Free Epitaph for a Working ManO Page A

yes, he remembered. Mr Haller had spoken to him recently. Unfortunately he’d forgotten all about it. Of course, of course, he’d go and see him. Tomorrow, for sure.
    I thanked him and hung up. I was sweating.
    *
    â€œHe examined everything, all my little woes, the day before yesterday, in the afternoon. My back, the spot here on my chest, my lip. I didn’t have to go out to Tägern to see him, he examined me here in my room, from top to bottom. I have to apply compresses to my testicles. Though what that’s got to do with the other thing is a mystery to me.”
    He pulled out a plastic bowl from underneath the bed, opened the door of his bedside table and showed me the supply of cloths for the compresses. “Every morning and every evening they bring me the chamomile brew. It’s just an inflammation, nothing serious, I’ve had it before. It doesn’t bother me much except when I’m walking.”
    I asked him if Dr Lätt had registered him at the hospital for an earlier consultation.
    â€œHe looked at everything very thoroughly, did Lätt.” Father nodded approvingly. “And yesterday he came to see me again. He said he’d phoned the hospital. They told him the boss was on holiday at the moment, but of course I could go nevertheless. However, they thought it might be better to wait until Dr Boren was back. They said that he was the one who knew most about what had been done up to now. – So I’ll go as originally planned. It’s less than a fortnight now.”
    *
    It didn’t take much to make him happy. Lätt would only have had to put his head round the door of his room once a fortnight and ask: How are you feeling, Mr Haller? That would have been enough for Mr Haller.

9 – October: Broach chisel
    One afternoon, two weeks later – the day before the hospital appointment – Father wasn’t in the home or in the Löwen. An employee at the home told me that Mr Estermann, the man from the builders, had asked for Haller yesterday. Perhaps he’d gone to work there. On the other hand he hadn’t said he’d be out.
    I rode back to Tägern.
    Mrs Estermann sent me on to Fänglen. They were concreting the forecourt of the rectory. Unexpectedly they’d found some masonry work that needed doing. Her husband had asked my father to do it for him. A quick job. Just a few hours’ work, no more. She told me the way. I couldn’t miss the rectory.
    A sunny day early in October. Pleasantly warm for a moped ride. Past autumn-coloured hedges, down through woods, then a flat stretch along a line of hills.
    In Fänglen I didn’t have to search for long: I saw the church from afar, and the rectory would be nearby. One of those nineteenth-century Protestant country rectories, half manor, half farmhouse, with a barn standing next to it.
    Building equipment lay around. Under the roof of the barn, Father’s toolbox. Stone chips were swept into a pile against the wall of the house. The three steps up to the entrance had been bush-hammered; the soft limestone had already been repaired in several places.
    I rang at the door but no one came.
    Down the road two women were chatting over a garden fence. I asked if any of the builders were still around. The woman in the garden said she’d heard the old man hammering just a few minutes ago. But the builders had gone, she was sure of that, the lorry had driven off quite some time ago. Perhaps the man who’d been doing the hammering had gone over to the shop for a moment. She thought she’d seen him in the road. Didn’t he have a slight limp?
    In the shop they knew nothing about a man with a limp. I bought a packet of cigarettes.
    I returned to the rectory. Stood around in the square. Went into the graveyard. A lot of box trees, a strong smell of flowers. I sat down on a bench against the wall.
    On my way back via Breiten I passed the home again. Father was in the