You held my hand. You stroked your thumb across my fingers, across these bent twigs. Your other hand rested in your lap. When you talked, you closed your eyes. Your eyeballs darted about behind your eyelids, following the pictures. Daylight bathed your face. Then the light of the night. I often heard your watch ticking in your lap, and the days and nights went by as if they had shrunk to hours. Sometimes we would fall asleep together, and when we woke everything was as before.

You asked me where I’d come from, and I gave a silly answer. From outside, I said, where else? I think I thought I was being rather bold. Children’s high-­pitched shouts and cries could now be heard in the playground. The staffroom gave a collective sigh and began to move. Old Juchtinger closed first the window, then his eyes. Your thumb lay still. From outside: that’s a a long way to come, miss, but you’re here now!

You placed my hand on the pillow. The material felt smooth and cool. My warm breath. The creak of the floorboards under your feet. Your back, your shoulders framed by the open window. The light seemed to pulsate around you. I think I heard the clatter of a lawnmower. Or was it the snowplough? Did I tell you to close the window again? Did I talk about tomorrow? Did I tell you that I love you? Do you remember?

Gerd Ingerland

‘In this world there are sheep and there are wolves, but you don’t get to choose. You can’t take your pick, you understand? It’s not a decision, it’s fate. But you’re lucky: you’re a wolf. You’re strong, you’ve got staying power. You won’t get devoured. You’re a devourer. No one knows what wolf’s meat tastes like. Fate is on your side. You’re one of us.’

I was ten when Papa said this to me. He worked at the bank, and about twenty ties and a row of brushed and ironed suits hung in his wardrobe. ‘Things are good as they are, and they’re getting even better,’ he used to say, sitting on the sofa and looking around the room. Mama, sitting next to him, would put her hand on his and nod. Her fingers would play with the long black hairs on the back of his hand. I never knew whether she liked those hairs or hated them. The way she tugged and plucked at them, it looked as if she was trying to pull them out.

My first memory also has to do with hair. I’m tiny, and I’m sitting on the floor behind a curtain. Somewhere a window is open; the curtain is moving, sunlight shimmering through the cloth. Then it’s pulled back and my mother is standing there, crying. Or perhaps she’s laughing; in my memory it makes no difference. She lifts me up. Her hair smells of kitchen and Sunday morning. It’s long and blonde and it feels as if it could cloak my whole body, as if I could disappear in Mama’s hair.