by A. B. Decker
If only he had looked up…
But he kept moving at the same slow pace, and – just as the black squadrons were making their descent to inflict the first vicious tweaks on the side of his neck, drawing blood – his dogged motion down the road was abruptly swallowed by the tunnel of trees. The hunter crows veered away. For a moment he appeared to be reprieved.
From somewhere in the distance the yapping of a dog became audible.
As Frank surfaced for a brief instant, he eased open his eyes and caught the gloom of the afternoon through the hotel window. Heard a dog barking on the street outside. And fell back into sleep.
The tunnel was short and curved to the right before it began to let in light from the other end. Even at his slow pace it was not long before the silhouette of the man showed up against the blank wall of the customs house at the end of the tunnel. Just the other side of the trees.
The building appeared lifeless. And the traveller paid it no attention as he continued on his path. Past a shutter on the house that swung helplessly in the wind. Every now and then, driven by a sudden gust, the shutter would smash with a crack like gunfire on the wall. Swing back, then smack again against the brick. An unnerving reminder that no storm has respect for borders.
No one challenged him as he passed the barrier. Only the starting drizzle had anything to say. He was already some way past the border when a figure with the look of a customs officer emerged from the doorway of the building, draped in a grey cloak that matched the sombreness of the clouds. Hidden by the foliage of the trees, the yapping dog could still be heard.
The shutter smacked against the wall again, louder this time, and echoed away through the woods. A large patch of the rendering around the window had been pared off by the shutter to reveal naked red brickwork, which glistened slightly where streaks of rain had splashed across its bruised, indurated flesh. The customs man paid no attention to the banging shutter. It was not his concern. It swung its senseless rhythm on the other side of the house. In another country. Across the border. What worried him was the sky – by now a dark uniform grey above his head, leaden with its imminent deluge. He cocked his head diffidently at the brewing storm. Blinked slightly as a raindrop caught him in the eye. And turned his gaze on the slowly diminishing form of the overdressed pedestrian in the black homburg hat.
The shutter smacked against the wall. Bang. The man in the homburg hat stopped and turned his head. Looked back just briefly at the customs house. Bang. Then again. Bang. In quick succession. But even louder now. The crack this time reverberated through the low-slung clouds, which seemed to take this as their cue. They opened the hatch and let the storm finally run its course.
The black homburg hat, already glistening wet, rolled erratically over the camber of the road and came to a halt in the gutter. The two suitcases had found their rest instantaneously beside the slumped figure. They lay now half-concealed by his coat. A small dark crater between the eyes lay exposed to the downpour. A hole quite unremarkable, except for the trickle of blood that ran a steadily dilute path down the neck and mingled with the rain. The only suggestion of life that remained in the crumpled heap was nothing more than movement created by reflections of light on the blood and rainwater coursing over the blanched skin and the folds and furls of the huge coat, where the water quickly gathered in pathetic small black reservoirs.
From the undergrowth of the trees, a mangy collied mongrel, limping heavily on one of its hind legs, trotted over to the scene and sniffed around the fur collar of the man’s coat. The customs officer blinked the rain out of his eyes and cast his gaze towards the amorphous mass that lay some 500 metres down the road. Across the border. On the other side. It had not happened on his patch. It was no concern of his. He stood in the incessant teeming downpour and stared at the body on the side of the road. Only the rain seeped a way into his consciousness. Only the water got through to him. It was cold and wet. He shivered slightly as it made its presence felt down the back of his neck. Was there anything he could have done to prevent this? Could I not go back? Frank asked, briefly surfacing again to wipe the sweat from his brow with the pillow.
That was long past. A trickle of rain ran down the neck. It felt cold. And he glanced again at the crumpled figure, wet and motionless in the road. For an instant, the soaked black bundle appeared in close-up. The right side of the face, where blood had flowed, had taken on the cold white look of marble where it had been washed clean by the rain. The haemorrhage had long since ceased. And the hole now gaped as large as life.
The irony nourished an urge to smile, and brought a sense of relief. It was a dream after all, Frank told himself. But he also knew that the soaking shirt and the trickles of water over his face told another story. He ran his fingers over the buckled bridge of his nose. Explored the unevenness of the dent. Recalled his father’s words: “Shot between the eyes at birth”. And then another familiar voice:
“Aber was tun?”
Frank was still struggling to free himself from the dream…
Uneasy pangs of conscience gave way to panic. The familiarity of the sheet-white face. Seeing suddenly that it was his mother lying there, her body covered in confetti, laid prostrate and dead by a faceless gunman who could have been prevented filled him with an unspeakable terror.
Exhausted and fearful, Frank lay there for some time not knowing what it all meant or what he should do. His eyes remained firmly shut. He felt a deep, dull throb in the back of his head. Awkwardly he reached out an arm and let his fingers grope their way over the smooth cold marble surface – until they found what they were looking for. Through the streams of wet that still poured over his face he gingerly blinked open an eye and focused it in the direction of his hand. Nearly four. His head ached, the pillow was drenched with sweat, and a peculiar smell filled the room.
He dragged himself up. Reluctant to move an inch, but letting the edge of the bed take the bulk of his weight as he rose, he managed to stumble through the narrow bedroom to the window. His head pounded with every step. Rubbing the remnants of that troubled sleep from his eyes, he parted the net curtains and peered down onto the street. It was dry, and there was no hint of rain in the clouds. The net curtains fell back into place as he turned around and caught a strong smell of time waft from their folds. He wondered how many refugees might have sought asylum here. Was it perhaps the smell of fear and persecution he detected? Or just the pheromones from innumerable steamy encounters on the worn-out springs of the bed? Whatever it was, he had to take a walk and clear his head before his dinner date with Rösti. Tucking the envelope in his wallet and his notebook in his pocket, he ventured out of the hotel.
The street outside the entrance to the railway station was full of activity, people who appeared to have somewhere to go or something important to do. He felt out of place. These were people who categorically belonged. To this extent they gave the street a definition. But the impression he had of the city now was no different from the one he had had when he arrived a few hours ago. It was still plastered with referendum posters, and it occurred to Frank that maybe all the bustle was a reflection of their excitement about the vote next day. But he sensed a profound disquiet. Perhaps it was his throbbing head compounded by the noises of city life in a foreign country. A garbled tongue that bore little relation to the German he knew and the sound of tram wheels meshing with steel track to create a persistent, whining sensation in his head. As the noise swelled, confusion and dizziness threatened to overwhelm him.
In an effort to escape, he dived down some steps outside the railway station and into an underpass that led beneath the tracks. He could hear the dull rumble of a train above him and the muffled voice of an announcer making a vain attempt to communicate. Although it seemed initially safer in this subway, Frank quickly came to realise it was the wrong place to be: his mind became disjointed, spinning with scales of noise he had never encountered before. Everything around him was bedlam. A group of oversized adolescents pushing and shoving ea
ch other to shrieks of laughter. A passenger wheeling his screeching trolley of baggage past them in the opposite direction. The cacophony was unbearable and had Frank yelping like a frightened dog. He heard the loud adolescents behind him now turn and laugh mockingly behind him. Still yelping he started to run, almost in panic, and kept going – away from the echoes of the tube he had plunged himself into – until he emerged from the subway on the other side of the station.
The fresh air helped to restore some calm. Standing at the mouth of the underpass he looked about. An utterly normal street. Foreign, but normal. And dull. A typical back-of-the-station area that owed all its character to the appearance of having been ignored for the last fifty years.
Still panting from his panic run, he waited for a tram to pass, then crossed the road. It was at that moment – as he set foot on the opposite pavement – that his sense of confusion finally lifted, as if he had suddenly emerged from a cloud of dense fog. An excited sense of discovery and a secure feeling of familiarity at one and the same time. And this was the curious thing: the shop window that seemed to smile at him as he stepped onto the pavement. It was known to him in a way he could not define. He paused at the window to examine its display of second-hand and antiquarian books in the hope he might find a clue. To his surprise many of the wares on offer were in English – middle to late Victorian illustrated books on exotic fauna and flora. On plants, birds, butterflies and other wonders of nature in far-flung corners of the Earth. But the book which attracted his attention above all others was a German book on physiognomy, whose author was as obscure to him as the subject matter. And yet it caught his eye. No, more than that. It was known to him in an intimate way that had him tingling with a warm yet strange excitement. It put him in mind of Ellen’s sister Beth. But he could not remember for the life of him why that should be.
The compulsion to enter the shop, to embrace this knowledge with all the unspent passion usually reserved for an unrequited love in some distant past, was overwhelming. Breathless with expectation, he climbed the two short steps to the door, pushed it open and was briefly startled from his trance by the insistent jangle of the bell.
An elderly lady sat at a desk in a far corner of the shop. In the dim light, he could just about make out that all her energy was concentrated on a knitting pattern. She was disturbed by Frank’s arrival, and her response was automatic.
“Grüezi,” she said. In the short time he had been in the country, the greeting had already become familiar. Frank smiled as best he could and returned the greeting in a way that plainly betrayed his origins.
“Can I help you?” she asked, instantly switching to English.
“Thank you. I’m just looking.”
“We have many English books,” she said with obvious excitement at this opportunity to put down her knitting. “Come,” she added. Laying her needles and wool carefully on the table, she led him into a narrow back room, where shelves of literature reached from wall to wall and floor to ceiling.
“Here. Some English books for you,” she said, an edge of triumph in her frail voice, and left him alone to browse. The books here were of no interest to Frank, but he was disinclined to offend the old lady. So he hung around for a few minutes in her back room, absorbing the dusty atmosphere. It was warm and stuffy. He could feel the heat rising to his head, as the dizziness and throbbing pain began to invade his senses again.
“Oh Achim, what have I done?” He heard the words ring quite distinctly through his mind. In German. Traces of comprehension, like brief clearings in the fog, flashed through his head before a net of fuzziness cast itself over his mind. The tension fastened this net so tight that his neck muscles ached to their deepest nerve cells. Beads of sweat gathered on his upper lip. In the corner of the room was a narrow staircase that led down into the cellar. Should he venture down? He knew full well what to expect. The horror that lay beneath.
No. Mopping away the sweat, he turned and retreated to the front of the shop. The old lady was back at her knitting. Without really seeing her, he could feel her look up. She was talking to him. He saw the lips move. He heard the sound of her voice. But he could not understand a word. It was impossible for him even to recognise what language she was speaking.
He moved towards the window in a desperate attempt to regain his senses. And rested there. Sweating. Gripped by an unremitting angst. Slowly the fuzziness in his head began to clear. And gradually he became aware of the old lady beside him now, touching his arm.
“Are you needing a doctor?” She was speaking English. This much he could decipher. He pointed to the book in the window display. Physiognomik by Rudolf Kassner.
“I’d like that book please,” he said. “What does it cost?”
The old woman peered over the partition between the shop and the window display. Looked back at Frank with a quizzical hesitation. Then reached over into the window bay to retrieve it.
“This book?”
Frank nodded, and she opened the front cover.
“Twenty francs.”
She could have asked a hundred. A thousand.
“You are reading German?” she asked as she took the volume back to the desk on the far side of the room.
Frank said nothing. He had no energy for any further talk.
“Ah, I understand. It is for a present,” she said. And disappeared into the back room. Had she gone down to the cellar? Did she know what was down there? Frank asked himself.
The question was answered a moment later when she returned with a sheet of wrapping paper. And with slow, arthritic fingers she proceeded to gift-wrap the book. Even in his sorely chafed state of nerves, Frank could not help wondering how she could possibly manage to knit a wearable garment when her hands were so disfigured and gnarled.
He pulled a twenty franc note from his wallet. It was only then that he noticed how the palms of his hands were sweating. He sensed the turmoil in his mind begin to stir again. And let the note drop out of his hand and onto the desk before his mind swam totally out of its depth. As he picked up the book, the voice returned, speaking a German that seemed so strange and yet so familiar.
“Oh Achim. Can you ever forgive me?” He could see them all lying there in the cellar. The two baby boys and Gertrude. Barely lit by the single naked lightbulb that hung from the ceiling.
Without another word to the old woman, Frank hurried to the door and out onto the street. Turning right to put some distance between him and the bookshop as quickly as he could, he hoped this would clear his head. After a brisk few minutes’ walk, the street opened out at a crossroads in the shadow of a church. He saw a tram approaching from the right. On the front the number 23. It read Barfüsserplatz. He had no idea where that was. But he knew what it meant. It conjured bucolic images of boys and girls romping barefoot on a village green. Intrigued by this thought, he climbed on board and enjoyed the relative calm, the gentle sway of the tram as it negotiated the corners on its journey.
But Frank’s quaint picture from a bygone age vanished when the tram reached its destination. The doors opened onto what looked like the very heart of the city. Not a hint of village green. Instead a space dominated by a large white building ahead of him as he alighted onto the pavement. It pointed skywards in a way that spoke of religious fervour and was buttressed by two red sandstone struts – they had the look of skinny legs over which the building spread its white garment like the gigantic habit of a Franciscan monk seated above the square. In the throng around him, he fancied he could still hear the sound of that voice in his head crying “Achim, oh Achim.”
The square itself was a teeming mass of people at the tram station, all waiting for their number to come up. Turning left as his feet touched the pavement, in the hope he might escape that voice, Frank followed the tramlines that continued on down a narrow street and headed deeper still into the heart of the city. The street twisted around a monumental sandstone building that instantly cast everything around it – and Frank in particular – into a dee
p sense of gloom. Cut into the side of the building as he passed was a vast gaping entrance. Perhaps built to let coaches pass in days gone by. Momentarily confused by two words at this gateway that caught his eye – Passagio proibito – Frank stopped dead in his tracks. Gaping around him like the jaws of a monster, it had the air of a gateway to Valhalla. Yet those words on the wall hinted more at the threshold to Dante’s Inferno. Whatever their provenance, wherever he was, they spoke of gloom and despair. So it came as a huge relief when he got the grim walls of the building behind him after some fifty metres and saw the street open out onto another square.
Frank’s vision blurred at the sudden sense of space. He teetered on the edge of the pavement as a gigantic kaleidoscope of shifting patterns from the buildings around the square rolled before him. He leaned against an advertising pillar for support and found himself eyeball to eyeball with a huge insect – that same poster he had seen earlier in the day. A fly crawling over a baby’s dummy. In a brief moment of clarity, it reminded him of his mission. The reason he was here. The referendum.
He caught the aroma of roast chestnuts in the air. Then his head began to spin. He sensed the advertising column roll away from him and closed his eyes in an effort to stop the motion. It helped. Slowly the undulating movement receded. And thoughts of that mission called to mind the note from the local newspaper editor. He would be looking for Frank at 7.30 that evening. Gingerly he opened his eyes and squinted at his watch. He needed to find his way back to the Hotel St. Gotthard while it was still light.
