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missing from the book. Between the verso page 130 and the recto page 133 there is simply a jagged paper edge. Pages 131 and 132, two sides of one folio page, are missing.
    I don’t quite believe it at first. Who would want to rip a page out of The End of Mr. Y like this? Is it simply vandalism? I carefully check the rest of the book. There are no other missing pages, nor any other obvious sign that somebody wanted to damage it. So why rip out a page? Did someone not like that page? Or did they steal it? But if you were going to steal a page from a book, why not steal the whole book? It’s too confusing. I shiver, wishing it would heat up in here.
    Downstairs, I hear the squeal of the main door that suggests Wolfgang is back. Then, a few seconds later, there’s a soft tap at my door.
    ‘It’s open,’ I call, putting The End of Mr. Y away.
    Wolfgang is small and blond and was born in East Berlin. I don’t think he ever washes his hair. Today, he’s wearing what he always wears when he plays at the hotel: a pair of pale blue jeans, a
    white shirt and a dark blue suit jacket. When I first met Wolfgang, on the day I moved into this flat, he told me he was so depressed he couldn’t even get the enthusiasm together to kill himself. I became worried and started doing small, life-enhancing things for him, such as making him soup and offering to bring him books from the university library. For ages he said yes to the soup and no to the books, but recently he’s been asking me for poetry: Ginsberg and Bukowski mainly.
    As Wolfgang walks into the flat, I keep thinking of Lumas’s words: ‘Of life, as of dreams.’ Shall I tell Wolfgang about the book? Perhaps later.
    He grins at me sadly. ‘Oh, well. I’m rich in one universe. Are you cooking baked potatoes for me?’ The ‘rich in one universe’ thing is something I told him. It’s what the Russian physicist George Gamow said after he lost all his money in an American casino. It means that, as usual, Wolfgang has gambled his tips away in the hotel casino. In a parallel universe, perhaps, some other version of him has won thousands of pounds.
    ‘Mmm,’ I say back. ‘Potatoes with …’ I look around the kitchen. ‘Olive oil, salt. Um … I think I’ve got an onion somewhere.’
    ‘Great,’ he says, sitting at the kitchen table and pouring some slivovitz. ‘Gourmet.’ This is a joke between us. Very gourmet is worse, and implies a meal costing almost nothing. I can do something very gourmet with lentils; Wolfgang’s very gourmet meals usually include fried cabbage.
    I open the oven and take out the potatoes. ‘I suppose you could say I’m rich in one universe, too,’ I say, through the steam and heat. I put the baking tray on the counter and smile at Wolfgang.
    He raises a blond eyebrow at me. ‘You’ve gambled also?’
    ‘No.’ I laugh. ‘I bought a book. I’ve got about five quid left until the magazine pays me at the end of the month. It was … it was quite an expensive book.’
    ‘Is it a good book?’
    ‘Yes. Oh, yes …’ But I still don’t want to tell him about it just yet. I start slicing the onion. ‘Oh – the university fell down today as well.’
    ‘It fell down?’ He laughs. ‘You blew it up? No. How?’
    ‘OK, well, it didn’t exactly all fall down, but one building did.’ ‘A bomb?’
    ‘No. A railway tunnel. Under the campus. It all kind of collapsed inside, and then …’
    Wolfgang downs his drink and pours another. ‘Yes, I see. You build something on nothing and then it falls down. Ha.’ He laughs. ‘How many dead?’
    ‘None. They evacuated the building in the morning.’ ‘Oh. So is the university shut down?’
    ‘I don’t know. I suppose it must be, at least for the weekend.’
    I mash olive oil into the potatoes and put them on the table with some olives, capers and mustard. We sit down to eat.
    ‘So how’s life, anyway?’ I ask him.
    ‘Life’s shit. No money. Too many mice. But I’ve got my afternoon