‘Did you say reflection?’
I took out a pen and wrote ANITA on a napkin.
‘Can you read that word backwards?’ I asked.
‘ATINA …’ she read aloud. ‘Ooh, it sounds just like Athinai. I never thought of that.’
‘Of course not,’ I replied patronisingly. ‘There’s probably quite a few things you haven’t thought of. But that’s not important now.’
‘What is important, then, Hans Thomas ?’
‘The most important thing now is how quickly you can pack your suitcase,’ I replied. ‘In a way, Dad and I have been waiting for you for more than two hundred years, and now we’re about to lose patience.’
Just as I said this, Dad came sauntering in from the street outside.
Mama looked at him and threw her hands up in despair. ‘What have you done with him?’ she asked. ‘The boy just talks in riddles.’
‘He’s always had a lively imagination,’ Dad said, pulling up an empty chair. ‘Otherwise he’s a good boy.’
I thought this was a pretty good answer. Dad couldn’t have known what kind of confusion tactics I had been using to persuade Mama to return to Arendal with us.
‘I’ve only just begun,’ I said at this point. ‘I still haven’t told you about the mysterious dwarf who has followed us ever since we crossed the Swiss border.’
Mama and Dad exchanged meaningful glances. Then Dad said, ‘And I think you’d better wait with that, Hans Thomas.’
*
By late afternoon we had realised we were one family who couldn’t bear being in different parts of the world any longer. I must have awakened the motherly instinct.
Already when we were in the pastry shop – but particularly later on that day – Mama and Dad started hanging around each other’s neck like young lovers, and before we said good night I noted the start of some serious kissing. I thought I’d better put up with this, considering what they had been missing for more than eight years, but on a couple of occasions I was forced to turn away out of sheer politeness.
It’s not really important to say any more about how we finally managed to pile Mama into the Fiat and head north.
I think Dad wonders a lot about how Mama could be so easily won over, but I had known for a long time that the eight painful years would be behind us if only we found her in Athens. Nevertheless, I did take note of the fact that she had to be the world’s fastest at packing a suitcase. She also had to break a contract, which is one of the worst things you can do south of the Alps. Dad said she would easily get a new contract in Norway.
After a couple of hectic days we were back in the car, taking the quickest route back, through Yugoslavia to the north of Italy. I sat in the back seat as before, but now there were two adults up front. This meant that I had a real problem finishing the sticky-bun book, as Mama had a habit of turning round without warning. I hardly dared think what would happen if she saw the little book I had been given by the baker in Dorf.
When we reached northern Italy late that night, I had my own room and could read the sticky-bun book without disruption. I read well into the early hours of dawn, when I fell asleep at last with the book on my lap.
SIX OF HEARTS
… as real as the
sun and the moon …
Albert had talked all night, and at times I had pictured him as that twelve- or thirteen-year-old boy.
He sat in front of the fireplace staring at something which a long time ago had been a blazing fire. I hadn’t interrupted him while he had told me his story – in the same way he had sat fifty-two years ago when Baker Hans had told him about Frode and the curious island. I got up and walked over to the window which faced Dorf.
A new day was breaking outside. The morning mist drifted over the tiny village, and heavier clouds floated above the Waldemarsee. On the other side of the valley the sun had just begun to creep down over the mountainside.
My head was full of questions, but because I didn’t know where to start, I said nothing. I walked back across the floor and sat down in front of the fire next to Albert, who had so kindly taken me in when I had collapsed outside his little cabin.
Thin trails of smoke still rose from the ashes in the fire, like wisps of the morning mist outside.
‘You’ll stay in Dorf, Ludwig,’ said the old baker, in a way that could have been taken as a question or an order, or possibly both.
‘Of course,’ I replied. I had already understood that I would be the next baker in Dorf. I also realised that I would be the one to carry the secret of the magic island into the future.
‘But that’s not what I was thinking about,’ I added.
‘What’s on your mind, son?’
‘I was thinking about the Joker Game – because if I am the unhappy soldier from the land in the north …’
‘Yes?’
‘Then I know that … I have a son up there,’ I said – and being no longer able to hold it in, I hid my head in my hands and wept.
The old baker put his arm round my shoulders.
‘Yes, that’s true,’ he said. ‘The soldier does not know that shaven girl gives birth to beautiful baby boy.’
He let me cry, and when I looked up again he said, ‘But there is one thing which I have never understood; maybe you can explain it to me.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Why was the poor girl shaven?’
‘I didn’t know that she was,’ I replied. ‘I didn’t know they were so cruel to her, but I heard that they did that sort of thing after the liberation. Girls who had been with enemy soldiers lost their hair as well as their honour. That’s why … that’s the only reason why I haven’t contacted her since. I thought she might forget me. I thought it would just hurt her even more if I contacted her again. I didn’t think anybody knew about us, but obviously I was wrong there, too. When you have a child … there’s no hiding the truth.’
‘I understand,’ he said, and sat staring into the empty fireplace.
I got up and paced restlessly round the room.
Could all this be true? I thought to myself. What if Albert was crazy, like they whispered down at the Schöner Waldemar.
I suddenly realised I had no proof that what Albert had told me was true. Every single thing he had said about Baker Hans and Frode could be the ramblings of a confused old man. I had not seen any Rainbow Fizz or any old playing cards.
My only clue was the few words about the soldier from the land in the north, but even they could have been made up by Albert. Yet there was the bit about the shaven girl – my only true grounds for belief – but then I remembered I could very well have said that in my sleep. It wouldn’t have been so strange for me to talk about a shaven girl when I was so worried about Line. I was probably also worried that she might be pregnant. And then – yes, then Albert could have taken a few of the disjointed words I had said in my sleep and baked them into his story. He had been pretty quick to ask about the shaven girl …
The only thing I was completely sure of was that’Albert hadn’t sat up all night to make a fool of me. He had believed in every word he said, but that could be the real problem. The village gossip might be true. Albert might be out of his mind, living in his own little world – in both senses of the word.
From the moment I had arrived in the village he had called me his son. Maybe that was the root of Albert’s fantastical story. Albert desired a son to take over the bakery down in the village. So, without being aware of it himself, he had invented the whole confused story. I had heard of cases like that before. I had heard of crazy people who could be complete geniuses in a special field. Albert’s field had to be inventive storytelling.
I paced back and forth across the floor. The sun continued to creep down over the mountain.
‘You are very uneasy, son,’ the old man said, interrupting my thoughts.
I sat down beside him. Then I remembered how the evening had begun. The night before, I had been sitting in the Schöner Waldemar when Fritz Andr
é had started talking about Albert’s many goldfish. I had seen only one goldfish myself – and I didn’t think it was that strange that the old baker had brightened up his lonely existence with a goldfish. However, when I had come home late last night, I had heard Albert walking about in the attic, and when I confronted him about it – yes, then we had sat down and the long night had begun.
‘All the goldfish … you told me Baker Hans had taken some goldfish from the mysterious island. Are they still here in Dorf? Or – or do you just have the one?’
Albert turned round and looked deep into my eyes. ‘So little faith you have, my boy.’
The moment he said this, a shadow clouded his brown eyes.
I was impatient now, and maybe it was because I was thinking of Line that I replied rather more sharply than I meant to. ‘Well, answer me, then ! What happened to the goldfish?’
‘Follow me.’
He stood up and went into his cramped bedroom. He pulled down a ladder from the ceiling – just as he had told me Baker Hans had done when he had been a boy.
‘We’re going into the attic now, Ludwig,’ he whispered.
He climbed up first, and I followed him. If the whole story about Frode and the curious island was pure invention, I thought to myself, then Albert is a really sick man.
As soon as I peered over the edge of the trapdoor into the attic, I knew that everything Albert had sat up all night telling me was as real as the sun and the moon. Up here in the attic there was a multitude of goldfish bowls, and in every one of them swam goldfish all the colours of the rainbow. The attic was full of the most remarkable objects. I recognized the Buddha statue, the glass statue of a six-legged moluk, the swords and rapiers, and many more of the objects which had been downstairs when Albert had been a boy.
‘It’s … it’s absolutely fantastic,’ I stammered as I took my first steps across the attic floor, and I wasn’t just thinking of the goldfish. I now had no doubts that whole story of the magic island was true.
A blue morning light flooded in from an attic window. The sun didn’t reach this side of the valley before midday, but all the same there was a golden light in the attic which wasn’t coming from the window.
‘There!’ whispered Albert, pointing to a corner under the slanted ceiling.
Then I saw an old bottle, and from that bottle a glittering light fell on all the goldfish bowls and the other objects lining the floor, benches, and cupboards.
‘That is Rainbow Fizz, son. Fifty-two years have passed since anyone touched it, but now we will carry the old bottle downstairs together.’
He bent down and picked up the bottle from the floor. When he tilted it, I saw something inside which was so beautiful my eyes began to water.
Just as we were about to turn and climb back down into the bedroom, I noticed the old pack of cards in a little wooden box.
‘Can I … look?’ I asked.
The old man nodded formally, and I carefully picked up the pile of tattered cards. I made out the Six of Hearts, the Two of Clubs, the Queen of Spades, and the Eight of Diamonds. I counted the cards.
‘There are only fifty-one,’ I exclaimed.
The old man glanced around the attic.
‘There!’ he said eventually, and pointed to a card lying on an old stool. I bent down and placed the card on top of the others. It was the Ace of Hearts.
‘She still has a habit of losing herself, but I always find her again somewhere in the attic.’
I put the cards back where I had found them, and we went downstairs.
Albert fetched a little liqueur glass, which he placed on the table.
‘You know what’s going to happen,’ he said simply, and I understood it was my turn to taste Rainbow Fizz. Before me – exactly fifty-two years ago – it had been Albert sitting in this room tasting this mysterious drink, and before him – fifty-two years earlier – Baker Hans had drunk Rainbow Fizz on the magic island.
‘But remember,’ Albert said seriously, ‘you get only the one tiny sip. Then a whole solitaire has to be laid before you can remove the cork again. In this way the bottle will span several generations.’
He poured a tiny splash of the drink into the little glass.
‘Here you are,’ he said, handing it to me.
‘I don’t know … whether I dare.’
‘But you know you have to,’ replied Albert. ‘Because if these drops don’t deliver what they promise, then yes, Albert Klages is nothing more than a mentally deranged old man who has sat up all night telling stories. But the old baker won’t have that hanging over him, you understand, and even if you don’t doubt the story now, the doubt will come one day. That’s why it is so important that you taste what I have told you with your whole body. That’s the only way you can become a baker in Dorf.’
I lifted the glass to my mouth and swallowed the few drops. Within seconds my body turned into a whole circus of different tastes.
It was as though I was in all the markets of the world. At the market in Hamburg I put a tomato in my mouth, in Lübeck I took a bite of a juicy pear, in Zürich I devoured a bunch of grapes, in Rome I ate figs, in Athens it was almonds and cashew nuts, and at the bazaar in Cairo I munched dates. Many more tastes swept through my body. Some of them were so unusual that I thought I was walking around the magic island picking fruit from the trees there. That was the tufa fruit, I thought to myself, that had to be ringroot, and that was kurberry. And there were even more. It was as though I was suddenly back in Arendal. I was sure I could taste cowberries and the smell of Line’s hair.
I don’t know how long I sat by the fireplace tasting. I don’t think I said anything to Albert, but the old man finally got up and said, ‘Now the old baker has to get some sleep. But before that I must put the bottle back up in the attic, and you should know I always lock the trapdoor after me. Oh yes, you’re certainly a grown man, and fruit and vegetables are nutritious and tasty, old warrior, but you don’t want to turn into a vegetable yourself.’
I can’t be sure today if these were his exact words. I only know that he gave me some words of warning before he went to bed – and they were something about Rainbow Fizz and Frode’s playing cards.
SEVEN OF HEARTS
… The sticky-bun man shouts
down a magic funnel …
Only when I awoke late the next morning did it really dawn on me that the old baker I had met in Dorf had been my own grandfather. The shaven girl could be none other than Grandma back home in Norway.
I couldn’t be more convinced. The Joker Game hadn’t said in exact words that the shaven girl was Grandma or that the baker in Dorf was my own grandpa. But there couldn’t have been that many girls in Norway called Line with German boyfriends.
The whole truth still wasn’t known, however. There were a lot of sentences from the Joker Game which Baker Hans had never remembered and had therefore never been told to Albert or anyone else. Would these sentences ever be found so the whole game of solitaire could be completed?
All traces had been lost when the magic island had sunk into the ocean, and it hadn’t been possible to learn any more before Baker Hans had died. It would also be impossible to try to blow life into Frode’s playing cards again to see whether the dwarfs could remember what they had said 150 years ago.
There was only one possibility left; if the Joker was still on earth – then maybe he could still remember the Joker Game.
I knew that I had to get the grown-ups to make a detour through Dorf, even if it was out of the way and Dad’s holiday would soon be over. And it had to be done without showing them the sticky-bun book.
I really just wanted to walk into the little bakery and say to the old baker, ‘I’m back – I’ve returned from the land in the south, and I’ve got my Dad with me. He’s your own son.’
Grandpa was soon the main topic of conversation at breakfast. I decided to wait with my dramatic revelation until towards the end of the meal. I was aware that my credibility was wearing a bit thin
after all the things I had let slip from the sticky-bun book already. Well, I’d allow them at least to eat their breakfast in peace.
When Mama went to get her second cup of coffee, I looked deep into Dad’s eyes and said rather emphatically, ‘It was good that we found Mama in Athens, but one card is still missing from the solitaire before it can be resolved completely, and I have found that card.’
Dad glanced worriedly over at Mama; then he looked at me and said, ‘What is the matter now, Hans Thomas?’
I continued to stare into his eyes. ‘Do you remember the baker in Dorf who gave me a fizzy drink and four sticky buns while you sat in the Schöner Waldemar getting drunk on Alpine brandy with the locals?’
He nodded.
‘That baker is your own true father,’ I said.
‘Nonsense!’
He snorted like a tired horse, but I knew he couldn’t just shy away from this.
‘We don’t have to discuss it here and now,’ I said, ‘but you should know that I am one hundred per cent sure.’
Mama returned to the table and sighed in despair when she realised what we were talking about. Dad had reacted in much the same way, but we knew each other a lot better. He must have understood he couldn’t dismiss what I had said until he had investigated the case further. He knew that I was also a joker who could discover things of great significance now and then.
‘And what makes you think that was my father ?’ he asked.
I couldn’t tell him it was something I had read in black and white in the sticky-bun book. Instead, I said something I had thought of the night before.
‘Well, first of all, his name was Ludwig,’ I began.
‘That’s a very common name in Switzerland and Germany,’ said Dad.
The Solitaire Mystery Page 25