Out of Nowhere Read Free

the towns tomorrow.’
    He heard pride in her voice when she used the word ‘we’.
    ‘Is there really no clue as to what happened?’ he asked.
    ‘No. There’s no news of any kind. Not a soul to be found so far except those poor people – we poor people, I should say.’ She gave a little shudder. ‘It’s terrible to think what might have become of us if the monks hadn’t found us, isn’t it?’
    ‘I suppose so,’ Stephen said. Personally, he found what had happened to them pretty terrible anyway, whatever it had been. ‘But there must be something out there. Have the monks searched?’
    ‘Only as far as the nearest village, and that’s just a cluster of houses at a crossroads. They’ve been up to their eyes looking after all of us. But tomorrow, Philip and I are going to the local market town. It’s the main town in the area. Maybe we’llfind people there.’
    ‘Maybe you’ll even find people who are, you know, all right. The inhabitants.’
    Kirsten made a face.
    ‘I doubt it,’ she said. ‘It’s only about twenty kilometres away. If there were any people there, surely they’d have come looking for us by now. No. The trip tomorrow will be a major expedition, but I don’t think anyone expects to find people in the town, much as we’d love to.’
    ‘But they have to find people soon, I mean, everybody can’t have just disappeared into thin air! It’s not possible!’
    ‘There’s nothing on radio or television,’ she reminded him. ‘No electricity …’
    ‘There must be a simple explanation. Maybe it’s just a local thing. How could such a big disaster happen so suddenly? Even if everyone was dead, there’d be bodies. It’s just impossible!’
    ‘But it’s happened,’ she said gently. ‘Local or not, it’s happened.’
    They talked about the situation for a while. It saved them from talking about themselves, which is a hard thing to do when you don’t know who you are. After he’d called the girl Fräulein Herzenweg a few times, she stopped him.
    ‘Please,’ she said. ‘You sound like the monks! Call me Kirsten.’
    ‘You think that’s really your name?’
    She’d obviously thought about this.
    ‘It’s strange,’ she admitted. ‘I mean, Kirsten is a good, solid Danish name, but Herzenweg is German. Maybe my family came from Germany originally. The letters in my pocket wereboth addressed to Fräulein Kirsten Herzenweg – that’s a German form of address. Oh well, in a way I rather like being a mystery. It makes me feel important.’
    ‘And the letters themselves?’ Stephen asked. ‘Did they have any useful information?’
    ‘No,’ she said wistfully. ‘There were three envelopes. One was a bank statement showing a money transfer, and the other two were empty.’
    ‘What about postmarks? Where were they all sent from?’
    ‘The empty envelopes were posted from Belgium. The bank statement was from Dublin.’
    ‘Dublin?’
    She gave him a puzzled look.
    ‘My God!’ she said. ‘You don’t even know what country we’re in, do you?’
    Stephen thought for a moment.
    ‘Ireland,’ he said finally, not knowing how he knew, but still certain that he was right.
    Kirsten nodded and smiled.
    ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Your home country, to judge by your accent. Maybe I’m a tourist.’
    ‘Did the other … ‘patients’ have anything to identify them?’
    ‘No. None of them. Only me.’
    Again her voice was proud, as though she’d been somehow responsible for this.
    Stephen soon felt tired. He hadn’t recovered from his weakness, and the food was making him sleepy. Kirsten noticed.
    ‘Rest,’ she said. ‘You’ll feel much better in the morning. Atleast, that’s how it was with me.’
    She left, taking the tray with her. Stephen got into bed and lay awake for a few minutes afterwards, thinking about her. He didn’t know what to make of Kirsten Herzenweg. She didn’t seem very disturbed by her amnesia. She was, she’d said, concentrating on the present. Maybe