by Peter Temple
About Jews? People said things. But the Nazis, we had contempt for their rubbish. We all did. The people we mixed with. The old merchant families. We had all travelled, you see, we were…worldly, I suppose that’s the word. ‘That Man’, that’s what we called Hitler. That Man. A vulgar person.They were all vulgar, the women were all…well, I shouldn’t. He was Austrian too, not German.
Moritz. What happened to him?
I remember when you came to this house the first time. Lucas was quiet, he didn’t move from your mother and you just ran around madly and Einspenner was so taken with you, she took you into the kitchen and showed you the cellar… Before he went to bed, Anselm made a cheese omelette, ate it with toasted five-day-old bread. He wasn’t hungry, just a duty the mind owed the body. In the study, he saw the American Defense Secretary on television. He was behind a desk, Michael Denoon, a hard-faced man, boxer’s scars on his jaw and right cheekbone. Through the pancake, the lights caught them, thin lines where skin and flesh had been jammed against bone and split open. But his nose was straight, no one had got through to his nose.
A CNN woman came on, lots of hair, eyes wide open, and a big cone-shaped mouth. She said:
Pressure on US Defense Secretary Michael Denoon to enter the presidential race intensified today when Newsweek reported that an informal poll showed 155 of 222 Republican members of the House of Representatives would support Denoon’s candidacy.
Republican Senator Robert Gurner is thought to be unelectable since the disclosure three days ago of his two-year homosexual relationship with New York actor Lawrence Wellman.
Denoon again. He put his head to one side, ran a hand across his hair, modest, straightened, looked at the camera.
Of course I’m deeply honoured by this expression of confidence by people who speak for millions of ordinary Americans. I’m humbled too. This nation bears deep wounds from the great sacrifices it has made in faraway places to fight evil and promote freedom and democracy. Now we need calm, peace and prosperity. We need to renew ourselves, to put America first, to see clearly our place in the world. But whether I am fit to take up this great challenge is a matter for long and careful thought.
Anselm went to bed and thought about America. He tried to remember what it had been like to feel wholly American, to look at the world as an American. He knew he had once but he could not recapture it. Over the years, moving from war to war, horror to horror, his nationality had been bled from him. The more he saw of the world’s conflicts, of people dead, wounded, mutilated, raped, dispossessed of what little they had, the more unreal America seemed, the more the cruel naivete of America embarrassed him. That was partly why he was drawn to Kaskis. Kaskis didn’t expect America to behave sensibly and so he wasn’t disappointed when it didn’t. He remembered sitting in a dark bar in San Francisco with Kaskis. It was the mid-1980s. He was about to go to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Kaskis had just come back.
‘The CIA wants to fight this one to the last dead Afghan,’ Kaskis said. ‘More CIA in Islamabad than in fucking Langley. Bill Casey’s got this hick from Texas, he’s the point in Congress. The prick’s been up in the hills hanging out with the mojahedin. He thinks we give them the right stuff we can do a reverse Vietnam. And for nickels and dimes. This time we stay at home and our proxies kill Russians. Lots of Russians. Fifty-eight thousand would be a nice number.’
Kaskis had stubbed out his cigarette, fished for another. ‘I weep for my fucking country,’ he said. ‘Everywhere we go we sow dragon’s teeth.’
On the long slope towards sleep, he saw Kaskis, saw his face as he was taken away, the look back, the lift of his dark-stubbled chin, the wink. Anselm tried to shake the image away, dislodge it, but it clung, tenacious.
The dark eyes of Kaskis, the flash of his teeth. In all of it, Kaskis had never shown a sign of fear.
Before dawn, Anselm woke in a foetal clutch, straightened his body and lay on his back, stretched his arms and legs. I haven’t woken myself by crying out loud for a while, he thought. I haven’t woken wet with sweat to find tears on my face.
15
…LONDON…
The man on the front page of the newspaper was overweight, middle-aged, naked. He was looking at the camera, standing, flabby. Sagging teats, hairy belly out, engaged in a sexual act with someone lying face down. The detail had been obscured. A big headline said:
WELL, I’LL BE
BUGGERED,
MR BRECHAN!
Niemand took the newspaper from the next table when he sat down with his breakfast on a styrofoam tray. The story was about a politician called Brechan, filmed having sex with someone called Gary. Gary was quoted as saying: ‘Look about fifteen, don’t I? That’s why they like me. I’m twenty-two. Believe that? Anyway, Angus passed me on to this other bloke. Not a clue till I saw him on telly. Oh my god, I said to…’ Niemand ate the scrambled eggs, powdered eggs, and the small tasteless meat patty and the piece of extruded bacon. He didn’t mind food like this. It was assembly-line cooking, reasonably clean. They couldn’t risk people getting ill. Counter-productive. Easier to be hygienic. Just like the military.
He turned the page. The story went on. Three politicians were involved but the others weren’t named. The writer said they would be: tomorrow.
The writer’s name was Caroline Wishart. There was a picture of her above her byline. She had long hair and her nostrils were pinched as if she were drawing a big breath, sucking in air. He sat and thought, eyes on the street. London was much dirtier than he remembered, more poor people, more junkies.
A face. Inches away, beyond the glass, bulging hyperthyroid eyes stared at him, a woman in a knitted hat, dirt marks on her face, ash smears, darker marks. She tapped on the glass, a hand in a cotton gardening glove with its fingers cut off at the second joint.
Niemand looked away. The woman tapped again, angrily, then gave up. He watched her go. Her crammed plastic bag was splitting. Soon her possessions would begin to fall out, just more rubbish on the street.
He couldn’t deal with Kennex Imports. They wouldn’t send a fat and a slow the next time. He was well ahead, he had Shawn’s money. He should cut his losses, take a ferry to France, Holland, Belgium, anywhere, post the tape to a newspaper or a television station.
But he didn’t like being thought of as something they could simply squash, a capsule of blood, like a tick. They had tried to get the tape for nothing. Next to nothing. The price of hiring a fat and a slow.
What was the tape worth?
He found the newspaper’s telephone number in the middle of the paper, on the opinion page. They kept him on hold for a long time.
He had to listen to a news radio station. Then she came on.
‘Caroline Wishart,’ she said, a voice like the women on English television, the newsreaders who could talk without moving their lips.
He used his Glasgow accent again. ‘I’ve got something that will interest you,’ he said. ‘A film. Much more important than that article today.’
‘Really,’ she said, dry. ‘I get a lot of calls like this.’
‘A massacre in Africa.’
‘A lot of that goes on.’
‘Soldiers killing civilians.’
‘What, the Congo? Burundi?’
‘No. White soldiers. Americans.’
‘American soldiers killing civilians in Africa? Somalia?’
‘No. This is…it’s like an execution.’
‘You’ve got a film?’
‘Yes.’
‘What’s your name?’
‘Doesn’t matter. Just give me five minutes of your time.’
He heard her sigh. ‘You’ll have to come here. Not today, today’s impossible.’
‘Has to be today.’
‘Are you, ah, offering this film for sale?’
‘Twenty thousand pounds.’
Caroline Harris laughed. ‘I don’t think you’ve come to the right place.’
‘See it and decide,’ said Niemand.
&nbs
p; She laughed again. ‘Are you a crank? No, don’t answer that. Let me see, ah…twelve noon.’
She gave him the address. ‘Tell reception you’ve got an appointment. Give me a name.’
‘Mackie,’ he said, seeing in his mind’s eye the little redheaded killer, the empty blue eyes, the big freckles. ‘Bob Mackie.’
16
…HAMBURG…
Anselm sat in the driver’s seat of the Mercedes and watched the ferry heading for the landing. It was a windy day, tiny whitecaps on the water, windsurfers out, three of them, insouciant, skidding over the cold lake on a broad reach.
‘Noisy,’ Tilders said. ‘May not work.’ He had a scope suspended from roof brackets trained on the boat. It was an English instrument made for military use with an image-stabilised lens, 80x magnification. A small LCD colour monitor sat on the console. He fiddled with the plug in his ear. Its cord ran to a black box on his lap.
They had nailed Serrano inside the hotel. He was alone, bodyguard no longer needed. In the lobby, a frail-looking old man crossed his path, stumbled and fell. For a moment, it looked as if Serrano was going to walk around him, then he bent down, put out a helping hand. The old man got up shakily, leaned on Serrano for a few seconds, thanked him profusely. Serrano continued on his way to the restaurant for breakfast.
Outside, in the car, they waited. Tilders was looking upwards, pensive. Then he closed his eyes, nodded.
‘Working,’ he said. ‘Orange juice, eggs Florentine.’
Serrano was now wearing a micro-transmitter.
‘Working,’ said Tilders.
In the BMW, watching the ferry, Anselm raised his right hand, the hand that worked fully, mimed. Tilders raised the volume.
Serrano, speaking German: …this ferry. What’s the problem?
Kael: Nothing’s safe any more.
Serrano: I can get seasick just looking at boats. In a harbour.
Kael: Tell me.
Serrano: Werner, I just heard from Hollis, they fucked the business up.
The transmission went fuzzy, fragmented for about five seconds, abrasive sounds.
Serrano: …contact him.
Kael: He fucking hopes. Why should he do that? This is the most hopeless… Serrano, a laugh: Well, Lourens is dead, that’s… Sound lost again, for seconds the rough abrasive sounds.
Kael: …Can you grasp that? If this prick’s got the papers and the film, whatever the fucking film is…How did Lourens die?
Serrano: In a fire. Chemical fire. Not even teeth left.
Kael: Well, that’s something. Shawn?
Serrano: Shot by blacks. So it appears. The business is strange. Werner, the question is what do we do now?
Kael: You ask me, you idiot? We’ll have to tell the Jews.
They’ll blame us.
Serrano: You’re the one who went to the Jews. You’re the one who did what they said. I thought we weren’t going near them again? I thought you took a holy vow?
Silence. Sounds, bumping sounds, the ferry hitting the chop as it passed another vessel.
Kael: You should wear a hat in Provence in summer.
Silence. A noise. Anselm thought it was Serrano clearing his throat.
Serrano: Well, fuck you. Maybe you need a smarter person. Have you got one?
Silence, the bumping sounds, a cough.
Kael: Don’t be so sensitive. Hollis? What does the cunt say?
Serrano: He’s shitting himself. He thought he was doing the right thing.
Kael: He should. He should shit himself. I’m going to kill him personally. Tell Richler.
Serrano: What?
Kael: What do you fucking think? Just tell him. They’re up to their balls in this. If the Ashken stuff is in the papers, well… The ferry was docking, they could hear the sounds of movement, the voices of passengers.
Kael: I walk from here. Thomas will take you.
‘Good bug,’ said Anselm. Tilders nodded.
Kael’s Mercedes, dark blue, was waiting about fifty metres from the landing, the driver standing at the rear passenger door. He was a big man in a dark suit, feet wide apart, hands at the buttons of his jacket. Tilders got him on the monitor. The shutter release was silent.
Serrano and Kael were the first passengers off the ferry. Anselm looked at the monitor. The two men were on it, Tilders was looking at the screen and taking pictures.
Silence until the men were at the car. Anselm saw Kael give Serrano something. Serrano: What’s this?
Kael: Ring the number and leave a time, five minutes before the ferry I’ve marked leaves.
Serrano: Extreme, this is extreme.
Serrano got into the Mercedes and was driven away. Kael walked off in the direction of his house. The last passenger off the ferry was a fat man in a suit carrying a briefcase. Anselm watched him come in their direction. When he was near you could see that he was a dispirited man, in him no satisfaction at the end of the working day, no expectation of ease to come. He walked past them with his head down.
‘Otto will go to Hofweg,’ said Tilders. ‘I don’t know if all this is worth it.’
‘They pay for a full record,’ said Anselm. ‘We don’t have to ask whether it’s worth it.’
17
…HAMBURG…
On the outer fringe of Barmbek, once a working-class suburb, O’Malley was waiting for him, beer on the counter.
Anselm looked at the brown walls, brown carpet, brown curtains, the dead-faced barman.
‘Impressive venue,’ he said.
‘Well, you’re not Bavarian,’ said O’Malley. ‘This is a Bavarian hangout. Beer fresh from the cask. Stick around, you’ll be singing old Bavarian songs.’
‘Songs wildly popular in the 1930s, no doubt,’ said Anselm. He was rubbing his dead fingers, bending them, turning his hand. He wanted to be outside.
The barman brought another beer without being asked.
O’Malley paid.
‘I thought the Marriott was more your speed,’ Anselm said, casual voice, he could do that, he got better at it every day. ‘Full of rich and dubious people. Still, I can see they know you here.’
O’Malley drank, ran an index finger along his lower lip. ‘I’m the customer,’ he said, ‘with all the rich meaning the word holds. And I like the beer. Also I’m staying nearby. How’d it go?’
‘Well.’
‘Listen?’
‘Part of the service.’
‘So?’
‘Serrano told Kael about someone that’s gone wrong. They talked about people now dead. Kael told him to tell a person called Richler. He could be an Israeli. Serrano’s coming back tomorrow.’
‘Dead people?’
‘Shawn. Lourens. Something like that.’
A card game in the corner detonated, exclamations of disbelief.
Anselm went rigid, every muscle, tendon.
Four players. War babies, in their fifties, leather-faced men in leather jackets. Brown leather jackets.
Anselm drank. The beer had the feral-yeast taste. That and the men in playing cards brought a hotel on the Ammersee into his mind. Had he forgotten it? He hadn’t remembered it for a long time. The woman’s name was Paula, an artist, he’d lived with her in Amsterdam for a while. They’d gone on holiday, had an argument that night about another woman. Seated in the hotel’s dining area, the locals looking on, she’d punched him in the mouth, a full swing across a table. Her little walnut fist drew his blood but a bone broke in it. Worth it, she said to him later, in pain, unrepentant.
‘We may have to go on,’ O’Malley said.
Anselm found a cigarette, put it on the table, let it lie. Any delay in lighting up was good. Some tension left him. ‘I would warn of expense. If that’s of consequence.’
O’Malley raised his hands, not high, big and pale strangler’s hands. ‘Discount for repeat business?’
‘Second time’s much harder.’
‘Yes, women have said that to me,’ said O’Malley. His eyes went to the doo
r.
Anselm looked, tight muscles in the stomach, shoulders, thighs.
Two young men came in from the street, one tall, one average, short haircuts, soft and expensive leather jackets, not brown. They were not at their ease, eyes going around, over O’Malley and him.
The barman didn’t care for them, just a small and telling shift of hips and shoulders.
O’Malley drank his final centimetres, leaned closer. His expression was amused. ‘Well, got to go, a dinner date,’ he said. ‘These boyos…’ Anselm didn’t look at the two men. ‘Is there an anxiety you haven’t told me about?’ He held O’Malley’s eyes, smoked, sipped beer.
‘You never know,’ said O’Malley. ‘Serrano’s a dangerous man. Give me something else.’
Anselm felt in the inside pocket of his jacket. Condoms, a packet of condoms, old, some forgotten optimism in the purchase. ‘I’m going to give you something worth much more than any tape,’ he said.
O’Malley nodded, smiling, teeth showing, the O’Malley smile that meant nothing, not pleasure, not fear. ‘I’m parked about twenty metres down, left.’
‘Cowbarn beer, Bavarian nostalgics, now it’s intrigue. Anything else?’
‘Give it to me, mate.’
Anselm slid his hand out of his coat, put it palm down on the table.
O’Malley smiled, covered his hand, gave him a pat, a gesture of friendship from a large hand, scar tissue on all the knuckles.
‘Compadre,’ said O’Malley.
Anselm removed his hand and O’Malley pocketed the condom packet.
‘I liked Manila,’ said Anselm. ‘Can we go back?’
O’Malley shook his head. ‘Ein ruheloser Marsch war unser Leben. All the fun people are gone, Ferdie’s gone, Imelda’s gone, Bong-Bong’s gone.’ He paused. ‘Angel’s gone too. So am I. Anyway, you can’t go back, anywhere.’
Anselm saw Angelica for a moment, the tiny tip of pink tongue, the swing of dark-red hair half curtaining an eye. ‘That theory,’ he said, ‘has it been properly tested? Scientifically, I mean.’
O’Malley shook his head in wonder, got up, left. The inner door closed loudly on its spring. Anselm put the glass to his lips and looked around. The two newcomers were in mid-glance at each other. The taller one shrugged, looked at the barman, raised a hand to get attention.
