She came on the Monday, and I wondered afterwards whether, in her sharp-eyed way, she had noticed that that was one of the days when I was not in the bakery but over at the college in Kall.
Before she came, I had really started to think that perhaps my life might drop back into its old groove. I had met with the others on Saturday night, but it had rained so heavily all weekend that there was no question of any further trips to Rote Gertrud’s house, whatever they may have liked. The track along the Eschweiler Tal would be brown and sticky with mud, as alluring as a strip of flypaper.
If I had worried about how Jochen would behave around me, I needn’t have bothered. He spoke to me only when necessary, but there was nothing in his manner which would have alerted the others to any possible resentment towards me. He didn’t try to get me alone to renew his request either.
Of Kai von Jülich I saw absolutely nothing. He didn’t come into the bakery and I didn’t even see the gleaming red car in the town. The absence of any news about him was reassuring, however. I had still not made up my mind whether to try to get back to Gertrud’s house on my own to remove the curse, but it seemed that nothing had come of it anyway. If it had been Kai who had dropped dead, his magnificent features buried in a plate of cherry streusel, it was inconceivable that the news would not be all over town.
When I came back from college I was not thinking about Kai; I was thinking about the bakery, and my parents, and wondering whether there would ever be a solution to the problem, one that would leave us all happy. I took my mother’s indignation and Well, miss, I hope you’re pleased with yourself less seriously than my father’s tired face and calm request that I should think about it. It seemed wrong to hurt two people for the sake of one, yet I could not bring myself to say that I would give up all my dreams.
As I came in through the front door of the bakery, swinging my bag off my shoulder, the first thing I saw was Achim Zimmer lurking by the door to the corridor which led to the kitchen and flat. He was partly obscured by a screen covered with swathes of pale green chiffon and artificial creepers which hid the indecorous sight of the door from the cafe users, but he was instantly recognizable from the baker’s whites he wore. He stood out like a member of the backstage crew who has accidentally stumbled on to the stage in the middle of a play.
It was never a pleasure to see Achim; passing through the kitchen on the days he was there was like crossing a field with a bull in it. Aside from the general feeling of dislike which welled up inside me whenever I saw him, there was something about the way he was standing that aroused little prickles of suspicion in my mind. His posture was furtive and I guessed that this meant something undesirable for someone.
Achim must have heard the bell over the front door jingling, because his head turned my way and a slow smile spread over his heavy features. He looked me up and down very deliberately. Achim’s habit of eyeing me up was never pleasant; the way his gaze seemed to slither all over me had all the charm of walking close behind a muck spreader. Today, however, there was something especially nasty about it, a smug knowingness which seemed to glisten out of every pore of his pallid skin.
I saw from the corner of my eye that my mother was a metre or two away, on the other side of the screen, talking to someone I could not see. It was probably her presence which prevented Achim from saying anything to me, though it did not prevent him from giving me a lascivious wink. After that he lounged through the door into the corridor and vanished from sight.
I was in no hurry to follow him. Instead I lingered in the cafe, thinking that if I spent a few moments greeting my mother, by the time I went into the corridor Achim would have retreated into the kitchen like a slimy marine creature hauling its tentacles back into a crevice in the rock.
My mother, however, seemed very unwilling to talk, or even to catch my eye. This could not be because she was overwhelmed with customers, since it looked as though the person she was talking to was one of only two visitors to the cafe. The other was a corpulent woman of about seventy whom I recognized as Frau Schneider, a neighbour of Timo’s. She had a large cup of coffee and a slice of plum streusel in front of her, but she wasn’t taking any notice of either. Instead she was leaning forward with an avid expression on her face, doing her best to listen in to my mother’s conversation.
This instantly piqued my curiosity. I had been a denizen of Bad Münstereifel long enough to know that this meant something significant was occurring, some new name was being painted on to the glorious roll of characters who featured in the town’s oral history. I slowed my pace as I approached the spot where my mother stood.
Now she turned around and saw me, and a look of dismay crossed her face. She took a step back and, as she did so, I saw that the customer with whom she had been speaking was Frau Kessel. My mother’s gaze went from me to Frau Kessel and back again, and then, puzzlingly, I saw it drop to my midriff.
I looked down automatically, wondering whether I had spilt something down myself, but could see nothing. When I looked up, my mother had turned back to Frau Kessel.
‘I think I should prepare your bill, Frau Kessel,’ she was saying.
Her voice was very cold and hard, which struck me as odd. At home with my father and me, my mother could be acid-tongued, but with the customers she was always determinedly polite and charming, even with the ones who complained about everything, like Frau Kessel.
Frau Kessel was peering past my mother, her gimlet eyes glittering behind her spectacles. It was impossible not to shrivel under that gaze, like an ant under a magnifying glass in the sun. I recalled the last time we had spoken, the way she had grasped my arm with her skinny claw. The impulse to flee overcame my curiosity. I nodded vaguely at the pair of them and made for the door. To my eternal relief there was no Achim on the other side. Evidently he had vanished into the kitchen, so I was able to escape up the stairs to the flat unnoticed.
I dumped my bag just inside my room and went into the kitchen to scavenge something to eat. I was searching the fridge when I heard the flat door open and close. A moment later there were footsteps and my mother came into the kitchen. She had such a peculiar look on her face that I straightened up and stared at her.
‘Who’s looking after the cafe?’ I asked.
‘I’ve closed it,’ said my mother.
I gaped at her. This was completely unheard of.
‘Frau Schneider?’ I said.
‘Gone,’ said my mother tersely. ‘Sit down.’
I knew I was in trouble, so I elected to sit in one of the chairs on the outside of the table, thinking that if I slid on to the bench jammed up against the wall, I would be trapped with little chance of escape. My mother manoeuvred herself opposite me on to the bench. In her green dirndl and with her face puckered with some disturbing emotion, she looked like Snow White catapulted into middle age and weighed down with worldly cares.
She didn’t bother with the niceties, coming straight to the point.
‘Steffi, Frau Kessel has just informed me not only that you are pregnant, but that Kai von Jülich has left the town because of it.’