But Anna Kiel’s face mostly looked like a television test pattern: she had all the correct instruments to display emotion, but it was like her machinery had been set to standby. Her arms dangled limply at her sides; her smile was perfunctory, docile; and her eyes … they were just like the little lady with the purse had said.

Extinguished.

Schäfer walked over to the bulletin board and stared at the picture. Then he fiddled around, removing the staples from the copies of Anna Kiel’s letters that were hanging there, and took them down.

What was he missing?

He got out a neon highlighter and highlighted some of the sentences.

Maybe I was born defective. Maybe I am that way because of her.

We are connected through him, I understand that now.

If I say Amorphophallus titanium …

Do you see? Do you see it now?

Schäfer stared at the lines as the worm dug its way deeper into his thoughts.

“What the hell am I missing?” he mumbled to himself.

He looked up at the bulletin board again and took a step back to get a better overview. He almost fell, tripping over the wastepaper basket, and swore to himself. Then he kicked it.

The basket flew through the office and knocked over a fern that was sitting on the windowsill. The pot hit the floor, shattering, and the dirt scattered over the light-gray linoleum.

A colleague passing in the hallway stopped and poked his head through the doorway.

“Everything okay in here?”

Schäfer grumbled, trying to shoo him away with a hand motion.

“That’s quite a temper you’ve got there, old man. Be careful so you don’t demolish the whole office. You’d better get that swept up again.”

Old man.

Schäfer glared at the guy and for a brief instant considered sweeping up the potted plant with him. Instead he turned his back to the door as the man continued down the hallway, whistling.

Annoyed, Schäfer started looking for something he could sweep the dirt up with. He knew there was a broom in the kitchenette at the far end of the department, but he didn’t feel like walking all the way down there. Instead he found two pieces of cardboard and used one as a dustpan while he pushed the dirt onto it with the other.

He looked up and scanned the office to see where the wastepaper basket had landed.

His eyes fell on Augustin’s desk, and a tickling sensation suddenly spread through his chest.

He dropped the cardboard, and the topsoil landed on the floor again. A strangely liberating feeling spread through his arms and all the way to his fingertips.

He got up and walked over to the desk.