All this was impossible to talk about at home. My father had found some temporary work, and he started staying out late. Presumably he went to a bar, because he was completely superfluous in my mother’s world. That is how I finally had my room to myself, in peace, and I read books and wrote poems until late into the night. I spent daytimes in the reading room at the library, so my mother would think I was at work, and the money I got for the published poems was locked in the sewing box with the inlaid mother-of-pearl, my brother’s journeyman test piece, which he had given me at my confirmation. It was a very pretty little thing. When the lid opened, it played: Fight for all you hold dear … At any rate those were the lyrics I sang inwardly to the crisp melody.

One evening the doorbell rang, and it was Kurt with his tight leather jacket and his crash helmet on his head, requesting in no uncertain terms to have a word with me. As I let him inside, feeling rather flustered, my mother opened the bedroom door and yelled, ‘Get the doctor quick. She’s in a lot of pain. Tell him to come right away. Who is that?’

Without answering, I pushed Kurt back out the door, explaining about my sick aunt and asking him to drive me to the doctor. He sped off at breakneck speed, which didn’t impress me anymore. While we rode, he told me it was over and that he was going to date any girl he wanted. I don’t know if I even answered, but outside the doctor’s stairway, he held up his right hand in front of my face so I could see that he had removed his ring. It seemed to me that he was behaving ridiculously, and I thought about my editor, who understood writing and had the means to support it. But I had no interest in explaining this to Kurt. All I wanted was to be done with him. For some reason he walked with me up to the doctor, who had examined my aunt before. ‘Dear God,’ he said, when he heard why I was there. ‘Well, then, I guess it won’t be long now.’ Then I understood for the first time that my aunt was going to die. Did she know that? Did my mother know that? When Kurt drove me home again, I asked him to wait outside while I went in and got my engagement ring. He took it hesitantly, and I noticed the sorrow in his face, which was no longer my problem. I never saw him again, and I soon forgot all about him.