He made sure everything that mattered was inside the house, then noted down the truck’s kilometre reading and locked it. Passing the old skittle alley, he headed for the entrance to the inn. The decrepit Fiat in the car park must have belonged to the Löhnebergers.
The doorbell tinkled as the door closed behind him. He recognised the sound. The bell had been there in the old days. He waited. Nothing stirred.
A second door led to the bar and restaurant. Jonas wasted no time on reminiscences. He simmered a packet of peas from the freezer, adding some wine and stock cubes to improve their flavour, if only marginally.
Should he climb the stairs to the Löhnebergers’ private quarters? He’d never been up there before. A glance out of the window reminded him that the sun was already low in the sky. He put two bottles of beer in a plastic bag.
*
All seemed peaceful.
Jonas strolled through the garden, combing the long grass with his fingers. He picked some redcurrants. They tasted insipid. He spat them out. Behind the house he came to the door of the wood cellar. He’d forgotten about that.
Still standing in the middle of the cellar, which was lit only by such sunlight as could penetrate the little window above the woodpile, was the big tree stump used as a chopping block. The cellar was another of the places where Jonas had hidden from his garden-obsessed mother. He’d used his pocket knife to carve little figures out of blocks of wood, some of them quite successful, and had left a sizeable collection of them behind at the end of the holidays. Although he hadn’t liked sitting in this gloomy vault, he preferred the company of spiders and beetles to that of his overzealous mother.
He peered at the corner behind the door. Looked away, looked again. There were some tools there. A spade, a hoe, a broom. And a walking stick.
He looked more closely, then picked up the walking stick. It was decorated with carvings.
Jonas took it outside for a better look. He recognised the carvings. No doubt about it. It was the stick the old man had given him.
He went inside the house. Luckily, he found the key in a little box beside the front door, which he locked behind him. He thought for a moment, then put the key in his pocket. Having opened a bottle of beer, he sat down in the living room and examined the walking stick.
Twenty years.
This walking stick was unlike the bench he was sitting on, or the bed on which he would later lie down, or that wooden chest over there. Twenty years ago it had been his property, and in a certain sense it had never stopped being that. It had stood in its grimy corner, ignored by everyone. On twenty separate occasions, people nearby had celebrated the last day of the year and let off fireworks, but the walking stick had continued to stand propped against the wall of the wood cellar, unconcerned by Christmas and New Year and visitors singing. Now Jonas had returned and the walking stick still belonged to him.
Much had changed since the last time he saw it. He had left school and done his national service, had girlfriends and lost his mother. He had grown up and started on a life of his own. The Jonas who had last touched this stick had been a child, an entirely different person. Yet not so different, for if Jonas searched his inner self the self he found was the same as the one he remembered. Twenty years ago, when he’d said ‘I’ with this stick in his hand, he’d meant the same person as he was today. He, Jonas, was that person. He couldn’t escape. Would always be that person. Whatever happened. Never anyone else. Not Martin. Not Peter. Not Richard. Only himself.
*
Jonas couldn’t bear to watch the night at its work. The blinds came rattling down as he lowered them. He connected the camera to the TV and put in last night’s tape.
He saw himself walk past the camera and get into bed.
After an hour the Sleeper tossed around for the first time.
After two hours he turned over on his side.
He continued to sleep in that position until the tape ran out.
Nothing, absolutely nothing had happened. Jonas switched off. Midnight. He was thirsty. He’d polished off the second bottle of beer a long time ago. All he could find in his bag of snacks from the filling station was a packet of pumpernickel, some chocolate bars and some cans of lemonade. He wanted beer.
He made his way out onto the landing, tapping the wall with his knuckles as he went. He turned off the light and peered out of the window. The darkness outside was impenetrable. Clouds had blotted out the stars. There was no moon. He sensed rather than saw the track that led past the skittle alley to the inn.
Uncle Reinhard had wanted to make a bet with him one night: Jonas was to go and get a bottle of lemonade from the inn. All by himself and without a torch, he was to sally forth into the darkness and buy a bottle from the Löhnebergers, who were serving some late customers. The banknote Uncle Reinhard produced from his pocket made Jonas stare wide-eyed and made his parents quietly groan.
Nothing to it, they all said briskly. There was a light above the inn door. It was only really dark near the skittle alley. He was chicken if he didn’t go. No fuss now, just get it over with quickly.
No, he said.
Uncle Reinhard came closer, waving the banknote under his nose. They were downstairs, just inside the front door. Jonas looked at the path that led past the skittle alley, looked at each grown-up in turn.
No, he repeated.
And that was that, even though his mother was gesticulating and pulling angry faces behind Uncle Reinhard’s back. Uncle Reinhard had laughed and patted him on the shoulder. Jonas would soon discover that ghosts didn’t exist, he said. His parents had turned away and hardly spoken to him for the next two days.
‘Don’t kid yourself,’ Jonas said, vainly scanning the darkness for some recognisable shapes at least.
He turned his head abruptly. He couldn’t get rid of the feeling that sooner or later, when he looked over his shoulder like that, the wolf-bear would be standing there. It would be there, and he would have known it would appear.
Leaving the rifle behind, he went downstairs. He opened the front door and stepped out onto the weatherworn flagstones of the forecourt.
It was cold. And pitch-black. No wind, no crickets chirping, no sound save the grating of pebbles on the flagstones beneath his feet. He couldn’t get used to the absence of sounds made by living creatures. Wasps, bees and flies could be annoying. He had cursed their persistent humming and buzzing a thousand times. The barking of dogs had sometimes struck him as a diabolical nuisance, and even some birdsong was strident rather than easy on the ear. But he would have preferred the whine of a mosquito to the relentless silence prevailing here. Even, perhaps, the roar of a prowling lion.
He had to go, he knew.
‘Well, this is it.’
He pretended to be holding something in his hand as if shielding it from view. Meanwhile, he ran through the forthcoming excursion in his mind’s eye. He pictured himself opening the garden gate, making his way past the skittle alley and, finally, reaching the inn’s terrace. He would open the door, turn on the lights, get two bottles of beer from the bar, turn out the lights and return by the same route.
‘Really nice,’ he muttered, scratching his palm with a fingernail.
In thirty seconds he would set off. In five minutes at most he would be back. In five minutes’ time he would be holding two bottles. He would also have proved something. Five minutes were bearable, they were a mere nothing. He could count off the seconds and think of something else.
His legs felt numb. He stood motionless on the flagstones with the open door behind him. Minutes went by.
So he was wrong. He’d been mistaken when he’d thought it would all be over in five minutes. He’d been destined to set off a few minutes later. The time he’d thought would mark the end of his ordeal was really its beginning.