I was still standing there, open-mouthed, looking down at the banknotes which were falling like autumn leaves on to my shoes, when the bakery telephone rang. It sounded unnaturally loud in the still and empty cafe area, and I actually jumped.
I glanced at the door and windows. There was nobody about, no nosy passers-by getting too close to the glass. I picked up as many of the notes as I could in one hand and went for the phone with the other. It was surreal, standing there with the receiver in my hand and the greater part of ten thousand euros in banknotes in the other – I felt a slightly hysterical urge to laugh.
‘Nett?’
‘Steffi?’ It was Hanna.
It occurred to me that the caller could have been my mother, with unwelcome news, and suddenly the situation felt less hilarious.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘Max told me … you know … about your father,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. We all are.’
I couldn’t think of much to say. ‘Thanks,’ I settled on lamely, rubbing my forehead with the back of a hand that was gripping a great wad of banknotes.
‘Max says … ’ Hanna paused. ‘He says you want to go up to Gertrud’s house. To wish your father better.’
‘Yes,’ I said, and I thought, It’s worked again. Another wish granted. The only one which hadn’t been was the one about Achim Zimmer, but that might be only a matter of time. I could cure my father, I thought with a sudden exhilarating sense of power. I could really do it.
‘Max has called everyone,’ said Hanna’s voice in my ear. ‘Izabela can’t get away, but the rest of us are coming. Jochen told his boss he had diarrhoea.’
She was trying to make me laugh, lighten my mood, but the moment she mentioned Jochen and the others I felt apprehension fasten on to me again like a leech.
‘Hanna … ’ I began, but she swept on.
‘We’re coming round as soon as Max has picked everyone up, OK? The bakery is shut, right? So you don’t have to be there or anything?’
‘No,’ I said. ‘But Hanna –’
‘It’s OK,’ she said, as though I had thanked her. ‘See you in maybe half an hour.’ And she rang off.
I held the lifeless receiver in my hand and grimaced at it. I thought about ringing her back and saying I couldn’t go, that I had to go to the hospital instead. In fact, my mother would be expecting me. I should be getting my things together and catching the bus, not chasing off to the Eschweiler Tal with Max and the others.
This might be Dad’s best chance.
That was the thing: I could decide between visiting my father, who probably hadn’t even known I was there the day before, and going to Rote Gertrud’s house to do something I now believed would save him. I thought about it for a while, but the decision had already been made.
When Max sounded his car horn outside the bakery door thirty minutes later, I ran out without a second glance. As I was locking the door behind me, I heard the phone ringing again in the deserted bakery. I paused for a moment and then let it ring. I pocketed the key and got into the car.