The Dinner

Herman Koch

Description

Easy to read version

Sujets

• Thriller
• Crime

Informations

• Publié par: Read Zone
• Date de parution: 01 septembre 2021
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781783227242
• Langue: English

Extrait

The Dinner
The Dinner is an easy-to-read adaptation of ‘Het diner’ by Herman Koch, which was first published in The Netherlands by Uitgeverij Anthos in 2009.
Text: Herman Koch Adaptation easy-to-read version: Marian Hoefnagel Translation: Anna Asbury Design: Nicolet Oost Lievense Cover design: Jurian Wiese Printed in Malta by Melita Press

First published 2014
Reprinted 2017
© ReadZone Books Limited All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of ReadZone Books Limited.
ISBN 978-1-78322-724-2
Visit our website: www.readzonebooks.com
The Dinner
Herman Koch
Contents
Aperitif | 6
Starter | 22
Main Course | 48
Dessert | 116
After-Dinner Drinks | 136
Tip | 160
Aperitif

1.
We were going out for dinner.
Serge had booked the table at the restaurant; he’s always the one who makes the booking.
It was the kind of restaurant where you have to reserve a table up to three months in advance, sometimes longer.
Serge never phones three months ahead.
He always books on the day. He thinks of it as a game. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said to me, a couple of days ago. ‘They know me there. I’ll get us a table.’
Those types of restaurants always keep a table free for people like Serge Lohman.
He wanted to meet in the bar round the corner, but I told him we’d meet him in the restaurant.
I didn’t want to witness Serge Lohman’s arrival.
I didn’t want to watch the restaurant owner greet him like an old friend, or see the servers lead him to the best table with a view of the garden, or see Serge acting like it meant nothing, as if he were just an ordinary guy.

2.
We decided to walk as the restaurant was just a couple of streets from our house.
I had my arm around my wife. ‘We’re early,’ I said to my wife.
I shouldn’t call her my wife. Her name’s Claire. Claire’s cleverer than me.
At first it was hard for me to admit that, but that’s the way it is.
I wouldn’t want to be with a woman who wasn’t intelligent, not even for a month. Claire and I have been together for twenty years now.
We decided to go into the bar for a drink.
Inside, we smiled at each other as we took our beers. Aware that this would be the best moment of the evening.
Soon we’d be in the company of Mr and Mrs Lohman. I didn’t want to go to the restaurant.
I never want to go to restaurants.
It starts in the morning, in front of the mirror. What should I wear? Should I shave or not?
These are important questions.
One day’s worth of stubble makes you look lazy.
Two days’ and people think it’s a new look. More than that and people start to ask if you’re feeling OK. Hoping that you’re not ill.
However, shaving gives a message too.
It says you think that the evening is important.
The bar wasn’t trendy.
Most people there were pretty ordinary. All bars should be that way.
It was busy; we stood close together.
Claire gently squeezed my wrist.
‘I’m not sure,’ she said, ‘but Michel seems to be acting strangely recently.
Or perhaps not strangely, but he’s different, don’t you think?’
Michel’s our son. He’ll be sixteen next week.
He’s our only child.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Perhaps.’
I couldn’t look at Claire. We know each other too well. My eyes would have given me away.
‘Has he said anything to you?’ Asked Claire.
‘I mean, he talks to you about things he won’t discuss
with me. Is it girl trouble?’
If only that were true, I thought.
Girl trouble. That would be simple to deal with.
Wonderfully normal. An ordinary teenage problem.
‘No, I don’t think it’s that,’ I said, and I looked at Claire.
‘It’s probably school. He’s just had that week of tests.
I think he’s just tired. It’s hard in exam year.’
Would Claire believe me?
She smiled, and put her hand on my chest.
‘Perhaps that’s it,’ she said.
I put my arm around her and pressed her against me.
‘Why are you laughing?’ she asked.
‘Nothing,’ I said. ‘I was just thinking … I was thinking about us.’
I thought how different things would be if, before we had left, I had just stayed downstairs.
I needn’t have gone upstairs to Michel’s room.
How would this evening have looked then?
How would the rest of our lives have looked?

3.
‘Michel?’
I’d stood in his bedroom doorway.
He wasn’t there.
I knew where he was. He was in the garden, fixing the rear tyre of his bike.
‘Michel?’
I went in and saw what I was looking for right away. I’d never done this before. Never.
He often left his mobile lying around, and sometimes I was tempted to look when I heard him receive a text, but I’d never actually done so.
His phone lay on the desk.
I only had to take a couple of steps to reach it.
I looked quickly at the options.
I clicked through to his videos.
I found what I was looking for immediately.
As I watched, my felt myself turn cold, as if I’d gulped an ice-cold drink.
I watched again, and then I looked to see what else I could find.
There were more videos.
‘Dad?’ Michel was coming upstairs.
It was too late to leave his bedroom and go to mine and Claire’s.
I had to act like I was looking for him.
‘Dad.’
He stood at the top of the stairs looking at me.
He was wearing his Nike hat, his headphones were slung round his neck.
‘I was looking for…,’ I started. ‘I wondered where you were.’
Michel had almost died at birth.
I still think of his little blue body in the incubator.
His life is a gift.
‘I was fixing my bike,’ he said.
‘What did you want?’
I looked at him.
I looked into the clear eyes under the black hat.
Those honest eyes.
‘Oh, no reason,’ I said. ‘I just wondered where you were.’

4.
Claire and I finished our beers and went to the restaurant.
Of course, Serge and Babette weren’t there yet – even though we were half an hour late.
A girl in a black T-shirt and a long black apron took our coats.
Another checked the bookings.
‘Lohman, did you say?’
She couldn’t hide her disappoint that it wasn’t Serge standing opposite her.
I could have said that he was on his way, but I didn’t.
I wanted to leave. I imagined all the other things that we could do.
We could go back to the bar and order a food that was more suitable for ordinary people.
The special was spare ribs and chips for less than twelve euros
Here we’d pay ten times that amount.
We could just go home, stopping off at the shop on the way.
We could watch a film with a glass of wine. Some cheese and crackers, candles; it would be a perfect evening.
Instead, I said: ‘Serge Lohman. A table with a view of the garden.’
The girl nodded, looking at the book again. ‘But you’re not Mr Lohman,’ she said, confused.
I was furious with Serge.
He was the one who wanted us to eat out together, and now he couldn’t even turn up on time.
He never arrived anywhere on time.
People were always left waiting for him; the last appointment had taken longer than expected, or he’d been stuck in traffic in his chauffeur-driven car.
‘Yes I am,’ I said.
I continued to look the girl straight in the eye. ‘I’m his brother,’ I said.

5.
‘We’d like to offer you the house aperitif which is a pink champagne.’
Rather than a black apron, the host was wearing a three-piece suit; light green with thin blue stripes. His voice was quiet, too quiet for the ridiculously high ceiling.
The restaurant used to be a dairy factory, that’s why the ceiling was so high.
The host pointed to something on the table with his little finger.
At first I thought he was indicating the tealight, but I realised he was pointing at a bowl of olives.
I hadn’t noticed him put the olives down.
For a moment I panicked.
Recently, I’d found I was missing chunks of time more often – empty moments when my mind must have drifted.
‘These are Greek olives from the Peloponnese, marinated in early harvest, extra virgin olive oil from north Sardinia, finished off with rosemary from…’
I couldn’t make out the last part of what he said. I couldn’t care less where the rosemary came from. I thought it was a lot of fuss for a tiny dish of olives. And his little finger!
Why would he point with his little finger? Was it supposed to be classy?
‘Finished off with…?’ I asked.
‘Yes, finished off with rosemary. Finished off means…’
‘I know what it means,’ I said angrily.
‘I know the rosemary wasn’t shot dead.’
I expected the host to blush. Perhaps his lower lip might shake.
But he did something unexpected.
He laughed, a real laugh.
‘Forgive me,’ he said. ‘I never thought of it that way.’

6.
We both ordered the pink champagne.
Claire picked up an olive and popped it in her mouth. ‘Mmm,’ she said. ‘Delicious, but you can tell that the rosemary didn’t get enough sun.’
I smiled at her.
The host had said that the rosemary came from their own herb garden in a greenhouse at the back of the restaurant.
‘Did you see how he pointed with his little finger?’ I asked, picking up the menu.
I was planning to look at the prices, but then I spotted something on the left-hand page.
‘Can you believe what it says here?’ I asked.
My wife looked at me questioningly.
‘It says, house aperitif, ten euros,’ I said.
‘Really?’
‘That’s outrageous!’ I said. ‘The host said, “We’d like to offer you the house aperitif.”
That implies that it’s free, doesn’t it?
If it’s offered to us, it’s free, right? In which case it shouldn’t cost ten euros, should it?’
But Claire was looking past me at something far behind my head.
‘Here they are,’ she said.

7.
Of course, everyone in the restaurant noticed Mr and Mrs Lohman’s entrance.
Three of the servers with black aprons stood around Serge and Babette.
The host was there too, and someone else – a short man in jeans and a white polo neck, probably the owner of the restaurant. He shook hands with Serge and Babette.
The other diners tried to act like nothing out of the ordinary was happening.
That’s how it works in smart restaurants.
You don’t react