Futh tries to change course for Utrecht

Futh’s attempt to change course for Utrecht begins as a practical alternative to the final day of his Rhine walk, but becomes a sequence of delays that returns him to Hellhaus. Remembering Carl’s invitation, he imagines arriving without warning; the plan briefly seems manageable, then is obstructed by his own exhaustion, a missed bus, a suitcase already sent ahead, and finally a flat tyre. Its failure leaves him following his original itinerary and still dependent on the suitcase that contains the silver lighthouse.

The proposed detour

At dawn, awake and unable to return to sleep, Futh is painfully hungry. Since the hotel is not yet serving breakfast, he eats biscuits and makes instant coffee. The coffee’s manufactured aroma, added after its volatile aromatics have been lost, accompanies his contemplation of a different destination: rather than complete the last day of walking, he could try to reach Utrecht and visit Carl.

The visit would be unannounced, but Futh reminds himself that Carl had invited him. He thinks he can find Carl’s mother’s house from memory even without its address. To do so, however, he must first retrieve his car in Hellhaus. He works through the logistics: take a bus there, bring his suitcase rather than risk having it sent separately and delayed, and then drive to Utrecht. If he left after breakfast, he estimates that he could arrive around lunchtime. Carl, he recalls, would be home in the evening. The idea depends on a chain of small practical assumptions, but at first each seems possible.

The plan takes shape, then slips

After another cup of coffee, Futh dresses and goes downstairs hoping to ask the proprietor for a bus timetable. No one is available. He finds leaflets and a telephone directory, looks up his own name and finds other people called Futh, but no timetable. With the front door open, he goes outside to find a bus stop himself.

His tender feet slow him, and the stop is farther away than he intended to walk. There, about a mile from the centre and near the river, he studies the timetable: three direct buses go to Hellhaus on weekdays, one in the morning, one in the early afternoon, and one in the evening. He decides that the first bus after breakfast should still let him continue to Utrecht. Back in his room, he packs and zips his suitcase, leaves it by the door to collect after breakfast, makes the bed despite knowing it will soon be stripped, and notices his watch on the bedside table. He straps it on, takes his rucksack downstairs, and stashes snacks in its pockets while filling a plate at the breakfast buffet.

The intended departure is undone by his body. As he leaves the breakfast room, he shakes so badly that he has to sit down and cannot face climbing the stairs. He lies on a sofa in the empty lounge, where a silent television shows the news, and drifts into an uneasy sleep despite the caffeine. When he wakes, he has missed the first bus. The delay moves his hoped-for arrival in Utrecht from lunchtime to late afternoon, but he still expects to make it in time for dinner.

The suitcase and the missed connection

Back in his room, Futh discovers that his suitcase is gone. He learns from the proprietor that it has already been taken for transit to Hellhaus. That reverses the plan he had made at dawn: instead of carrying his belongings with him, he must go to the hotel to retrieve the case and explain his changed arrangements. The silver lighthouse is inside, a specific reason he cannot simply leave the suitcase to catch up with him later.

With time before the afternoon bus, he considers buying a newspaper, having felt detached from reality all week. The shop has only German papers. He tests his reading ability, which is better than his spoken German, but cannot make enough sense of them to buy one. He walks to the river and sits under trees, taking conscious note of the outdoor smells so that he can return to them in memory. The pause offers a quiet interval, but it does not restore the time or certainty the journey requires.

He reaches the stop in time, but the bus does not appear. First he assumes it is late; then he checks neighbouring stops and re-examines the timetable, wondering if he has mistaken the time, the day, or the stop. After almost an hour, he can only suppose that the bus either will not come or passed just before he arrived. The last bus leaves in the evening. Utrecht remains conceivable, but his hosts would have eaten by then; he thinks they might still have supper for him. He tries hitchhiking, standing at the kerb with his thumb out, but no one stops. He has seen no taxi, does not want to walk back into town to find one, and regards the expense as beyond his budget. He chooses to wait for the evening bus.

Return to Hellhaus

The wait stretches through the heat. Futh wishes he had bought a newspaper or kept his novel in his bag. He finds shade, though it moves, and steps into the sun only when he returns to check the timetable. When the evening bus comes, he sits near the back, pleased to be on his way, and watches the world pass. He gets off at the wrong stop and has to walk before he reaches Hellhaus.

At sunset he sees the hotel from behind. Its whitewashed wall and windows catch the blazing light so intensely that looking at them is almost painful, yet he cannot turn his eyes away. Before asking after his suitcase, he checks his car. It is where he left it, but one tyre is flat. Broken glass lies in the gutter; Futh wonders whether it was already there when he parked. He knows how to change a tyre and opens the boot expecting to find the spare, only to discover an old flat tyre: the same one he removed beside the road before driving home and finding Kenny coming out of his house.

That discovery ends the attempted detour. Futh gives up on Utrecht and resolves to sort out the car in the morning. He walks to the hotel to spend the night according to his itinerary, now wanting the ordinary comforts he had hoped the revised journey would not require him to seek there: a quiet bar, a bedroom key, a clean bed, a bath, food, and rest. His suitcase—and the silver lighthouse inside it—remains part of the return he could not avoid.