*
When he made himself some coffee the milk curdled. He hurled the cup at the wall. It smashed, leaving brown splashes on the wallpaper.
Cautiously, he put the milk bottle to his nose. He winced and pulled a face, then dumped it in the waste bin and poured himself another cup.
He stormed downstairs with the cup in his hand, spilling half its contents. He put it down on the grimy pavement outside the supermarket and kicked the automatic door a couple of times. When it refused to open he picked up a bicycle and flung it at the glass. A few scratches, nothing more.
He used the Spider as a battering ram. There was a crash, and the door disintegrated into a shower of glass. Shelves toppled over like dominoes as he drove to the back of the shop. Coming to a halt in a mound of overturned tins, he went to fetch his cup and took it to the dairy section.
He unscrewed a bottle of milk and sniffed. It smelt iffy, so he tossed it aside. He opened another bottle and flung it after the first. The third smelt passable. He poured some into his cup. No clots.
He leant against a humming freezer cabinet and sipped his coffee with relish.
He wondered how many more such coffees he would drink. Made not with powdered or long-life milk, but with milk yielded by a cow only days ago.
How much more fresh meat? How much more freshly squeezed orange juice?
He took the bottle back upstairs with him. He left the car where it was.
*
After his third cup he tried Marie again. Nothing to be heard but the English ringing tone. He slammed the receiver down.
He hurried downstairs again and checked the postbox. Empty.
He ran himself a bubble bath.
He pulled the dirty dressing off his finger. The cut was healing pretty well — it wouldn’t leave much of a scar. He crooked his finger. It didn’t hurt.
He got into the bath. His toes protruded from the foam. He fiddled with them, had a shave and cut his nails. Now and then he darted out of the bathroom, leaving wet footprints on the floor, because he thought he’d heard a noise.
*
At midday he took the scratched and dented Spider on a tour of the city. He met no one. He sounded his horn at every intersection, but more for form’s sake than anything else.
He doubted if he would find a crowbar in a normal DIY store, but that didn’t deter him from demolishing the glass doors of several such establishments with the Spider. He didn’t get out to look for a crowbar. It was an odd sensation, driving a car along aisles normally frequented by taciturn men with big hands pushing trolleys and putting on their reading glasses to squint at price tickets.
I need something more robust, he told himself, having inspected the front of the Spider after his fourth foray.
He eventually struck lucky in a musty old hardware store near the Volkstheater. He couldn’t help recalling that Marie had lived near there years ago, when they’d first met. Engrossed in his memories, he stowed the crowbar in the car. Just as he slammed the passenger door he heard a noise behind him. It sounded like two bits of wood knocking together.
He froze, unable to turn round.
He had the feeling that someone was there. He knew there wasn’t, but the sensation tormented him.
He waited, hunching his shoulders.
Then he swung round. No one there.
*
It took him a while to find a gun shop, but the one in Lerchenfelder Strasse left nothing to be desired. Rifles of all kinds stood in racks against the walls, and revolvers and automatics were displayed in glass cases. There were throwing knives, even Ninja throwing stars. Tear-gas sprays for the lady’s handbag stood on the counter, and hunting bows and crossbows were hanging in cabinets at the back of the shop. Also on sale were camouflage jackets and protective clothing, gas masks, radio sets and other equipment.
Jonas was familiar with guns. During his national service he’d been offered a choice between doing a normal stint in the army and signing up for fifteen months. In the latter case he could choose which unit to be assigned to after basic training. He hadn’t hesitated for an instant. He didn’t enjoy marching and would have done anything to avoid the infantry, so he became a driver and later joined an explosives team. He’d spent two months blasting avalanches in the Tyrolean mountains.
He toured the shop. He disliked guns on principle and abhorred loud noises of any kind. In recent years he’d seen in the New Year in a mountain hut with Marie and Werner and Werner’s girlfriend Simone. However, there were situations in which the possession of a gun had its advantages. Not just any old gun. The best firearm in the world, at least psychologically, was a pump-action shotgun. Nobody who had heard one being reloaded ever forgot the sound.
*
A bollard-free side street enabled him to drive out across the Prater. The first turning he took brought him to a hotdog stand. He lit the gas under the hotplate and brushed the surface with oil. When the temperature was right he laid out a row of sausages on it.
With the scent of frying sausages in his nostrils he looked up at the towering, motionless shape of the Big Wheel nearby. He’d been on it often. The first time as a boy accompanied by his father, who may have been quite as intimidated by the unaccustomed altitude as his son, because it would have been difficult to tell whose hand had squeezed the other’s harder. He’d had many rides since then. Sometimes with girlfriends, mostly with colleagues at the exuberant conclusion of a work outing.
The sausages sizzled and smoked as he turned them on the hotplate. He opened a can of beer and drank it with his head tilted back, gazing at the Big Wheel.
On the day Marie landed a job as a flight attendant with Austrian Airlines, Jonas had overcome his reluctance to splash out: he’d rented a gondola for three hours, just for the two of them. Overly romantic gestures weren’t his thing. He detested sentimentality, but he felt sure Marie would be thrilled.
A dinner table awaited them, complete with a bottle of champagne in an ice bucket and a long-stemmed red rose in a cut-glass vase. They took their seats, the waiter brought the hors d’oeuvres, bowed and withdrew. An almost imperceptible lurch, and the wheel got under way.
One revolution took twenty minutes. From high above they had a panoramic view of the city, whose traffic lights, street lights and floodlights punctuated the dusk. They drew each other’s attention to long-familiar sights, now given fresh appeal by the unaccustomed viewpoint. Jonas topped up their glasses. By the time they reached ground level and the next course was served, Marie’s cheeks were glowing.
During a conversation a year later, she made some faintly ironical reference to his romantic streak. Taken aback, he asked what she meant, and she reminded him of their evening on the Big Wheel. That was when he discovered that Marie had as little time as he did for candlelit dinners high above Vienna. She had enthused about the atmosphere to please him, whereas what she’d really longed for was a glass of beer on a bar stool in some pub or other.
He took a bite of sausage. It tasted of nothing. He looked around for some ketchup and mustard.
*
He was surprised to find how relatively easy it was to operate the fairground attractions.
He smashed the window of the ticket office with the butt of his gun, took a handful of chips and seated himself in a go-cart. Nothing happened when he depressed the accelerator. He inserted a chip in the slot. Now it worked. With the shotgun on his lap, his free hand on the steering wheel and his foot down hard, he raced round the track several times, doing his best not to graze the barriers on the bends.
He broke into the ticket office of the old scenic railway. All he had to do then was press a button, and the wooden cars came gliding into position alongside the boarding platform. The trip passed off without incident. He might have been an ordinary customer on an ordinary day.