Markus’s illness prevents the family’s departure for Germany

Markus’s illness prevents the family’s departure for Germany when he falls into a dangerous fever on the very morning they are meant to leave. His collapse keeps him from joining Tante and the twins, and sends him and Delphine back to Argus with Fidelis. The illness does more than interrupt a journey: it decides a family separation that Markus cannot yet explain, while revealing how strongly Delphine, too, wants the threatened departure to be undone.

The Departure Interrupted

The night before the family is due to leave, Tante speaks in her sleep. Her words recall the witch in the Hansel and Gretel tale, an omen that alarms Delphine. By morning the danger is no longer imagined. Markus wakes with brilliant cheeks and glazed eyes, tossing in a fever so high that Fidelis knocks on Delphine’s door before sunrise and asks her to stay with the boy while he searches for a pharmacy. The twins, unaware of the change in plan, dress sleepily and show their excitement about the journey.

Markus’s condition is unmistakable. His lips are bruised-plum in color, his temples white, his breath short, and the pulse in his wrist races unevenly. His face contorts; Delphine takes the wash basin from the boys and holds his head over it. She cleans the basin carefully, returns with cold water, and uses a wetted handkerchief to wipe his forehead, cheekbones, throat, ears, wrists, and forearms. The close attention is both practical care and anxious watchfulness: she fears the illness may vanish as suddenly as it began, but it does not.

Delphine’s Decision and the Farewell

Aspirin makes Markus rave rather than recover. Delphine firmly says that he cannot leave, and no one challenges her. Tante considers the unused ticket a waste and resolves to find a buyer, yet she can barely conceal her relief that Markus will not be coming. Her restrained goodbye from the doorway contrasts with the twins’ bright anticipation: Delphine embraces them, holds their scratchy coats and rough hands, breathes in their dusty hair, and smooths their foreheads before they tug away. They leave excited for their adventure, while Delphine understands that they have gone out of her life.

The separation is thus carried out in miniature even as the larger departure is halted. Markus remains ill and with Delphine; the twins go with Tante. His fever spares him from the trip to Germany, but it does not spare Delphine the immediate loss of the two boys. The scene makes the reversal tangible through different gestures at the same threshold: Tante’s guarded farewell to the sick child, Delphine’s affectionate farewell to the twins, and their eager departure without him.

The Return to Argus

Early that afternoon, Fidelis carries Markus, limp and burning, to the hotel lobby while Delphine brings their modest luggage. They put him in the backseat and cover him with car blankets, which he restlessly throws off. He repeatedly asks where they are going. Delphine tells him they are going back to Argus, home, and tucks the light wool robes around him again. His face brightens with a luminous joy that startles her; she worries that it might be delirium, then checks him and thinks the worst may have passed. His relief seems to answer her own: both are lightened by hunger and by the surprise of reprieve.

Fidelis drives north while Delphine gives directions. For several hours, the two speak only of safe, neutral things: fields that resemble the Dakotas, then Minnesota; large, well-kept barns; threatening clouds and the storm that never arrives. They stop more than once to check Markus’s fever and make sure he drinks ginger beer Fidelis has bought. Markus sleeps as if drugged. Delphine and Fidelis take turns driving, doze in the passenger seat, or fall silent, maintaining a careful distance from whatever the interrupted journey has made difficult to say.

Reprieve and Unspoken Tension

As daylight fades, the neutral conversation fails. Silence gathers into discomfort, then becomes waiting and suspense. Delphine has been restless all day with the need to explain herself. Avoidance and careful maneuvering around Fidelis wear on her; she dislikes the narrow, invisible path she feels she must tread. She draws a stubborn breath, holds it almost to bursting, and lets it out until her heart slows. She has decided to give an explanation whether or not Fidelis wants one.

The interruption therefore changes more than the destination. Markus’s bodily crisis stops the planned passage toward Germany, divides the family as the twins leave, and returns Delphine and Fidelis to Argus together with the boy. His joy at hearing they are going home gives visible form to a reprieve neither adult had openly named. Yet the road back does not resolve the tensions between them: the long stretches of neutral talk and the suspenseful silence show that a return home has created the occasion for a difficult conversation, not removed the need for one.