Wish Me Dead

by Helen Grant

  Hanna was digging in her pocket. ‘Are we going to agree what to write this time?’ she asked.

  Max shook his head. ‘Same procedure as last year,’ he quoted in English, then reverted to German; a single line from Dinner for One was the limit of Max’s foreign-language skills. ‘The way we did it last time, it worked. So we do the same again.’ He reached for a piece of paper. ‘We all write our own stuff. Nobody looks at anyone else’s.’

  ‘So how do we know –’ began Timo.

  – whether anyone’s wish comes true? I finished in my head. I could see the answer coming: We’ll check the papers. The obvious next step would be: Let’s see the papers from last time, then. And if the others did that, they would see that mine didn’t say fifty euros.

  Before it could occur to anyone to do so, I slipped behind Max and Jochen and stooped to retrieve the box. It felt cool and slick in my hands; I suspected the wood was damp with last night’s dew. I struggled with the catch, eventually managed to get it open and raised the lid. Quickly I rifled through the scraps of paper inside. Max’s untidy scrawl, Izabela’s neat hand … I was turning all of them over, looking for my own handwriting, and then I was counting them, and my heart was thumping.

  Five. There were five pieces of paper in the box. Count them again. Check the ground. Could one have fallen out? As I fumbled with the box, it slipped from my fingers, turning as it went so that the scraps of paper fluttered out.

  I knelt swiftly and began to gather them up, counting under my breath. There were really only five.

  ‘Steffi?’ said Hanna’s voice close to me.

  I didn’t look around. ‘There are only five pieces of paper,’ I said.

  For a moment she said nothing. I could hear her breathing as she leaned over me.

  ‘You must have missed one,’ she said at last.

  ‘No,’ I said.

  I stood up and found myself the focus of five pairs of eyes.

  ‘Whose is missing?’ asked Izabela. Her blue eyes were round with dismay.

  ‘Mine.’

  I held out my fist, the papers crumpled inside it, but Izabela shook her head, stepping quickly backwards.

  There was a silence.

  ‘Look,’ said Max eventually, ‘so what, OK? It doesn’t change anything. Maybe someone took Steffi’s piece of paper.’

  ‘Who?’ asked Izabela.

  Max shrugged. There was no possible answer to that question, unless he chose to pluck one out of the air.

  ‘I really don’t like this,’ said Izabela suddenly. She looked at each of us, her expression anxious, lips quivering, like a child begging for reassurance from its parents. ‘I want to go. I want to go now.’

  ‘Shhhh,’ said Hanna in a mild voice. She wasn’t even looking at Izabela, I saw; she was looking at Max, and her eyes were bright. I saw the tip of her tongue appear and move slowly along her upper lip, leaving it wet and shining. ‘Write something, Max,’ she said softly.

  Max stared back at her and then his face slowly broke into a grin. ‘Pen,’ he said, without looking round, and Timo put his own pen, a tatty plastic ballpoint, into Max’s hand. Max was still looking at Hanna with that grin on his face as he wrote on the slip of paper. He finished with a flourish and folded the paper tightly. Then he passed the pen back to Timo. The paper remained firmly clasped in his fist.

  When it came to Izabela’s turn she tried to refuse the pen. She looked at it as though it were some pernicious drug that Max was handing around, and kept her hands by her side. Max didn’t bother to argue with her. He simply stood in front of her, holding the pen out, until she gave in and took it with a very bad grace, handling it as though she were a child on a zoo visit who has just been given some repulsive live thing to hold. The pen slashed irritably across the paper; I suspected that she was wishing never to come back to Gertrud’s house again.

  Now Timo was writing and I fleetingly asked myself what he was wishing for. An unimaginably long time ago, he had wished for me, but now he no longer wanted me. I looked at the top of his mousy brown head as he bent over the paper, wondering what was passing through his mind. In another moment he would be passing the pen to me, as I was the last. I would have to think of something to write.

  Of course, I knew what I was going to write. I had known it even before we came here today, even before Max announced that we were going to do it. If Max hadn’t insisted on returning to the house together I would almost certainly have made my way here on my own in the end. The temptation would have been simply too much.

  It wasn’t pique, the thought of Timo and Izabela together, that made me want this thing. I was dying to know whether my wish could possibly come true. Five hundred euros was a lot of money, but it was still only money. Money can be borrowed, or taken from a savings account, or stolen. But people – and more specifically, one particular person – that was another matter. Perhaps it would really take witchcraft to make a person do what you wanted them to do – to make them think and feel the way you wanted them to.

  Silently I took the pen from Timo’s outstretched hand. I turned away, to hide what I wrote from the others’ eyes. I put my foot up on a block of stone, as I had the night we wished Klara Klein’s fate down on her, and wrote the words using my knee to rest on. Then I folded the paper very tightly and put it into the box that Max was holding.

  Max gave me a wolfish grin and for an appalling moment I thought he was going to remove the paper and read it. But then he closed the box and fastened the catch, and I was able to breathe again. My gaze followed the box as he placed it almost reverentially on the ground. I hardly listened to the rest of it, the address to Rote Gertrud; I thought about the contents of the box instead, how they reminded me of a message in a bottle, floating away from us to who knew where. I thought about the tightly folded scraps of paper inside, with six different wishes on them. But mostly I thought about my own wish: Kai von Jülich.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  If I had hoped for an instant response to my prayers I was doomed to disappointment. On Monday morning I was at college in Kall and if Kai dropped in at the bakery I was not there to serve him. I was listening to a seemingly interminable talk about food hygiene, but my thoughts were elsewhere. I was wondering whether Kai would come into the bakery and whether he would be looking out for me. Suppose it really happens? I thought. The very idea made me feel slightly light-headed. Will he come in specially to see me, or will he just come in anyway to get his usual order, catch sight of me and suddenly it will hit him?

  I could feel my cheeks burning and hoped that I was not blushing. Get a grip, I berated myself silently. It’s not going to happen. The five hundred euros – a real person sent those, whatever their reasons. But nobody can make Kai von Jülich fall in love with me. All the same, I couldn’t resist the temptation to indulge in a few daydreams, ones in which Kai’s face was very close to mine, and I was drinking in the glorious radiance of those golden good looks, basking in the gaze of those heavenly blue eyes.

  By Tuesday morning I was in such a state of anticipation that I was distracted. The inevitable happened and two minutes before Kai and his friends came into the bakery I spilt a customer’s coffee all over the floor at the back of the cafe. While I was on my hands and knees like Cinderella, mopping it all up with a cloth and apologizing for the fourth time, Kai had been and gone, served by someone else.

  On Tuesday night Achim called in sick, so on Wednesday I worked in the kitchen with my father. Another day at college, on Friday I was in the kitchen again, and then the week was over.

  On Friday evening I dragged myself up the stairs to the flat, put the white coat with Magdalena Nett on the front pocket into the wash and shut myself in my room. I felt miserably disappointed and, worse, I felt stupid. I flung myself on the bed and gazed with distaste at the contents of my room – the battered dressing table covered in bottles and jars, the faded duvet cover with a pop star design which had seemed desirable when I was fourteen but now looked ridiculous, th
e posters tacked up to hide the sentimental-looking floral wallpaper my mother had chosen. I was old enough to vote, old enough to be married – and yet here I was, with no space of my own other than this little girl’s bedroom, no future prospects other than one day receiving my father’s secret recipe for the perfect Florentiner.

  I fumbled in my jeans pocket and pulled out the crumpled euro notes which were still stuffed in there, as I had not been able to think of a better hiding place, or a solution to the question of how to pass the money on. If I hadn’t been holding the notes in my hands I would have thought the whole thing was a dream. The delivery of the money was still a mystery, but clearly it was some sort of joke, the work of some all-too-solid person, nothing to do with Rote Gertrud’s house or the witch herself. Well, now the joke was well and truly over. I shoved the cash back into my pocket and lay on the bed, fixing my eyes on the ceiling. Nothing is going to change, I thought, and my heart was heavy. Nothing is going to change.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  I did not work in the bakery again until the following Tuesday morning. The weekend had passed in a kind of dull haze. Hanna had phoned me to ask whether anything had happened, putting particular emphasis on the last word, and I had told her that it had not. It occurred to me that it might be prudent to return to Rote Gertrud’s house on my own in the next few days, to remove the piece of paper with my writing on it from the box before someone else had a chance to see it. I could imagine Max and Jochen chortling over it, or Timo wrinkling his nose at it. The thought was intolerable, and yet I felt so low and apathetic that I could not summon up the energy to do anything about it, not yet at any rate. When Hanna asked if I was coming out with the rest of them, I pleaded a headache, and it was not far from the truth. My head was full of dull, heavy, miserable thoughts, all tangled together like great dumb animals shut in a stall, kicking the doors and each other, unable to get out. I had not realized how much I had pinned on this, the idea that somehow my wish might really come true.

  By the time Tuesday morning came round and I was due behind the counter of the bakery again, I had talked myself into a steadier state of mind. As I smoothed down my apron over the skirt of the hated green dirndl, I thought that I might even be able to face Kai von Jülich quite cheerfully, were he to come in for his ham and egg roll. Nobody would be able to tell from my face what my hopes had been, or how they had been dashed.

  All the same, I almost jumped when the street door opened and the little bell jangled. When I looked up my heart was in my mouth. But it was not Kai von Jülich. It was someone else I knew, as tall as Kai but unmistakably different. Leaner, more angular, scruffier, with thick hair the colour of burnished copper and brown eyes whose gaze seemed to dance over everything, never still for a moment. He reminded me irresistibly of a red squirrel.

  ‘Julius,’ I said under my breath.

  He was glancing around him, checking to see whether there were any other customers demanding my attention, whether my mother was lurking around in the vicinity. Satisfied that the coast was clear, he came right up to the counter.

  I didn’t have time to ask him what he had come for; he plunged straight in without a preamble, without even greeting me.

  ‘Steffi, I’ve come to ask you if you’ve changed your mind.’

  ‘Julius –’

  ‘Tell me you’ve at least thought about it.’ He put both hands on the counter and leaned towards me. ‘You got my note – the flyer?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Julius waited for me to go on. Put on the spot, I panicked.

  ‘I can’t do it. I’m sorry.’

  ‘Why not?’

  He didn’t sound annoyed, just interested. That was the thing about Julius: he always acted as though he thought I were the most fascinating creature he had ever seen. Since I was unused to this kind of attention it had something of a mesmeric effect. I always found myself weakening and was obliged to dredge up reserves of self-will to resist him, whether it was a favour he wanted – or a date.

  ‘I have to get up at two thirty on Friday,’ I said. ‘I’m working in the kitchen. By the evening I’ll be worn out.’

  Julius studied me for a moment, and I was sure I felt myself reddening under his gaze.

  ‘Come on, Steffi,’ he said eventually. ‘Please. Gina’s blown us out. She’s crap anyway, you know she is. She sounds like Klara Klein on helium. You’d be a million times better.’

  ‘I wouldn’t,’ I said, but I was wavering. I bit my lip, glancing covertly to the side to check my mother was still occupied elsewhere. ‘Really,’ I said, but he wasn’t giving up.

  ‘Your voice is way better than hers,’ he insisted. ‘I’ve heard it. School choir, remember? You were brilliant.’

  I almost caved right in when he said that. Nobody ever called me brilliant. To my parents I was the also-ran, the second daughter whose interest in the family business was disappointingly insipid. At school I had been too quiet to attract any comment, good or bad. Even Timo had given me up after three years without a second thought. The lure of being thought brilliant, of having an actual talent that others might admire, was irresistible.

  I desperately wanted him to persuade me – and perhaps he might have, only at that moment the little bell which hung by the door jangled vigorously as someone came into the bakery. I turned to look and froze. It was Kai von Jülich.

  ‘Ah … ’ I seemed to have been struck with some form of facial paralysis. I was gaping away like a fish, unable to get a single word out.

  ‘A customer,’ said Julius.

  He shrugged and took a few steps back to let Kai approach the counter. Then he drew out a chair from one of the little tables and to my dismay he sat down to wait, his long legs sprawled out in front of him.

  I flapped a hand at him, trying to get him to leave, but he was looking away, towards the window. Go, go, I thought desperately. Having Julius overhear everything Kai said, and seeing me blush and stammer like an idiot, would be bad enough, but suppose this really was the moment I had been hoping for, suppose Kai had come to ask me out, he might see Julius sitting there and think he was more than a friend. Well, isn’t he? said a voice in the back of my mind. It’s not just your voice he’s after, dummy. Amid the urgent desire to usher Julius out of the bakery I discerned a twinge of guilt, as though I were somehow betraying him. But that was ridiculous; we weren’t even going out.

  By now it wasn’t just my face that was warm; the entire exposed surface of my skin was tingling hotly with deep embarrassment. I suspected I was glowing like a lava lamp. It was all I could do to stand there and face Kai, instead of bolting for the safety of the kitchen.

  Kai glanced at Julius as he came in, but instantly disregarded him. Fortunately the bakery was almost empty, otherwise for the second time that morning the avid customers would have been treated to the sight of a young man striding up to the counter and leaning towards me with undisguised intent.

  ‘Steffi,’ said Kai.

  He didn’t bother to say Guten Morgen or Morgen or even Hi. Just my name, pronounced with a lingering relish, as though he was tasting something unbelievably delicious. He looked at me as though he would like to have vaulted over the counter and laid eager hands on me right there among the sesame rolls and cheesecakes.

  I just stood still, aware that I was staring at him like an idiot, but unable to think of a single thing to say. This was the moment for the wonderfully intelligent remark, the coquettish riposte, but I was as stiff and silent as a showroom dummy.

  ‘OK,’ said Kai, as though I had made some scintillating observation. He didn’t seem to notice that I was paralysed with self-consciousness. His gaze flickered up and down me, snagging on the low-cut neckline of the frilly white blouse. I could have sworn he actually licked his lips. ‘Friday,’ he said.

  ‘F-Friday?’ I stammered.

  There was a feeling of faint unreality about the whole brief exchange. In spite of the way he was looking at me, my rational mind said that there had t
o be some unexciting explanation for this. Perhaps he wanted to order something from the bakery for Friday. I could be winding myself up to a pinnacle of expectation just to discover that Frau von Jülich wanted a Sahnetorte for a coffee morning.

  A fleeting expression passed over Kai’s perfectly handsome features, a shadow of impatience at my inability to make any sensible reply. It was gone so swiftly that I wondered if I had imagined it. He leaned a little closer and I caught a hint of aftershave, a scent so intoxicatingly good that I really thought there was a danger of my swooning among the serried ranks of pastries.

  ‘Friday evening,’ murmured Kai. ‘Just you and me.’ There was a meaningful tone to his voice that sent a delicious shiver down my spine. He must have seen the effect of those words – just you and me – as a slight smile curled the edges of his mouth. He straightened up. ‘I’ll be here at seven thirty. OK?’

  I found my voice. ‘Yes,’ I said breathlessly.

  Kai glanced around. ‘Friday, seven thirty,’ he repeated. He didn’t bother to lower his voice. ‘Don’t forget.’ Then he turned on his heel and left the bakery. The door banged shut behind him, the little bell jingling wildly.

  For a moment there was silence. Then I heard the sound of chair legs scraping on the floor. Julius was standing up. For a moment he stood there, looking after Kai. Then he turned to me. In the sunlight streaming through the bakery window his shock of hair was the brilliant colour of flames, but his face was cold.

  ‘Friday night,’ he said.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said. I hardly dared look at his face. I knew how it looked, as though I had been caught out in a lie. I can’t do it … I’ll be worn out.

  ‘No, I’m sorry,’ said Julius with angry emphasis. He half turned, as if to leave, and then thought better of it. He came up to the counter where I was standing, nervously twisting the hem of my apron in my hands. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘I can’t make you come with me on Friday. But Kai … ’