Later that afternoon I was standing by the railing overlooking the River Erft, throwing chunks of yesterday’s stale bread to the mallards which clustered among the weedy stones, and the next thing I knew someone was grabbing at my waist, as though to tickle me.
Kai, I thought, with a cold flash of panic. I whirled around, my fists up as though to beat him off. But it wasn’t Kai; of course it wasn’t. It was Max.
‘Whoa,’ he said. ‘You going to beat me up, Steffi?’ He was grinning.
‘I thought you were someone else,’ I said crossly.
‘I bet you did.’
I looked at Max uneasily. He was a premium-quality bullshitter, I knew that. But it wasn’t like him to use that insinuating tone with me. That was something new. And the way he was looking at me, there was something new and not entirely pleasant in that too.
A hideous suspicion began to grow in the back of my mind. Max and Kai von Jülich had never been friends, so far as I knew. Max had attended the Hauptschule, as I had, whereas Kai had (naturally) been at the Gymnasium, the most academic type of school. But they both lived in the same part of Bad Münstereifel, the same smart street full of white-walled palaces with BMWs and Mercedes parked outside.
Slow down, I told myself desperately. He hasn’t talked to Kai. They’re not even friends. Anyway, nothing happened. You got out of the car and you walked home. What’s Kai going to tell people about that?
‘You’re not coming to Jochen’s place tonight, Steffi?’ said Max. He was still grinning.
‘No.’ I shook my head, not wanting to elaborate.
‘Shame.’ Max was looking me up and down, assessing me.
I shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. It’s just Max, I told myself. He’s got the cheek of the Devil. It doesn’t mean anything.
‘I have to go in,’ I said.
Max’s gaze shifted to the half-full bag of rolls I was holding. ‘Ducks don’t want to eat any more?’
‘Bye, Max,’ I said.
‘Catch you later,’ he said, but I was already walking away.
If the conversation with Max made me uneasy, the one with Jochen was worse. He came when my parents were at church on Sunday evening. The bakery was shut, so he rang the outside bell. Like Hanna, he was persistent; when I didn’t come down within the first couple of minutes he kept ringing. All of a sudden, it seemed that everyone had to speak to me, very urgently.
‘Jochen, I’m not feeling well,’ I lied as I opened the door, but he didn’t listen. He was already shouldering past me into the bakery.
‘We have to talk,’ he said.
I glanced out at the street. All it would take to make my life infinitely worse was for Frau Kessel to wander by at that moment and catch me ushering another young man into the bakery, and while my parents were at mass, to boot. But the street was deserted.
I hoped he wouldn’t stay long. I had been lying about feeling ill, but now I thought I could detect the beginnings of a headache. I would have preferred to see nobody at all, especially since Max’s familiarity the day before. I was beginning to wonder whether there was something about me which attracted unwholesome behaviour as jam attracts wasps.
‘I want you to curse Udo,’ said Jochen, without further preamble.
I stared at him.
‘Udo, you know, my stepfather. Udo the Arschloch.’
I knew perfectly well whom he meant. It was nigh on impossible to live in Bad Münstereifel and not know Udo Meyer. He was tall, broad-shouldered and slightly pudgy-looking, with wiry hair and an officious-looking moustache underlining a nose like a beak. He was also the town’s champion know-it-all. At any given public event you could be sure that Udo would be on his feet at the very first opportunity, giving the assembled masses the benefit of his superior wisdom in a voice with all the lilting charm of a dentist’s drill. After five minutes of listening to it, you were ready to agree with anything he said, just to shut him up.
I could well imagine that living with Udo and listening to his pompous monologues on a daily basis would be enough to drive anyone up the wall. All the same, I needed more than this to go on before cursing anyone.
‘Why?’ I said.
‘What do you mean, why? He’s a tosser.’
Jochen sounded impatient. The light from the overhead lamps turned his blond curls golden and for a moment I was reminded unpleasantly of Kai von Jülich. But Jochen was nothing like Kai. Instead of that smooth bronzed skin, he had the pallid sort of complexion which freckles easily and blunt heavy features. Jochen would never have the girls clustering around him the way Kai did.
‘Jochen … ’
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘It works when you do it. I want that stupid Arschloch dead.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ I said uneasily.
‘I’m not joking.’
‘What’s he done?’
I saw Jochen’s hands ball into fists. ‘Bastard. He wants me out. I have to leave home.’ His face twisted like a spoilt child’s. ‘I know what his problem is. He can’t stand it if you don’t agree with him and his stupid ideas.’
‘Why does he want you to leave?’ I asked cautiously.
‘Because he’s an utter jerk.’ After a pause Jochen seemed to realize that this was insufficient information. ‘He says I have to pay my own way. I told him to stuff it. Mum never made me pay anything before he came along. She ought to stick up for me, but she doesn’t. He’s got her right where he wants her. I’m not taking it.’
‘Jochen,’ I said as calmly as I could, ‘I can’t curse Udo.’
‘You have to.’
He looked at me with a mutinous expression in his pale blue eyes. He means it, I thought. It was the same as Max handing me the pen and paper and saying, Here, Steffi, you do it. Come on, don’t be wet. Everyone just assumed that I would do what they told me to do.
I took a deep breath.
‘No, I don’t.’
‘What? Come on, Steffi.’ Jochen eyed me and saw resistance in my expression. An ugly look of disbelief and indignation spread over his face. ‘Don’t mess me around.’
I was shaking my head.
‘You only wish stuff for yourself, is that it?’ He sounded really angry. ‘Your friends can take any kind of shit and you won’t help them out?’
‘It’s not that,’ I said in a low voice.
‘Well, what then?’
‘Suppose it works?’ I said. ‘Suppose he really drops dead – like Klara Klein – because I’ve wished it?’
‘That’s the point,’ said Jochen in a hard voice, as though talking to the terminally stupid. ‘It has to be you who wishes it, because it only works when it’s you.’
‘Udo’s never done anything to me,’ I said.
‘So you’re just going to let him fuck up my life?’ Jochen sounded ready to burst with indignation and I found myself wanting to back away.
‘Can’t you talk to him?’ I suggested. ‘Or talk to your mum? Jochen, I can’t just –’
‘Talk to him?’ Jochen was shaking his head in disbelief. ‘What sort of crap is that?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I told him.
‘Yeah,’ said Jochen bitterly. ‘I’m sorry too. Sorry I even bothered talking to you. You’re a loser, Steffi. Maybe it wasn’t you at all. Maybe it was coincidence, Klara Klein and the rest of it.’ He sneered at me. ‘You haven’t got the guts for anything.’
If he thought he could taunt me into agreeing to do what he wanted, he was wrong, but no sharp retort rose to my lips. I simply stood there in silence with my head down, as though I were trying to push my way forward through a storm. Finally he gave up.
‘Thanks a lot,’ he said sarcastically. ‘Loser.’
I heard the bell above the door jingle as he pushed his way out of the bakery. Then he was off down the street.
I went to the door and looked the other way, up towards the old brewery. My heart sank. Little knots of people were drifting out from the Marktstrasse and the alley which ran parallel to it. Mass had ended and the church was emptying. I could only hope that no one had glimpsed Jochen’s departure from the bakery. If my parents had spotted him, there would be awkward questions. If Frau Kessel had spotted him, my life would not be worth living.