To the Back of Beyond(22)

The road followed the lakeshore. The occasional angler sat, as motionless and quiet as though he belonged to the landscape. Otherwise there was no one in sight. Over everything hung a festive atmosphere. The sun was dazzling. Then there was a bend in the road, and he was walking through the blue shadows of a little alder wood. The trunks were scurfy and dabbed with moss, which didn’t seem to go with their luminous leaves. On the meadows he saw more autumn crocuses, which looked somehow feebler than flowers in spring, anxious, as though they could sense the shorter days ahead.

At the end of the lake was an area of buoys with a few small motorboats; on the shore were some vacation houses with lowered blinds and a restaurant. Open Today, it said on a sign over a drinks advertisement, and the glass door was open wide, but the terrace was empty.

The gravel track now turned through a wood up a steeply climbing valley. On either side of the path were enormous mossy boulders. Thomas had a stitch that wouldn’t go away, even though he kept stopping to get his breath back. The road ended at a half-wrecked croft, which had evidently not been in use for a long time. Even though it was early in the day, he decided to spend the night here. He didn’t know the area, and he was afraid that it might get cold higher up.

Above the former cowshed was a hayloft, where he made up a bed for himself. He spread the dusty leftover hay over the plank flooring and laid his dark green rain jacket over it. Then he emptied his rucksack and spread all his things out on the thin PVC. He felt like a child who had seen his presents on the eve of his birthday, satisfied but also a little disappointed, even at the fulfillment of all his wishes. It was the embarrassment of the possessor, who realizes that no object could satisfy or still his desires. He took out his penknife, opened and shut all the blades and tools, and attached it on a spring hook to the chain he had bought to carry it. Then he took out the calendar he had found in the jacket he had taken in the nightclub. He flicked through the pages reading the entries, names and times, a doctor’s appointment, a hairdresser’s. The name of one woman kept turning up, Brigitta. Thomas didn’t know any Brigitta, but even so she sounded familiar. He pictured a slightly older woman, not especially attractive but serious and good-hearted. He wondered about her relationship with the owner of the calendar, whether she guessed that he visited brothels, and what she would say if she knew. He thought of Milena from Romania, who was so utterly different from the way he had imagined prostitutes.

Thomas shooed away these thoughts. He read the calorie tables on the packaging of the food he had bought, and on an empty page of the calendar wrote them down and totted them up. If he kept his intake down, his food would last him for two weeks, though admittedly it would be a very monotonous diet. He should have bought some fresh fruit, or at the very least some vitamin pills. Even while he was still calculating, it began to rain. He heard the steady rustling sound and felt the cold that came with it. In one or two places it was coming through the old slate roof. He didn’t dare to make a fire and ate just a little of the food from his rucksack. Then he had to go out once briefly to fill his canteen at the stream. He came back to his hayloft shivering and wet. He took a swallow from the brandy bottle and lay down. The sound of the rain was soothing, the smell of old hay and grass and wet stone. He thought of Astrid and the children, no concrete memories or thoughts, not even scenes, just a vague feeling of their association: that warmed him.



It was their fourth breakfast without Thomas there. The children seemed to have adjusted to the new situation, asking no questions and seeming somehow less cowed than on the past few days. They even started to bicker again, which Astrid took to be a positive sign. She was feeling better too, not from habituation but because she knew that today the police would go looking for Thomas, and that they had every chance of finding him. The rain shouldn’t really be a problem, Patrick had told her last night; the dog could pick up a scent regardless, especially a fresh scent. She had given him her mobile number and asked him to keep her up-to-date.

All morning she got little bulletins from Patrick. We’re on the way, the dog has picked up the scent, we’ve found some old clothes we think are his. We’re in the W?gi valley. To distract herself, Astrid busied herself by making an album of the nicest holiday pictures, as in other years. The photo software offered various presentational ideas, and Astrid tried out a few, but the illusion of customizing only made the photographs themselves more anonymous. She ended up by choosing a neutral white background and arranged them as she had done previously with her albums, when she had still stuck down the photos by hand. She and Thomas took turns with the camera, and she was in some of the pictures, sometimes with the children, sometimes on her own. She, though, had only taken pictures of the kids, the landscape, a few highlights from Barcelona, where they had gone on a day trip. So that Thomas should appear at least once in the album, she put in the picture she had sent the police, even though it looked nothing like the others and stuck out among the holiday shots.

Patrick’s last text message from the W?gi had come just before eleven. It was a long time until his next communication. Astrid had cooked lunch, the children had come home, they had eaten together, and Ella and Konrad had gone back to school. Gradually Astrid began to feel uneasy and was beginning to wonder whether she should call Patrick, when at two o’clock her cell phone rang. Patrick said they had followed the scent right up the W?gi to the dam and along the side of the reservoir, they had walked more than twelve miles. Now they were in an abandoned upland farm above the lake, where Thomas had presumably spent the night. Only the dog was exhausted and unable to go on. Twenty kilometers was a huge distance even for a highly trained animal. Isn’t there another dog you could use? asked Astrid. Or couldn’t he rest, and then carry on? There was a brief silence, then Patrick said his boss said they had invested enough time and trouble in this case. There was no serious suggestion that the missing man was in any danger. On the contrary. Astrid said nothing, and after a further pause Patrick said there weren’t that many trails that led on from there. He could have got across into the Kl?n valley, but that would mean backtracking for a long way, which he wouldn’t want to do. The likeliest thing is that he walked over the Pragel Pass into the Muota valley. If he set off this morning, he could already be there. He said he had alerted his colleagues in Schwyz Canton to the ongoing search, and that was about all he could do. So what happens now? Astrid asked finally. We’re heading back, said Patrick, sounding bashful. Astrid cut the line without thanking him or saying goodbye.