by EQM
“Do you own two properties, Bruce?”
The look on my face and the look of my face combined to make him talk plainly, for once.
“No, man. I rent a basement.”
“Your mother didn’t leave you a house in Bellingham?”
“I rent the basement from her.”
I quit the school and went home to rest and think. I’d been the target, not Bruce. That meant everything I’d said and thought about him in my month with Grace applied as much or more to me. My last check from the school came in the mail three days later. They’d deducted the price of the stamp. I lived off it for as long as I could before signing up at another downtown ESL factory.
It took me four months to find her. I knew there was a good chance that she’d left town, but I needed to keep working anyway. So I kept an eye open for her. I volunteered for all the trial lessons I could, knowing that she’d turn up if she was still around. And finally there she was, shivering a little in the rain, with her wrist clamped hard in my hand.
“That hurts,” she said.
“What did you drug me with? I hope you used a clean needle.”
“I’m not a junkie.”
“Just a plain bitch.”
“There’s a word for guys like you, too,” she said. I let go of her wrist. She didn’t run. I indicated a coffee shop and she nodded. I followed her in. She was wearing a turquoise capelike thing and she still walked the same way. She paid for the espresso.
“What was in the needle?” I asked. She told me. I couldn’t pronounce what she said when I repeated it back to her, and she laughed.
“Real funny. I just wanted to know what it was that almost killed me.” She stopped sipping and looked at me. I exaggerated my allergic symptoms in a description of that morning, adding in some shortness of breath and vomiting. “Could have died. Are you going to give me my money back?”
“Yes. And you know I didn’t mean that to happen.”
“Yeah, well, tell my lungs. You’re just going to give me the money, no trouble?”
“If I don’t I guess you’ll just try to make my life hell.”
“Good guess.”
She took a sip and undid the one large button on her cape. Underneath was a black silk top with a silly ruffled center. There was nothing ashamed about her.
“Why didn’t you get out of town?” I asked. “You had enough cash.”
“I was going to wait awhile, set up my business, then give you a call. I thought you’d be more interested once you’d seen what—”
I laughed, loudly enough to call attention from other people. They lost interest quickly, as people do. “Once you’d near-killed me and stolen my savings?”
She looked to the side, with the expression of someone who knows she won’t be understood, no matter what she says. It was a face I made at students to make them try harder.
“I’ve been saving seed money for a school. Teachers, students, a full ESL outfit. You said it yourself: Overcharging students and underpaying teachers is an easier way of stealing. Before you said that, I was just taking money from people and putting it away, for nothing. Retirement. It was empty stealing. But I took your money and your idea to make it into something. I was going to get in contact with you when you weren’t upset with me anymore. I thought you’d make fun of the idea if I just told you.” Her face was earnest, her voice caffeine- and adrenaline-infused. It took some effort to laugh in her face again, but I did.
We walked to her bank in silence and went to her deposit box in the company of a teller. The room was caged and marble. The teller left the room as Grace was opening the lid of the box. It wasn’t quite full.
“You can take your money now, or you can stay with me and be part of my school,” she said. I laughed, savoring the cold aluminum echo of the sound coming back from the walls at us.
“It’s a cute plan, I have to say. But I don't really think we have the basis for a business relationship, do we? Trust and all that.”
“Aren’t you sick of doing all of this?” She made a circling motion around the deposit box. “It’s disgusting.”
“What you do is definitely disgusting, Grace. I’d like to think I’m a little more in the gray than you are.”
“You’re not.”
“Give me my eight thousand and you can win the argument.”
Grace angrily doled out the cash and popped a bonus thousand on top. “For medical expenses,” she said.
“Thanks,” I said, tossing her thousand back in her box. I started walking out, putting the wad of bills into my bag. She stopped me. There was a lilt and softness in her voice this time, even a trace of the accent that she put on in class.
“I just need things to end on a better note than this,” she said. “If they have to end at all.”
“Why would I want to spend another second with you?”
“I told you, because of the school. I need you for this. It was your idea, and I trust you, and I want you to forgive me, at least.” Her voice was getting louder, in danger of being overheard. “What do you need to trust me? What?”
“A lobotomy?”
Grace laughed even though she didn’t want to. That’s the best kind of laugh to get. “How about a key to this box?” she asked.
“For what?”
“So you know that I trust you, absolutely. That has to mean something.” Her eyes glossed up a little, like she wanted to believe that. Like she needed me to say yes so we could both believe it.
Grace signed a few papers upstairs at one of the tellers, and I did the same while she chatted on her cell phone by the bank doors. It was raining harder than before, so I took someone’s enormous umbrella from the steel cylinder by the door. It covered both of us as we walked back to her apartment. It certainly wasn’t the glass tower that she’d had when we’d been together. Although, I thought, we were technically together again, at least for the next few hours. Until I could go out for a beer run that would take me back to the bank before closing time.
“This is kinda small compared to my last place,” Grace said, apologetically. “That actually belonged to an old teacher.”
“Where is he now?”
“Japan. He’s back soon. Said I could use his place while he was off.”
“Oh,” I said, feeling jealous despite myself. I suspected that I wasn’t the only exception to her method of taking money and goods off guys without actually sleeping with them.
We walked through the lobby and up to her door. Instead of opening the door, though, Grace knocked.
“Who’s in there?” I asked her. She smiled and took a step to the side. The door opened to reveal Bruce, in all his paunchy glory. He slammed a fist into my face before I had a chance to laugh. It wasn’t much of a blow, but it was enough to knock me off balance and tilt me into the back wall of the hallway, where my head smacked into the fire alarm. It didn’t go off, but my legs gave out as I felt a hot stream start down my neck from the rip in my scalp.
“I know what you do, you bastard,” Bruce said, exultant that his punch had had such a dramatic effect. Grace was staring at the streak of blood on the wall, a little shocked, but not so shocked that she couldn’t shake it off in a couple of seconds and relieve me of the key and my cash, once again. Bruce pulled me up and dragged me outside before any neighbors could come into the hall. He slumped me against a potted plant just outside the front doors of the place, and both he and Grace stooped down to talk to me.
“Is he still conscious?” asked Grace, with sweetly alarmed concern.
“Don’t worry, he’s fine. Look, his eyes keep moving. Open them all the way, creep, you’re scaring Grace.” He sounded plenty scared himself, now that the rush of bringing down a younger man had faded a bit. I opened my eyes to oblige him and to take some final looks at Grace.
“She called me from the bank to tell me what you were up to. And I’ve known about your filthy life for a while, now. We’re going up to Bellingham for the weekend. And when we get back, I’m go
nna call the cops on you.” Grace prodded his shoulder and shook her head.
“I mean, I’m gonna call them if you don’t stay away from my apartment and—” Bruce kept on babbling out qualifiers. I didn’t care. I’d had enough of this job, and it seemed that my sense of people was fading as quickly as my last wisps of consciousness. I kept my eyes on Grace while he babbled on, taking all the warning and all the reward I needed from her stare. I shut my eyes, knowing at least that I’d wake up again soon enough, and that she’d be gone.
Copyright © 2010 Naben Ruthnum
Passport to Crime
Passport to Crime
DEATH ON THE MOUNTAIN
By Nessa Altura
Nessa Altura, who lives in Southern Germany, began writing fiction in 2000. Her publications since then have included two volumes of short fiction, many stories for anthologies, and the novel Die 13 ...
Top of Passport to Crime
Department of First Stories
Passport to Crime
DEATH ON THE MOUNTAIN
By Nessa Altura
Nessa Altura, who lives in Southern Germany, began writing fiction in 2000. Her publications since then have included two volumes of short fiction, many stories for anthologies, and the novel Die 13 Klasse (Grade 13). She is a recipient of the Friedrich Glauser prize for short crime fiction and the short story prize of Historica, the annual meeting of Quo Vadis, a group of historical writers. Since 2009 she has also authored a popular blog featuring observations and commentary on the literary market.
Translated from the German by Mary Tannert.
Death on the mountain. Good grief, I can think of all kinds of things! You could freeze in a ski lift that someone shut down too soon, starve in a crevasse. Maybe someone cuts your mountaineering rope by accident. Or you drown in a dead-ice hole or get struck by lightning, or torn apart by a Canadian grizzly ...
I racked my brains wondering how to get rid of Anton, or maybe I should say Bud, because that’s what everybody calls him. He and his jealousy were driving me crazy. But I couldn’t think of anything that was workable. He’s too fat to climb mountains, too lazy to ski, he’s afraid of thunderstorms, and we don’t have grizzlies here. Nothing dangerous wandering around this valley as far as you can see.
At least it’s winter, winter in the mountains. For the tourists that means skiing and dancing, for Bud it means schnapps and beer and schnapps and television—and questions: Where’ve you been? Why are you so late? Where were you, exactly? Why? and Who else was there? I tell you, I can’t take it anymore.
Death on the mountain. It’d be the right way to go, but how? I mean, I don’t want to get caught.
I’ll kill you, I tell him as we’re walking home from the pub. It’s snowing a little and my new boots are getting an ugly watermark from the slush. Bud’s humming the latest winter hit, a pop song you’d have to be stupid to like. But he doesn’t notice things like that.
Yeah? he just says. Now how are you gonna do that?
Wait and see, I answer.
He nods. Doesn’t give it a second thought. Doesn’t take me seriously. It’s always been like that. Ever since our parents decided we’re a couple, he’s treated me as if we were already married. Just another cow in the barn. One to worry about when she moos, but not before. Or after.
I’ll kill him, I tell Elli. She’s my best friend, Elli from Hagnerhof. She colors her hair this brassy red, because in the village they all say that red hair is a sign of passion. I wonder whether that’s true.
Not much of a loss there, she just says. She had better luck with her Karl, I have to admit.
What I want most is to kill him, I tell my mother, but she just grins and says she’d like to do that to my dad sometimes too. Not really, of course, just in her mind.
You see how it is, nobody here takes me seriously. Out there in the world it might be different, but I’ll never get there if it’s up to Bud and my parents. And I want to leave, so Bud’s gotta go. Listening to the tourists, you can tell where things are happening: Munich, Berlin, Hamburg. You know, where what counts is cities, action, electric lights day and night. Not just stars and old mountains like here.
You just wait, something’s gonna happen around here, I tell Alfons. He’s our village policeman. We went to school together.
Like what? he asks, curious.
Bud, I say in a meaningful voice. Bud’s number is up. Soon.
But he just laughs and laughs, pounds on my shoulder and says, You’d like that, huh?
Yeah, I would. A Murder Is Announced, right? That’s the name of a book I read once and really liked. Sometimes I remember expressions because they’re so good. Or true. But how do I do it?
All of a sudden, I know how. I’m not sure it’ll work, but it’s worth a try. If it doesn’t work, I’ll think of something else. I mean, I’ve got plenty of time. Winters are long here in the valley even though the afternoon sun’s already warm. It melts the snow on the roof and makes the ice water drip. The water collects in the gutters and spills over the edge, a little at a time, and at night, when the temperature falls, icicles form over the door. Long ones.
I take a look at a huge stalactite and all of a sudden it looks like a sword to me. A sword that could ram itself into Bud’s neck. Or the neck of a bull. Like with the toreros in Spain. One, two, you’re dead! And then they drag the bull through the sawdust out of the arena. Well, okay, we don’t have to go that far, I’d be satisfied with a big zinc coffin for Bud.
And while I’m sitting there imagining that, the man himself comes home with a bunch of brochures from the travel agent.
Taking a trip? I ask.
Africa, he says, Africa’d be nice. Get outta this valley for once, go see some natives, that’d be about right. When winter’s over and the tourists are gone, I can be a tourist myself.
I don’t know what to say. Bud a tourist? Bud and natives? That’d be something new. But he probably doesn’t mean native men, he probably means native women, the kind who’ve got twice as much cleavage as me, or more. I’ve seen the wildest photos. But I like the idea anyway. It’d be something completely different: sun, palm trees, and beaches instead of mountain pines and rocks and snow. So I say I think that’s fine. So does my mother, who’s already worried we’ll never make it to the altar. She’s probably thinking that a vacation—even if it’s the kind she’s only ever heard about—will fix things.
What I really want is to go alone. We book the trip, then he dies, and I leave right after the funeral. Nobody’d understand, but I’d just act like I’m crazy with grief, you know. I don’t think they’d hold it against me. Well, maybe Bud’s parents, but I don’t care about them. The others would say, Poor girl, she needs a change of scenery after a loss like that. Change of scenery? Change of universe is more like it! For good! I’d practice in Africa, far away, I’d work on it until I could do it. Be a city girl. Who just takes ski trips now and then to villages like the one we live in.
That week I work on the icicle, pouring water on it from the attic window, a little at a time. It gets bigger and bigger. There’s a whole row of them, big ones and little ones, and one big fat one. That’ll be the one. Underneath it, in the snow, I bury a bottle of champagne. That’ll be a surprise for Bud. He usually only drinks beer and schnapps. And when he bends over ... I just have to work out how to get the icicle to break off when I want it to. I’m not sure yet how to manage that, but it’s been fun all the same just making it—it’s a nice change from foremilking a cow, even if the form’s pretty much the same.
But it all went wrong, I should have known it would. The moon was bright and I do the romantic bit, Bud’s already had a few. I wore this sweater I can push down over one shoulder, I mean, you can’t skimp on the skin with a plan like mine. I’d already loosened the icicle, then I put on some music and Bud staggers out and bends over for the champagne I promised him, and I grab the broom I left next to the door and poke at the icicle and it breaks off with a big crack and takes
half the rusty old gutter with it—and whizzes down into the snow right next to Bud.
As clean as a sword, it was. Except it hit the wrong target. Instead of Bud’s fat, warm body, it speared the cold white ground, damn it all.
That coulda killed me, said Bud, more amazed than scared.
Don’t I know it! I think, and bite my fist in sheer rage.
The next morning, it snows. The really deep snow gets here late, too late, the season’s almost over. Wasn’t much this year, or last year either. It makes us mad: Nature never gives us a break and all the technology in the world never helps. First we got that new ski lift that can transport sixty people a minute, and then the snow never came. Then they brought in snow cannons, and now it never gets cold enough. And we’re left holding the bag. Always the losers. The ones who added new guest rooms, they’re scared stiff they can’t pay their mortgages.
And I’m longing for the light, for color, for the pace of life to pick up, for, for ... for the lightness of being. You can’t say that here, but you can think it. I read a lot, see, my library card’s already all creased and gray.
Creased and gray like the landscape out there. Old snow, new snow, stupid snow that comes much too late. Snow, that’s the first thing I think when I wake up in the morning, hungover and with a big hickey on my neck. Very embarrassing, but that’s Bud’s idea of passion.
The snow’ll do it. Rescue all of us, and me in particular. It’s gotta be good for something if it turns up so late.
You just have to pack it right. Snow’s got a lot of mass, it doesn’t have to hit a target like an icicle. It’s gotta be simpler than that. If it keeps on snowing ... Everybody knows there are avalanches sometimes from our old roof. There’s even a sign up to warn people, but nobody looks at it, Bud least of all. But now, now that a piece of the gutter’s gone ... Because that gutter held it back, all the snow.
I’ll rake it all down tomorrow, Bud promises Dad, playing the son-in-law he wants to be. That’s because we’ve got a big farm and I’m an only child. Yes, fine, says Dad, and I think, No you won’t, I’ll make sure you don’t. It’s easy to distract Bud if you know how. So the day goes by and it keeps on snowing. In April!
