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necessary.’
    ‘You’ll need all the help you can get, Blum. Don’t be so stubborn, I mean you well. You know how much I care about you and the children.’
    ‘You have enough problems of your own.’
    ‘They’re not important now.’
    ‘Mark said you’re getting a divorce.’
    ‘Let’s not discuss that here, please, Blum.’
    ‘Why not? Let’s talk about your failed marriage; let’s talk about your wife and her little problem.’
    ‘Why are you doing this, Blum?’
    ‘What am I doing? Look at her, she’s babbling, she can hardly stand up straight. And it’s only midday. Maybe you’d do better to take care of Ute, not me.’
    ‘Maybe I should leave you alone.’
    ‘Maybe you should.’
    ‘Anything you say. I’ll be off.’
    ‘Oh no.’
    ‘What do you mean, no?’
    ‘Please stay. I’m sorry I spoke like that, Massimo. I didn’t mean it.’
    ‘That’s all right.’
    ‘I don’t know if I can manage without him. With the children, with everything. I just don’t know.’
    ‘You have Reza and Karl. You have me.’
    ‘I wish I could die. Don’t you understand that? I wish I could die.’
    ‘You don’t, Blum. You’re strong, you’ll cope even without him.’
    Massimo passes his right hand over her back, up and down. It’s the only thing he can do, the only thing that helps. Words are no use; Blum doesn’t want to hear them. She doesn’t want to think, to envisage the future. She just wants it to be night, for the lights to go out so sleep can come. She doesn’t want to think, or feel anything but Massimo’s hand going up and down her back.

seven
    Two weeks have passed, two weeks without him. It is still summer, the children run round the garden in short dresses. Karl is sitting in his armchair while Blum hangs out washing. It is almost as if everything were all right again; from the outside looking in, life is the same. The garden, the old apple trees, the swing going back and forth, Uma flooding the flower bed in the garden, Nela rubbing earth into a doll’s hair. The sky stands still, not a cloud in sight. It still hurts. When she wakes up, when she goes to sleep, when the children talk about him. Blum knows it won’t get any better, it won’t stop eating away at her, but she has decided not to die, not to drop by the wayside. Instead, she will get up every morning and go on living for the children. Never mind how difficult it is, she must stay here, go on, put one foot in front of the other however heavy her legs feel. And never mind how much she longs to deaden her memories with pills and alcohol. She has to decide against Valium and vodka every evening once the children are in bed. She must be in working order, although she wants only to forget. Every morning she tries yet again to be cold and invulnerable. And every morning she fails.
    There’s still no sign of the hit-and-run car. The driver can’t be traced, and seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth. He was probably drunk, driving too fast, but he must have seen Mark. The police have no clues, there’s no black Rover in the local garages, they’ve followed up all leads. Hit-and-run, outcome fatal, say the files, driver unknown. A driver who got away with his life and his liberty, snuffing out Mark’s just like that. He could have been on his phone, typing an email, sending a text, maybe he just nodded off. Blum will never know. They’ll never find him, although Massimo is doing his best.
    He’s as good as his word and has been there for her ever since the funeral, helping her to wind up Mark’s official life, visiting offices, insurance firms, lawyers, notaries. Massimo shields her from everyday life, and Reza does too. So that she can look after the children, so that she can survive, so that the tears don’t drown her. The business is running as usual because people don’t stop dying. Reza collects the dead from care homes, from the forest, from their offices, their beds, the street; he does his job the