A month and a half later.
Adorno leaned against a mottled wall and looked up toward home. His emaciated body trembled faintly without stop.
He was not sure whether it was from hunger or from the fright of what had happened today.
He worked at a lumber mill, where he was responsible for chopping the bark off newly delivered logs.
At a little past six that afternoon, his strength had given out and the axe flew from his hand, grazing past Havier's nose before smashing heavily into the wall. He felt as though icy terror had pinned him down hard.
If that axe had gone even a little farther off course, he would surely be in prison now. Tomorrow, no one would buy bread for Karen and the children. They might soon starve to death—or before that, choose to follow old Horst's example and hang their own necks from the ceiling... Adorno shook his head fiercely, trying not to think about such things, but the violent motion only brought even more thoughts bubbling up.
Perhaps tomorrow, one of his coworkers would also become too weak to hold an axe and smash his own head apart.
Perhaps one day, when he returned home, he would find Karen already dead. Disease and hunger would have tormented her until she was like a skeleton that still breathed.
Or perhaps he, too, would fall ill...
The wooden sign outside the bakery suddenly appeared before his eyes. The numbers on it seemed to have changed again.
A chill ran through Adorno's entire body. He raised his eyes and stared fixedly at the gloomy, sticky street before him, then suddenly let out a low roar. "I've had enough!"
He repeated those words as his feet began to move again.
When he was still half a street