red wine that she bought and gives me a refill.

Do you want to go see the city today?, I ask her. If she says yes, I'm not going to drink it. There's so much at the stake and I'd want to be sober if we mingle with the crowds down there.

No. I'd like to stay here.

All day?

All day. All night. She smiles.

She has plans, but from the mischievous grin on her face I deduct that they only involve her, me and the inside of this apartment.

Alright. I take the glass. Salute! If we stay here, it doesn't matter. Let's get drunk together. We haven't, in quite a while.

The glass of red wine keeps following me. She's always quick to refill it, even before it's completely empty.

After throwing the dishes into the dishwasher, she tears me into the bathroom. There's a bathtub. Also, fifteen years in the past, that we last took a bath together. It was always one of our favorite places to talk.

Once, we sat in a bathtub just like this, in Seattle. I start laughing.

What are you laughing about, Jack?

Seattle.

Now she starts laughing, too, so hard, that a bit of the wine that she's holding spills into the tub.

Heller came into her room. It nearly gave me a heart attack. He didn't know anything about us, and neither did he expect anything. Audrey, honey, I think the receptionist switched our key cards. Mine opens your room but it doesn't open my room. Did you get two, by any chance? Frantically I searched the bathroom floor for my clothes, finding relief in that they were all inside the bathroom and not lost somewhere else in her room. I'm in the bathtub, dad!, she yelled back and realized too late, that it almost sounded like an invitation, to open the bathroom door. My key cards are on the table! Take them and leave yours!, she hectically added. These are my keycards, not yours, right?, she silently hissed at me. I had no idea whose keys they were.
What if the old man had opened up the bathroom door? No idea. Dive? Not enough bubble foam. What if the keycards were actually mine and we got them mixed up?
At least he left. Another then minutes we sat in the water – which had turned ice cold by the mean time – and listened out, but he didn't return. And later on, we retreated into my hotel room, because we still weren't sure if he still had a key card to Audrey's room or not.

We have such a load of good memories. Today we add some more to the stack.

The warm water is wonderful. After so many days on the boat, it was a real good idea of hers to spend today afternoon just carrying about ourselves. It's been ages ago that I last had a bath. The shower on the boat was tiny and we couldn't use that much water. The rooms at the convent in Almaty didn't even have a shower, just a sink. A sip of wine. Close your eyes. Lean back. Enjoy the warmth. One of her naked legs lies on my chest, the other one at my side, beneath my elbow. We're entangled in a tight knot.

Have I ever taken a three hour bath? Guess no. Let's call it a first. We've replaced the water with fresh hot water five times, at least. The thing that finally got us out was that the bottle of red wine and our glasses got empty.

It's half past five in the evening. Time to get something small for dinner. I'm on my way to the grocer again, the same small store down the road that Audrey already went to, this morning.
Alone.
Just like today morning, I feel alone the second I close the door behind me and leave her behind in the apartment.
I turn around and look up to the balcony. Of course, she's not there, spying after me, like I did after her. She's probably in the bathroom, doing her hair or whatever. The balcony up there on the fourth floor is empty, the doors to the living room still open.
I buy some antipasti and quickly head back.
It's only been ten minutes and I already miss you. What am I to do the day after tomorrow?

Stop thinking. Don't make yourself mad.
A glass of wine will help.

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