Behind them the stream flowed between closely spaced trees while Anna tightened the laces of her wet shoes. Leonhard looked at the alder on the opposite bank and memorized the way its roots lay over the pale granite slab. The path to Arnolzheim had disappeared, but he could still make out the tree as he turned toward the woodland track ahead.
Anna took out her compass and waited for the needle to settle. “We'll turn back before it gets dark,” she said while Leonhard watched the figures among the trees. He promised without looking at her and did not move on until she had recorded the direction in her notebook.
The two young figures were only occasionally visible between the trees. Anna could make out their movements, but she said she could hear neither Rosa's voice nor the young man's replies. Leonhard, on the other hand, knew even before they reached a low rise that the path would slope down to the left beyond it, and remembered the smell of wet bark on this side of the hill. He described the next bend to Anna before it came into view and noticed her cautious questions giving way to intent observation.
He stopped at a large granite boulder. A pale vein ran across its surface, partly covered in lichen, and Leonhard laid his hand on it before he knew why this particular stone mattered. Behind him, he heard Anna asking how he felt, but at the same time the light between the trees began to change. The chill of the present remained against his fingers while the late-August woods of 1995 took shape in his memory.
Rosa was walking only a few steps ahead of him. Her backpack sat crookedly on her shoulders because she had put it on in a hurry at the stream, and she turned around as soon as the young Leonhard slowed again. “You promised me we'd keep going once we were out,” she said. “We haven't even reached the next road, and you're already acting as if you've forgotten something at the mill.” He replied that this was not about some object he had left behind, avoiding her eyes as he spoke.
He had hoped it would become easier once the water was behind them. Along the way he had listened for the sound of traffic and imagined them unlocking the door of his Vienna apartment. But each time, instead of that door, he had remembered the entrance to the mill, where Maria had stood until he finally let go of Rosa.
“I have to talk to Maria again,” the young Leonhard said. Rosa set down her backpack and looked at him while he searched for something to add that might make the statement smaller. “We can't just leave like this after she saw us yesterday.” He still held the map and began folding it, although it was already folded.
Rosa let him fumble with the map until he looked up. “And what am I supposed to do in the meantime? Wait in your apartment until you're done talking?” Leonhard started to answer, but she stepped close and took the sheet from his hand. “I'm not going back to her door with you and waiting outside while you go in.” She gave him the map back and left her backpack on the ground for the moment.
“I love Maria,” he said as Rosa pressed the map into his hand again. She drew her head back and closed her fingers around the strap without lifting the backpack. “Yesterday you were with me long enough to tell me that, too.” Leonhard tried to take her hand, but she lifted the pack between them. “What was I to you, then, while you were still at the mill?” He could find no answer he was able to say aloud, and followed her when she walked on.
In the present, Anna rested a hand on his sleeve, and Leonhard turned his head without letting go of the stone. She stood close enough for him to recognize her face while Rosa's footsteps were still audible in his memory. “I'm staying right here with you,” she said, the formality between them slipping away. He nodded before turning back to the image; her hand remained on his arm.
The path descended between granite boulders, and Rosa stopped where the trees opened onto a narrow strip of meadow. “I'm going back,” Leonhard said when he caught up with her. Rosa shook her head as he added that he had to go now, not after they arrived in Vienna. “Then at least say you want to leave me here. Say it without explaining what's best for Maria.” For the first time, he heard how hard she was breathing.
“I'll walk you to the road and give you the fare,” Leonhard said. “You can still get to Vienna today, and I'll follow once I've talked to her.” Reaching into his jacket pocket, he realized that Rosa was no longer looking at his face. “Put it away. I didn't ask you for money to get there.” He lowered his hand and could not tell her when he would actually follow.
When he tried to pass her and head back to the stream, she stepped into his way. “You'll tell her I talked you into it,” Rosa said. “By tomorrow everyone will know you only made a mistake, and I'll have to figure out where that leaves me.” Leonhard asked her to let him through, but she did not step back and kept looking at him.
She seized his sleeve and held him until he pulled his hand free of her grasp. Then she caught the strap at his shoulder and tugged him toward her again; he had to take a step forward to keep his balance on the uneven ground. “At least look at me when you tell me that,” Rosa demanded, and Leonhard grew angry with her hand, which still would not let him go. “Let go of me. I'm not going any farther with you.” He shoved her back with both hands, paying no attention to the stone behind her.
Rosa stumbled back two steps, her foot catching on an exposed root. Leonhard saw her raise her arm before the backpack pulled her weight sideways and her right temple struck the low granite boulder. The sound was almost lost in the murmur of the woods; he had already reached out to her and kept his hand in the air a moment longer, though Rosa was already on the ground.
The present-day Leonhard took his hand off the stone and staggered back, forcing Anna to catch his elbow. He pointed at a groove where the rainwater looked darker than on the rest of the surface, but at first he could not form a sentence. Anna asked whether he wanted to sit down. Instead of answering, he set his fingers on the granite again and waited until Rosa's body became visible in the same place.
Rosa lay beside the boulder with her hair over her face and one arm trapped beneath her backpack. The young Leonhard knelt and slipped the strap off her shoulder as he reached for her hand. “Rosa, can you hear me? I'm here; you just have to open your eyes.” When she finally looked at him, he said she would be all right; only then did he notice how slowly her gaze found him and how blood was seeping out beneath her hair.
“Please stay where you are. I need to see where you're hurt,” he said, moving the pack a little to one side. Rosa pushed his hand away and tried to sit up, but immediately lost her balance again. Leonhard caught her shoulder, and she looked at him so fiercely that he drew back. “Don't touch me after slamming me against that stone.” Her words were slurred, but he could not mistake their meaning.
Leonhard withdrew his hand from her shoulder and looked along the path as though someone ought to have appeared there by now. “We'll find the nearest road, and then I'll get you to a doctor,” he said. Rosa shook her head and pulled her backpack against her knees; when he tried to help her release the jammed buckle, she pushed his fingers away. He took the water bottle from his own bag instead and unscrewed the cap.
“You wanted to go back, so go already,” Rosa said without looking at the bottle he held out to her. She felt around inside her backpack, pushing clothes aside while Leonhard asked her to at least drink something. When her hand emerged again, it held the pistol, and he needed a moment to understand what the dark metal in front of her blouse was.
In his memory, Leonhard knew nothing of Karel or his gun. He saw the barrel coming toward him in Rosa's trembling hand and stepped back until the open water bottle struck his leg. Rosa kept her arm extended while a drop of blood gathered on her chin and fell onto her collar.
“Please put it down beside you, and then I can help you,” he said, setting the bottle down. “I won't come any closer, but take your finger away from there.” Rosa stared at him so intently that he could not tell whether she had understood. “You don't have to keep pretending you want to stay,” she answered at last. “I've understood you already; you don't have to say it again.” Leonhard raised both hands and watched the barrel moving with her arm.
Later Leonhard could not say whether she had meant to lower the barrel or whether her arm had begun to give out. He saw only the small movement, instinctively took another step, and began saying her name again. The shot came as he backed away, and the blow to his left side took his breath for a moment. He remained on his feet and saw Rosa lower the pistol, startled by something she herself had set in motion.
When Leonhard pressed his hand against his flank, blood welled up between his fingers. Rosa let the pistol fall to the ground and reached toward him with her free hand. “I wanted you to stop,” she said. “Come here, Leonhard; I didn't want it to happen like this.” She tried to stand but sank back against the stone and held the injured side of her head.
He kept backing away, though the gun now lay beside her. Rosa leaned forward to catch his sleeve, and he dodged her hand so quickly that pain shot up beneath his ribs. She called his name and asked him to wait, but he turned and ran into the trees with one hand pressed against his blood-soaked shirt.
Beyond the first bend he could no longer see her, and he stopped for the space of a breath. He had not understood Rosa's last words, but he could still hear her trying to call him. When he took his hand from the wound, his skin was red all the way to the wrist; he pressed it back and went on toward the stream. He had to get help, he told himself as he searched for the place where he could return to the valley.
Leonhard took his hand off the stone and sank to the ground beside the path. Anna knelt a few steps away and waited until he began speaking of his own accord. He told her about the argument and the shove, then lingered over the moment when Rosa had opened her eyes again. Anna let him talk and moved closer only when his voice became almost inaudible.
“I shoved her away with both hands,” he said, looking at his fingers. “Afterward she was still calling me when I was already among the trees. I could have heard her if I'd stopped.” Anna asked whether he had seen her die. “She was alive when I left,” he replied, finally lifting his head. Behind Anna lay the stone, with water in the same dark groove.
Anna did not take out her notebook until his breathing had steadied, and then recorded what he had told her. Leonhard watched the pencil moving across the page and asked her to read him the lines about the shove. She did, without softening the wording. “Now we need to ask Maria what happened afterward,” she said, leaving the book open until he nodded.
At the passage about the shot, Leonhard interrupted her. “I don't know whether she really meant to pull the trigger,” he said. “I saw her arm, and then I felt the bullet hit, but I don't know.” Anna changed the line, read it to him again, and put the notebook away. Then she helped him up, and he needed her hand longer than he had expected.
On the way back they could no longer find the wider path. Young spruces stood where Leonhard had seen wheel ruts earlier, and Anna's compass began to waver again. They stopped before they could become separated and looked together for the water, still audible down the slope. Leonhard recognized the incline of the granite slabs and suggested following the bank to the alder they had memorized at the crossing.
Higher up among the trees, Rosa called for him to wait. Leonhard stopped so abruptly that Anna bumped into his back; they had left the stone barely a few minutes earlier, and he could not go on without listening. At the next call he thought he recognized Maria's voice, but the plea was the same. Anna laid a hand on his arm. “You have to take me down to the stream now, Leonhard. I can't stay here alone.”
Leonhard looked at Anna and did not move on until her grip on his arm eased a little. The voices were still calling behind them, and once he thought he heard his own voice among them, but he concentrated on the water below the slope. Anna kept pace with him until they reached the bank. Beyond the stream, dusk was already gathering among the trees when a single toll of the bell interrupted the calls.