While Hans was finalising his agreement with the innkeeper, Sophie was shutting herself in her room so she could read the note she had just received. Lying face down on the orange taffeta eiderdown, ankles folded in the air, she couldn’t help giving a cry of joy when she reached the part that said: … therefore, if all goes well, you will have no choice but to suffer my presence in Wandernburg for the time being. On hearing her mistress, Elsa burst into the room to see what the matter was. Concealing the letter under a cushion, Sophie sat up nonchalantly and replied: Nothing at all, why? I thought I heard Miss cry out, said Elsa, puzzled. My dear, said Sophie, is it impossible to sneeze in this house without creating a scandal?
That very afternoon, after lunching with Álvaro and downing three black coffees in a row, Hans went back to his room, bounding up the stairs two at a time. He flung open the door. His eyes fixed on his trunk, he strode across the room. On the oak table were three thick volumes, some carbon paper and an ink pot with a closed lid. Hans knelt beside the trunk. He tried shifting it, confirming how heavy it was. He heaved a sigh. He ran his fingers along its curved top, then unfastened its locks and clasps one by one. Inside, stacks of books lay in disarray from all his travels. The first volumes he saw were his old Greek dictionary, a manual of Italian verbs, a slim book of poems by Novalis, and a dog-eared guide to French grammar.
Hans posted his manuscripts to Leipzig each week, back and forth, like the wind. The publisher remunerated his work with a money order Hans cashed at the Bank of Wandernburg, a square-shaped building of somewhat ostentatious neoclassical design at the end of Ducat Street. Each morning, spectral yellow carriages would depart from there escorted by a police guard. Establishing a work routine in Wandernburg felt at once strange and natural to Hans. The place still felt alien to him, as though he had only just arrived there, and was preparing to leave. And yet there were times when, wandering down an alleyway or crossing the market square, Hans would look up, and an unexpected feeling of harmony would overwhelm him — he liked the pointed towers, he was drawn in by the maze of curves and inclines. Then he would quicken his pace, trying to shake off this uncomfortable nesting instinct by telling himself no, he knew perfectly well he wouldn’t stay long, remembering the hundreds of cities he had visited.
He would invariably rise at noon and go out to have a bite at the tavern, and, if he had time, meet Álvaro for a coffee (or three) at Café Europa, where they would sit browsing the newspapers and conversing, always about the same old thing, always about something else. Excepting Fridays, when he went to the salon, he would spend his afternoons in the Wandernburg public library or translating at the inn. Sometimes, usually on Sundays, Hans would go to the market square to listen to the organ grinder, and if he saw his dish was empty, he would wait for someone to stop and then begin dropping coins into it with theatrical zeal — coins the organ grinder invariably gave him back in the evening, the moment he arrived. Hans would have supper at the inn, translate or read for a while in his room and then head for the cave, where he would remain until dawn. And Sophie? Hans saw little of her and he never stopped seeing her — aside from the long Friday evenings, they would both improvise momentary meetings, arranged teas, casual encounters in the city centre, any excuse to see each other for a few moments. And then, of course, there were the letters, which travelled back and forth like the post, like the wind, like bilingual words in dictionaries, from Stag Street to Old Cauldron Street, and vice versa.
The Wandernburg public library, like most libraries, was ugly but loveable, inadequate yet indispensable. It was run by a plump young woman, who would laugh for no reason when consulted about anything, and who spent the day reading, an open book clutched in her hands, which looked like paper pulp. The library was also an ideal place to meet Sophie, who often went there to read books deemed unsuitable to be seen in the house. Besides candles, shelves and dust, the library was also home to a large collection of magazines, specialist almanacs, romances, travel, history and pedagogy, regional newspapers as well as every single back copy of Wandernburg’s local newspaper.
The Thunderer consisted of four sheets of convoluted grammar and bombastic language. It reported almost exclusively on local news, recording in unbelievable detail precise minutes of municipal meetings, verbatim transcriptions of Mayor Ratztrinker’s speeches, including repetitions, hesitations and mistakes, readers’ complaints about the state of a municipal flower bed, a stretch of road, a street lamp, exhaustive notices about the wealthy Wandernburg families (including the Wilderhauses), their illnesses, accidents, obituaries, death notices, funerals, births, marriages or receptions. There was also a section covering important news from neighbouring villages and, every now and then, an event of international importance — a coronation, a war, an armistice. The newspaper also boasted a financial section that gave information on the price of farm produce and wool (Hans was shocked to discover that Herr Gelding wrote monthly articles on the subject), the nation’s stock-market index, as well as those of Paris and London. Every Sunday, underneath the heated sermon of a certain Reverend Weiss and a list of the week’s religious services, there was a poem or literary review by Professor Mietter, whom the newspaper introduced in the heading above his contribution as, “Herr Doktor G L Mietter, a leading light of literature, a keen but impartial critic for our readers, an unrivalled bastion of good taste”.
Hans lamented the dearth of poetry on the shelves of the Wandernburg public library, but was overjoyed when he discovered nine volumes of Rotteck’s Universal History, which he consulted frequently, as well as the helpful encyclopaedia Konversationslexikon, edited coincidentally by Brockhaus. One afternoon, while he was climbing a stepladder to reach one of Rotteck’s volumes, Hans glimpsed a plump, dark-haired figure. Even though he could only see her from behind, he was in no doubt from the way she was chattering away to the librarian that this was Frau Pietzine. She would often drop in in order to stay abreast of the latest recommendations from the Goddess of the Rhine or the Poetess of Swabia, and to devour the latest editions of the High Society Chronicle, Modern Trends or Remarkable Women.