I went into the bathroom, where I washed my face with soap, brushed my teeth, and dried myself on one of Heinrich and Eva’s hand towels, which was adorned with a smiling cartoon character named the Pink Panther.
I returned to the living room. Eva was just taking her leave. She asked when Heinrich was thinking of following her up to bed. Soon, he replied. She waved to us and left the room.
Heinrich offered me some chips. I helped myself. He poured himself some red wine from a dark-green, opaque bottle, sighed, and read some more news.
I was so tired I stretched out in my armchair and briefly closed my eyes. When I awoke, the sun was shining outside. The time by the video recorder was 8:18. Heinrich was lying asleep on the sofa with his mouth open.
I heard Eva’s voice outside the door. Those two idiots spent the night in the living room, she was saying. Then my partner made herself heard. She indignantly conjectured that the two “weary warriors” wouldn’t be much use to anyone today.
I raised my head and looked at the door.
Aha, said Eva, one of them is awake.
My partner tapped her forehead at me. I wished her good morning. In consequence of our brief ensuing conversation, Heinrich woke up too. He jumped to his feet as though someone had tipped a bucket of cold water over him. He just took the time to give his wife a good-morning kiss as he brushed past her.
I rubbed my eyes and plodded out into the hall to join the others.
Heinrich slipped into his brown sandals and asked where the car keys were. Hanging on their hook as usual, said Eva, but what did he need the car for? Heinrich replied that he had to buy some newspapers. Eva said he was mad; he ought to have some breakfast first, and besides, there probably weren’t any papers on Easter Sunday. Heinrich recalled the Kronen Zeitung’s advertisement of last night, which had promised to bring out an edition containing an illustrated sixteen-page report on the killings.
He was almost out the door when, with his sunglasses on his nose, he hurried back into the living room and turned on the television, exclaiming that they might have caught him.
The news reported that a hectic manhunt was in progress. The killer’s trail had been picked up. Having feverishly zapped from channel to channel, Heinrich tossed the remote control onto the sofa and stormed out. Soon afterward, we heard the car start up. The sound of the engine receded.
Eva and my partner set about making breakfast. My help was not, in their opinion, necessary, so I returned to the living room and sat down in the armchair in which I had involuntarily spent the night. I thoroughly perused the news online, which I had only been able to skim, thanks to Heinrich’s hurried mode of procedure.
Under “Riots outside TV station”: The station that transmitted the so-called murder video was besieged during the night by demonstrators, of whom some unidentified late-stayers attacked the building with paint bombs at around 4:30 a.m.
Under “Vigil in West Styrian town”: In Frauenkirchen, even on such a stormy, rainy night, hundreds of people kept a vigil in the street. Indignation was aroused by a report that the perpetrator might be a local inhabitant. This was inconceivable, said the mayor. The killer was a person of unprecedented brutality, and no such individual lived in this district.
Under “Criticism of Referendum Plan”: Violent reactions have been provoked by the Freedom Party’s consideration of whether to petition for a referendum on the reintroduction of the death penalty. The parliamentary speaker declares that this would place Austria outside the European community of values.
I returned to the kitchen. Eva was humming a tune as she poured boiling water into a pot, disseminating an aroma of coffee. My partner handed me a tablecloth.
I went out into the paved drive in the front yard. It was exceptionally warm for the time of day. I had to shoo four cats off the table before I could spread the cloth, though my approach and my gesticulations proved sufficient for the purpose. That done, I noticed there were some bird droppings adhering to the table. Although my intention had been to spread the cloth over the table, I fetched a swab from the house to wipe it first. Only then did I complete my task.
I sat down on one of the wooden benches that had been placed on either side of the massive table. For around ten minutes, I watched the activities of the cats, approximately twenty of which had reappeared. Some frolicked with each other, others lay around in idleness. I also saw the fancy-dress cat I had encountered in the loft during the night. I wondered whether it was sweating inside its garments or suffering in some other manner.
Meanwhile, my partner and Eva brought out plates, cutlery, glasses, bottles, napkins, bread baskets, bottled preserves, saltcellar and pepper pot, butter, jam, plates of cheese, sausage, milk, sugar, and last of all, the coffeepot. When my partner caught sight of the dressed-up cat, she burst out laughing and said she’d never seen anything so absurd.
We decided not to wait for Heinrich any longer. Eva said it was silly of him to go gallivanting around in the car, and it was his own fault if he turned up too late for breakfast.
The farmer emerged from the house next door. This morning too he was wearing his undersized hat and a jacket unsuited to the high prevailing temperature. Eva expressed the hope that he wouldn’t join us; he would be bound to talk about the killings and make her feel uneasy. The farmer waved. In his wontedly stolid manner, he plodded over to the stables, in which sundry animals were making themselves heard.
My partner poured some coffee. She bit into an open sausage sandwich and looked up at the sun. Masticating, she said it was a glorious day and it mustn’t be spoiled by talk of murder and so on; Eva should bring influence to bear on Heinrich in that regard. She wouldn’t forgive me either if I dared to disturb this idyllic day of rest.
While conversing about the length of time the Stubenrauchs had lived there, what the infrastructure was like (doctors, shops, gas stations), and how much of every day Eva and Heinrich devoted to driving to their respective places of work, we tucked into our breakfast. After a while, we were obliged to put up the sun umbrella. The butter on the table had nearly melted and the milk was threatening to turn sour. Because I was seated nearest the jam jar, it fell to me to shoo away ten wasps or so.
Just as the farmer emerged from the stables, the Stubenrauchs’ car drove into the yard. Heinrich got out with a bundle of newspapers under his arm. The farmer came over to us. He said good morning, more to Heinrich than the rest of us. Heinrich only just had time to nod to us before the farmer, in his usual, overly loud way of speaking, launched into a conversation about the murders. Eva and my partner reacted with unconcealed displeasure, but Heinrich promptly seized on the farmer’s assertion that the killer couldn’t be a local and that such a thing was out of the question.
While driving, said Heinrich, he had read in the paper that the police were looking for a red sedan of Japanese manufacture with old Styrian license plates. Eva took him to task. He was mad to read while driving, she told him. With a grin, Heinrich pointed out that nothing untoward had happened.
The farmer said that, although he might believe the bit about the Styrian license plates, the murderer certainly wasn’t from the neighborhood; there were no such persons anywhere in the locality.
Depositing the newspapers on the table, Heinrich retorted that one couldn’t see inside people’s heads.
I opened one of the papers. It featured a big picture of a boy pointing with an outstretched arm to a spot at the top of a tree. A black, downward-pointing arrow had been drawn from that spot to indicate the jumping-off point, the victim’s trajectory, and his point of impact. My partner, who had initially averted her gaze, leaned over and asked if that was the surviving child.