When I washed my hands at the faucet in the kitchen I took a closer look around the room. I mean, how can anyone live like that? I couldn’t, not me.

Old Frau Danner in her mended, dirty apron. Her little grandson, always with a snotty nose.

You’d think she might have wiped the child’s nose for him. The little boy was crawling around on the kitchen floor, picking something up now and then and putting it straight into his mouth. Old Frau Danner saw him do it and never said a thing. When the little boy started crying, the old woman put him on her lap and gave him his pacifier. She’d licked the dummy first and dipped it into the sugar bowl standing on the table. Licked it and then dipped it into the sugar. Can you imagine that? It was all sticky, the bowl was crusty with spit and sugar.

I mean, I can’t understand it. I really couldn’t have swallowed a morsel, but they might have offered me something all the same, if you ask me it’s the thing to do. Only right and proper, wouldn’t you say?

Well, so when I was told to go and repair the engine, I wasn’t all that keen on cycling out there again. In such weather, at that.

Then old Danner made another phone call, complained to the boss, so there was no avoiding it, I had to go. I set out to cycle there around eight a.m. on the Tuesday, after I’d picked my tools up from the firm.

When did I get there? Oh, around nine, I guess that was it. Yes, just before nine, around about then. I was sweating by the time I reached their farm. I went right ahead through the garden gate and up to the front door, but the door was locked. First it’s so urgent, they’re in a tearing hurry, I said to myself, and then there’s no one home. Oh well, maybe they’re around behind the house.

So I pushed my bike around the farmyard. On the way I passed the two windows of the sheds on the back of the house. And I looked in through one of the windows. Couldn’t make out anything, though. I mean, one of them could have been in the cowshed with the cattle. But no one was. I looked through the kitchen window as well. Still didn’t see anyone.

Then I didn’t really know what to do. So I leaned my bike up against a fruit tree and waited.

How long did I wait? Oh, it must have been about ten minutes, I’d say. I lit a cigarette and smoked it. That takes around ten minutes.

Someone ought to come along soon, I thought to myself. And after a while I did see someone. Don’t know if it was a man or a woman. Some way off, standing in the fields out there.

At first I thought, ah, there comes old Danner now.

I called and I whistled. But whoever it was in the fields didn’t hear. The figure didn’t come any closer, disappeared as suddenly as it had come.

I waited a while longer. I was feeling really stupid. Didn’t want to cycle home without repairing the engine, neither. I’d only have to go out there again in a couple of days’ time. An engine like that isn’t going to repair itself, is it?

So there was nothing for it, I went to the shack where they kept the machine. It’s around behind the barn, or rather behind the barn and the cowshed, they’re built right next to each other.

I knew where to find the root-slicing machine from last time.

How late was it then? Oh, around nine thirty. Yes, the time would have been nine thirty.

The door had a padlock on it. I looked around to see if I could find the key to the padlock anywhere.

Some people hide keys very close, you see. For instance under a stone or a bucket, or on a hook at the side of a building just under the overhang of the roof. You wouldn’t believe the things I’ve seen. They do it so they won’t misplace the key and it’ll be easier to find. It’s crazy, it’s downright irresponsible. Might as well leave their doors wide open. But that’s how some folk are. It really makes you wonder.

But the Danners hadn’t left the key anywhere, not under a stone nor hanging from a hook. My bad luck. I wanted to go home, like I said, but not without doing the job first, and my next job for a customer wasn’t until the afternoon, that was for the Brunners over in Einhausen.

So on impulse I fetched my toolbox from the carrier of the bike. I took out a pair of pliers and very carefully bent aside the little wire the padlock was hanging from. That way I just had to take the padlock off.

I felt like a housebreaker or a thief. But there you are, I didn’t want to cycle out again, and if anyone had come along I could have explained.

No one did come along, though. There was only the dog; I heard it barking its head off. Didn’t see it anywhere, though. You could hear the cows mooing, too. Not loud but all the time, I remember that now.

When I’d taken the padlock off and opened the shack door, I could finally fix the machine. I’d already wasted a whole hour as it was. No one pays you for wasted time, certainly not a penny pincher like old Danner.

A man like that, he watches every minute, anyone would think it was you who owed him something; he’ll starve to death yet with a bit of bread in his mouth. It was the cylinder-head gasket had gone; I’d thought that was the trouble all along. Changing one of those takes time. Back in summer I’d already told old Danner if he wanted to buy a new machine, we’d take the old one as a down payment. It was a prewar model at that, but no, the old skinflint didn’t want to, even though that’s the usual thing to do these days.

There still wasn’t a soul in sight at the farm. I was getting to feel the whole thing was eerie. So I left the door of the shack where they kept the root-slicing machine open. First, that gave me more light to work by, and, second, anyone could see straight off that I was busy repairing the engine.

I’d almost finished, was just about to screw one last nut back in place when it slips clean through my fingers and rolls toward the cistern.

There was this old cistern in the shack, for keeping milk cool. You stood the full milk churns in it. Thank God there wasn’t any water in the cistern, it was empty.

So down I climb into the cistern. It’s not deep, comes maybe up to my thighs if that, and I fish out my nut.

At the very moment I was bending down to feel around for the nut, I thought a shadow scurried past. I couldn’t see it; it was more of a feeling. A voice inside you saying look, there’s someone there, even if you can’t see whoever it is. But it’s there, you feel it, there’s somebody there.

So I’m up and out of the cistern in a flash.

“Hey, anyone there? Hello!” I shouted.

No answer, though. I’d not been feeling too comfortable before, now the farm seemed downright creepy. And the dog barking and barking all the time, though I couldn’t see it.

So I screwed the nut on as fast as I could and packed up my tools. Now to give the engine a trial run, and then I’d be off double quick.

I fit the padlock back where it was before. Put my stuff on the bike and set off through the middle of the farmyard.

As I was pushing the bike around the house, there still wasn’t a soul in sight. But the door of the old machinery shed was open, and it hadn’t been open before. I’m certain of that.

So I think to myself, maybe there’s someone there after all. And I leave my bike again and go a few steps over to the shed.

“Hello, anyone there?” I called, but no answer this time, either. Nothing.

I didn’t want to go any farther into the shed, it somehow didn’t seem right to me.

I went to the front door of the house again and shook it, but, like I said, it was locked.

Nothing would have kept me at that farm any longer. I was glad to get away from the place.

I must have finished the repair just after two, because on the way back to the village I heard the church clock strike the half hour.

Did I see anyone else in the fields? No, not a soul. Only a couple of crows. No wonder in that weather. It had started raining again, a light drizzle. I cycled as if the Devil himself was after me.