I had not come to see her off.
Two years later, Mother would burn up in a garden shed during an air raid in Nymphenburg. Her nephew would say that Mother had probably drunk so much that she had mistaken the shed for the air-raid shelter.
I booked my train ticket from Geneva. The cook gave me a cap she had knitted and a woven basket that she filled with honey cakes. She hugged me. I secretly tucked my best fishhooks into a pocket of her apron.
Father gave me a parting kiss on my forehead. “Be well,” he said.
He looked like he wanted to say something else, but he kept silent.
Before he drove me to the train station, I went up into the attic and walked up to a canvas that was turned backward, leaning against the wall. For a long time I had wondered what it was that Mother painted. I turned the canvas to face the light. I went to the next one. Without haste, I turned every canvas in the attic. The canvases were bare.
The dried-up paint box was lying on the table. I took it with me. I went alone to the lake, took a rock from the shore, let it break the surface of the ice, which was still thin, and threw the paint box into the water.
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