‘Do you need a check-up as well?’ he said in greeting.
‘I just wanted to confess.’
The newcomer now realised that the doctor wasn’t old: he was beyond old. From the way he moved it seemed he had an inexhaustible inner energy, and that was deceiving. His body was what it was, that of a man over eighty. The photo that he had been able to lay his hands on was of a man in his sixties, at most.
As if a European showing up at dusk to the Bebenbeleke hospital asking for confession was a common occurence, Doctor Müss washed his hands in a sink that, miraculously, had a tap with running water and he gestured for the newcomer to follow him. Just then, two men with dark glasses and cocky attitudes sat on the green bench they’d just shooed the excited women off of. The doctor led the visitor to a small room, perhaps his office.
‘Will you be staying for dinner?’
‘I don’t know. I don’t make long-term plans.’
‘As you wish.’
‘It took me a lot of work to find you, Doctor Budden. I lost your trail in a Trappist monastery and there was no way to find where you’d gone.’
‘How did you do it, then?’
‘By visiting the main archives of the order.’
‘Ah, yes, their obsession with having everything documented and archived. Were they helpful?’
‘They probably still don’t know I visited their archives.’
‘What did you find there?’
‘Besides the false lead on the Baltic, there was a reference to Stuttgart, to Tübingen and to Bebenhausen. In that small town I was able to tie up some loose ends with the help of a very kindly old lady.’
‘My cousin Herta Landau, right? She’s always been a windbag. She must have been overjoyed to have someone to listen to her. Forgive me, go on.’
‘Well, that’s it. It took me years to fit the pieces together.’
‘That’s for the best: it’s given me time to make amends for a fraction of the evil I’ve done.’
‘My client would have liked me to have found you sooner.’
‘Why don’t you arrest me and take me to trial?’
‘My client is old: he doesn’t want any delays because he is going to die soon, according to what he says.’
‘Right.’
‘And he doesn’t want to die without seeing you dead.’
‘I understand. And how did you manage to find me?’
‘Oh, a lot of purely technical work. My trade is very boring: long hours of poking around in different places until you finally put the pieces together. And like that, for days and days, until I understood that the Bebenhausen I was looking for wasn’t exactly in Baden-Württemberg. At some points I even thought that it was some sort of a clue left for someone who might be wanting to follow your trail.’
He realised that the doctor was repressing a smile.
‘Did you like Bebenhausen?’
‘Very much.’
‘It is my lost paradise.’ Doctor Müss shook off a recollection with a wave of his hand and now he did smile: ‘You took a long time,’ he said.
‘As I said … When I took on the assignment you were very well hidden.’
‘To be able to work and make amends.’ Curious, ‘How do these assignments work?’
‘It’s very professional and very … cold.’
Doctor Müss got up and, from a small cabinet that seemed to be a refrigerator, he pulled out a bowl of something vague and possibly edible. He put it on the table, with two plates and two spoons.
‘If you don’t mind … At my age I have to eat like a sparrow … little and often. Otherwise, I might faint.’
‘Do people trust such an old doctor?’
‘They have no other options. I hope they don’t close the hospital when I die. I am in negotiations with the village authorities in Beleke and Kikongo.’
‘I’m very sorry, Doctor Budden.’
‘Yes.’ About the vague contents of the bowclass="underline" ‘It’s millet. It’s better than nothing, believe me.’
He served himself and passed the bowl to the other man. With his mouth fulclass="underline" ‘What did you mean by that, that it’s a very cold, very professional job?’
‘Well, things …’
‘No, please, I’m interested.’
‘Well, for example, I never meet my clients. And they never meet me either, of course.’
‘That’s seems logical. But how do you organise it?’
‘Well, there’s a whole technique. Indirect contact is always a possibility, but you must be very meticulous to ensure that you are always connecting with the right person. And you have to learn how to not leave a trail.’
‘That seems logical as well. But today you came in Makubulo Joseph’s car. He’s an incorrigible gossip and by now must have told everyone that …’
‘He’s telling them what I want him to tell them. I am giving up a false lead. You’ll understand that I can’t go into details … And how did you know who my taxi driver was?’
‘I founded the Bebenbeleke hospital forty years ago. I know the name of every dog that barks and every hen that cackles.’
‘So you came here straight from Mariawald.’
‘Does that interest you?’
‘It fascinates me. I’ve had a lot of time to think about you. Have you always worked alone?’
‘I don’t work alone. Before day breaks there are already three nurses seeing patients. I get up early as well, but not that early.’
‘I’m very sorry to be keeping you from your work.’
‘I don’t think the interruption is very important, not today.’
‘And do you do anything else?’
‘No. I devote all my energy to helping the needy during every hour of life I have left.’
‘It sounds like a religious vow.’
‘Well … I’m still somewhat of a monk.’
‘Didn’t you leave the monastery?’
‘I left the Trappist order; I left the monastery, but I still feel that I am a monk. A monk without a community.’
‘And do you lead mass and all that stuff?’
‘I’m not a priest. Non sum dignus.’
They used the silence to take a sizeable chunk out the plate of millet.
‘It’s good,’ said the newcomer.
‘To tell you the truth, I’m sick of it. I miss a lot of foods. Like Sauerkraut. I can’t even remember what it tastes like, but I miss it.’
‘Aw, if I’d known …’
‘No, I miss them but I don’t …’ He swallowed a spoonful of millet. ‘I don’t deserve Sauerkraut.’
‘Isn’t that a bit of an exaggeration … I mean, I’m no one to …’
‘I can assure you full well that you are not no one.’
He wiped his lips with the back of his hand and brushed his still immaculate white coat. He pushed aside the tray of food without asking the other man and they remained face to face, with the bare table between them.
‘And the piano?’
‘I gave it up. Non sum dignus. Even the memory of the music I used to adore makes me heave.’
‘Isn’t that a bit of an exaggeration?’
‘Tell me your name.’
Silence. The newcomer thinks it over.
‘Why?’
‘Curiosity. I have no use for it.’
‘I’d rather not.’
‘Your call.’
They couldn’t help it: they both smiled.
‘I don’t know the client. But he gave me a key word that will give you a clue, if you are curious. Don’t you want to know who sent me?’
‘No. Whoever it was who sent you, you are welcome.’
‘My name is Elm.’
‘Thank you, Elm, for trusting me. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I have to ask you to change your profession.’
‘I am doing my last few jobs. I’m retiring.’
‘I’d be happier if this were your last job.’