Unlike most men his age, sixty-five-year-old Emil Döring, once second administrative assistant to the head of the Essen Public Transport Commission, had not allowed himself to become a creature of habit. Retired now and living in Gladbeck, a town north of the city, he took especial care to vary his daily routine. He went for the morning papers at no regular hour, visited his sister in Oberhausen on no particular afternoon, and passed the evenings—when he didn’t decide at the last moment to stay home—at no one favorite neighborhood bar. He had three favorite bars rather, and chose among them only when he left the apartment. Sometimes he was back in an hour or two, sometimes not until after midnight.
All his life Döring had been aware of enemies lying in wait for him, and had protected himself not only by going armed, when he was old enough, but also by keeping his movements as unpredictable as possible. First there had been the big brothers of small schoolmates who had unjustly accused him of bullying. Then there had been his fellow soldiers, dullards all, who had resented his knack for ingratiating himself with officers and getting easy and safe assignments. Then there had been his rivals at the Transport Commission, some of whom could have given lessons in treachery to Machiavelli. Could Döring tell you stories about the Transport Commission!
And now, in what should have been his golden years, when he had thought he could finally lower his guard and relax, stow the old Mauser in the night-table drawer—now more than ever he knew himself to be in real danger of attack.
His second wife Klara, who was, as she never tired of reminding him in subtle ways, twenty-three years younger than he, was having, he was positive, an affair with their son’s former clarinet teacher, a despicable near-faggot named Wilhelm Springer who was even younger than she—thirty-eight!—and at least half Jewish. Döring had no doubts whatsoever that Klara and her faggot-Jew Springer would be delighted to get him out of the way; not only would she be a widow, but a rich one. He had over three hundred thousand marks (that she knew about, plus five hundred thousand that nobody knew about, buried in two steel boxes in his sister’s backyard). It was the money that kept Klara from divorcing him. She was waiting, and had been since the day they married, the bitch.
Well, she would go right on waiting; he was in fine health and ready for a dozen Springers to spring at him from alleyways. He went to the gym twice a week—not on regular afternoons—and sixty-five or no, was still damn good at man-to-man wrestling even if he wasn’t so great any more at the man-to-woman kind. He was still damn good and his Mauser was still damn good; he liked to tell himself that, smiling as he patted the nice big hardness through the underarm of his coat.
He had told it to Reichmeider too, the surgical-equipment salesman he had met here at the Lorelei-Bar last night. What a pleasant fellow that Reichmeider was! He had really been interested in Döring’s Transport Commission stories—had almost fallen off his stool laughing at the outcome of the ’58 appropriation business. Talking to him had been a bit awkward at first because of the erratic way one of his eyes moved—it was obviously artificial—but Döring had soon got used to it and told him not only about the appropriation business but about the state investigation of ’64 and the Zellermann scandal too. Then they had got to a more personal level—five or six beers had gone down the hatch—and Döring had opened up about Klara and Springer. That was when he had patted the Mauser and said what he said about himself and it. Reichmeider couldn’t believe he was actually sixty-five. “I’d have sworn you were no more than fifty-seven, tops!” he had insisted. What a nice chap! It was a shame he was only going to be in the area for a few days; lucky, though, that he was staying in Gladbeck rather than in Essen proper.
It was to meet Reichmeider again, and tell him about the rise and fall of Oskar Know-It-All Vowinckel, that Döring had come back to the Lorelei-Bar tonight. But nine o’clock had long since passed and no Reichmeider, despite their clear understanding of the night before. There were a lot of noisy young men and pretty girls, one with her teats half out, and only a few old regulars—Fürst, Apfel, what’s-his-name—none of them good listeners. It was more like a Friday or Saturday than a Wednesday. A soccer game tided back and forth on the television; Döring watched it, drank slowly, and looked through the mirror at those gorgeous young teats. Now and then he leaned back on his stool and tried to catch a glimpse of newcomers by the door, still hoping Reichmeider would make his promised appearance.
And make it he did, but most strangely and suddenly, a hand gripping Döring’s shoulder, a skew-eyed urgency of whispering: “Döring, come outside quickly! There’s something I have to tell you!” And he was gone again.
Confused and puzzled, Döring flagged for Franz’s attention, threw a ten down, and pushed his way out. Reichmeider beckoned intently, withdrawing a ways down Kirchengasse. A handkerchief was wrapped around his left hand as if he had injured it; chalky dust streaked the legs and shoulders of his expensive-looking gray suit.
Hurrying to him, Döring said, “What’s up? What happened to you?”
“It’s you things are liable to happen to, not me!” Reichmeider said excitedly. “I’ve been stumbling through that building they’re demolishing, down the street in the next block. Listen, what’s-his-name, that fellow you told me about, the one who’s fooling around with your wife!”
“Springer,” Döring said, thoroughly puzzled but catching Reichmeider’s excitement. “Wilhelm Springer!”
“I knew that was it!” Reichmeider exclaimed. “I knew I wasn’t mistaken! What luck that I just happened to—Listen, I’ll explain everything. I was coming along this street here, heading this way, and I had to take a leak, simply couldn’t hold it in. So when I came to the building, the one they’re demolishing, I went into the alley beside it; but it was too light there, so I found an opening in the doors they’ve got walling the place and slipped inside. I did what I had to, and just as I’m ready to come out again, two men come and stop right at the place where I came in. One calls the other one Springer”—he nodded his head slowly, affirmingly, as Döring drew breath—“and that one says to the first one things like, ‘He’s in the Lorelei right now, the old bastard.’ And, ‘We’ll beat the shit out of that fat prick.’ I knew Springer was the name you’d mentioned! That is your way home, isn’t it?”
Döring, his eyes shut, breathed deeply and swallowed a portion of his fury. “Sometimes,” he whispered, and opened his eyes. “I go different ways.”
“Well, they’re expecting you to go that way tonight. They’re waiting there, both of them, with sticks of some kind, caps pulled down over their eyes, collars turned up; exactly as you said last night, Springer planning to spring from an alley! I went through the building and found a way out on this side.”
Döring pulled in another deep breath and clapped a hand gratefully to Reichmeider’s dusty shoulder. “Thank you,” he said. “Thank you.”
Smiling, Reichmeider said, “I’m sure you could lick both of them with one hand tied behind your back—the other fellow’s a skinny little nothing—but the wisest thing, of course, is simply to go home another way. I’ll go with you if you’d like. Unless, that is, you’d rather get rid of this Springer once and for all.”