‘No, Ferdinand.’
He looked at me with an expression of utter incredulity as I shoved against his chest with both hands. He lost his balance and plummeted down, his coat billowing. I didn’t hear a cry. He thudded against a rock before the sea took him with it.
19 A package from Rio
The dogs followed me to the car and frolicked alongside, yapping, until I turned off the field-track, onto the road. My whole body was trembling and yet I felt lighter than I had in a long time. On the road a tractor came towards me. The farmer stared at me. Had he been high enough to see me as I pushed Korten to his death? I hadn’t even thought about witnesses. I looked back; another tractor was ploughing its furrows in a field and two children were out on bikes. I drove west. At Point-du-Raz I considered staying – an anonymous Christmas abroad. But I couldn’t find a hotel, and the cliff line looked just like Trefeuntec. I was going home. At Quimper I came to a police roadblock. I could tell myself a thousand times that it was an unlikely spot to be searching for Korten’s murderer, but I was scared as I waited in the queue for the police to wave me on.
In Paris I made the eleven o’clock night train. It was empty and I had no trouble getting a sleeping car. On Christmas Day towards eight o’clock I was back in my apartment. Turbo greeted me sulkily. Frau Weiland had laid my Christmas mail on the desk. Along with all the commercial Christmas greetings I found a Christmas card from Vera Müller, an invitation from Korten to spend New Year’s Eve with him and Helga in Brittany, and from Brigitte a package from Rio with an Indian tunic. I took it as a nightshirt, and went to bed. At half past eleven the telephone rang.
‘Merry Christmas, Gerd. Where are you hiding?’
‘Brigitte! Merry Christmas.’ I was happy, but I could hardly see for weariness and exhaustion.
‘You grouch, aren’t you pleased? I’m back.’
I made an effort. ‘You’re kidding. That’s really great. Since when?’
‘I arrived yesterday morning and I’ve been trying to reach you ever since. Where have you been hiding?’ There was reproach in her voice.
‘I didn’t want to be here on Christmas Eve. I felt very claustrophobic.’
‘Would you like to eat Tafelspitz with us? It’s already on the stove.’
‘Yes… who else is coming?’
‘I’ve brought Manu with me. I can’t wait to see you.’ She blew a kiss down the telephone.
‘Me too.’ I returned the kiss.
I lay in bed, and felt my way back to the present. To my world in which fate doesn’t control steamships or puppets, where no foundations are laid and no history gets made.
The Christmas edition of the Süddeutsche lay on the bed. It gave an annual balance sheet of toxic incidents in the chemical industry. I soon laid the paper aside.
The world wasn’t a better place for Korten’s death. What had I done? Come to terms with my past? Wiped my hands of it?
I arrived far too late for lunch.
20 Come with the Wind!
Christmas Day brought no news of Korten’s death, nor did the next. Sometimes I was fearful. Whenever the doorbell rang, I was frightened and assumed the police had arrived to storm the apartment. When I was relaxing happily in Brigitte’s arms, alive with her sweet kisses, occasionally I wondered anxiously if this might be our last time together. At times I imagined the scene with Herzog, telling him everything. Or would I prefer to give my statement in front of Nägelsbach?
Most of the time I was easy in myself, fatalistic, and enjoyed the last days of the year, including coffee and plum-with-flourybutter-crumble-cake at the younger Schmalzes’. I liked little Manuel. He tried valiantly to speak German, accepted my morning presence in the bathroom without jealousy, and hoped staunchly for snow. To begin with the three of us went on our expeditions together, visiting the fairytale park on Königstuhl and the planetarium. Then he and I set out on our own. He liked going to the cinema as much as I did. When we came out of Witness we both had to fight back tears. In Splash he didn’t understand why the mermaid loved the guy although he was so mean to her – I didn’t tell him that’s always the way. In the Kleiner Rosengarten he figured out the game Giovanni and I played, and played along. There was no teaching him a sensible German sentence after that. On the way back from ice skating he took my hand and said, ‘You always with us when I come back?’
Brigitte and Juan had decided Manuel should go to high school in Mannheim, starting next autumn. Would I be in prison next autumn? And if not – would Brigitte and I stay together?
‘I don’t know yet, Manuel. But we’ll certainly go to the cinema together.’
The days passed without Korten hitting the headlines, either dead or missing. There were moments when I wished things would come to an end, no matter how. Then once again I was grateful for the time gained. On the 27th Philipp called. He complained he hadn’t caught a glimpse of my Christmas tree yet this year. ‘And where have you been these last few days?’
That’s when I got the idea about a party. ‘I have something to celebrate,’ I said. ‘Come round on New Year’s Eve, I’m having a party.’
‘Should I bring you round a squeezable little Taiwanese something?’
‘No need, Brigitte is back.’
‘A-ha, Come with the Wind! But may I bring a little something for me to the party?’
Brigitte had followed the phone call. ‘Party? What party?’
‘We’re celebrating New Year’s Eve with your friends and mine. Who would you like to invite?’
On Saturday afternoon I dropped by to see Judith. I caught her in the midst of packing. She was planning to travel to Locarno on Sunday. Tyberg wanted to introduce her to Tessin society in Ascona on New Year’s Eve. ‘It’s nice of you to come round, Gerd, but I’m in a terrible rush. Is it important, can’t it wait? I’ll be back at the end of January.’ She indicated the open suitcases, and the packed ones, two large moving cartons, and a wild confusion of clothes. I recognized the silk blouse that she’d worn when she’d shown me to Firner’s office. The button was still missing. ‘I can tell you the truth about Mischkey’s death now.’
She sat down on a suitcase and lit a cigarette. ‘Yes?’
She listened without interrupting. When I’d finished she asked: ‘And what happens to Korten now?’
It was the question I had dreaded. I had racked my brains over whether I should only go to Judith once Korten’s death was public knowledge. But I mustn’t make my actions dependent upon Korten’s murder, and without it there was no reason to hush up the solving of the case any longer. ‘I’ll try to put him on the spot. He’ll be back from Brittany at the beginning of January.’
‘Oh, Gerd, you can’t believe that Korten will break down in mid-sentence and confess?’
I didn’t answer. I was reluctant to enter into a discussion about what should happen to Korten.
Judith took another cigarette from the pack and rolled it between the fingertips of both hands. She looked sad, worn out by all the to-ing and fro-ing that had accompanied Peter’s murder, also aggravated, as if she wanted finally, finally, to put the whole thing behind her. ‘I’ll talk to Tyberg. You don’t mind, do you?’
That night I dreamed that Herzog was interrogating me. ‘Why didn’t you go to the police?’
‘What could the police have done?’
‘Oh, we have impressive possibilities these days. Come on, I’ll show you.’ Through long corridors, via many stairs, we came to a room that I recognized from castles of the Middle Ages, with pincers, irons, masks, chains, whips, straps, and needles. A hellfire was burning in the grate. Herzog pointed to the rack. ‘We’d have made Korten talk on that. Why didn’t you trust the police? Now you’ll have to go on it yourself.’ I didn’t struggle and was strapped to it. When I couldn’t move, panic surged through me. I must have cried out before I woke. Brigitte had switched on the bedside lamp and turned to me with concern.