‘I’m fine for money,’ I said, though it was untrue: the trillions I’d made in August had lost all value, and soon I’d have to beg my father for the fees again. ‘I’m concentrating on my studies.’

‘Suit yourself,’ Ernst said, and something like relief passed over Walter’s expression.

‘How long’s your shift?’ I said to him.

‘Still got a few more hours.’

‘Everything all right?’

‘Fine. Good.’

‘Do you want me to wait for you?’ I asked.

‘No, no. You go on. It’s the lantern festival.’

‘I’ll see you tomorrow at school, then?’

Walter nodded. It was unlike him to be so taciturn.

‘All right. See you later.’

On my way out I went over to the painting, knowing I would find Walter’s paintwork on my skies. I don’t know why I felt upset: I knew someone would have to do my job if I didn’t show up, but I also didn’t really want it to be him.

There was, however, an altogether different surprise. The commission was a strange painting, quite beautiful. It was a field scene with a couple of heavy horses in the background. In the foreground there was a farmhouse and a trio of girls, all blazing petticoats and rosebud lips, playing with chickens. The birds’ wings were open in alarm. The field was nearly all ploughed, ready for the drop of seeds. The clouds were tissuey, and well done.

I scanned the painting, trying to find the trick of it: in the seeds thrown, the terror of the flightless birds, the horse’s moronic tread. I couldn’t work out why the painting was so unsettling. Walter had done something funny with the light. I couldn’t name its technique; couldn’t work out the painting’s code.

When I looked over Walter was still in the office. Ernst was talking to him, gesturing at the sky and the holy figures supplicant, waiting for the gift of kings. But Walter kept his eyes on me, as if he were willing me not to see what, this summer, he had buried inside the painting.

22

Weimar

The festival torches were stacked in the school foyer the following morning. There was something of the gang to them, their blackened heads waiting for the firing squad. Several of the lanterns had been discarded overnight: a ship, a tree, an aeroplane, a car, a lipstick. In patches the lanterns had been burned brown or the heat had opened holes in the paper. I wondered which one was Charlotte’s, which Jenö’s, whether Irmi and Kaspar had been there too, while I was puzzling over that painting and the strangely anaesthetised Walter.