I’m going to leave.

A preserving jar? That doesn’t sound right to me. Nobody does a thing like that. Does he still feed the birds? He must have realized by now that he’s killing them. The sugar and the fat kill them. The birds die of high blood pressure. Or they burst. The bread swells up in their stomachs until they burst. The bushes are riddled with exploded bird carcasses. And then the foxes come from the fields, or worse, the rats from the canal. That’s probably why he does it. He’s a nutter, that Kobielski, I think all that petrol has clouded his brain . . .

Bernard . . .

Tell me what’s the matter, Camille? Your voice sounds hard. And don’t keep calling me Bernard. It sounds so serious. The first time you called me that, I knew there was no going back. I stood there and I suddenly felt like a man. That was good, but something was lost, too. In every moment, something is lost. Do you remember what you always used to call me? Call me that again. I’d like us to call each other by our old names again, Camille.

I won’t miss Paulstadt. It never meant anything to me, you know that. But I will think about the time we spent together. It was a good time, and I’m grateful to you for it, Bernard. I’ve had a lot to do these last few weeks, but it’s all sorted now. And with the money from the house, I’ll be fine. It was really quick. Two signatures, that was all.

You’ve sold our house.

A lorry for the furniture. Yesterday I picked cherries again. A whole basketful, dark red, almost black. We’ll have a garden again, but no cherry tree. I’ll be able to see the mountains, though. Do you remember how much I missed the mountains? Soon I’ll be able to see them when I wake up just by looking out of the window, isn’t that lovely? And someone’s going to come. Someone will take care of you, Bernard. Of the plants. And the weeds. They’re supposed to scrape the moss out of the cracks and seal the marble once a month. And sand down and polish the slab again. I want it to reflect the moon.

Stop crying, Camille.

The flowers are really pretty. I think you’d like them.

The house. How much did you get for it? What about our wardrobe? It’s older than the house. You can’t just take it with you. It wouldn’t survive the journey. Unless you took it apart. But the wood has gone brittle with age. And who would glue it back together? Don’t you remember us standing in front of it? We imagined the grain was a map with roads and paths, all of which we’d travel down some day. And you laughed, Camille. Don’t you remember? You couldn’t stop laughing!

Goodbye, Bernard.

And don’t try to get it down the stairs in one piece. It’s too heavy, it’d fall apart. It’s not the stuff we kept in it that counts. That doesn’t matter. What was it, anyway? Tools. Old bedlinen. Christmas decorations, things like that. It’s the wardrobe that counts. And your laugh. Your laugh, Camille, don’t you understand?