by Helen Grant
‘Julius?’ said Hanna. ‘You mean Julius Rensinghof?’
I nodded.
‘What’s it got to do with him?’ she asked indignantly.
‘It hasn’t got anything to do with him. He was sticking his nose in.’ I fumbled in my pocket, looking for a tissue. ‘I suppose he’ll be glad,’ I added bitterly. ‘He was right.’
‘But what did Kai do?’
‘I don’t want to talk about it,’ I said.
‘Sorry,’ said Hanna, but although she did her best to look sympathetic I could tell that she was almost bursting with excitement. Another wish come true. Something occurred to me.
‘Hanna? What you wished for, did it come true?’
She shrugged her shoulders. ‘Not yet, anyway.’
‘What about the others?’
‘I don’t think so. You know what Max is like. It would have been something so big that nobody could have missed it, and if he actually got it, he’d never be able to keep his mouth shut. Look, this is amazing. I know you had a bad time –’
‘A horrible time.’
‘OK, a horrible time. But your wish still came true, didn’t it? And only yours.’ There was awe in Hanna’s voice. ‘What is it about you? Have you got some sort of power?’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ In spite of my tears I couldn’t suppress a snort of amusement.
‘Wait till the others hear this.’
I opened my mouth to tell Hanna not to say anything, that I regretted telling even her, that I wanted the whole thing forgotten. But then I remembered. Frau Kessel. There was no way that she would keep her mouth shut. I might just as well have marched through the streets bearing a placard with my shame written on it in letters thirty centimetres high.
‘Hanna … ’
‘That’s what I came round for anyway. We tried to call you last night. Nobody knew you were out with Kai von Jülich, you sly thing.’ Hanna saw my expression and hurried on. ‘So, we’re meeting up tonight at Jochen’s place. His mum and stepdad are going to the Klara Klein tribute concert at the Heinz-Gerlach Halle.’ She wrinkled her nose. ‘Max wanted to know if anyone’s wish had come true.’
‘I’m not going,’ I said.
‘Come on, Steffi. You’ve got to.’
‘I can’t,’ I said simply. ‘You can tell them what happened if you want. I’m sorry.’ I put a hand over my eyes. ‘I don’t want to see anyone this evening.’
‘Timo?’ said Hanna significantly. ‘You know he’s not going to care.’
I shrugged. ‘I’m sorry. I just can’t come.’ I shook my head. ‘I can’t see anyone.’
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
I can’t see anyone, I had told Hanna. But by Sunday night I had seen three more of them.
Izabela was the first. She dropped into the bakery on Saturday afternoon. When I opened the flat door to find her standing there I was mildly surprised. We had seen very little of each other since she started going out with Timo. I would really much rather have been left alone, but I hadn’t the heart to be unfriendly. I was increasingly coming round to the view that anyone who thought Timo was Prince Charming was slightly deluded, so I had no hard feelings towards Izabela.
‘Can I come in?’ she said.
She seemed more nervous than usual, as though she thought there was a faint possibility I might jump on her and try to scratch her eyes out or pull her mane of dark hair. I knew that Izabela was quite timid and wondered all the more that she had dared drop in.
‘Of course.’ I stepped back to let her enter.
As soon as the door closed behind her and there was no danger of anyone downstairs overhearing, she turned to me.
‘I just heard,’ she said.
‘Heard what?’
She wasn’t listening. ‘I’m really pleased for you. It was kind of odd before. I mean, Timo said you weren’t really … ’ She paused. ‘Well, he said it was really over, but … ’
I took pity on her. ‘That’s OK,’ I said. ‘It was over really.’
‘I just feel so much better now,’ she said.
‘Good,’ I said cautiously.
‘So did he really come into the bakery and ask you out in front of everyone?’
So that’s what this is about.
‘Izzi,’ I said, ‘I don’t know what you’ve heard, but I’m not going out with Kai von Jülich.’
‘But –’ She looked perplexed. ‘I heard he asked you out.’
I gritted my teeth. ‘Well, he did. And I went – once. But that’s the end of it.’ I said the last bit so ominously that Izabela didn’t ask me why that was the end of it.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said.
‘Don’t be,’ I said, but I spoke so sharply that her face fell and I relented. ‘Look, Izzi,’ I said as kindly as I could, ‘there’s no need to worry. It’s fine about you and Timo. And I don’t need Kai von Jülich around to be OK with it.’
‘All right,’ she said, but I could see that she was doubtful.
After that the conversation trailed off. I could see that Izabela was dying to talk about Timo but no longer dared to, probably imagining that I was suffering the horrors of heartbreak. I had no particular desire to talk about him either. I was a little piqued at the way the relationship had ended – or rather failed to end. I thought Timo made a very poor sort of love interest, but I could hardly say so.
When Izabela left, it was on the whole a relief. I watched her clatter down the stairs and turn to wave at the bottom. I raised my hand in return and smiled at her, but I had a feeling the friendship had suffered a fatal blow.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Later that afternoon I was standing by the railing overlooking the River Erft, throwing chunks of yesterday’s stale bread to the mallards which clustered among the weedy stones, and the next thing I knew someone was grabbing at my waist, as though to tickle me.
Kai, I thought, with a cold flash of panic. I whirled around, my fists up as though to beat him off. But it wasn’t Kai; of course it wasn’t. It was Max.
‘Whoa,’ he said. ‘You going to beat me up, Steffi?’ He was grinning.
‘I thought you were someone else,’ I said crossly.
‘I bet you did.’
I looked at Max uneasily. He was a premium-quality bullshitter, I knew that. But it wasn’t like him to use that insinuating tone with me. That was something new. And the way he was looking at me, there was something new and not entirely pleasant in that too.
A hideous suspicion began to grow in the back of my mind. Max and Kai von Jülich had never been friends, so far as I knew. Max had attended the Hauptschule, as I had, whereas Kai had (naturally) been at the Gymnasium, the most academic type of school. But they both lived in the same part of Bad Münstereifel, the same smart street full of white-walled palaces with BMWs and Mercedes parked outside.
Slow down, I told myself desperately. He hasn’t talked to Kai. They’re not even friends. Anyway, nothing happened. You got out of the car and you walked home. What’s Kai going to tell people about that?
‘You’re not coming to Jochen’s place tonight, Steffi?’ said Max. He was still grinning.
‘No.’ I shook my head, not wanting to elaborate.
‘Shame.’ Max was looking me up and down, assessing me.
I shifted uncomfortably from foot to foot. It’s just Max, I told myself. He’s got the cheek of the Devil. It doesn’t mean anything.
‘I have to go in,’ I said.
Max’s gaze shifted to the half-full bag of rolls I was holding. ‘Ducks don’t want to eat any more?’
‘Bye, Max,’ I said.
‘Catch you later,’ he said, but I was already walking away.
If the conversation with Max made me uneasy, the one with Jochen was worse. He came when my parents were at church on Sunday evening. The bakery was shut, so he rang the outside bell. Like Hanna, he was persistent; when I didn’t come down within the first couple of minutes he kept ringing. All of a sudden, it seemed that everyone had to spea
k to me, very urgently.
‘Jochen, I’m not feeling well,’ I lied as I opened the door, but he didn’t listen. He was already shouldering past me into the bakery.
‘We have to talk,’ he said.
I glanced out at the street. All it would take to make my life infinitely worse was for Frau Kessel to wander by at that moment and catch me ushering another young man into the bakery, and while my parents were at mass, to boot. But the street was deserted.
I hoped he wouldn’t stay long. I had been lying about feeling ill, but now I thought I could detect the beginnings of a headache. I would have preferred to see nobody at all, especially since Max’s familiarity the day before. I was beginning to wonder whether there was something about me which attracted unwholesome behaviour as jam attracts wasps.
‘I want you to curse Udo,’ said Jochen, without further preamble.
I stared at him.
‘Udo, you know, my stepfather. Udo the Arschloch.’
I knew perfectly well whom he meant. It was nigh on impossible to live in Bad Münstereifel and not know Udo Meyer. He was tall, broad-shouldered and slightly pudgy-looking, with wiry hair and an officious-looking moustache underlining a nose like a beak. He was also the town’s champion know-it-all. At any given public event you could be sure that Udo would be on his feet at the very first opportunity, giving the assembled masses the benefit of his superior wisdom in a voice with all the lilting charm of a dentist’s drill. After five minutes of listening to it, you were ready to agree with anything he said, just to shut him up.
I could well imagine that living with Udo and listening to his pompous monologues on a daily basis would be enough to drive anyone up the wall. All the same, I needed more than this to go on before cursing anyone.
‘Why?’ I said.
‘What do you mean, why? He’s a tosser.’
Jochen sounded impatient. The light from the overhead lamps turned his blond curls golden and for a moment I was reminded unpleasantly of Kai von Jülich. But Jochen was nothing like Kai. Instead of that smooth bronzed skin, he had the pallid sort of complexion which freckles easily and blunt heavy features. Jochen would never have the girls clustering around him the way Kai did.
‘Jochen … ’
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘It works when you do it. I want that stupid Arschloch dead.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ I said uneasily.
‘I’m not joking.’
‘What’s he done?’
I saw Jochen’s hands ball into fists. ‘Bastard. He wants me out. I have to leave home.’ His face twisted like a spoilt child’s. ‘I know what his problem is. He can’t stand it if you don’t agree with him and his stupid ideas.’
‘Why does he want you to leave?’ I asked cautiously.
‘Because he’s an utter jerk.’ After a pause Jochen seemed to realize that this was insufficient information. ‘He says I have to pay my own way. I told him to stuff it. Mum never made me pay anything before he came along. She ought to stick up for me, but she doesn’t. He’s got her right where he wants her. I’m not taking it.’
‘Jochen,’ I said as calmly as I could, ‘I can’t curse Udo.’
‘You have to.’
He looked at me with a mutinous expression in his pale blue eyes. He means it, I thought. It was the same as Max handing me the pen and paper and saying, Here, Steffi, you do it. Come on, don’t be wet. Everyone just assumed that I would do what they told me to do.
I took a deep breath.
‘No, I don’t.’
‘What? Come on, Steffi.’ Jochen eyed me and saw resistance in my expression. An ugly look of disbelief and indignation spread over his face. ‘Don’t mess me around.’
I was shaking my head.
‘You only wish stuff for yourself, is that it?’ He sounded really angry. ‘Your friends can take any kind of shit and you won’t help them out?’
‘It’s not that,’ I said in a low voice.
‘Well, what then?’
‘Suppose it works?’ I said. ‘Suppose he really drops dead – like Klara Klein – because I’ve wished it?’
‘That’s the point,’ said Jochen in a hard voice, as though talking to the terminally stupid. ‘It has to be you who wishes it, because it only works when it’s you.’
‘Udo’s never done anything to me,’ I said.
‘So you’re just going to let him fuck up my life?’ Jochen sounded ready to burst with indignation and I found myself wanting to back away.
‘Can’t you talk to him?’ I suggested. ‘Or talk to your mum? Jochen, I can’t just –’
‘Talk to him?’ Jochen was shaking his head in disbelief. ‘What sort of crap is that?’
‘I’m sorry,’ I told him.
‘Yeah,’ said Jochen bitterly. ‘I’m sorry too. Sorry I even bothered talking to you. You’re a loser, Steffi. Maybe it wasn’t you at all. Maybe it was coincidence, Klara Klein and the rest of it.’ He sneered at me. ‘You haven’t got the guts for anything.’
If he thought he could taunt me into agreeing to do what he wanted, he was wrong, but no sharp retort rose to my lips. I simply stood there in silence with my head down, as though I were trying to push my way forward through a storm. Finally he gave up.
‘Thanks a lot,’ he said sarcastically. ‘Loser.’
I heard the bell above the door jingle as he pushed his way out of the bakery. Then he was off down the street.
I went to the door and looked the other way, up towards the old brewery. My heart sank. Little knots of people were drifting out from the Marktstrasse and the alley which ran parallel to it. Mass had ended and the church was emptying. I could only hope that no one had glimpsed Jochen’s departure from the bakery. If my parents had spotted him, there would be awkward questions. If Frau Kessel had spotted him, my life would not be worth living.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
I did my best to avoid the others for the next couple of days. I couldn’t have faced Jochen, and the prospect of any of the others making similar requests was just as bad. I switched off my phone and spent the evenings in my room, but although I successfully managed to avoid my five friends, that didn’t stop me running into someone else I knew.
It was Tuesday afternoon and I was serving in the bakery. A large coach party had come in and, judging by their advanced ages, they were Klara Klein fans visiting the town to pay their last respects. I thought that if you added all their ages you would probably have more than a thousand years, which was a dizzying thought: a millennium of broken hearts and edelweiss flowers.
I was just putting a large cup of hot chocolate with cream and a slice of cheesecake down in front of an old woman whose wrinkled face was alarmingly at odds with her head of fanciful Klara Klein-inspired curls when the bell above the door jingled a couple of times. I looked up and saw a tall angular figure clad in a long black coat in spite of the clement weather, a figure I would have known anywhere, even without the shock of brilliant red hair which topped it like the flame of a torch.
Oh no. Julius. After our last meeting I was amazed he had even come back to the bakery. What could we possibly have to say to each other?
I glanced around, hoping that someone else would deal with him, but my mother was taking down a long, involved order for a table of six and the other waitress was nowhere to be seen at all. Reluctantly I went over to him.
‘Guten Tag,’ I said, trying to sound businesslike.
I carried the tray which had held the hot chocolate and the cake in front of me, making the point that I was working. I wondered why Julius had come. Was it possible that some version of Friday evening’s events had filtered through to him and he had come to gloat?
‘Steffi, can I talk to you?’
‘I’m working,’ I said desperately.
I rounded the end of the counter and put the tray down, then looked at the display of cakes in the glass-fronted cabinet – the almond Nuss-striezel, the honey-sweet Bienenstich, the great gateaux laden with strawberries and c
herries – anywhere, in fact, but at Julius’s face.
‘Are you going to order anything?’ I said pointedly to the cherry cake.
‘OK, a sesame roll. With cheese and ham – and salad.’
I sighed. I was going to have to make the roll from scratch and Julius knew it. It was just an excuse to keep me there at the counter, a captive audience. I reached for a roll and a bread knife.
‘Friday was a disaster,’ said Julius’s voice.
It sounded close, as though he were leaning right over the counter, but I resisted the temptation to look up. I sawed roughly at the bread roll as though I were an eighteenth-century surgeon trying to cut through a bone in the shortest possible time.
‘Gina did it and she was terrible. She sounded like a wild sow calling for her piglets.’
In spite of my resolve I was terribly tempted to laugh. Determinedly, I kept my head down.
‘It would have been ten times better if you’d been there.’
‘Really?’ I reached for a smaller knife and opened a pack of sliced cheese.
‘How did it go with Kai?’
The knife slipped, cutting a notch in my fingernail. I swore under my breath and examined the nail, using it as an excuse not to answer.
‘Are you going to see him again?’
Now finally I was provoked into looking at Julius. I gave him such a scorching glare across the glass counter that it was a wonder the cream on the Sahnetorte did not curdle on the spot.
‘What the hell has it got to do with you?’ I hissed.
It was an effort to keep my voice down; only my consciousness of the presence of a coachload of Klara Klein fans enabled me to do it.
‘Nothing, I suppose.’ Julius’s angular shoulders went up in a shrug.
‘Shut up, then.’
I began to hunt for the ham.
‘Steffi, we’re friends, aren’t we?’ said Julius.
‘Are we?’ I snapped.
