Characters
Konrad Ziegler
Innkeeper in Unterdorn and chief of the fire department
Konrad Ziegler runs the inn on the square in Unterdorn and is chief of the village fire department: 18 members, seven of whom are in the village during the day. He is a heavy man, tall and broad, wears a cloth over his shoulder, and calls every guest by name. He signed the emergency plan for the valley himself four years ago. The plan is fine, he says, but it was made for a valley where everyone is healthy and at home. At 27 he watched the flood take the boats off the dock. He never raises his voice; when there’s something he isn’t saying, he turns red. He doesn’t show Lena the valley. He shows her his doors.
First encounter
- First noticed: comes out of the inn, wipes his hands on a cloth, drapes it over his shoulder, and walks to the bus stop as the school bus pulls in
- Speaks: quietly and precisely; “I’ll show you what you don’t know.”
- Object: the cloth over his shoulder; the bar he wipes even though it’s clean
Connected to
- Lena VossOceanographer at the ICRU in Hamburg, following a falling line
- OttoKonrad’s brother, drives the school bus over the one bridge
- UlrikeSpeaks for Unterdorn’s nursing home and its 47 residents
- Wanda ImhofTilda’s mother, lives 300 meters below the dam
- Kai SörensenFS Nordmark captain, eight years without a word to Lena
- UnterdornThe village below the dam, with one bridge out
- The DornA short, fast mountain river, dammed above a village
Spoiler-free. This describes the starting point of the book named, without its major twists or resolutions.