Without looking down, he made his way out onto the terrace and leant against the parapet, beneath which a grille projected from the wall. It was supposed to prevent spectacular suicides.
Wind buffeted his face. The sun was low in the sky. It was so dazzling he shut his eyes for a while. When he opened them again and looked down, he took an involuntary step backwards.
What had impelled him to come up here? The view? Memories of Marie?
Or hadn’t he come of his own free will at all? Was he like a hamster on a treadwheel? Were his actions determined by someone else?
Had he died and gone to hell?
He drained the bottle of lemonade, drew back his arm and hurled it into the depths. It took a long time to fall, then hit the ground without a sound.
Inside the café he sat down at the table he associated with memories of his visits with Marie. He re-read all the text messages from her stored in his mobile. I’m just overhead, only a few kilometres above you. — Licking an ice-cream cornet and thinking of you.:-) — Please FMH — You are terrible! * hic *:-) — I love love love love you.
He shut his eyes and tried to send her a telepathic message. I’m alive, are you there?
He pictured her face, her cheeks, her clear-eyed gaze. Her lovely dark hair. Her lips with their slight downward curve at the corners.
It was difficult. Her image dissolved and faded. He could hear her voice in his head, but it sounded like an echo. He’d already forgotten her smell.
In the Internet area he booted up a computer and inserted some euros, propping his chin on his fists. While the view of the city slowly changed before his eyes, he allowed his thoughts to run on.
Perhaps he had to pass a test, one to which there was a correct answer. A correct response that would extricate him from his predicament. A password, an open sesame, an email to God.
www.marie.com
Page not found
www.marie.at
Page not found
www.marie.uk
Page not found
If a password of sorts existed, it ought to have some connection with himself. That seemed logical.
www.jonas.at
Page not found
www.help.at
Page not found
www.help.com
Page not found
www.god.com
Page not found
He fetched himself another bottle of lemonade and drank, looking out over the city as it slid past.
www.vienna.at
Page not found
www.world.com
Page not found
He tried to access dozens more known and invented websites, checked to see what pages had been stored and tried them too. In vain.
www.umirom.com
Page not found. Try again later or check your settings.
*
Bottle in hand, Jonas unhurriedly explored every part of the café. In the children’s corner he came across some painting equipment. He had loved mucking around with paints as a child, but his parents had very soon confiscated all his brushes and crayons because he made a mess and ruined some of his mother’s needlework.
His eye lighted on a white tablecloth.
He counted the tables in the café. There were a dozen or more, plus the ones on the upper floor.
He proceeded to strip them all. The upper floor yielded fourteen tablecloths, and he found a few spares in a dresser. By the time he’d finished, thirty-three squares of cloth lay spread out in front of him.
He knotted the ends together to form an oblong made up of three times eleven tablecloths. He had to push the tables and chairs aside to create enough room to work in. It was half an hour before he went and fetched the tubes of paint. He decided on black.
His name? His phone number? Just HELP?
He hesitated for a moment before starting to paint, then completed the job in short order. It wasn’t easy because the tablecloths tended to wrinkle up. Besides, he had to gauge the letter-spacing and apply the paint thickly enough.
He used the remainder in the tubes to write his phone number on the walls, tables and floor.
The panoramic window couldn’t be opened, so he blew out two panes on either side of an upright with the shotgun. The two reports were followed moments later by the tinkle of glass raining down on the terrace below. Wind came surging into the café, sweeping menus off the bare tables and rattling the glasses behind the bar.
Jonas knocked out the remaining shards of glass with the butt of his gun. He felt queasy when he stationed himself at the window holding the ends of his improvised banner. He ought to have turned off the motor, he realised. The café’s rotation didn’t exactly help. The wind lashed his face, making his eyes water. He felt as if he might topple into space at any moment, but he managed to tie the ends of the three outermost tablecloths firmly to the window frame. The material was thin, after all, and he felt sure the frame would hold.
Bundling up the rest of his banner, he hefted it out of the window. It hung down limply for a moment. Then the wind caught it, but the inscription was still not as clearly visible as he’d hoped.
He picked up the gun, cast a brief glance at the devastation he was leaving behind, and hurried to the control booth. Tools were readily available there because the in-house mechanics used it as their depot. A moment later he was standing beside the regulator with a hammer. Three blows sufficed to knock out the cotter pin. An alarm went off. The regulator offered little resistance as he turned it beyond the 26 mark.
A low, all-pervading hum filled the air. He couldn’t see what was happening because the control booth had no windows, but the sound told him all he needed to know.
He continued to turn the regulator until it would go no further, however much pressure he applied. Then he grabbed his gun and dashed to the lift.
He made for the car without glancing up. He didn’t look back until he’d driven a few hundred metres. The café was rotating with the banner fluttering from it. The inscription, legible from afar, read:
UMIROM.
6
Next morning he found a Polaroid photo tucked between the bread bin and the coffee grinder. It showed him asleep.
He couldn’t remember seeing it before. When and where had it been taken? He had no idea why it should be there. The likeliest answer was that Marie had left it there, intentionally or not.
Except that he’d never owned a Polaroid camera. Nor had Marie.
*
Jonas arrived at his parents’ old flat in Hollandstrasse armed with the biggest axe from the DIY store. He went round the rooms, picturing what he wanted. Dumping bulky refuse in the street outside the building wasn’t a good idea because he wanted to keep the access clear. He didn’t need the backyard, on the other hand, so he decided to use it as a rubbish dump.
Anything that wouldn’t go through the kitchen window had to be chopped up small. To make room, he began by pitching upright chairs and other manageable objects through the window into the yard. Then he set to work on the three-piece suite. Having removed the cushions and ripped off the upholstery with the aid of a carpet knife, he began to dismember the frames. He hacked away so vigorously that the axe went through a chair leg and into the floor. He was rather more restrained after that.
It was the bookshelves’ turn after the three-piece suite. Then came a massive linen cupboard, a chaise longue, a display cabinet, and a chest of drawers. His T-shirt was clinging to him by the time he tossed the last bits of debris out of the window, and he was breathing heavily.