Sailing and staying in the same spot – that was how I felt. Then I said to myself that it only appeared as if the ships were staying in the same spot. Perhaps I too was moving even though it didn’t seem that way to me. I thought of the spots on my suit and had to laugh. These stains, which would have alarmed me before, hadn’t frightened me since the afternoon at the Botanic Garden. Yes, I had moved from the spot. Making a fool of myself in front of Irene Gundlach, or Irene Adler, would matter no more than having a stain on my suit.

The sun was shining. The air smelled of pine and eucalyptus. I thought I could also smell the distant sea, a weak, damp, salty scent. I heard the cicadas chirr and sometimes, in the valley, the roar of a saw. I decided not to worry. I would drive to Rock Harbour the next day, but today, find a hotel by the sea and watch the spectacle of the sunset from the terrace. In Australia day turns to night in only a few minutes, bright blue becoming dark blue, then black.

26

Rock Harbour had four streets, a small harbour with a few yachts and boats, a shop with a café and a postal counter, a real-estate agency, and an iron soldier on a stone pedestal, commemorating those who fell in the World Wars, the Korean War, the Vietnam War. The streets were empty, but not because of the early hour, as I initially thought, but rather because the summer houses were still without tenants. I found neither a street nor a house that went by the name “Red Cove.” I went into the shop and asked.

“You want to see Eye-reen?” A man with white skin, white hair and pink eyes who sat by the counter laid down his book and stood up. Eye-reen? His way of saying her name was not mine: in German it was three short syllables, three bright vowels, three notes of a waltz – a name meant to be sung, to be danced to. For me, “Eye-reen” sounded stretched out like chewed gum. “She lives an hour from here. Do you have a boat?”

“I have my car.”

“You can only get there by boat. You could wait for her here, but she only comes every two weeks and she was here yesterday. You can’t call either, there’s no reception there.”

“Are there ships that go along the coast?”

He laughed. “A ferry service? No, we don’t have that. My boy can take you over in the boat. He can also pick you up if you know when you want to be picked up.”

“I’ll call.”

“Nope, can’t call.”

“Can your boy take me, right away? And pick me up tonight?” This time, the man had let me finish my sentence.