‘You’re lucky,’ I say.
‘Am I?’ he whispers. He’s not so sure.
‘Yes. No one’s ever seen my room before.’ I bend over him. ‘So,’ I say, ‘how do you like it?’
The wind plucked at my piece of paper. I smoothed it down. Slowly I drew a line through what I’d written. I couldn’t even kill Visser in my head. What chance would I have in real life?
I stood up and walked on, along the river bank. Wednesday. There was no avoiding it. But surely there was something I could do. Here, in the mountains, I was free of Visser’s signals. No housewives, no game-show hosts, no pornography — nothing. Wasn’t there some man-made way of reproducing that effect? There had to be. I thought of a friend of mine, who worked in broadcasting. We’d never been particularly close, but I knew him well enough to call him. His name was Klaus — Klaus Wilbrand. He’d be able to advise me. It was crossing the line drawn by the bullet, it was stepping back into the past, but I could see no alternative.
I looked up. The bridge didn’t seem to be any nearer. Suddenly I wearied and a chill went through me. I didn’t think I could make it to the bridge. Maybe some other night. I should go back. I left the footpath, climbing a slope into what I took to be the field I’d crossed not long before. But I walked for several minutes and still I couldn’t see the lights of the hotel. An owl startled me, swooping through the air just overhead. I saw its flattened face, the smudges around its eyes. I heard the beat of its wings, stirring the heavy air, the same speed as my breathing. I stood there in the middle of the field. I couldn’t see any lights at all. I couldn’t see where the road might be either. Was I lost?
I felt I should go back the way I’d come, but the thought exhausted me. Instead, I cut diagonally across the field. At the end of it, there was no grass bank, no road, only a barbed-wire fence and another field beyond. I stood still. I could hear a dog barking in the distance. Away to my right I could see lights, small yellow squares in the great mass of darkness that surrounded me. They looked like windows. A farm, perhaps. They appeared, disappeared. Appeared again. As if someone was signalling. I thought it had to be the trees between us, shifting in the wind. I didn’t believe they were the lights of the hotel, but I decided to make my way towards them.
I crossed the field, climbed through another fence, and found myself in a kind of pasture. The ground was rougher here, more uneven. Though I tried to watch where I was putting my feet, I stumbled several times.
After a while I looked up and noticed that the lights were gone. I waited for them to appear again, but they didn’t. The darkness was absolute and unrelenting. I could only think of one explanation: the people must have gone to bed. I was tired now, and my trousers were cold and slippery with mud. I was in country I didn’t know. No landmarks, and nobody to ask for guidance. It had been foolish of me to think I could just go out for a walk. I wasn’t in the city.
I wondered how much time had passed. An hour at least, maybe two. People would be going to sleep soon, if they weren’t asleep already. There was nothing for it but to try and get some sleep myself. When dawn came, I could begin again. With luck I’d find somebody who could tell me where I was.
I was standing at the entrance to a wood. I followed one edge of it, hoping to find a hut, a lean-to, some kind of shelter. I quickly gave that up. Instead, I walked in among the tall trunks and the undergrowth. Here, at least, I might be able to escape the wind. I found a tree that I thought would give me some protection. Its roots were raised above the level of the forest floor; they reached out like fingers from the base. I gathered sprays of bracken and a few dead branches, then I stacked leaves in one of the gaps between the roots. I arranged some bracken over me and weighed it down with the branches I’d collected. I lay there with my eyes shut and my knees drawn up against my chest. Sleep wouldn’t come, though. The cold had already found its way into my bones, and there were sounds all around me — the sound of the woodland shifting, straining, groaning; I could have been lying on the deck of some huge old-fashioned sailing ship. I opened my eyes, looked up into the intricate bare branches of the tree. If only Visser knew what lengths I’d gone to, just to avoid his TV programmes! I smiled, but it was a smile that stayed inside me. I pulled the collar of my coat up around my ears and closed my eyes again.
I must have slept, if only in snatches, because I remember having a conversation with my sister, Gabriela. We were standing in the garden at home. We were both excited, talking as though we knew each other, as though we were friends. I had no memory of what we said. I only remember watching her run down the garden to where my mother and my father were. Their three faces turned towards me, small and round and blank, like plates. I stayed where I was — the house in the distance, the warm summer air, the almost golden grass.
I sat up. There were leaves in my mouth, my hair. My body was stiff with cold. It surprised me that I’d slept at all. I slowly pushed the bracken and dead branches away from me and stood up. One of my knees had stiffened during the night, but I thought I could walk on it. It would be best to try and return the way I’d come, though in daylight, of course, that wouldn’t be easy. I was a blind man in a strange country. I might just get lost in a different kind of way.
I’d been walking for half an hour or so, a light drizzle falling, when I heard a noise I hadn’t heard before. I stood still, listened. Grating, clinking, grinding. The sound of wheels. No engine, though. It had to be a horse and cart. I started shouting and waving. There was no reply, but I noticed that all the noise had stopped; a new silence had descended. I hurried towards it. Suddenly the ground disappeared in front of me and I fell forwards. A hand reached down and hauled me to my feet.
‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘Thanks very much.’
I must have been an odd sight, with my dark glasses and my white stick, and standing in a field with mud all over me, at dawn.
‘I’m lost,’ I said.
‘I thought so.’ It was a man’s voice, and there wasn’t a trace of irony in it.
I told him the name of the village where I was staying, the name of the hotel.
‘You’re a long way from there,’ he said.
‘Am I?’
His thoughts came one at a time, and they were scarce, like cars on a motorway at night. There was a gap between everything he said, a time-delay, which made it feel as if nothing was happening. But I was already grateful to him, grateful just for the sound of his voice.
‘Which way do I go?’ I asked him.
‘You’re in luck. Just so happens, I’m going there myself.’
He helped me up on to the cart and told me to sit on the side of it, as he was, with my legs dangling over the edge, then he clacked his tongue against the roof of his mouth and shook the reins and we moved off. The drizzle had slackened; the air was still damp and I could hear the trees and bushes dripping. The man had a strong smell to him, a smell that was like old butter, but peppery as well.
‘That’s Mrs Hekmann’s place,’ he said, after a few minutes.
‘That’s right. You know her?’
‘I thought of marrying her once.’
I looked in his direction. ‘Really? What happened?’
‘Nothing.’ He paused. ‘I never asked.’
Though I was curious, I didn’t speak just yet; I brushed at the mud on my coat instead. It seemed natural to slow down, talk at his pace.
‘How come you never asked her?’ I said eventually.
‘I just never did.’ He shook the reins again and muttered something at the horse. ‘The most I ever asked her was to dance. She wouldn’t.’ There was a long silence. Then he cleared his throat and spat. ‘Most people, they steer clear of her now.’