Next World Novella by Politycki Matthias

Author:Politycki, Matthias [Politycki, Matthias]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781908670021
Publisher: Perseus Books Group
Published: 2011-10-31T20:00:00+00:00

After they’d taken away his belt and his boots they gave him a cell that was, roughly speaking, three times the size of the mattress in his Dolly, the barred window hardly as big as the new skylight. But why, what was going on? Although they didn’t know, they did tell him, shrugging, that matters would take their course, was there anyone he wanted to phone? Then Marek, without stopping to think, put his hand in the breast pocket of his jacket and found only the note with Hanni’s phone number. That wasn’t going to be any help. Hanni! Come to think of it, hadn’t she got him into this shitty situation in the first place? If she hadn’t said that one thing to him, he’d never have driven off. In winter! With summer tyres on the van. All because of a woman who probably didn’t think much of men anyway, and he, Marek, had been made a laughing stock by such a person. He was bloody furious!

Big Marek. They gave him some time to calm down. Twice he rang for the customs man who had arrested him and who assured him that everything would be all right, the investigating judge had been informed. Finally, after four hours, things started moving, as we found out later, much later, when we heard the entire story, all the details: he was carted all over the place, ended up in the office of the investigating judge, who had apparently just been on the phone to the judge responsible for such matters in Marek’s hometown. And she, the judge in his hometown, had told this judge that the reason for his arrest was an unpaid parking fine, because he had once left the Dolly in a no-parking zone. The reminder had been sent to his parents’ address, which was still Marek’s official place of residence. The letter had probably simply disappeared in a pile of their other post, ditto the summons to turn up in court.

Marek was no longer a potential enemy of the state or serious offender, he was just a little fish again. After surrendering his savings passbook as bail, he was allowed to leave on the condition that he report to the judge in his hometown within twenty-four hours. That meant … but when he was taken back to the customs office, the officers there had been spending their time checking his Dolly van, and had found a whole list of things that, in their view, made it un-roadworthy. The most serious was the little skylight, not mentioned in the vehicle documents and therefore not passed by the MOT office. They were sorry but the registration of his Dolly van was invalid, he couldn’t continue his journey, and he had to pay a fine of sixty marks. Marek burst into tears. They’d finally got their claws into him.

But hadn’t he been told, by a higher authority, that he had to turn up back home within twenty-four hours, so surely he must

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