‘Think about it. It’s insane.’ He touches her again.
‘Clear off, and stay out of my sight!’
And knows: it was the other way around. She cleared off. And him staying out her sight is her punishment.
His voice leaves her with the pain she deserves. ‘If it makes it easier for you.’
The door closes. Her heart thumps as if it isn’t in her chest but somewhere a long way away, a speeding metronome that she wants to throw out of the window to make everything quiet again.
It’s what he’s been thinking for five years.
That I cast him aside like a bag of rubbish.
She struggles to the bathroom and stands under the ice-cold shower until her skin is so numb that she no longer feels the water.
The fifth virtue: Shin. Truth and truthfulness.
Telling Niko that she loves him.
Too late.
Wet, her teeth chattering, she sits down on the bed. She plugs her headphones into her mobile phone and chooses the app that she uses for her diary. The computer voice reads:
‘23 April. What happened to me during the second when I opened my eyes in hospital?’
Skip.
‘26 June. Which dress did Niko like me to wear?’
Skip.
‘11 July. Did I hold that woman’s hand in the Hotel Aralsk in Moscow? Was it cold? Did she say anything? Did she have parents, siblings, a husband, children?’
Skip.
‘13 July. Why was I sent to Moscow? I was tailing Ilya Nikulin. But why me? I was only twenty-five, I wasn’t even in the Department yet. Why was I given that mission?’
‘1 August. Where was my cat’s favourite place? The sofa? No, Marlowe wasn’t my cat. He looked after me. Did he sleep curled up in my right arm or my left? Did he like liverwurst?’
Skip.
‘15 September. Did my mother cry when she left? Did I?’
Skip.
‘8 October. Did it rain the day my father died? What did his favourite shirt smell like when I buried my face in it? Did I even do that, or was it just a dream?’
Skip.
‘9 October. My first car was blue.’
Skip.
‘3 November. What colour was my first car?’
Skip.
‘2 December. Back to Barcelona. The most important questions: how long did I spend in the warehouse? What happened during that time? What state was Niko in? Did he touch me? Did I touch him? Did we speak? What did we say? Why didn’t I try to eliminate Holm? Why did I flee, leaving Niko behind? Why didn’t I call the MEK, why didn’t I call an ambulance?’
Aaron turns the radio up full, the television, ignores the hammering on the wall, wants to numb herself, erase her own presence.
Exhaustion hits her like a blow to the face. Her eyes miss the rhythm of day and night. Some blind people don’t care, but she constantly feels jetlagged. At first she was awake for seventy hours at a stretch and then slept for twenty.
Last night: not a second.
She rummages in her handbag, and doesn’t immediately find the tube of stimulants that she hates, she panics, finds it, loses it, trembling, creeps around on the carpet, reaches for the pills, feels two, tries to swallow them, her mouth is dry.
8
He stands in the dark looking across the street to the hotel room. He is naked to the waist, every muscle tattooed, and every tattoo a memory of a pain. He spent a year or two in Sofia and carried out three or four murders for the Bozhkov clan, without any fuss. The money was nice, enough for him to spend a few years in the Antilles, in the house by the sea, which meant nothing to him, just as nothing that he doesn’t carry under his skin means anything to him. He came back to Europe when he thought his brother had spent long enough atoning for his error. When Aaron’s time in the first circle of hell was coming to an end. During his life he’s killed forty or fifty or sixty people, including the man and woman who are lying by the door because he wanted to see Aaron this evening. If she had another hotel room on another floor, it would have been another flat. She has drawn the curtains, but the night-view goggles receive her thermal profile. She sits on the bed with her face buried in her hands and thinks she knows what loss is. He could kill her now, just as he could have killed her at any time. In Wiesbaden he followed her every step for three months. In the cinema he sat next to her at the night-time screening, would only have needed to reach out his hand. She was watching Taxi Driver. Of course. Travis Bickle comes back from Vietnam, and the sleeplessness and loneliness hammer like drills in his head. What would have happened if Bickle had never found the little prostitute? Would he have become a one-man slaughterhouse? How romantic. He wasn’t concerned with saving the girl. She was interchangeable. He was just looking for an excuse to kill, he would have found other targets. But then he wouldn’t have been celebrated as a hero. Is that what fascinates Aaron, the ridiculous happy ending? No, it’s the theme of a man running amok. The Samurai knew: only someone in a hopeless, desperate state, far beyond reason, can do great things. The real meaning of people running amok is scattered among the piles of corpses in Blacksburg, Littleton, Erfurt, Utøya. In fact it means that an extremely determined warrior is trying to turn a lost battle around with a single death-defying deed. That would have been worthy of a Samurai, and would have brought healing for Aaron. That is what she longs for. To give meaning to her shattered life by sacrificing herself. She certainly tells her father about that, at his grave in Sankt Augustin. Would he understand? Hardly. Jörg Aaron always coldly calculated the risk: he was a mathematician of killing. He lacked a motivation like Boenisch’s basement, and that was what distinguished him from his daughter. What would he think about the fact that she goes into every training session as if it were a requiem mass? Aaron trains for him, the man who would only need to reach out his hand. She knows it, he knows it. It was surprising that she managed to escape in Barcelona. In the tunnel he had the advantage; she is left-handed, but she had to fire with her right hand, her injured side, which was why she could never be as fast as him. And yet a blink of an eye had been crucial. She had her chance, now she’s no longer an adversary. For five years he left room for the last tattoo. He feels it over his heart. Aaron will feel it too. He will accept her sacrifice.
9
At about eight o’clock Kleff and Rogge take her to the shooting range where Pavlik is celebrating his birthday. On the way the two men exchange only a few words, but Aaron can hear how glad they are that she’s decided to go.
Boys’ nights out are the best thing.
‘How’s he getting on with Demirci?’ she asks.
Rogge laughs. ‘She’s stiffer than a two-day-old corpse. But Pavlik will crack her.’
‘He recently brought in a goldfish bowl and put it casually on the conference table,’ Kleff says. ‘There was a crab in it. Great brute of a thing; he wanted to see how Demirci would react. She just kept going and didn’t say a word.’
‘But the look on her face!’ Rogge giggles. ‘Pavlik says he’s going to put a stuffed fox on the table next time.’
Aaron laughs too. Typical Pavlik.
She understands the men. They want to know who they’re risking everything for. Anyone who wants to lead them has to be a part of it. Like her old boss. Irish pub, barbecues at his house, the whole troop, full to the rafters. He went up to everyone and clapped them on the shoulder. Without you it would all be a load of crap – Nice girlfriend you’ve got, how’s that working out for you? – Take a few days off – Aaron, you need to eat more. And get some sleep.
He was informal with them, as they were with him. Before he took over the Department, he had been a commander with the SEK, the special unit, and before that he was an undercover agent with the BKA. There was no situation that he hadn’t experienced himself. He never demanded the impossible of them.
Only the almost impossible.
If one of them took a bullet, her boss went to the members and talked to them for a long time. He didn’t just
share in their grief, he grieved himself. He let them cry and he cried along with them. In the Department he summoned them all together, apart from the ones who were on missions, and told them he was shutting up shop for a week. One of their comrades was dead. They had to take a break. And if during that week the minister responsible wanted to use the Department, he could kiss his fat arse.
He held the fort himself and didn’t waste a word on the subject.
In Barcelona he sat by her bedside twice. On the first day and then again a week later, after he had read the report from Internal Affairs. He had some schnapps with her, which they drank from tooth mugs, and he growled that he’d thrown the useless papers in the bin. He was like her father in many respects.
By way of goodbye he kissed her on the forehead. ‘You know what I’ve always admired most about you? That you know the difference between right and wrong. You’re a policewoman, you’ve never been anything else and you never will be.’
She couldn’t accept that at the time, although she came to accept it later.
He’s now enjoying his retirement in Sweden and finally had time for his hobby, deep-sea fishing. When Aaron first started with the BKA he sent her a letter. In Braille. She read it five times. Inan Demirci has a lot to learn.
*
There’s music at the shooting range, a crowd of people. Hanging in the air is the best smell in the world, which Aaron can’t bear any more, shots fired from guns freshly cleaned with Ballistol.
Here they have drunk, partied, grieved.
Pavlik hugs her.
‘I haven’t got you a present,’ she says, embarrassed.
‘Yes you have. And in such a pretty package. You’re my guest of honour.’ He whispers: ‘That was some stunt you pulled off at the hotel.’
‘He broke two of my ribs.’
‘Serves you right.’ Pavlik is dragged away, calls, ‘Got to go, see you in a bit!’
‘Come and sit with me.’ Demirci. ‘I’ll do this.’ She is speaking to Kleff and Rogge. Aaron feels as if she’s been ambushed, she doesn’t feel like seeing Demirci.
The fourth virtue of Bushidō: Rei. Politeness.
Demirci guides Aaron to a table in a tolerably quiet corner. ‘Would you like something to eat?’
‘What is there?’
‘Pasta salad and bratwurst, pasta salad and meatballs, pasta salad and steak.’
‘Bratwurst. And a beer.’
Aaron hears the laugh that she would recognize among a million others. Warm, a belly laugh, relaxed. He’s nearby.
She shovels the food hungrily down. Blind people love eating, everything tastes more intense. But the food has to be either delicious or dreadful, nothing in between. She asks Demirci for seconds. The pasta salad was made by Sandra, it tastes of chopped onion, music from the boom box in the kitchen, white wine spritzer, a bit of a chat, eBay shopping, a giggle.
She eats the bratwursts with her fingers.
*
Ten things that Aaron likes to touch:
snow
pine cones
ice-cold beer bottles
damp potting compost
warm fur
bratwursts
small hands
mother-of-pearl buttons
guns
her painting
*
She pushes her plate away, slips a Marlboro from the pack, snaps open her Dupont and notices Pavlik’s boss moving her chair.
‘It’s no smoking in here,’ Demirci says.
‘When did you give up?’
‘Is it that obvious?’
‘Otherwise you’d have moved your chair away rather than closer.’
‘Can I have one?’
When Demirci takes her first drag Aaron knows what she is feeling. The pure happiness with which she fills her lungs, the disappointment at having done it, the greed of smoking the cigarette all the way down to the filter.
Every few minutes someone comes and pats Aaron, strokes her arm. It’s me, Dobeck – Hi, Krupp here – Krampe – Nowak – Fricke – Great that you’re here! I’ve missed you! You’re looking great! Terrific dress!
Butz stays a bit longer. He stands next to her with his hand resting gently on her shoulder, so that she knows he’s there. Their connection needs no words. Before he goes, he kisses her on the forehead.
No one speaks to Demirci.
The third virtue: Omoiyari. Empathy.
‘You’re wondering why Pavlik invited you. If you think it’s because you’re his boss, you’re wrong.’
‘Are you sure you’re blind?’
‘He’s worried. It’s time for you to get on with the lads. Soon we’ll be joined by one of them, because Pavlik has seen that I’m the only one talking to you. Don’t talk about work. Say something nice. Perhaps: “I bet twenty Euros that you’re in the top five in the shooting competition.” And don’t call them “Mr”. Their surname’s enough.’
‘Why?’
‘Because that’s what they need.’
Silence for five drags. Then Demirci says: ‘I met your father once.’
‘Really?’
‘I come from a small town, Babenhausen, you won’t know it. My father was a tailor, he spent everything he earned on my training. When he got German citizenship that was very important for him. Jürgen Schumann, the pilot of the Landshut, that plane that was hijacked in Mogadishu, lived a street away and was one of my father’s customers. My father always puts flowers on his grave on the anniversary of his death. He says: “Mr Schumann was a hero.” I went with him once. Your father was standing there. At police academy I wrote a paper about him. They met quite often by the grave. My father introduced yours as an “old flying colleague” of Schumann’s. He didn’t know who Jörg Aaron was, what he had done in Mogadishu. Your father didn’t mind. But he talked to my father as if talking to a friend. I was very struck by that.’
All of a sudden Aaron is glad that she’s sitting with Demirci.
A chair is pulled up. Fricke. ‘So, is Aaron texting you?’
Of course Pavlik had to send him. Fricke is the joker of the squad. Eventually he will laugh about his own death. For five minutes Aaron hears Demirci trying to relax, making a real effort and not doing too badly.
Fricke nudges her. ‘I’ve got one for you: if a blind guy and a paralyzed guy are playing football, the paralysed guy always wins. Why’s that?’
‘He shouts, “Goal!”’ she grins.
‘Hi, Jenny.’
Over the years she has wondered so often what it would be like to meet up again with Sandra, her best girlfriend. Aaron was worried that she would tell her off for not getting in touch, for leaving her behind without a word, just the letter that bore only two words: please understand.
But now everything’s very simple.
She leans her head against Sandra’s, remembers the evenings she spent with her and Pavlik, her family, the things she was able to take for granted, the twins she used to play hide and seek with, even though she didn’t need to hide because she was perfectly at home.
*
Most of the men in the Department are married. That’s how they want it, they seek out people with a settled lifestyle: guys who are self-contained and can soberly calculate a risk. Aaron has barely seen their wives, let alone got to know them. They were kept away, they weren’t supposed to know exactly what their husbands did, and they didn’t want to either. It was better for everyone that way.
Sandra is different. When she and Pavlik fell in love she was nineteen, he was twenty-three and still a paratrooper. She was the reason he joined the police; she didn’t want to spend the rest of her life catching the odd weekend with a soldier. From the very first she made it clear that she would share everything with him, otherwise they could call it a day there and then. She was right for him and he was right for her. She didn’t have the twins until she was thirty – before then her job as a goldsmith was important to her. Later she said to Aaron: ‘You’ve got to live your life before you
do anything else.’ Whatever her husband brought home, she took it from him and locked it away.
They were always a team.
After Pavlik’s motorcycle accident his boss didn’t think for a moment about transferring him. He was too important. But Sandra knew she wouldn’t have a minute’s peace until she was sure that his body was working perfectly. She gave him six months, then she wanted him to fight with Aaron.
He was in the garden of their terraced house in Lichterfelde, where the hedges were too high for the neighbours to peer in. Sandra had waited until the twins were off on a school trip. She made Aaron promise not to go easy on her husband. Pavlik and she made no concessions to each other; they acted like enemies. He was as quick as ever. His lower-leg prosthesis worried Aaron, particularly when he had to propel himself with his feet, and she was aware of how painful it was for him to jump. They were off the same assembly line. At the end they knelt in front of each other for several minutes and couldn’t speak. Even Aaron’s hair hurt. Sandra threw them raw lamb cutlets. They drank schnapps and played Scrabble.
*
In the shooting range they’re a match for each other. ‘Your pasta salad is the best,’ Aaron says and wipes the tears away. Sandra sobs as well. ‘And no one tucks in like you do! Oh yeah, did Ulf tell you?’
‘What?’
‘We had another girl. Last February.’
‘No way!’
‘No, really. Amazing. At forty-five.’
‘What did you call her?’
‘Guess.’
Aaron takes a minute to think. Tears fill her eyes again; she hugs Sandra, who is blubbing too. ‘I’ll be damned!’ It’s all she can say.
‘What sissies we are!’ Sandra manages to say.
They laugh and cry, inseparable.
*
Once they argued. When Aaron confided in Sandra that she was with Niko. Sandra was outraged. Aaron was making a mistake, she told her.
Why?
Niko wasn’t good for her, that was why! ‘He’s not even your type!’
At that point Aaron got furious too. A little time before that she had told her father about herself and Niko. His reaction had been similar, but less violent. Why did everyone think they knew what was good for her and what wasn’t? Sandra replied that Niko lived in the overtaking lane, always with his foot to the floor. How long was that going to work out?
In the Dark Page 10
