Magic Hoffmann Read Online Free PDF

happened happened, and after that it’s up to me.’
    Mrs Schöller smiled. Then she took a couple of clumsy steps towards him and placed her hand on his arm. ‘Annette will always be grateful to you - and so will I.’
    â€˜What for?’ said Fred, trying to breathe through his mouth. She mustn’t have washed for days. ‘Don’t start carrying on like the police. Nobody knows who was there during the robbery, and that’s how it stays. But since we’re speaking about Annette: actually I came because…’
    Mrs Schöller had turned away abruptly, and Fred looked on astonished as she sought a chair back to hold on to and stared at the floor for a moment as if hypnotised.
    â€˜I have almost withdrawn completely,’ she said suddenly. ‘I’m only ever at home. Well, I…’ and suddenly she looked at Fred with strange, burning vacant eyes, like a saint, ‘as a matter of fact, I’m painting.’
    Fred was embarrassed at the sight of her. ‘Aha,’ he said and wiped something invisible from his nose. What did she mean? Painting walls? ‘And ah…how is it?’
    She took him by the hand and led him to a small easel at the window, that Fred hadn’t noticed till then. A black cloth was draped over the canvas.
    â€˜Promise me you’ll be absolutely honest.’
    â€˜But I don’t know anything about such things.’ Her hand felt clammy.
    â€˜All the better.’ She pulled the cloth off in one movement and looked at Fred expectantly.
    Fred stared at the canvas, then at Mrs Schöller, then again at the canvas. His face remained expressionless. The canvas was white, or rather canvas-coloured, straight from the shop.
    Fred forced himself not to shift his eyes away from the fine-grained surface.
    Eventually he frowned and said: ‘Well. Fairly modern, what?’
    â€˜Mhmhm.’ Mrs Schöller nodded reverently. Whether on account of Fred or the picture wasn’t clear.
    â€˜I would hang it up. There’s something…pure about it,’ Fred pointed at the wall, ‘in any case it’s better than those rags.’
    â€˜That’s what I think,’ she said quietly.
    For a while they stood in silence in front of the twenty-nine mark canvas, and Fred was terrified that Mrs Schöller would ask his views on colour and technique. But instead, clearly content, she put the cloth back and said: ‘I’ll make us some coffee.’
    Relieved, Fred watched her disappear in to the kitchen. Through the half-open door, Fred could hear a screw cap being opened, followed by gentle gurgling. Fred had the feeling he was experiencing a flood or an earthquake, one of those natural catastrophes you see on television where whole towns are slowly but surely submerged.
    He went to the window and shifted the curtain aside. Terrace after terrace, swing hammock after swing hammock, barbecue after barbecue. In the morning sun everything glowed as if freshly painted. He imagined how the neighbours wagged their tongues about Mrs Schöller. Just as he was going to take the wine from the bag and put it on the table, the front door slammed shut. Shortly afterwards Mr Schöller entered the room. Professor Schöller. Deputy headmaster Schöller. Shortarse Schöller.
    Almost everything about him was small or short, down to his briefcase and his corduroy suit. His trouser legs hung in creases over his shoes, and only his fingertips protruded from his sleeves. He wore sideburns to fill out his narrow face; and so that no one hit upon the idea that this was down to vanity, he let it grow wild and unkempt. The same applied to his dirty-blond, slightly wavy hair. His eyes, which had once been a piercing blue, had become dull in recent years and looked like water-colour on parchment.
    The noises from the kitchen ceased. A soft metal click could be heard in the room. Mr Schöller was rotating his key ring between his