Scene 12

Jelana Jansson evidently had a fatal attraction for the world of cakes and puddings. And as her trust in Maille grew, so did less her desire to converse but more her appetite for sweets of all kinds. As the lady ordered her third piece of cake in the garden of Hotel«Atlanta» – a time capsule from the 1950s in which the two of them were currently lodged – Maille decided to take emergency measures. He sprang into his swimsuit and then into the pool. From the safe distance of the pool, he could better tolerate the dainty Swedish female who was tucking with such relish into an applecake flavoured with rum and raisins.

Maille inhaled and dived into the depths of the pool – under water a distinctly less amount of saliva ran out of one's mouth. Oh, what peace, what a feeling of fullness: the only strange thing was that a cake-fork sank together with him through the shining blue, like a requisite from one of those Schubert songs , the end of which – unpleasant for all concerned – had already been announced by the first record. A plaque at the rim of the pool proudly announced that the pool had been installed with German technology. Obviously that had to mean something, obviously he had dived into a high-tech stretch of water. Be that as it may, his breath soon left him and he rose to the surface through the thin skin, through a kaleidoscope of waterdrops.

The problem continued to persist. It stood there in the form of a half-eaten piece of cake from which the sweetness seemed to have seeped towards the rim of the pool. Jelena Jansson had, however, vanished without a trace.

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