Free The Weekend by Bernhard Schlink

ones, and sometimes they simply drifted away. I’ve met a few of them years later with their young wives—a nurse will have snapped them up, or a medical technician, and they’ve been a little embarrassed and shown me pictures of their children.” Christiane smiled apologetically at Henner. “You mustn’t think it wasn’t lovely with you back then, or that I didn’t like you. But it wasn’t the most important thing. It was never the most important thing. There was no one I liked more than you.”
    Apart from Jörg, Henner thought, and what she said to comfort him just made him sad. If only she really had loved someone else! But he said nothing and nodded.
    She bent down to him, kissed him on the mouth and stood up. “Sleep well.”
    “Why did Jörg say it was brave of me to come?”
    “He said that?”
    “Yes.”
    She stood by the bed and looked at him thoughtfully. “I don’t know. Perhaps he said it to everyone. Perhaps he just wanted to say something kind. Don’t worry about it.”

Fourteen
    But she couldn’t help worrying about it. She was sure Jörg hadn’t said it to everyone and hadn’t meant it kindly. There was a challenge in his words, a threat. As if the next day weren’t going to be awkward enough!
    In the corridor she leaned against the wall. She could have slept standing, she was so tired. The conversation with Henner had taken more out of her than she had expected. Not being understood can be such an effort! But she had had no choice—she had had to say what she had said. And now she had to talk to Jörg.
    No light came from his room. But he wasn’t asleep. When she opened the door a crack, he immediately asked with suspicion and defensiveness in his voice: “Hello?”
    She slipped into the room. “It’s me.”
    “What’s going on?” The matches he reached for fell from the chair to the floor, and he went on looking for them on the floor, cursing.
    “I don’t need any light. I just want to know what you meant when you told Henner it was brave of him to come.”
    “I need light, though.” He found the matches, lit the candle and sat down on the edge of the bed. “I think it was brave of him to first make me end up in jail and then celebrate my release.”
    “He made you end up in jail?”
    “Yes, he made me end up in jail. Apart from Dagmar and Wolf he was the only one who knew about Mother’s cabin in the Odenwald, and both of them, Dagmar and Wolf, were arrested long after I was. When I went to fetch guns and money the cops were waiting for me.”
    “You can’t know who Dagmar and Wolf talked to.”
    He rolled his eyes and spoke with the controlled patience with which adults react to the nonsensical objections of children. “I know they didn’t talk to anyone, OK?”
    “What do you plan to do?”
    “Nothing. I just want to ask Henner how he felt back then. Everyone wants to know how I’ve felt about this and that—now I want to know too.”
    “Ulrich asked you; no one else did. Henner barely spoke.”
    “Then he can speak when he answers my question.” Jörg gave his sister a hostile look. “Don’t keep humiliating me. You tried to humiliate me over Ulrich and Marko, and now you want to humiliate me again over Henner. I answer other people’s stupid questions because I understand why they are curious, but in that case they should answer my stupid questions too. I’m not doing anything to Henner. I’m not accusing him of anything. It was war, he decided which side he was on and he acted accordingly. I like him better than those goody-goodies who understand everything and everyone and never get their hands dirty. Useful idiots, but idiots nonetheless. No, I don’t want to have an argumentwith him; I just want to know from him how he felt.”
    “But there will be an argument.”
    He smiled smugly. “Not from me, Tia, not from me.” He got up, lifted his nightshirt a few inches and bowed ironically. “Be not afraid, your Royal Highness, your servant will