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There was another they hadn't let sit with them; he slumped in the dining room doorway - Keff the tractor driver. Windisch's man. He was burly enough, descended pure from the Java stock, and his leathers smelt fresh from the goat.

And how would they attempt it? Watching me butter my Brotchen. Would Keff block my escape at the door? Mush my spine with the meat of his knee?

But, yes, Siggy had written it:

Just a hop ahead, and you're a cut above!

So I dashed off the breakfast that my Gallen had served me. And I went right up to their table.

'Forgive me if I'm interrupting,' I said, 'but I thought all of you could advise me. Since I'll be staying awhile; I'd like a job. Oh, just a little something at night, I'd prefer. If you know of anything,' I said.

And I heard it all! The dungeon door closing with terrible, wrenching clanks; and deep in my ears, sounding all the way from Vienna, the Rare Spectacled Bears were stamping their feet and shaking their heads with a fury that flapped their jowls.

'Oh my,' said Auntie Tratt. 'Isn't that a fine idea?'

And that had their tableful wondering.

But behind my eyes, and making them water, Siggy was riding faster and faster. The motorcycle screamed beneath him like an animal in pain.

Speculations

I TOOK SOME beers out in the garden and sat where I could see round the castle to the falls. I found a spot where the motorcycle had dripped oil and clotted the grass. In a while the forsythia would all be gone by; the garden would turn brown- and green-weedy, tropical and over-thick. The river spray made everything a little wet, and the garden made ominous growing sounds in the wind. Only the oil smudge resisted; the spray was as beaded as sweat on the little black clot.

And I thought: He's just stopped for lunch. The pipes are pinging with heat; he's been pushing it. If you spat on the pipes, your spittle would ball up and bounce like water-drops off a ready griddle. He's had an early start and he's really been pushing it. He's a long way out of the Danube Valley; he may even be following the Ybbs by now. And of course he'll have it all written out in that frotting notebook, with little maps of the cages, and all the details you'd ever need to know.

Eighteen minutes from behind the bush in Maxing Park to the outskirts of Hietzing; eighteen minutes, four up-and down-shifts, two skids, one Strassenbahn-crossing and a blinking-yellow light.

And behind you, the din of escaping aardvarks.

Well, I thought, he probably won't even stop for lunch.

And there was Auntie Tratt in my room, airing me out; she shot a smile down to me when she opened my window and beat my pillow.

Well, you old gob, Auntie - he's not going to ride that motorcycle in here for you to see. No, blobby Auntie - my Siggy-friend's brighter than your old fishy eyes.

And there was my Gallen in my window too. Trimming off the corners of my bed, no doubt, just as innocent as milk.

Now which bed does that Graff sleep in? the sly Tratt says.

Well, I don't know, Auntie, but this one looks most recently used.

'Herr Graff?' the Tratt called. 'Which bed are you sleeping in?'

'Nearest the bathtub, Frau Tratt,' I said. And Gallen breezed past the window without looking down at me.

Well, you're right, Gallen dear, the Tratt is saying - thinking every minute.

And I was thinking too, all right. Frau Tratt on the poke in my room; someone sent to fix my doorknob, secretly, while I was getting a job - so they could lock me in? And those hazy clouds, stealing the yellow from the last, fallen forsythia, squatted like bomb smog in the sky.

And where was Siggy? Out of Ulmerfeld by now? Hiesbach, maybe, or even on the road to St Leonhard? If he's coming that way. Was he taking a roundabout route?

How many hours away is that Siggy? And what will my Gallen be wearing when she visits my room tonight?

The spray put such a wet weight in the air - and the garden going on with its damn growing, getting all out of hand. Well, as the Old Oaf, Fate - the Great Lout - could tell you: look out, look out.

It's the kind of thing Siggy might have written a poem about. In fact, there's a rough beginning in the notebook:

Ah, Life - fat bubble fit to burst!

Source: www.allfreenovel.com
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