AFTER DARK | Johan Liebert

Chapter 33: Silence so loud

On a sunny Thursday, I was looking for Johan by the promenade in Hamburg. Luckily, I was on time despite my bus being late. I couldn't believe that finally, after three weeks, I would see him again. 

"Klara!"

I looked sideways. Right by the river, he was waving at me, holding two ice cream cones in his hands. I couldn't hide my grin when I saw him, feeling pure happiness. I almost wouldn't have recognised him in his light blue suit jacket.

"Hey! You're here already." I approached him, breathing fast. He handed me over one of the cones. "I bought ice cream for us. This one's for you." "Thank you." The ice cream had a beautiful, green shade. I tried it. "Oh, it's pistachio, right? Did you know it is my favourite flavour?" He chuckled. "I listened to you very intently." I must have mentioned it sometime... but that was not important at the moment. "I'm so glad we finally see each other again", I started, "this whole time without you felt like an eternity, and it were only three weeks!" Johan looked at me quite astonished, but didn't say anything - but his smile did. It was a strange smile, however. He was trying to be polite, but I knew something was wrong. Maybe he just didn't want to talk about it. Perhaps it was his uni stuff... I knew it could be quite exhausting at times.

"So", Johan said, "how was your last week? We haven't talked about it yet on the phone." "Well", I answered as we walked near the river, "I prepared my schedules for the next year. What I'm gonna teach in which lesson, and so on. It's a lot of work if you teach three subjects and have multiple classes." I turned to him. "What about you?" "I was just visiting lectures, studying at home... nothing exciting, really." As I ate my ice cream, I noticed him observing me, and that alone made me feel nervous already. I made sure to look the best today, however, so I had nothing to lose. Eventually, he spoke up.

"You look so happy today. I assume you've been able to recover from your work and meeting your family again."

I nodded. "I did. It would have been much tougher if you weren't there for me. Thank you." When I said that, I paid attention specifically to his reaction - his eyes were squinted, and he was slightly clenching his teeth. He looked as if he was in pain. "There's no need to thank me, Klara. I did it gladly."

It confused me to see him like this, and frankly, I was also disappointed. I had been looking forward to this day for so long, and now, Johan was acting so different towards me. Not only that, it seemed like he tried to hide it from me, but he didn't realise it was in plain sight. I had never seen him so bitter before. We walked for long without saying a word, as we liked to do, but today was not the same as usual. It wasn't a peaceful silence... the silence was awfully loud. So loud, so unbearably loud... that it was hard to endure.

I glanced at Johan. He didn't look at me anymore. He was just looking towards the ground in front of him, being deep in thoughts, blocking out his surroundings. It felt so strange, seeing him like this for the first time. 

Carefully, I touched his hand. He woke up from his trance, looking at me in surprise. I pointed at a certain place by the river. "Let's go there. There won't be many people around." "Sure", he replied and followed me. The blue in the sky started mixing with different shades of purple and orange as we went down from the promenade towards the river. There was a low wall on which I sat down, watching the river. Johan did the same, staring into nothing. I couldn't stand it anymore.

"Johan."

He winced, facing me again.

"What's wrong?"