Silver Pebbles by Hansjörg Schneider

Author:Hansjörg Schneider
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781913394646
Publisher: Bitter Lemon Press

Erika Waldis served the last customer of the morning, an old man who’d bought a loaf of Basel bread, a quarter pound of butter and a packet of budgerigar food. She closed the till and took out the key. The clock in the entry hall, where trolleys had been left all over the place, showed the time as twelve-thirty. The lights were switched off, the shelves in the half-light looked as gloomy as in a pine forest.

Standing up straight, she lifted her arms as high as she could and stood on tiptoe for five seconds. Then she slowly squatted down, trying to keep her heels on the floor all the time, also for five seconds. That’s what she’d learned during therapy.

She stood up again, with difficulty – she simply weighed too much. She was well aware of that, she didn’t need a doctor to tell her. But how could she lose weight when she was sitting on that chair all day, registering the prices of sausages and noodles?

By now the entrance hall was empty as well. Erika started to push the trolleys together until they were in two straight lines next to each other. That wasn’t her job, but she hated any disorder.

She went up the stairs to the self-service restaurant, picked up a tray and cutlery and joined the line. Today there was roast chicken with chips, beef stew with mashed potatoes and, as on every Wednesday in winter, black pudding and liver sausage with sauerkraut. Erika chose the beef stew. Antonio, in his white cap, gave her a wink as he dug a pit in the mash with his ladle.

She found an empty table by the window that looked out over a flat roof. In warmer weather there were tables out there with sunshades. Now it was covered in snow that had a dull shimmer in the hazy grey light.

She knew a few of the customers in the restaurant by sight, though she gave them no more than a nod. They were men who lived on their own, men with frayed collars and faded silk ties from Luino on Lake Maggiore. They were in their Sunday best, as they were every lunchtime, even though it wasn’t Sunday. They were sitting there, each on his own, carefully cutting the meat up into little chunks and taking a long time chewing it, their necks skinny and wrinkled, their eyes lowered. Beside them were the widows, in twos and threes, talking quietly, they didn’t want to be a nuisance to anyone. They had also dressed up, as well as they could, with neatly ironed blouses and all kinds of old-fashioned hats on their heads.

Erika was happy to be sitting by herself. She needed time to think things over. She was frightened by what had happened that morning.

Men’s business, she thought, what is that, men’s business? What does that idiot, nothing more than a big child, actually mean by it? Does he really think he’s capable of dealing with the man on

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