“Yes. I suppose I do.”
He called Matthias.
His son arrived by car fifteen minutes later.
Emma told him they had taken the wrong road.
Karl said little.
During the journey home, he watched familiar buildings pass the window.
He recognised each one.
That made the experience more disturbing.
He had not forgotten Dresden.
For several minutes, he had simply been unable to connect the places he knew.
That evening, Matthias found his father sitting alone in the study.
A city map lay open across the drafting table.
Karl was tracing the route from the bakery to the house with a pencil.
“Dad?”
Karl did not look up.
“I know this street.”
“I know you do.”
“I’ve walked along it for forty years.”
Matthias pulled out a chair.
“Maybe you were tired.”
Karl continued staring at the map.
“That isn’t an explanation.”
His son waited.
Karl placed the pencil down.
“For a moment, I didn’t know where I was.”
Matthias nodded slowly.
“We should speak to your doctor.”
Karl looked at him sharply.
“I’m not losing my mind.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You’re thinking it.”
“I’m thinking something frightened you today.”
Karl turned away.
Matthias did not push further.
He knew his father well enough to recognise that a second argument would only make him more determined to deny what had happened.
Instead, he folded the map and left it on the desk.
“Let’s make an appointment anyway.”
Karl said nothing.
But the following morning, he asked Anna whether she knew the telephone number of the family doctor.
The months that followed brought consultations, tests, and increasingly difficult conversations.
Karl underwent assessments to investigate his changes in memory and orientation. His doctors considered possible contributing conditions and eventually diagnosed Alzheimer’s disease.
The diagnosis did not arrive as a single dramatic revelation.
It emerged through appointments, questions, examinations, and explanations.
Karl found the process humiliating.
He disliked being asked to remember lists of words.
He disliked drawing a clock while someone watched him.
Most of all, he disliked failing tasks that he would once have considered insultingly simple.
One afternoon, after returning from an assessment, he went into his study and shut the door.
Emma found him there an hour later.
He was sitting at the drafting table with a blank sheet of paper.
She approached quietly.
“Grandpa?”
He looked up.
“Hello, little sparrow.”
She climbed into the chair beside him.
“What are you drawing?”
“Nothing at the moment.”
“Why?”
He examined the pencil in his hand.
“I’m having a difficult day.”
Emma considered this.
She had difficult days too, usually when her best friend chose to play with somebody else or when Anna refused to let her wear summer shoes in the rain.
“Did somebody make you sad?”
Karl smiled faintly.
“Not exactly.”
She watched him.
“Are you sick?”
He hesitated.
Matthias and Anna had discussed how to explain the diagnosis to Emma. They wanted her to understand the changes without becoming frightened or assuming responsibility for her grandfather’s care.
Karl had been present for that conversation.
He had disliked how carefully everyone chose their words.
But now, looking at Emma, he understood why.
“My brain isn’t remembering things as well as it used to,” he said.
She frowned.
“Like when you forgot the way home?”
“Yes.”
“Can the doctor fix it?”
Karl looked at her.
“The doctors are helping us understand it. But some things may become harder for me.”
Emma was quiet.
Then she asked, “Will you forget how to draw?”
He glanced at the blank page.
“I hope not.”
She picked up a ruler and placed it in front of him.
“Then we should practice.”
Karl gave a small laugh.
“Should we?”
She nodded.
“You taught me.”
He looked at the ruler.
Then he took his pencil and drew a line.
It wavered slightly near the end.
Emma leaned forward.
“That’s a good one.”
Karl smiled.
“Not quite straight.”
She examined it.
“Just crooked.”
He looked at her.
Then he laughed properly for the first time that day.
“Yes, Emma. Just crooked.”
She drew another line beside his.
Hers was considerably worse.
They spent the afternoon making crooked buildings.
Karl’s relationship with Emma began changing in ways neither of them fully understood.
There were afternoons when he was much as he had always been.
He read to her, helped her construct elaborate buildings from wooden blocks, and answered questions about bridges with his old professional enthusiasm.
Other days, he struggled.
He sometimes repeated instructions he had given minutes earlier.
He forgot which project they were working on.
Once, he became irritated when Emma moved a ruler he believed he had placed in a particular drawer.
“I told you not to touch my things.”
Emma looked up.
“But you gave it to me.”
“No, I didn’t.”
She held the ruler against her chest.
“You did.”
Karl stood from his chair.
“Emma, don’t argue.”
Her eyes filled.
Anna, hearing the raised voices, came into the study.
“What happened?”
Emma began crying.
“Grandpa says I took his ruler.”
Anna looked at Karl.
He was breathing heavily.
For a moment, he seemed bewildered by the sight of his granddaughter crying.
Then he looked toward the desk.
The ruler belonged to Emma’s school pencil case.
He remembered handing it to her.
The recollection came too late.
Karl sat down.
“Oh, Emma.”
She stayed beside her mother.
He lowered his head.
“I’m sorry.”
Emma looked at him through her tears.
“I didn’t steal it.”
“No, darling. You didn’t.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“I got confused.”
Anna put an arm around Emma.
