‘Isn’t that illegal?’
‘Completely.’
I thought of the man who came into the flat, who sat in the kitchen drinking my coffee. Would it help him? Was that what he sought by entering my space? An explanation? I may become real to him — colored in. The way, sometimes, I’d pressed my face into Tom’s shirts when he had been away. The smell of the starch had confirmed him. I nodded.
‘Good.’ Strebel kissed me lightly on the forehead. ‘So. We start with when you woke up. What did you have for breakfast? The twelfth of March. Begin there.’
‘Toast. Tea.’
‘What kind of toast? What kind of tea? If things are specific, they seem more real.’
‘The local granary bread. With butter. Irish Breakfast tea.’
‘I used to like Earl Grey. But my doctor said, “Absolutely no caffeine.”’
‘I think Earl Grey tastes like soap.’
Instead of laughing, he spread his hand over my hair, moved his face close to mine and murmured, ‘Pilgrim.’ We held on, and in those brief seconds so much was possible. But then we let go.
‘I got dressed after breakfast. Navy blue. Tom liked me to wear navy blue. I wore a navy blue turtleneck and a navy blue wool skirt.’
‘Navy blue is a color for old women and the police.’
‘It’s discreet, tasteful.’
‘You’re thirty-two. Why do you want to be discreet?’
‘Is that part of the story? My capitulation to navy blue?’
A soft laugh. ‘No. I’m sorry. You wore navy blue. You brushed your teeth.’
‘I brushed my teeth and put on a small amount of makeup. Discreet, tasteful makeup.’
He gave me a small, acknowledging smile.
‘Then I left the flat.’
‘At what time?’
‘Eight-fifteen. My language class in Tunn starts at nine.’
‘You got into your car?’
‘No. Mrs Gassner was in the hallway. She couldn’t tie her shoelaces because of the arthritis in her hands. She asked me to help. And I remembered the phone bill. It was weeks overdue. She warned me, ‘“They cut you off no mercy.”’
‘And they have.’
‘And so has she.’
‘No mercy?’
‘She calls me “Kindermörderin”’
‘Ignore her. She’ll stop when she finds someone else to persecute.’
‘But I am a child killer. A killer of children.’
‘No,’ Strebel said. ‘You cannot even say you caused the death of children. It is not correct. It is emotion, not fact.’
‘Legal fact.’
He lay back. ‘If you need to cry and blame yourself, then you should. You should find a way to sink into that, but not drown. Don’t deny all the complex feelings. But, right now, I need you to be here with me, helping me. We don’t, you know, have so much time.’
‘You have to go home.’
‘As you say, we won’t pretend.’
‘Of course. I helped Mrs Gassner with her laces, and I ran up to get the phone bill. Then I got in my car. I saw her drive off.’
‘And that’s it?’
‘I sat for a while, thinking about Tom. Being angry about Tom. Minutes. And if I hadn’t—’
Touching my lips with his finger, he said, ‘Listen. When my daughter was very small, three or four, we were in the bathroom brushing our teeth, and there was a power cut. Everything went completely black. It was only for a moment, a few seconds. But she cried hysterically. When the lights came back on, she said, “I thought I was dead.” She couldn’t understand it was nothing to do with her. Maybe lightning. Maybe a tree falling on a power line. That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You didn’t make the darkness. You did not kill those children.’
‘Tell me, then, who did?’
‘Let’s keep going. You started the car.’
‘I started the car, I was thinking of Tom.’
‘Then you drove through the village,’ he said. ‘You thought it might rain. You thought about the gray clouds and how you wanted it to be spring.’ He was watching me as he spoke. ‘You came around the corner, the one below the village. The traffic was light. You weren’t speeding. And then suddenly a dog ran in front of you, right in front of you.’
‘A dog?’ I said almost in wonder. ‘What kind of dog?’
‘Black, maybe dark brown. Dark and quite large. You don’t know much about dog breeds?’
‘I had a mutt growing up.’
‘Then it was just a dog. And you braked to avoid it.’
‘A large dog. A black dog, possibly a dark brown dog. That’s why it happened?’
‘Yes.’
‘And then I saw the children.’
‘Did you?’ He could not keep the inquisition from his voice.
I closed my eyes. ‘No. I can’t even feel them.’
‘Pilgrim.’ His face was close, a lover again.
‘It was the dog’s fault?’
‘No. Yes. There is no fault. You got out of bed. Everyone got out of bed that morning.’
‘What should I do now?’
‘Come in and make another statement. Just this, what we talked about. I’ll tell Sergeant Caspary to expect you.’
He lifted his hand gently from my face, his departure beginning.
Tanga, May 21
REMEMBER!
YOU ARE ONLY THE CUSTOMER!
The sign is displayed atop the counter, the script the kind of red block letters used to warn of fire or falling rocks. The counter contains Tanga’s best selection of notepads, all three of them dusty, stale and lonely as week-old pastries.
I regard again the admonition, and glance at the young man perched on the stool. I assume he works here, but he shows no interest in me. He has not even looked over. He stares at nothing — or something I cannot see, a bewitching vision. The shop, so bright at the entrance, closes into darkness behind him. It’s impossible to know how deep or large it is, what might be back there. The man sits between the shadow and light. Half his face is exposed, every pore, every fault; the other half invisible.
‘This one.’ I tap the glass, pointing to a notepad with a faded green cover.
He gets down from the stool — an abrupt movement as if spurred by an electric shock — and, taking a set of tiny keys from a hook above the counter, unlocks and slides the cabinet open. I’m fascinated by the idea that such security is necessary. He pulls out a red spiral notebook, furthest away from my choice.
‘Not that one, this one,’ I tap again, more vigorously.
With a sigh he replaces the spiral notebook and selects the green cardboard one. ‘This is an inferior item. It is made in Tanzania. The paper is very poor. You will not be satisfied.’
‘Thank you for your advice. But it is the one I want.’
After paying him, I walk out into the halogen blast of midday and to the post office. I write to Mrs Gassner, enclosing a check for the phone. The stamp shows a giraffe standing in front of Kilimanjaro, and I imagine Mrs Gassner squinting at it, concluding I’m on holiday.
The post office overlooks the arc of Tanga’s bay. Giant mango and fig trees line the headland above the sea, which is the deep blue of hand-tinted postcards; no shallows here, no shades of aqua or turquoise, only depth all the way out to the Indian Ocean. An island sprouts in the middle of the bay, an upthrust of coral rag topped with a crew-cut of green. It is hardly bigger than the three ships anchored beyond it.
Nothing is new here, I observe, so unlike the accidental present of Magulu. Even Tanga’s modern buildings are decades old, cement monoliths stained with mildew and moss, cracking open like tombs. The old colonial buildings live haphazardly among them, their wooden balconies drooping, their thick, whitewashed walls crumbling into the narrow, shadowed alleys. I am careful not to trip on chunks of broken plaster.