And in the back of Felix’s mind something had burst remorse, some anger too, spiralling into itself. How had he not known? Why had Gebhart not told him?

The only sounds now were Frau Himmelfarb’s careful arranging of things over near the sink.

“Is he not able?” Felix asked.

Himmelfarb exchanged a quick look with Gebhart before turning to him.

“Oh he’s able, all right. We can’t shut him up some nights. Isn’t that so, Mutti? The junge, how he’ll talk?”

“He likes to talk, it’s true,” Frau Himmelfarb said.

“He talks to himself,” she went on. “He talks to the dog. He talks to the cows.”

“That’s often a wise move,” said Gebhart.

Frau Himmelfarb’s face seemed to ease a little. You take your humour as you find it up here, Felix thought. The Himmelfarbs had an accent stronger than any he could remember in a long time. The half-finished words, some of them fired out and others barely audible, were even beyond the baying, “bellen” tones of most Styrians.

“But he won’t even talk to you, I’m afraid. I told him, and, well, you don’t see him here, do you?”

With that, Himmelfarb leaned forward and narrowed his eyes.

He nodded toward a door that led into the rest of the house, and he winked. Gebhart raised his eyebrows and nodded at Felix too.

“Schade,” said Gebhart. “That’s a great pity. I do like to talk with Hansi.”

Himmelfarb cocked his head and kept his eyes on the door. Gebhart waited, and then spoke in the same clear, slow tone, addressing the door.

“We have the patrol car outside, of course. There are quite a number of toys in that, you know.”

Frau Himmelfarb undid her scarf then. Felix imagined her careful braids golden yellow again, a younger Mrs. Himmelfarb dancing, laughing. It would have been centuries before she became mother to a retarded kid way up here in the middle of nowhere.