A quarter to five. He had slept for twenty minutes. Erich is dead, he thought. It’s not a dream. He’s dead, that’s reality. He could feel his eyes burning in their sockets. As if they wanted to force their way out of his head. Oedipus, it occurred to him. Oedipus Rex . . . Wandering around blind for the rest of my life, seeking God’s grace. Perhaps that would be an idea. It might give things a meaning. Erich is dead. My son. It was remarkable how the same thought could fill up the whole of his consciousness, hour after hour. The same three words – not even a thought, strictly speaking: just this constellation of words, as impenetrable as a mantra in a foreign language: Erich is dead, Erich is dead. Minute after minute, second after second; every fraction of every moment of every second. Erich is dead. Or perhaps it wasn’t remarkable at all. Presumably this was exactly as it had to be. As it would always be from now on. This was the keystone for the rest of his life. Erich was dead.
