11. In the Rain
In the Rain
Morning in the Kellers’ apartment began with the refrigerator door opening.
Cold air washed over Nadja, mixed with the stale smell of old food and empty shelves.
There was barely anything useful left inside: three eggs sat forlornly in the cardboard carton, half a stick of butter clung to crumpled foil, and a bottle of mineral water lay crooked beside wilted spinach in the crisper drawer.
Nadja stared into the empty refrigerator for another moment, then exhaled audibly through her nose.
She reached for the folded cloth shopping bag on top of the cabinet and tucked her leather wallet and grocery list under her arm.
She pulled a thin jacket over her shoulders.
Her jeans fit tightly around her legs, and she had hastily tied her hair back with a black hair tie.
Everything about her looked neat, clean, exactly the way people knew her.
Only inside, nothing was calm.
As she turned away, her gaze involuntarily fell on the spot beneath the stainless-steel sink.
The floor was dry. Clean. No traces of water. No plastic bucket. Not a single sign of yesterday afternoon.
But Nadja saw it anyway. The dark gap beneath the sink.
The dripping water. Karl’s hot breath close against the backs of her thighs.
Herself with one hand clenched desperately around the ice-cold edge of the sink, silent in her own kitchen, as though her body had betrayed the last shred of reason left inside her.
Her fingers tightened around the handle of the cloth bag. A sharp, hot discomfort rose inside her.
Nadja whipped her head around and slammed the refrigerator door shut. It banged loudly and rattled in the frame. The sound was too aggressive for a quiet morning, but she didn’t turn around again.
Nadja took her bag and went straight out into the hallway.
Outside the building, the sky hung low and leaden gray.
Rain fell heavily, drumming against the old metal awning. Dirty water streamed along the gutter, carrying leaves and grime down the narrow street. The bus stop at the end of the road had almost disappeared behind the white curtain of rain.
Nadja stopped beneath the edge of the awning and looked out.
Rainwater splashed against the toes of her shoes. She frowned and pulled the collar of her jacket tighter around her neck. The grocery run that normally took barely ten minutes had suddenly become one more irritating chore in an endless chain that had begun with the empty refrigerator.
With the kitchen. With Markus. With that name: Karl, whom she didn’t want to think about and still couldn’t get out of her head.
She had just put one foot forward to step into the rain when a voice sounded from the bottom of the stairs.
“Going to the grocery store, Mrs. Keller?”
Nadja stopped.
Karl was leaning against the damp brick wall as though he had been waiting there for her the entire time.
His old waxed jacket was worn at the sleeves, the collar sat crooked, and a jingling set of keys dangled from his index finger.
He looked out at the rain, then slowly let his gaze drop to the cloth bag in her hand.
His eyes stayed there longer than necessary.
Nadja tightened her grip on the handle. “Are you following me?”
Not a muscle moved in Karl’s face. “You always go around this time on Saturdays,” he said flatly. “And I doubt you take that bag out for a walk.”
Nadja stood motionless beneath the awning.
The rain was so heavy that the street in front of her looked almost erased, reduced to white streaks of water whipping across the asphalt.
She looked at him, then toward the bus stop at the end of the street, its low roof nearly lost in the downpour.
Karl nodded toward the wet road. “I’ll give you a ride.”
“No need.”
The keys jingled softly in his hand. “The stop’s all the way down there. And afterward you’ll have to carry all those bags back through the rain.”
Nadja squeezed the handle of her cloth bag. She hated how effortlessly he pushed his way into her life.
But the rain kept falling without mercy, her thin jacket wouldn’t keep her dry even halfway there, and the refrigerator at home was depressingly empty. She couldn’t go back empty-handed.
Her gaze cut through the rain, then returned to Karl’s face.
“Just to the grocery store.”
Karl answered immediately, each word slow and deliberate. “Just to the grocery store.”
His old Opel Corsa was parked in the open lot, the gray paint peeling in several places.
The moment Karl unlocked it, the smell of stale smoke and damp upholstery spilled out—heavy and acrid, as though the car had swallowed thousands of cigarettes over the years and never fully exhaled them again.
Nadja sat in the passenger seat. Back straight. Knees together. The cloth bag neatly on her lap like a small barrier between herself and the rest of the interior.
The car door shut. Outside, the rain instantly became a dull pounding against the windows.
Karl started the engine. The old car vibrated beneath their feet, hoarse and tired, while the windshield wipers scraped across the glass with a dry squeal.
The car pulled onto the street.
For the first few minutes, Karl simply drove. Left hand on the wheel, eyes fixed straight ahead through the wet windshield.
Nadja looked out the window and forced her face into complete blankness.
Then Karl’s right hand left the gearshift. It landed heavily on her thigh. Nadja froze.
His palm rested on her right thigh, separated from her skin only by the denim of her jeans.
The alien warmth crept slowly but unstoppably through the denim — like something filthy working its way deep into her. His thumb stroked along the thick outer seam of her jeans, creating a faint rubbing sound almost swallowed by the rain.
Nadja snapped her head toward him. “Watch the road.”
Karl kept his eyes stubbornly on the windshield. “Don’t worry.”
His hand slid higher.
Agonizingly slowly, it traveled up her thigh, as though mercilessly testing exactly when she would stop him.
When his fingers came suspiciously close to her crotch, Nadja immediately squeezed her legs together, trapping his hand hard between them through the denim.
Karl didn’t pull it away. He simply left it pinned there, visibly enjoying the pressure of her body, and one corner of his mouth lifted almost imperceptibly.
After a few moments, he moved his hand slightly back down her thigh, closer to her knee, and left it there.
Nadja gave an almost imperceptible shake of her head — at herself.
She abruptly turned back toward the window. Raindrops traced crooked lines across the glass, distorting the streetlights into blurred streaks.
She closed her eyes for one second. Then opened them again.
“When we get there, you take your hand off.”
“All right.”
Karl’s answer was brief. But his hand didn’t stay still.
It began moving again, this time lower, more insistent. From her knee to the middle of her thigh. Then back down.
His palm moved in small circles, pressing gently into the soft flesh beneath the stiff denim—just firmly enough for her to feel each of his rough fingers individually.
He didn’t approach her crotch again. He didn’t cross the silent boundary she had just drawn.
Nadja pressed her lips together.
She tried desperately to focus on the road. Trees. Store signs. Red streaks of light across wet asphalt. Everything slid past behind the rain-covered window.
But every time Karl’s thumb provocatively stroked the seam, the skin beneath the denim seemed to grow hotter. A dull tingling crept from her thigh directly into her lower belly, making her knees tense involuntarily, then loosen again almost imperceptibly.
Karl kept staring stubbornly at the road. But his old hand moved slowly up and down her thigh, filthy and patient, as though memorizing her body through the fabric.
“You heard me,” she said without looking away from the window. “When we get there, you take your hand off.”
“I heard you.”
Karl’s fingers gave one more faint squeeze. Then he let them rest there.
The grocery store parking lot lay deserted in the rain.
Pale neon lights reflected in puddles across the asphalt. Karl pulled the handbrake; the car jerked once and stood still.
As promised, he took his hand off her thigh.
Nadja immediately yanked open the door.
Cold wind and damp air rushed into the car, driving away some of the heavy smoke smell that had crowded around her for the entire ride. She climbed out and hastily adjusted her jacket while Karl walked around the hood and opened an old black umbrella with a dry snap.
The umbrella was much too narrow for two people.
Nadja looked at him, then at the heavy rain between them and the brightly lit entrance of the grocery store.
Finally, she gave in. She stepped closer and moved beneath the umbrella.
Karl tilted the handle toward her.
A small older man holding an umbrella helpfully over a younger, attractive woman on a rainy morning so she could go shopping. From a distance, it almost looked respectable.
Only Nadja knew that Karl was standing much too close to her beneath that narrow umbrella. With the very first step, his shoulder rubbed firmly against her arm.
When they stepped around a puddle, his hip pressed shamelessly against hers. The back of his hand brushed her side as he switched the umbrella to his other hand, slid down over the curve of her ass, and gave one buttock a brief but firm squeeze.
Not brutal. Just a brief, entitled squeeze. Brazen. Shameless. As though he were testing how far he could go in public.
Nadja stopped in the middle of a step.
Karl stopped with her. He raised his head and looked at her.
Because he was almost a full head shorter, his gaze first slid shamelessly over her breasts before finally reaching her face.
That familiar smile sat on his deeply lined face. Dirty. Knowing. With no effort whatsoever to hide it.
Nadja opened her mouth to snap at him. But the words stayed trapped behind her teeth. What would it have accomplished anyway?
Ahead of them was the brightly lit glass entrance to the grocery store, only a few yards away. People hurried in and out, pushing rattling shopping carts, ducking their heads against the rain.
In this shitty weather, no one was paying attention to them. No one cared.
Nadja held Karl’s gaze for one agonizingly long second. Then she continued walking in silence.
Karl immediately followed, his shoulder once again intimately close to her arm.
His free hand rested loosely behind her back, just above her waist, then slipped almost accidentally a little lower.
His rough fingers brushed through the thin jacket over the upper curve of her ass and squeezed again. This time harder than before.
Nadja didn’t look at him. She stared straight ahead at the glass entrance.
Her steps quickened. Beneath the umbrella, Karl’s smile only grew dirtier.