Although the windows were quite high off the ground, he raised the shotgun and prepared to blow out a pane. Just then he noticed a small, windowless house across the street. Ignoring the puddles, he ran over to it. The door was round the back.
He tried the handle. It opened. He muttered a thank-you.
Without looking left or right, he hurried into the bathroom and turned on the hot tap. Then he peeled off his clothes. They were so sodden they landed on the tiled floor with a loud smack. He wrapped himself in a bath towel, hoping there were some men’s clothes in the house.
A gloomy house. There were windows only on the north side, overlooking a weed-infested garden. He turned on all the lights he passed, many of which didn’t work.
With the sound of running water coming from the bathroom, he turned the kitchen upside down in search of tea bags. He rummaged in all the cupboards and emptied out the drawers onto the floor, but all he found were useless things like cinnamon, vanilla essence, cocoa and ground almonds. The biggest shelf was crammed with cake tins. The occupants of the house seemed to have lived on a diet of cakes and pastries.
On a shelf that had escaped his notice at first he found a packet of soup cubes. Although he would have preferred tea, he put some water on to boil and crumbled five cubes into the saucepan.
A mountain of foam awaited him in the bathtub. He turned off the tap and put the saucepan of soup on a damp flannel on the edge of the bath. Then he threw off the towel and got in. The water was so hot he gritted his teeth.
He stared up at the ceiling.
Foam hissed and crackled all around him.
Bending his knees, he slid beneath the water, ran his fingers through his hair a few times and surfaced again. He opened his eyes at once and looked in all directions, shook the water out of his ears and listened. Nothing. He lay back.
He had loved having baths as a child. The Hollandstrasse flat had no bathtub, just a shower, so it was a treat he could only enjoy at Uncle Reinhard and Aunt Lena’s. He used to sit in their gleaming white tub, listening to the sound of his aunt clearing the table and sniffing the various soaps and bath cubes. He was familiar with them all. He even recognised the disintegrating labels on the shampoo bottles and regarded them as friends. But what delighted him most of all was the foam. The millions of tiny bubbles that seemed to twinkle in countless colours. That was the loveliest sight he’d ever seen. He still remembered paying little attention to the plastic ducks and boats and staring dreamily at the foam instead, filled with a mysterious wish: this, he thought, was how the Christkind ought to look when bringing the presents at Christmas.
*
The man who had lived here was short and stout.
Jonas surveyed his reflection in the mirror on the door of the wardrobe from which he’d taken the former occupant’s shirt and Sunday-best trousers. The trousers hung loose about his hips but ended a few inches above his ankles. He couldn’t find a belt anywhere, so he secured them around his waist with some black sticky tape. They felt scratchy, as did the shirt, and both garments smelt of old twigs.
In the dimly lit hallway he walked along the rows of pictures that he hadn’t spared a glance until now. None of them was bigger than an exercise book, and the smallest ones were the size of a postcard. Some words had been scrawled on the wallpaper beneath each of the inappropriately massive frames, evidently their respective titles. Like the pictures themselves, they were incomprehensible at first sight. A dark mass was entitled Liver. A double-barrelled shotgun of some indeterminate material was Lung. Two crossed sticks Autumn. Beneath the face of a man who looked familiar to Jonas were the words Floor Meat.
Among these works of art was a board with keys on hooks. One of them looked like an ignition key. It briefly occurred to Jonas that, if he wanted to preserve the spirit of this venture, he would have to ride back to Vienna on the DS. He tapped his forehead. The whole trip had been a diabolical idea, and it was time he acknowledged the fact.
Beneath an umbrella that gave off a scent of the forest, he walked along the line of cars parked outside in the street. After trying the key three times without success, he wondered if there wasn’t some quicker way. What sort of car would a man like the owner of this house have driven? Would he have owned a Volkswagen or a Fiat? Definitely not. Men who lived like this plump, dwarfish individual drove cars that were either small and compact or big and comfortable.
He looked all around. A Mercedes caught his eye, but it was too new a model. A 220 Diesel from the 1970s would have fitted the picture.
A dark, unobtrusive off-road vehicle. Not too big, with four-wheel drive.
He hurried across the street. The key fitted. The engine started immediately. He turned the heating up full and adjusted the control so it blew on his feet. He would have to drive barefoot. The slippers he’d put on were four sizes too small and his own shoes were full of water.
Leaving the engine running, he went back to fetch his things. He was interested to know whose guest he had been, so he looked for a nameplate on the door. When he couldn’t find one he rummaged in the waste-paper sack for invoices, receipts or letters. There were none. The house contained no clue to its owner’s identity.
13
Jonas looked first at the camera. It was still standing there.
He blinked and rubbed his eyes. Tried to collect his thoughts. He’d fallen into bed after his long trip without putting in a tape, but he wasn’t sorry.
His throat was sore. It hurt him to swallow.
He shut his eyes and turned over.
*
He made his way downstairs and went to the supermarket. There he stowed some cartons of fruit juice and long-life milk in a shopping bag, together with a marble cake vacuum-sealed in transparent plastic, ‘Use by end October’. His stomach muscles clenched when he read the date. End October. Would he still be roaming this deserted city at the end of October? What would happen in the meantime? What after that?
What in December?
In January?
Jonas got into the Spider and drove to the city centre. He rattled the doors of various cafés. They were all locked. He didn’t find one open until he came to Himmelpfortgasse.
While the espresso machine was hissing away behind him, he cut some slices of marble cake and poured himself a glass of orange juice.
End October.
January. February.
March. April. May. September.
He stared at the untouched cake, knowing that he wouldn’t be able to get any of it down.
He made himself a second cup of coffee. There was a newspaper on the counter. He picked it up and, for the hundredth time, skimmed the news reports for 3 July. He only sipped his espresso. Once he thought he heard a sound coming from the basement, where the toilets were. He took a few steps towards the stairs and listened. Nothing more to be heard.
In a chemist’s not far from the café he looked for some aspirin and vitamin tablets. He took twice the recommended number of drops from a bottle of echinacea. Sucking a throat pastille, he strolled back to the car and drove slowly to Stephansplatz, where he perched on the Spider’s roof.
Scattered clouds were drifting across the sky. A wind was blowing. A foretaste of autumn? No, impossible, not in July. Just a temporary depression. Autumn wasn’t till October. End October.
And then would come November. December. January. Thirty days plus thirty-one and another thirty-one. Ninety-two days between the beginning of November and the end of January, and he would have to live through twenty-four hours in each. And through the days and hours before and after them. All by himself.