Just Ten Thousand
Three Months Earlier
The town square was as full as it had ever been. Flags fluttered everywhere, balloons rose into the sky, and children ran between the stands. At the center stood the new attraction: a giant digital display, glowing red in the evening sun.
9999.
A murmur ran through the crowd. Then the mayor’s voice through the loudspeakers:
“Ladies and gentlemen, the moment is here. As the hospital has just informed me, we are about to reach our goal.”
The square fell silent. Everyone present stared at the display.
Then: a high tone. The number jumped.
10000.
“Our 10,000th citizen has been born!” called the mayor of Sonnenfeld.
Cheers broke out, trumpets blasted a fanfare into the sky, and somewhere someone lit a small battery of fireworks that glittered in the dusk.
“From today onward,” he continued, “we officially belong to the medium-sized towns of our country. That means more funding, more opportunities — and, not to be forgotten, a little more pride for all of us!”
Ben turned to his wife: “We were so close, darling. Just one more week and we’d have been the famous couple.” He stroked Tina’s round belly and kissed her on the forehead.
Sonnenfeld State Clinic
“One more push, Maria, you can do it!” the doctor called. Monitors beeped in time, midwives hurried back and forth. Everything was ready for the great moment.
Then suddenly… silence.
From one moment to the next. The contractions stopped. The doctor looked at the monitors. The contraction recorder was silent. She frowned. Met other stunned faces.
The door of the delivery room opened. Another midwife came in, smiling, almost ceremonial.
“Did you hear? In delivery room three, our ten-thousandth citizen was just born.”
Maria only stared at her.
Today
Tina shifted restlessly on the paper covering of the examination table, hands folded over her belly. Eleven weeks past her due date.
“Everything is fine,” Dr. Meier had said. Once again. It was already her fifteenth examination since the projected date, and every time he sounded as if he had to convince himself.
The CTG had dutifully drawn small waves. Heartbeat steady. No signs of complications. Everything as it should be. Only: no contractions.
“Your baby is perfectly healthy,” he said, “it just seems… to be waiting.”
Tina nodded, smiled tightly. Of course they had to wait. As if she hadn’t long since started counting the hours.
She left the examination room. Out in the hallway a nurse hurried past. In the waiting area, a young woman flipped nervously through a magazine. Belly large, face tired.
Tina put on her jacket and left. Passing the town square, she paused for a moment to look up at the display.
10 000
Unchanged. For three months. Sometimes it briefly flickered toward 9999. Then they knew: someone had died. Someone had been born.
Tina took the longer way home, just so she wouldn’t have to go straight back to the apartment.
The street took her to the edge of town, where, beyond a last row of old chestnut trees, the barricades stood.
Two months ago the government had put them up. The official notice said it was to contain “a possible epidemic.”
Behind them: concrete blocks, red-and-white barriers, coils of barbed wire. Two soldiers in sand-colored uniforms stood with arms crossed, rifles loose against their chests.
A military truck idled, exhaust drifting like grey ribbons into the evening sky.
Tina didn’t stop.
This used to be the way to her favorite café in the next village. Now there were only barriers — and looks that made it clear you weren’t supposed to linger.
One of the soldiers furrowed his brow and put a hand to his cap, the way one does when one thinks one has recognized someone.
Tina pulled her jacket up by the zipper and quickened her pace.
Behind her the soldier’s radio crackled — a brief, indistinct hiss.
When she entered the apartment, it smelled of coffee. Ben sat at the kitchen table, elbows propped, the local paper in front of him. The front page once again showed the photo of the town square, with the display board in the background.
“Were you at the doctor’s again?” he asked, without looking up.
“Mm-hm.”
“And?”
“Everything fine. As always.”
Ben turned the page, shook his head. “Did you hear the news today?”
“No. Why?”
“Do you remember Dr. Hakish?”
“The one they fired?”
“That’s the one. They say he performed a Caesarean last night. In his ‘practice.’”
“What? You can’t be serious.”
“I am. I don’t know how they got him to do it, but he did.”
“And?”
“It was the father, of all people. Heart attack.”
Tina looked at him in silence. She had toyed with the idea herself. And sometimes the thought that someone would have to die for it didn’t even shock her anymore.
Ben laid the paper flat on the table, ran his hand over the headline, and read with deliberate slowness:
“According to the latest internal figures, more than twenty women in Sonnenfeld are now past their due dates. Some of them by more than two months.” He looked up, as if checking whether the words landed with her.
Tina turned away. She pulled the jacket tighter around herself, even though the kitchen was warm.
The days that followed were uneventful. If you set aside the fact that nothing — really nothing — was happening. No more births, no death notices. The display in the town square glowed undisturbed at 10,000. Sometimes Tina thought even the red light looked tired, as if it had long since had enough of the number.
She went to the doctor, came home, did laundry, listened to the neighbors talking on the phone through the thin stairwell. At the supermarket people exchanged short greetings, otherwise hardly anyone spoke for longer than necessary. Everything felt like one single, drawn-out day.
Late one afternoon, Tina decided to take the long way home again. The path led along the edge of town, beneath the broad crowns of the chestnuts. Beyond it lay the barricade — and today she immediately noticed something was different.
Soldiers were moving more hurriedly than usual, their steps hard and clattering on the asphalt. Crates were being carried out of tents, tarps folded, radios crackled in short, clipped sentences. A truck idled while two men hauled crates marked with bright yellow symbols onto its bed.
Tina stopped for a moment, as if she could understand the scene better that way. Something hung in the air — not threatening like a gunshot, but unsettled, prickling, like an approaching thunderstorm.
As she walked on, she could still hear the click of rifle straps and the metallic clatter of equipment shifting. Just before the next corner, a siren suddenly went off. Long, piercing, drilling. She flinched.
Then, with an ugly crack, the loudspeakers came to life:
All citizens are to proceed immediately to the underground shelter system. Follow the instructions of emergency personnel. Repeat: all citizens are to proceed immediately to the underground shelter system.
People streamed out of houses, some with backpacks, others with whatever they happened to have in their hands. A woman carried a laundry basket full of children’s clothes, as if she had had no time to set it down.
The sky hung leaden over the town, and between the rows of houses the red and blue lights of emergency vehicles flashed.
Tina let the crowd carry her along. Everywhere the loudspeakers shouted the same sentences over and over, until the words lost their meaning and became only pressure in the ears. A police officer waved the way with curt gestures, another tapped frantically on a clipboard.
In front of the town hall square a restless crowd had gathered. Children clung to their parents’ hands, older people stood close together, some with jackets thrown over their shoulders, others in slippers.
On a makeshift platform of wooden boards stood the mayor, two uniformed men beside him. A portable speaker scratched, then his voice:
Dear citizens of Sonnenfeld. We have just received the directive from the regional government to activate the shelter system. This is a precautionary measure. A laboratory accident in the region makes it necessary for you to remain underground for an unspecified period. Please stay calm and follow the instructions of our emergency personnel.
His words were repeatedly drowned out by the shouts of soldiers trying to organize the crowd into orderly rows. Behind the platform, a narrow ramp led between concrete walls down to a heavy metal door. No imposing structure, more like a side entrance to an old cellar.
Beside it, the red light of the display still blinked weakly. 10,000.
Tina let herself be pushed down the ramp with the others. The hinge of the metal door squealed as a fireman wrenched it open. Inside it smelled of cold concrete and stale air. She stepped in, blinked in the half-light.
Just to the left, on the wall, hung a slim metal sign, hardly bigger than a mailbox. It read:
Capacity: maximum 10,000 persons.
She stopped. The press of the crowd nearly pushed her against it, and she stepped quickly to the side. She read the words again, this time more slowly.
Then she lifted her head, looked back to the door — and beyond it, to where the display still glowed undeterred in red light on the town hall square.
10,000.
And suddenly Tina was no longer sure whether she should walk further inside.