They wouldn’t let me stay at the hospital overnight. My mother would have to leave for a while too, to change her clothes and snatch some sleep, but she had a friend who lived in Mechernich who had offered to let her stay there rather than going back to Bad Münstereifel. I knew that when my mother accepted the offer she was thinking that it would be best if she were close by, so that if the call came, the one that said that my father was leaving us, she might be there in time to bid him farewell.
When I went back to Reception, Max was still waiting for me. He was leafing through a motorcycle magazine that looked as though it had been printed in 1970, but when he saw me coming he dropped it on the seat beside him and stood up.
I was afraid that he would try to embrace me, so I stood a little distance away, holding myself stiffly as though waiting for an attack.
‘Will you take me home, please?’ I said.
I was fighting the urge to burst into tears. I saw him step towards me and I brushed past him, heading for the door.
When we got to the car I huddled in the passenger seat, with the side of my face pressed to the cool window, keeping myself as far away from Max as possible. I squeezed my eyes shut, but tears were leaking out of the corners.
For a while Max said nothing. I guessed there was nothing he could say. Virtually nothing ever emerged from his lips that was not loud, confident or facetious. Asking him to come up with something quiet and comforting was like expecting someone to play a minuet on the bagpipes.
I was silent for a while too, but eventually I couldn’t help it. The crying burst out in a sharp sound like a stifled cough, but then I simply wailed through bared teeth, resting my head on the glass.
‘Steffi … ’ began Max, but I shook my head blindly.
It was late by now and the evening traffic had thinned out. It didn’t take long to drive back to Bad Münstereifel. As we headed down the steep hill which led into the east side of the town, I felt as though I were being sucked down into the depths of a pit. I wondered if I would ever see my father again. I wondered if he would live long enough to see me fulfil the promise I had made. I wondered how I would keep that promise if Achim weren’t there to help. But I dreaded even one more day alone with him in the kitchen; I lacked the strength for the fight.
I forced myself to stop crying. In truth, that numb feeling was coming over me again, a sense of dislocation that was worse than actual unhappiness.
When the car pulled up outside the bakery Max got out with me.
‘We can go to the Tal tomorrow if you want,’ he said, and I thought I could detect a note of eagerness in his voice.
‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I’ll phone.’
I fumbled for my keys in my pocket. Dropping them on the cobbles, I cursed and reached down for them. Max was quicker. He scooped them up and handed them to me.
‘Do you want me to come in?’ he said.
He might have been genuinely concerned for my well-being, but I didn’t wait to find out.
‘No,’ I said, sliding the key into the lock. The door opened. ‘I’m fine,’ I lied, then slipped inside and closed the door in his face.
There was no need to set the alarm clock that night. The bakery would be closed tomorrow and all the regular customers would be buying their breakfast rolls and taking their morning coffee in the cafe up the street. I phoned Achim Zimmer and told him not to come in. To my relief the call was brief and businesslike. Perhaps even his troll’s conscience was stirred by the imminence of death, though I didn’t stay on the line to find out.
I hadn’t had any dinner, but I didn’t really feel hungry. I checked all the doors and windows one last time, then went to bed. I had been up early for the morning shift in the bakery and had not slept since. Now it was like falling into a black and soundless void. I was aware of nothing at all until 2.03 a.m., when I awoke with a start.
The illuminated numerals on my alarm clock floated in the darkness. Still night; nowhere near time to get up. What had woken me? I lay in bed listening, my body tense. Although all was silent, I had the impression that it was a sound that had startled me and that it had come from nearby. For a long time I stared into the darkness, until at last I began to relax, my body’s craving for sleep taking over. I had almost drifted off again when I heard it.
A sharp, metallic clank. It might have been the sound of a utensil striking one of the metal surfaces in the bakery kitchen, or of someone stumbling into one of the big dough-mixing machines. The kitchen was directly below my room and I was pretty sure the sound had come from there. In fact, I was 100 per cent sure; the certainty ran through me with the thumping of my heart and the quickening of my breath.
There’s someone downstairs.
Could Achim possibly have come in anyway? I didn’t think so. I had spoken to him personally and he knew he wasn’t wanted. Besides, he was not due in for another half-hour even on his earliest shift.
I sat up, pushing the duvet aside, even before I had started considering what I should do. Then I listened again. For about a minute there was nothing at all. Then I heard a slapping sound, as though a gate were swinging shut in the wind.
The kitchen window.
But I checked it.
I slid out of bed and stood there in my nightdress in the middle of the darkened room, my heart thudding.
Who’s down there?
Unbidden, an image came into my mind. A dark cloak, the hem trailing on the tiled floor. A long slim hand, white as milk, touching the smooth metal work surface, savouring the coolness of it. A bright fall of copper-coloured hair covering the face and then the head turning, slowly, very slowly, until suddenly I could see –
No.
I put my hands to my face, as though I could somehow shield myself from the thought.
It can’t be Gertrud Vorn down there. It can’t be. That’s impossible.
Suddenly I couldn’t bear the darkness a moment longer. I flew to the bedside table and switched on the lamp, filling the room with golden light. Then I slid open a drawer, fumbled for a T-shirt, grabbed my jeans from the chair. I wasn’t going to confront the witch of Schönau – if she really was down there – dressed in a cotton jersey nightdress with a rabbit embroidered on the front of it.
This is insane, I thought as I pulled on my clothes. All the same, I had to do something. The thought of sitting there alone in my room, waiting for the stealthy tread on the stairs outside the flat, the rattle of the door handle turning slowly from the outside, the pad of soft feet outside my room – it was too horrible to contemplate.
I didn’t put shoes on. My only ally was silence, so I opted for bare feet, but it wasn’t the coldness of the tiles in the hallway that made me shiver as I made my way carefully to the door of the flat, pulling my cardigan tightly around my body. I stood there for a while listening. I could hear no further sounds from the kitchens below. I leaned close to the door and pressed my ear to the wood.
All I could hear was the rushing of blood in my ear. Otherwise there was silence.
Where is she?
Before the thought had even half crossed my mind I was seized with the conviction that Rote Gertrud was on the other side of the door, as close to the panels as I was, standing still and quiet on the little landing, waiting. Only a few centimetres of flimsy wood separated us.
Fear welled up in me, threatening to split me open like ice in a pipe. It took all of my fraying self-control not to run away from the door, barricade myself in my room. But I thought that hiding in there without knowing whether it was my imagination running wild or there really was someone standing silently outside the flat, waiting to make her move, would send me mad. I bit my lip, screwing up the shreds of my courage, and reached for the key which was still in the lock.
One quick sharp turn and I was able to fling the door open.
Oh, my God, please don’t let there be –
The little landing was empty.
I waited for my heart rate and breathing to steady themselves, until I felt as though I could move again without gasping like a fish out of water. I gazed down the stairs. In the light spilling from the flat I could see that there was nobody there. Emboldened, I started to go down the stairs, treading as softly as I could.
I had just reached the second-to-bottom step when I heard that slapping sound again. I froze. I thought I heard something else too, a scratching or skittering, as though something were scuttling away to hide. Then silence once more.
When I reached the door to the kitchen I realized my mistake: the key was still upstairs in the flat. I tried the door but, as expected, it was locked. For a moment I stood there irresolutely. There was no sound of anything moving in the kitchen.
In the morning, I said to myself. I pushed at the door again, but it held fast. I’ll check in the morning.