When I got to the fifth floor I stopped in the hallway in front of our apartment, crouched down, and put the flowers carefully on the doormat, and then I stood up, slowly opened the door, and stepped over the flowers and just paused there in the dark hall, and listened. Luckily Mother wasn't yet awake, so I carried the tulips right into the kitchen and put them all on the table, and next I went into the pantry, got the biggest empty pickle jar out from under the shelf, and took it over to the faucet, where I wiped it clean with water and set it down on the middle of the kitchen table and went right to work stuffing the tulips into it. But there were so many tulips that they didn't all fit in the jar, about ten stems just wouldn't slide in, so I put those in the sink, and then I went back to the kitchen table and tried my best to set the bouquet right, but it didn't work too well. What with all those leaves, the tulips were really tangled up, some stems were too short and others were too long, I knew I'd have to cut the stems the same length if I wanted the bouquet to look decent, but then I thought that if I got the big washtub from the pantry, all the flowers would fit in that, and maybe I wouldn't even have to cut their stems, so I went back to the pantry door, opened it, bent down, and pulled the tub out from under the shelf, which is when I heard the kitchen door open and I heard Mother's voice. "Who's there?" she said. "Is there someone in here?" She didn't see me yet, on account of the pantry door being in the way, but through the crack in the door I could see her standing in her long white nightgown, she was barefoot, and her face turned pale when she noticed the tulips, and she leaned with one arm against the doorjamb and her mouth opened. I thought she was about to smile, but instead her face looked more like she wanted to cry out or shout, as if she was really angry or something was really hurting her, she bared her teeth all the way and she scrunched up her eyes, and I heard her taking really deep breaths, and then her eyes began scanning the kitchen, and when she noticed the open pantry door her hand came off the door jamb and swept the hair away from her face, and she let out a big sigh and asked, "Son, is it you, dear?" But I didn't say a thing just yet, no, I first came out from behind the pantry door and stopped beside the table, and only then did I say that I wanted it to be a surprise, and I begged her not to be angry. "I didn't want to do anything bad," I said, "I did it only because Father asked me to be the man of the house while he was away." Mother was straining to smile, but from her eyes it was obvious that she was still really sad, and now she said in a deep, raspy voice that she wasn't angry, no, she wasn't angry, she repeated, "Thank you very much, dear," and as she said that, she stepped over and gave me a hug, not her usual sort of hug but a whole lot tighter, she held me really tight the way she did when I was sick one time, and I hugged her back and held her tight too, and through my clothes and through her nightgown I could feel her heart beating, and I thought of the tulips, of how I'd knelt there in the earth in the park, cutting one tulip after another, and I felt Mother hug me even tighter, and I hugged her even tighter too, and my nose was still full of the tulips' smell, that thick green scent, and then I felt Mother shudder, and I knew she was about to cry, and I knew I would start crying too, and I didn't want to cry, but I couldn't let her go, I could only hold her tight. I wanted to tell her not to be so sad, that everything was okay, but I couldn't say a thing, I couldn't open my mouth at all, and at that very moment someone pressed the buzzer on our apartment door, and the person sure did press it hard because the buzzer buzzed really loud and long, once, twice, three times, and I could feel Mother letting me go, her whole body seemed to turn cold all of a sudden, and then I also let her go and I told her, "Wait here, I'll go and see who it is."
On my way to the door I thought it had to be the police, yes, that old man in the park had recognized me after all, he'd reported me and now the police were here, they'd come to get me and take me away for vandalizing public property and cutting tulips, and I thought that maybe I'd better not open the door after all, but the buzzer just kept buzzing really loud, and by now there was knocking too. And so I reached out a hand all the same, turned the lock, and opened the door.
It wasn't the police standing there in front of the door but Father's colleagues, the ones I saw him leave with on that day a while back, and I was so surprised I couldn't get a word out, which is when the tall silver-haired man looked at me and asked if my mother was home, and I nodded, thinking Father must have sent a gift with them for his and Mother's wedding anniversary, and I was just about to tell them to come on in, I wanted to say, "My mother will be really glad to see you." But before I could get a word out, the silver-haired man snapped at me, "Didn't you hear me, I asked you something," and I said, "Yes, she is home," and then the other man, the shorter one, snarled at me too. "Well then," he said, "we'll just come on in," and he pushed me away from the doorway and both of them did come right in, they stopped in the hall and then the shorter one asked which room was my mother's, and I said, "Mother is in the kitchen," but by now I was leading the way, and I called out to Mother that Father's colleagues were here, that they must have brought a letter from him or maybe he'd sent some gift.
And right then Mother was drinking water from the long-eared mug we usually used to fill the coffeemaker, but her hand stopped in midmotion, she looked at me but her eyes then fixed on Father's colleagues, and I saw her turn pale behind the mug, which she then lowered, and I saw her mouth turn to stone like it did whenever she got really angry, and then, in a really loud voice, she asked Father's colleagues, "What are you doing here?" and she slammed the mug on the counter so hard that all the water splashed right out, and she said to them, "Get out of here," but by then both of them had followed me into the kitchen. The tall silver-haired man didn't even say hello, but instead he said to Mother, "What is this, you haven't even told the kid?" And then my mother shook her head and said, "That's none of your business," but the tall silver-haired man said, "Well, that was a mistake because he'll find out sooner or later, anyway, best to get this sort of thing over with from the start, because lies breed only lies," and then Mother gave a laugh and said, "Yes, of course, you two gentlemen are the guardian angels of truth," and then the shorter one told Mother to shut her trap, and Mother really did turn all quiet, and the silver-haired man stepped in front of me and asked, "Hey, son, do you still believe that we're your father's colleagues?" I didn't say a thing, but I felt my body turn cold like in gym class after a timed run when you have to lean forward because there's no other way to catch your breath, and then the silver-haired man said, "Why then, I'll have you know that we're not your father's colleagues, we're from the state security service, and your father's been arrested for conspiring against the state, so it'll be a while until you see him again, a good long while at that, because your father is shoveling away clear across the country at the Danube Canal, which they're digging to shorten the winding Danube. Do you know what that means?" he asked. "It means he's in a labor camp, and as scrawny as he is, he won't be able to take it for long, and he'll never come back from there ever again, maybe he's not even alive anymore, who knows," and as he said this Mother took up the mug from the counter and flung it on the floor so hard that it broke into pieces, and the officer then got all quiet, and for a moment you couldn't hear a thing, but Mother then said, "Enough of this, stop it right now, if you want to take me too, then take me, but leave him alone because he's a child, understand, leave him alone, and tell me what you want, tell me what you're doing here."