I reached the head of the agency, and asked him to track down who owned the Karl Schwind in the Art Gallery of New South Wales, whether it was Irene Gundlach, or an Irene formerly Gundlach, and if a woman by that name lived in Australia. He said it could take a couple of days. I offered a bonus if he could tell me by the next morning. He laughed. Either he’d be able to obtain the information today at the Art Gallery, or it would take a couple of days, bonus or no bonus. He’d get back to me.

Then the food came, and with the food I ordered a bottle of wine I didn’t want to finish, but finished anyway. Occasionally the fruit bats awoke, and all at once whooshed out from the branches, flew around the trees, then returned to their branches, and wrapped themselves back in their wings. Once in a while one of the colourful birds at the fountain let out a cry. Or a child cried out, or a dog barked, or the sound of a group of Japanese tourists wafted up like the twitter of a swarm of birds. Sometimes I heard only the chirr of cicadas.

On the slope below the Conservatory, I lay down on the grass. In my suit. Normally, the prospect of walking around in a wrinkled, even stained suit would have horrified me. Now it did not. I grew indifferent, too, to what awaited me in Germany. There was nothing I couldn’t do without, nothing others couldn’t do without me. In everything that lay before me, I was replaceable. I was irreplaceable only in what lay behind.

3

I hadn’t actually wanted to become a lawyer. I had wanted to be a judge. I had the necessary grades, I knew that judges were in demand, and I was prepared to move wherever I was needed. I regarded the interview at the Department of Justice a formality. It was in the afternoon.

The head of personnel was an older man with kind eyes. “You finished school at seventeen, passed your first state exam at twenty-one and your second at twenty-three – I’ve never seen an applicant so young, and rarely one so qualified.”

I was proud of my grades and my youth, but wanted to appear humble. “I was enrolled young, and the state changed the school year twice, each time making us complete a year in a semester.”

He nodded. “A gift of two half-years. And you gained another half-year when you didn’t have to wait after the first state exam, and became an apprentice right away. So you have time to spare.”

“I don’t understand…”