He vaguely remembered that they’d stored a lot of things in the attic because there were no storage spaces in the basement. He hadn’t been up there since he was a boy.
He fetched the bunch of keys left behind by the Kästner family, together with the torch and the shotgun. There was no lift, but he was scarcely out of breath by the time he reached the fifth floor. At least he was still reasonably fit.
The heavy door creaked open. A cold current of air rushed out at him. The light switch was so thick with dust and cobwebs that he guessed he must be the attic’s first visitor for years. He surveyed it by the light of the naked bulb suspended from a beam.
There were no separate compartments. Numbers scrawled in whitewash on three-metre-high beams indicated that the space beneath each belonged to a particular flat. In one corner lay a bicycle frame without its tyres and chain, and not far from it a heap of sacks filled with plaster. Some broken slats were leaning against the wall in another corner. He also spotted a tubeless TV.
On the floor beneath the number of his parents’ flat stood a heavy chest. Jonas knew at once that it had belonged to his father, not the Kästners. There was nothing to indicate this, no nameplate or label. Nor did he recognise it. But it was his father’s beyond a doubt.
When he went to open the chest, he found that it had no lock or handles.
He examined every side, getting his hands dirty in the process. He patted off the dust on his trouser legs and pulled a face. Then he gave up.
He went downstairs again. At least the attic would have enough room for the boxes. Before carrying them up there, however, he wanted to inspect their contents. For the moment, he dumped them in one of the neighbouring flats.
It struck him that he could simply leave them there. It was cleaner and he wouldn’t have so far to go if he needed something. But he stuck to his original plan: to restore order and maintain it. Those boxes didn’t belong in his parents’ flat. They had no business there, only in the space reserved for them in the attic.
*
The wind had got up again. Dozens of rustling plastic and paper bags, which must have escaped from one of the vegetable stalls in the Karmelitermarkt, were scudding across the square. Jonas got a speck of dust in his eye. It started to water.
He made himself a quick snack in an inviting-looking pub, then walked on through the streets. This district had undergone many changes since his boyhood. Most of the shops and restaurants were unfamiliar to him. He felt in his pocket for one of the little cards he’d written on. It bore the word ‘Blue’. That was no help. He looked around but couldn’t see anything that colour.
The wind was so strong it nudged him in the back. He kept on breaking into an involuntary trot. He turned to look. Just the wind, nothing more. He walked on, only to swing round again.
The street was deserted. No suspicious movement, no sound. Just the slithering of paper and scraps of refuse being blown along the street by the wind.
In Nestroygasse he looked at his watch. Not even six yet. He had plenty of time.
*
The front door wasn’t locked. He called, waited a few moments, then ventured inside.
A low hum was coming from behind the door on his left. He raised his shotgun and kicked the handle. The door burst open. He fired, cocked the gun and fired again. Waited a moment, then yelled and dashed into the room.
It was empty.
He was standing in a pellet-riddled bathroom, and the sound he’d heard was the gas boiler heating up the water. Catching sight of his reflection in the mirror above the washbasin, he quickly averted his gaze.
The floorboards creaked as he made his way around the flat. From the bathroom into the hallway. From the hallway to the kitchen. Back into the hallway and from there into the living room. The place was dark, like most old flats. He turned some lights on.
He searched various drawers for notes, letters and similar documents. All he found were bills.
The bedroom curtains were drawn. He saw the framed photograph on the wall as soon as he turned on the light. A boy of about ten with an expressionless face. Ingo. For a moment he thought the boy was smiling. Something else puzzled him, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.
‘Anyone there?’ His voice cracked.
There were some photo albums on a shelf in the living room. He pulled one out and flicked through it without putting his gun down.
Photos dating from the seventies. Colour prints as poor as the ones he’d found at Rüdigergasse. The same haircuts, the same trousers, the same shirt collars, the same little cars.
All at once it went dark outside. He ran to the window. The shotgun fell over with a crash behind him. But it was only a storm cloud passing across the sun.
He had to sit down. Absently, he glanced at photo after photo. He felt close to tears. His heartbeat steadied, but only gradually.
In one of the photos he recognised himself.
He turned over the page. Snaps of himself and Ingo. More of the same on the next page. He couldn’t recall being on such close terms with Ingo. He’d been here only once, so he couldn’t think when or where these pictures had been taken. The backgrounds offered no clue.
A page torn from a newspaper fell out of one of the albums and onto his lap. It was foxed and faded and folded in the middle. Most of it was filled with death notices.
Our Ingo. In his tenth year. Tragic accident. Sorely missed.
Shaken, he laid the album aside. Then he remembered the framed photograph. He went back into the bedroom. This time he noticed what had escaped him before: it had a black border.
He was almost as thrown by his former playmate’s death as he was by the fact that he hadn’t learnt of it until twenty-five years after the event. They’d only had anything to do with one another in primary school. To him, Ingo Lüscher had been alive throughout these years — in fact he’d sometimes wondered what had become of the fair-haired lad from the neighbourhood. Little had been said about the accident, it seemed. His parents couldn’t have known Ingo’s, or they would have mentioned it.
How had it happened?
He made another search of the drawers in the living room. He shook the photograph albums, but only a couple of loose prints fell out. He looked for a computer, but the Lüschers didn’t seem to have gone in for modern technology. There wasn’t even a TV.
The folder was in the bedside table. It contained press cuttings. Accident: child killed. Motorbike knocks boy down: dead.
He read every article. What one omitted, the other mentioned, and he soon managed to form an idea of what had happened. Ingo had evidently run out into the street while playing, and the motorcyclist had been unable to avoid him. The rear-view mirror had broken the boy’s neck.
Killed by a rear-view mirror. Jonas had never heard of such a thing before.
He paced around the flat in a turmoil. A collision with a motorbike had caused the boy’s death. Thirty-year-old Ingo didn’t exist because of ten-year-old Ingo’s accident. The thirty-year-old might have escaped injury. He could have protected the ten-year-old, but the ten-year-old had been unable to protect the thirty-year-old.
The same person. One a boy, the other an adult. The latter didn’t exist because the former had had an accident. A rear-view mirror, which mightn’t have done much to the adult, had broken the boy’s neck.
Jonas pictured thirty-year-old Ingo standing on the other side of the street and watching the motorbike knock down his ten-year-old self, knowing that he would never exist. Did the two of them speak to each other? Did the ten-year-old apologise to the thirty-year-old? Did the latter console the former by saying it was an accident for which he bore no blame?