was exactly what they wanted too.
The girls popped in and out of clothing stores. Irene looked at a few jackets, but a glance at the price tags made her decide to wait until spring. She would only have to wear a winter jacket for a few more months. Spring and fall jackets could wait. But she missed her poplin one.
“Look, Mamma! Too cool, huh?”
Katarina’s trumpeting woke Irene out of her reverie when she walked out of the dressing room like a runway model, dressed in a bright orange top that came down to her navel and a pair of moss-green bell-bottoms. First she just stared at her daughter. Finally she couldn’t hold it back any longer and burst out laughing.
“What are you cackling at?” Katarina said. “This is totally modern! Try and keep up, okay?”
Jenny agreed and said patronizingly to her old fossil of a mother, “This is the latest thing, after all.”
Irene tried hard to contain herself. “I’m sorry, but it’s just that I recognized myself. I looked just like that when I was your age.”
Both her daughters gave her a skeptical look and exchanged a glance heavenward. The hardest thing to believe was that Mamma was ever their age.
Just like all the other shoppers looking at the decorations and searching for gifts, they wound up in NK. Irene was tired and needed a cup of coffee, but the girls voted to go look around the department store first. With a sigh, after a mild protest, Irene had to give in. Whenever the girls joined forces, she was in the minority. All the lights and glitter began to drain the energy out of her. And the elves—! Wherever you looked you saw an elf. Tiny elves, giant elves, artificial elves, and live elves. One of them almost scared her to death when it bent forward and touched her arm and asked if she didn’t want to buy a new shaver for the “little husband.”
Worn out, Irene tried to catch her breath on the escalator up to the second floor. Above their heads hovered slowly rotating Christmas trees. Halogen lamps made them glitter and flash. One was done completely in silver rosettes, another in gold hearts, a third in silver icicles, a fourth in gold balls . . . all the gold and silver dazzled her and hurt her eyes. Gold and silver. Silver. Like shiny sardines in their can. Like shiny . . .
“Mamma! Lift your feet!”
Katarina was yelling at her. The girls were behind her and realized what was about to happen. But it was too late. She was on her face where the escalator ended. The bag of newly bought panties and stockings spilled out every which way, but Jenny quickly picked them up. Katarina was so embarrassed she was about to sink through the floor. How humiliating could a mother be, anyway?
All Irene’s weariness had vanished. She swiftly gathered up her children, her packages, and her wounded dignity. Eagerly she said, “Let’s go! I need a telephone!”
“Did you hurt yourself? Should I call an ambulance or anything?”
“No. But something did strike me, as a matter of fact. An idea!”
“Don’t you have your cell phone?”
“No, I didn’t bring it.”
They made a U-turn and took the escalator back downstairs. On the ground floor Irene found a nice café and a pay phone. She parked the girls at a table furnished with hot chocolate with whipped cream and saffron Lucia buns.
Irene began searching her pockets for the piece of paper with the number on it; she found it and punched in the number.
“Sylvia von Knecht.”
“Hello, excuse me for bothering you. This is Inspector Irene Huss.”
“What do you want?”
It wouldn’t be fair to claim that any great warmth flowed through the line. But it wasn’t necessary either. What was important now was not to get Sylvia into a bad mood. Which Irene unfortunately seemed to have a real talent for. In as friendly a tone as she could muster, Irene said, “A piece of information has come up that I need to check. It will only take five minutes.”
“Go ahead and check then!”
Irene was flustered until she realized what Sylvia meant. “No, I can’t do it on the phone. I have to come up and talk to you at the apartment. It’s very important if it turns out to be true,” she said urgently.
There was a long silence.
“When would you be coming, in that case?”
“Would three o’clock be all right?”
“Fine.”
Click. Hung up on her, as usual. If her revelation on