Out in the street it was a mild, windless night. Jonas peered left and right. The hairs stood up on the back of his neck as he set off through the gloom. He felt tempted to turn back, but he summoned up all his willpower and walked on.
The shop wasn’t locked. There was chocolate. In addition to tinned goods and powdered soups, the establishment had sold milk, bread and sausage — all of it spoilt now, of course. The owner had dealt in almost all the basic necessities. Alcohol was the only thing Jonas couldn’t find.
He put several bars of chocolate in a rusty shopping basket and added a few tins of bean soup, some peanuts and a bottle of mineral water. He also raided the shelves for a random assortment of sweets and biscuits.
The shopping basket proved a nuisance on the return trip. It was impossible to carry the thing and hold his gun at the ready at the same time. He walked slowly. Here and there a lighted window illuminated a stretch of pavement.
He couldn’t shake off the notion that someone was lying in wait behind the parked cars. He paused to listen. All he heard was his own tremulous breathing.
In his imagination a woman was lurking behind that van parked on the corner. She was wearing a kind of nun’s wimple, and she had no face. There she crouched, waiting for him as if she’d never moved before. As if she’d always been there. And she wasn’t waiting for just anyone. She was waiting for him.
He had an urge to laugh, to yell, but he didn’t utter a sound. He tried to run, but his legs refused to obey him. He approached the building steadily, not daring to breathe.
In the hallway he turned on the light, walked up the ramp and along the passage to the flat. He didn’t look back. He went in, put the basket down and pushed the door shut with his behind. Only then did he turn round and lock it.
‘Hahaha! Now we’ll feast! Now we’ll guzzle! Hahaha!’
He looked round the kitchen. The units and all the equipment had belonged to the Kästner family. He put a large saucepan on the stove and emptied the contents of two tins into it. His tension gradually eased as the scent of bean soup rose into the air.
After eating he took the shopping basket into the living room, where he was greeted by the hum of the camera. The bed didn’t collapse this time either, when he tested its stability with his foot. He went to get a blanket and a pillow and lay down. Tearing the wrapper off a bar of milk chocolate, he thrust a couple of squares into his mouth.
He surveyed the room. Although the furniture was still far from complete, the pieces he’d so far brought in were back in their original places. The brown bookcase and the yellow one. The ancient standard lamp. The rather greasy armchair. The rocking chair with the worn arms, in which he’d sometimes felt queasy as a child. And, on the wall opposite the bed, ‘Johanna’, the picture of an unknown woman that had always hung there: a beautiful, dark-haired woman leaning against a stylised tree trunk and gazing into the beholder’s eyes. His parents had jokingly christened her Johanna, although no one knew who had painted the picture or whom it represented. Or even where it had come from.
The undersheet was soft. It still gave off a familiar odour.
Jonas turned on his side and reached for another piece of chocolate. Tired and relaxed, he stared at the window that overlooked the street. A double window, it was so ill-fitting that old blankets had been laid on the sill between the inner and outer casements to prevent draughts in winter.
This was where he’d handed over his letter addressed to the Christkind just before Christmas.
His mother used to remind him to make out a wish list for the Christkind at the beginning of December. She never forgot to mention that he must be modest in his requests because the Christkind was too poor to be able to afford more than a thin garment. So Jonas would sit at the table with his feet dangling clear of the floor, chewing his pencil and dreaming. Would a remote-controlled jeep be too expensive for the Christkind? How about a toy racetrack? Or an electric motorboat? The most wonderful presents occurred to him, but his mother said his requests would put the Christkind in an awkward position because they couldn’t all be granted.
As a result, Jonas’s wish list eventually consisted of just a few small items. A new fountain pen. A packet of transfers. A rubber ball. His letter ended up on the threadbare blanket between the windows, ready to be collected by an angel on one of the following nights and delivered to the Christkind.
How would the angel manage to open the outer window?
That was the question Jonas pondered before going to sleep. He didn’t want to shut his eyes and yearned to stay awake. Would the angel come tonight? Would he hear him?
His first thought on waking: I fell asleep after all. But when, when?
He ran to the window. If the envelope had disappeared, as it usually did on the second or third day, seldom on the first because angels were so busy, Jonas experienced a feeling of happiness far greater than anything he felt weeks later on Christmas Eve itself. He was delighted with his presents, and with the thought that the Christkind had been near enough in person to leave the parcels beneath the Christmas tree while he was sitting in the kitchen. His parents used to invite Uncle Reinhard and Aunt Lena, Uncle Richard and Aunt Olga to dinner. The tree was lit up with candles. Jonas would lie on the floor half-listening to the grown-ups’ conversation, which had become a steady murmur by the time it reached him. He felt enveloped by the sound as he leafed through a book or examined a toy train. This was all very lovely and mysterious, but nothing compared to the miracle that had occurred a week or two earlier, when an angel had come to collect his letter during the night.
Jonas sighed and turned over. Only a few squares of chocolate were left. He put them in his mouth and crumpled up the wrapper.
Aware that he wouldn’t be able to remain awake much longer, he overcame his inertia and got to his feet.
He stationed three cameras side by side, facing the bed. He looked through the lenses, adjusted their angle, put a tape in each. When everything was ready he turned his attention to the TV and the camera connected to it. Last night’s tape was in his trouser pocket. He inserted it and pressed ‘Play’.
*
The camera wasn’t pointing at the bed, nor was it located in the bedroom. The screen displayed the shower cubicle in the bathroom. The bathroom of this flat. In Hollandstrasse.
Someone seemed to have been taking quite a long shower, a hot one. The glass sides of the cubicle were misted up and steam was rising above them, but the swoosh of the water couldn’t be heard. The scene appeared to have been shot without sound.
After ten minutes Jonas began to wonder if this waste of water would go on for much longer.
Twenty minutes. He was so sleepy, he had to switch to fast-forward. Thirty minutes, forty. An hour. The bathroom door was shut, the room became more and more steamed up. The door of the shower cubicle was barely visible.
After two hours, all that could be seen on the screen was a dense grey mass.
Another fifteen minutes, and visibility rapidly improved. The bathroom door reappeared. It was open now. So was the door of the shower cubicle.
The cubicle itself was empty.
The tape ended without his having seen anyone.
Jonas turned off the TV. Warily, as if there were a direct connection between what he’d seen on the tape and what was happening at this moment, he peered into the bathroom. He looked at the rubber mat. The shower head. The soap dish projecting from the tiles. Nothing had changed.