41

When Kosef J told Franz Hoss and Fabius about the beerhouse being demolished, they looked at him in disbelief. He then continued to bring them news of the demolished buildings and the chopping down of tress in the central park. The guards would listen to him with utter incredulity. The short, stocky and cheerful man had also spotted a dust cloud from the roof of his clothing-supply room, following which he kept repeating for days and days on end how he had discovered the dust cloud one morning, and how he found that the water tower was no longer there by the time the cloud had scattered.

‘The tower, do you really mean the tower?’ Fabius yelled, sounding rather frightened.

Yes, the tower indeed, the short, stocky and cheerful man confirmed. Then Kosef J came back with further news. The entire facade of the alcohol factory had collapsed overnight. The alcohol-filled barrels had been loaded onto lorries and driven away, somewhere unknown.

Rozette could overhear all this from behind the stacks of dirty dishes, and one night she burst out in tears. ‘What the hell, the watchmakers as well?’ ‘Yes,’ the short, stocky and cheerful man stressed, ‘and the Pandolfi Mansion and the cadet school.’

‘They’ll build others,’ Kosef J added, in the hope that this might calm Rozette a little.

‘You really think they’ll build others?’ he quizzed Franz Hoss with a penetrating look.

It was obvious. Something bizarre was happening, something hovering about like a threat. The timber depots had been locked up for years, but now, lo and behold, they were being opened up, their contents loaded onto cargo trains and shipped out to all corners of the world. All those movements didn’t seem to be normal. What would possibly become of the population? And the colonel, who had stopped leaving his house! Perhaps this was the reason why the colonel had refused to be seen in public. Perhaps the colonel had known about all this, and sick and disillusioned beyond repair that he was, he simply refused to show himself.

Kosef J told them about what was being said in town. About the new town that was being built in the vicinity of the old one.

‘Nonsense,’ Franz Hoss observed. ‘Where exactly can you see a new town?’

The short, stocky and cheerful man also agreed that there was no trace of a new town anywhere on the horizon. Or at least, no such thing could be spotted from the roof of his clothing-supply room. Had Kosef J actually seen anything himself, from other roofs perhaps? No, Kosef J hadn’t seen anything, from anywhere. Rozette, however, had seen something that, for her at least, could have a major significance. The labels on the pea crates had changed. They were no longer large and black, but small and blue.

After a few days of intense scrutiny, turning and twisting this information from all angles, Franz Hoss reached an initial conclusion. That was the last winter they were to spend there. Yet Fabius couldn’t see the connection Franz Hoss had made with winter. What role did winter had to play here? So he asked him just that: ‘What role did winter actually play here?’

‘It did,’ the old guard insisted.

The short, stocky and cheerful man seemed equally dissatisfied with Franz Hoss’s conclusion. How come this was their last winter? So he told him just that: ‘What you have just said is frankly unthinkable.’

‘It is,’ the old guard replied, sounding grumpy and withdrawn.