It was not until Tuesday morning, the Tuesday after our trip to Gertrud’s house, that the news broke. On Monday I had been at the college in Kall, filling my head with more unwelcome information about the science of baking. This was a process which always made me feel like the unwilling recipient of brainwashing in a totalitarian state. Study, work, home, all seemed to be pushing me in the same direction. One day in the distant future I would be standing in the Werther Strasse outside the cafe, wearing the hated dirndl and watching a man on a ladder painting AND DAUGHTER after KONDITOREI NETT on the facade. There would be no escape then; I would be stuck in Bad Münstereifel forever. In my very worst nightmares, a middle-aged Timo would be standing next to me with a proprietorial air and I would have his ring on my finger. If that happened, I thought, I would not care how soon I gorged myself to death by comfort-eating the cream cakes.
The Tuesday morning was bright and sunny, and from my post behind the glass counter displaying the day’s gateaux I had a clear view out of the bakery’s front window. Across the street, on the other side of the River Erft, was an enormous May tree, fixed outside one of the half-timbered houses. The multicoloured crêpe streamers danced in the breeze. Someone, some girl perhaps the very same age as I was, had got up on May morning and looked out of her bedroom window to see the tree waiting there, a gesture of true love. I sighed. Timo would never have thought of such a thing, not in a million years. Not that I wanted him to, I told myself. What I wanted … I slid my hand into the pocket of my apron and felt the piece of paper folded there, the paper with the ragged edge. Could I stretch out my hand and take what I wanted? Could I summon up the courage to do that?
From this dismal reverie I was awakened by my father coming in through the bakery’s front door with a thick bundle of newspapers in his arms. The bakery sold them in the morning alongside the breakfast rolls in paper bags and the Styrofoam cups of coffee.
‘Late,’ my father was grumbling. ‘We’ll never sell even half of these now.’ He put the stack of papers down heavily on the nearest table. ‘Steffi, can you put these out? Not that there’s any point now,’ he added as he stumped off towards the kitchen.
I didn’t look at the papers for at least another half an hour. A large group of customers came in and opted for the full works: sliced ham, smoked bacon, boiled eggs, buttered rolls, coffee with cream, coffee without cream, rosehip tea, apple juice. They kept me running backwards and forwards so busily that when another customer came in and asked for a newspaper with his morning roll I directed him to the stack on the table without so much as glancing at it myself.
‘Sad, isn’t it?’ the customer said, brandishing the paper as he took the bag containing his order.
‘Yes,’ I said automatically. My head was still full of the previous order. Someone had asked for a latte macchiato and I had given her an ordinary Milchkaffee by accident, a disaster of titanic proportions judging by her expression. I hastened to make the latte and spilt half of it down my apron. I had to leave the other two staff to hold the fort and make another latte while I went to get a clean apron. Still I did not look at the newspapers.
When I got back the latte had been delivered and peace restored, but another large group had come in. This time they were foreign, and since they spoke no German and I spoke no French, it took a long time to serve them. By the time I had worked out that a pain au chocolat was a Schokobrötchen the little clock which hung behind the counter was chiming nine thirty. I wiped my hands and had started moving around the counter to tackle the stack of newspapers when the front door opened and Izabela came in.
Instantly I was struck by how terrible she looked. Izabela was always pale – she had the dark hair, the pallid skin and ice-blue eyes of Snow White. Today, however, she had an almost greyish tinge to her face. With her dark hair straggling over her shoulders, she reminded me of nothing so much as a drowned girl, face and limbs bleached white by the icy water. As I stood by the counter staring at her, she stumbled forward, her hands outstretched as though she wanted to clutch on to me. I glanced swiftly around the cafe. To my relief, my mother was not in sight; I guessed she had gone into the kitchen. I went to Izabela, not knowing what to say, conscious that whatever this was, it could not be good news.
‘Have you heard?’
I started to ask her what she meant, what I was supposed to have heard, and then the words died on my lips. Standing this close to her, I was level with the table where my father had dumped the stack of newspapers. All of them were copies of the Kölner Express. Glancing at the headline upside down from where I stood, I could pick out the two capital Ks in the glaringly large type.
I had the strangest feeling in the pit of my stomach, a dropping sensation as though I had taken a step on to ice, innocently thinking that it was solid ground, and gone right through. I moved away from Izabela and reached for the newspaper at the top of the pile, flipping it around to read the headline properly. Even before I had done so, I knew what it said.
KLARA KLEIN DEAD.