He walks down several corridors, past reception and the cafe and out into the cold winter afternoon. The stop is between the hospital and the lake. Hermann sees a streetcar leave. The next one won’t be for another half an hour. He could walk home, it wouldn’t be more than an hour or so, but he’s already bought the return ticket and he’s tired, he barely slept last night. He presses the button for STOP ON DEMAND and sits down on the narrow bench. The suitcase is on the ground beside him. He looks at the lake. About a hundred yards from shore, the color of the water abruptly changes from pale blue to deep green. A couple of walkers pass down the shore promenade. They stop at a marker and look back. By the time the streetcar comes, Hermann is frozen through.
HE HASN’T BEEN to the library very often. On rare occasions he has accompanied Rosmarie, or he’s taken books back for her when he’s had to be in town. Even so, the librarian greets him by name. She takes the books from him and asks whether Rosmarie enjoyed them. Hermann is bemused by her referring to his wife by her first name. Yes, he says, I believe she did. I’ve set aside the new Donna Leon thriller for her, says the librarian, and she picks it up from a little rolling shelf next to her desk. I promised her first dibs at it. She stamps the date on the borrowing slip at the back of the book. Only then does she seem to become aware of Hermann’s suitcase, and she asks him if he’s on his way somewhere. Yes, he says. He’s not in the mood to answer questions. The librarian says she could hang on to the book if he didn’t want to take it with him right now. I’m not going away for long, he says, and he grabs the book with a quick movement of his hand. Through a Glass Darkly. The librarian makes some remark about an active retirement and laughs. Hermann thanks her and leaves.
Darkness is falling outside. He turns once more when he notices the librarian watching him through the glass doors, then he heads off in the direction of the station. On the way he runs into a neighbor. The family only moved there two years ago, the man works for an insurance company, the woman stays at home, looking after the two children. Hermann sees her in the garden sometimes. She once complimented him on his peonies and asked him for tips. She said they had lived in a condo before, and she had little experience with plants. The most important thing is to find the right place for each plant, he said. It needs to feel at home there, and then it’ll thrive by itself.
Off on holiday, then? asks the man. Hermann mutters something and the man goes on to wish him a good holiday. Same to you, says Hermann, not thinking. The neighbors seem not to have heard the ambulance yesterday.
HE TAKES THE NEXT TRAIN. When the conductor comes along, Hermann asks him where the train is going and buys a ticket to the final destination. Most of the time he just stares out of the window into the dark. Gradually the train fills up, then, after Zurich, empties again, the names of the stops get less familiar. An elderly woman—roughly in Rosmarie’s years—sits across from him in the compartment and stares at him so brazenly, he ends up moving. At the end of three hours the loudspeaker announcer says the train has now reached its final station stop, gare terminus. The announcement is in two languages, as the city where Hermann finds himself is bilingual. He can’t remember having been here before, but perhaps he has. He is on a narrow street that follows a canal. He comes to a park and then a lake. A long pier leads far out into the lake. Hermann walks along the curving, wood-planked jetty, which is lit by little lamps, till he gets to a small triangular concreted area, way out in the lake. He stands there for a long time, the suitcase beside him, like a traveler at a bus stop. It feels as though the old suitcase contains everything that’s left of Rosmarie. The objects have more to do with her than the cold body he saw lying on a metal bed in the hospital a few hours back, reduced to its vital functions. He stoops and picks up the suitcase and walks back down the jetty. Only now does he see, on the side away from the port, a sandbank, with a little fir tree on it, presumably a Christmas tree dumped in the canal after Christmas and now washed up here. He walks through the park, along the canal, and back into the inner city.
The night porter gives Hermann a funny look when he asks for a double room and pays cash, but he asks no questions, only whether he needed a parking spot or a wake-up call. Breakfast was on the sixth floor, from seven o’clock to half past nine. Over the rooftops of the city, he volunteers.
Hermann sits on the bed in his room. He hasn’t even taken his shoes off, he feels a little nauseated by the worn carpet and the coverlet that God knows who has sat on before him. The room is small, and the only light is from a dim economy bulb that isn’t enough to dispel the darkness. There’s a draft, the aluminum windows don’t seal properly. Hermann could have gone to a better hotel, but that didn’t seem appropriate. Church bells ring nearby. He counts the chimes. Ten. Then eleven. He must have dropped off. Only now does it occur to him that no one knows where he is. He has forgotten his medication, and has had nothing to eat since lunchtime. At least he’s filled in the registration form for the porter. If something happened to him, they would be able to trace him. He wonders about calling the hospital and asking about Rosmarie’s condition, but he doesn’t do it. Presumably they don’t release information over the phone anyway. He takes off his shoes but not his socks. He hangs his clothes over the back of a chair. Then he lies down in the bed. The suitcase is on the pillow next to him, in Rosmarie’s place. He leaves the light on.
WHEN HERMANN WAKES UP the next morning, it’s still dark. Before he gets up, he opens the suitcase and takes the things out, one after the other, looking at each item for a long time. He puts on Rosmarie’s cardigan, eats the chocolate bar, reads the blurb on the book jacket. Was there a family argument between the factory owner and his son-in-law? Or did the night watchman of the glassworks pay the price for being such a devoted reader? Hermann turns a few pages and finds an epigraph from Don Giovanni:
What strange fear
Assails my spirits!
Where do they come from
,
Those horrible whirlwinds of flame?
The book is full of Italian words in italics: maestro, canna, servente, l’uomo di notte. Hermann can’t imagine what Rosmarie saw in such nonsense. He puts the book away and takes the underwear out of the suitcase, counts the items, the way you might count days, with a brief lurch of memory.
That morning he washes his hair with Rosmarie’s shampoo, he uses the olive oil soap and cleans his teeth with her toothbrush. He doesn’t eat any breakfast, he feels a little sick from the chocolate. He is terribly thirsty and drinks three glasses of tap water.
On the train he puts the suitcase on the seat next to him. A lot of people get on in Olten. A young man asks Hermann whether the seat next to him is free. Yes, he says, and he puts the suitcase on his knee. Would you like me to put that on the luggage rack for you? asks the young man. No, says Hermann, more roughly than he intended. He clutches the suitcase for the whole journey, as though someone was going to come and try to take it away from him. He takes it with him when he goes to the bathroom.