She sat back down at the table. It was quiet again up there, and ten minutes passed in charged, attentive silence. Then the quiet was interrupted by a muffled, pleasant snoring, one of the most comforting sounds in her world of sounds.

She stretched her stiff body and her joints creaked. Then she smiled and rubbed her hands together. It would be at least an hour before he woke up again. She could easily go and visit Henny and be back by then. She was alone too much. There was a time when they used to have visitors, just like other people. Her mother had sat there in that chair, her brother on the sofa beside his wife. It went well for a couple of hours. Then he started to become silent. They spoke to him and he answered with single syllable words. She didn’t know how it happened, but suddenly everyone was on edge. They spoke under their breath, as if an accident had occurred, with short, anxious glances at him. Then they left, and what remained was much too much food for two people, as well as the feeling that she had committed a crime. When she returned to him after a nervous, whispered round of goodbyes in the entry, he was already asleep in his winged armchair. When he woke up, he was surprised they had left. Sometimes he too had had friends over, a couple of single young men, who sat there all evening, listening to him, while she brought in beer and carried out the empty bottles. They didn’t say much themselves. In fact, they seemed slightly afraid of him. She didn’t know why. But all that felt as if it had occurred on some other planet. She only thought about it when he was sleeping. While she put on her shoes and jacket, very carefully and quietly, she also thought that they should have had a child. She was too old for that now – nearly thirty-five – but back when they were still young. Though even then – on an even more distant planet – it had happened rarely. Only once in a while, in the dark and in deep silence, was he able to overcome his reluctance to that kind of thing. Afterward it was as if he was angry at her. They never talked about it.

She turned the lock before opening the door. He could always hear the little click it made. Out on the road she looked both ways before hurrying, like a thin shadow, the fifty or so steps to her sister’s place.

The two children ran to her embrace.

‘My, oh my,’ she said, touched. ‘Well, it has been a long time. And I didn’t bring anything to give you.’