One Man, One Murder

by Jakob Arjouni

  This was the deportees’ holding tank at Frankfurt airport. The next flight to Beirut left in four hours. It was a little past three.

  I huddled next to the young guy with the brushstrokes under his nose and contemplated the glowing end of my cigarette. His name was Abdullah, he came from South Lebanon, and in four hours he would be on his way back there. In front of us, on the floor, lay a fellow Turk murmuring prayers. Now and again he stopped, raised his head, and explained something to me in Turkish.

  Abdullah cracked his knuckles.

  “But maybe it’s just the way things balance out. The Eintracht team stays on top, and I go down, or the other way round.”

  “So, if you shoot yourself in the head, the Eintracht wins the championship?”

  His tongue made clicking sounds against his palate. “Fate is our master.” And, after a glance into the hallway: “No, there really is a law that makes things balance out. For instance—after I passed my college entrance exam, my girlfriend took off. Honest to God.”

  I nodded and blew smoke rings. I kept thinking about ways to save these people from their flights. Attorneys, newspapers, church people—as long as I was not allowed to make a phone call because the immigration police believed that they had to put me on the evening flight to Istanbul, it was all pretty pointless.

  One of my smoke rings floated right onto the praying fellow’s nose. He looked up, waved his arms furiously, and started talking a mile a minute. Maybe he had asthma? I shrugged and smiled apologetically. When he didn’t stop babbling—my smile was set in concrete by then—Abdullah got irritated and intervened.

  “Please get it through your thick skull—he doesn’t understand a word you’re saying. He’s a Turk, all right, but he doesn’t speak Turkish.”

  “Is that so? But why? Is he too stupid?” The guy’s upper lip curled disdainfully. “Or is he ashamed?”

  His German was almost perfect, and I was annoyed with myself for having tried to communicate with him in a kind of sign language.

  “I never learned it, that’s all.”

  “What is your father’s name?”

  “What does that have to do with it?”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Tarik Kayankaya.”

  He waved his hand as if to say, “There you are.” Then he said: “Well, what did I say, you’re a Turk.”

  “Amazing. You found that out, just like that?”

  “You’re denying your origin!”

  “Why don’t you just go on praying a little more? And I’ll stop smoking.”

  His index finger shot forward and stopped, trembling, in front of my nose. “Tomorrow night you’ll be back home, and then you won’t be able to pretend you’re German!”

  Abdullah spat on the floor. “Yeah, terrific. Then he’ll sit in the joint there, and get punched in the mouth three times a day, but when he gets out after twenty years, he’ll be able to order a cup of coffee in Istanbul in perfect Turkish.”

  Abdullah flashed his gold teeth. The pious guy scrutinized him from top to toe, turned up his nose, and hissed: “I won’t be bought. I’d rather be in prison in Turkey than plead for asylum in Germany.”

  He had hardly finished when there was some commotion behind us. A Kurd peeled off his blanket, cursing, and crossed two bedsteads to get to the patriot. He looked like a guy who took better care of his fists than of his chin.

  “Man, you’re talking shit. You’re talking a bunch of unbelievable shit!”

  The Turk replied in Turkish. He must have struck a wrong note: the next moment he was flying through the air, crashing against the wall, and sliding back down to the floor like a wet rag with a nosebleed. A murmur ran through the cell. The Kurd stood in our midst like a commander of armies. His gaze swept the assembly with a “try me” expression. He had to be a body builder or decathlon athlete; in any case, he seemed to enjoy throwing people around, and if the people happened to be Turks, that was even more fun. He just stood there and waited, long enough for the prayer enthusiast to scrape himself off the floor and to reel over to the Kurd again. One might have thought that courageous, but it was undeniably unhealthy, and Abdullah muttered “What a raving idiot!” The Kurd cracked his knuckles and rolled his shoulders, and everyone present realized individually that there would be no joy in intervention. Just as the Kurd got ready for another throw, a door swung open and five cops came marching down the hall. Three men, one woman, and a dog, to be exact. Things got really quiet. The Turk and the Kurd retired into a corner. The patrol of five stopped in front of our cell, and the woman took a piece of paper out of her breast pocket.

  “Chatem, Abdullah.”

  Abdullah’s brown face turned a cheesy yellow, and I could no longer hear him breathe. The woman put her piece of paper away and unlocked the door. The men and the dog entered the cell. I motioned to Abdullah to remain seated and to keep his trap shut.

  “Step forward.”

  I got up.

  “Come with us.”

  “Where to?”

  “Your flight leaves in an hour,” the woman explained. She was still standing in the hall. “We told you the wrong flight this afternoon.”

  Surrounded by the men and the dog, I left the cell. A murmur arose behind me, some of the men uttered quiet curses. Suddenly a voice called out: “Allah yardimcin olsun!” The door slammed shut, and someone else growled: “He’s on the side of the cops, your Allah.”

  My last glimpse of the refugees was the old guy in patent leather shoes. He was loosening his tie.

  She had the modest hair pulled back in a bun, the unornamented hands, the compassionate voice and the pale thin-lipped face of a nun, combined with the furtive eyes of a feminist in all-male company. On her, the freshly starched and ironed uniform was as becoming as a cardboard box. Her feet were clad in brown hiking boots, and between her breasts hung a necklace of light blue stones. She played with it whenever she was thinking things over. I sat there for ten minutes, arms crossed on my chest, two cops standing guard behind me, on a wooden chair and watched her search for Abdullah’s passport in several metal cabinets, desk drawers, and file folders. Not a word had been said. On the wall facing me hung a calendar put out by the Border Guard. The picture showed one of its helicopters against a sunset.

  I looked at the clock. If she had told the truth, Abdullah’s plane was leaving in forty minutes. To prevent his being on it, I would have to sit here for another half-hour. And the passport had to remain misplaced. It would be even better if she could be distracted from the search. I took care of that.

  “May I go to the men’s room?”

  “No.”

  “I’m supposed to pee in my shoe?”

  A washrag landed on my shoulder.

  “Let’s keep calm, colleague.”

  “Did you hear that, sister? He called me colleague. That’s defamation. Tell the guy—”

  “Please, Mr. Chatem …” Her tone reminded me of the kind of whole-wheat pedagogue who is able to smile a student into the ground and out of school. The voice was gentle and understanding, and she moved her arms as if she wanted to embrace me. Everything about her pretended to be soft and warm, but her eyes shone hard and cold as steel: “… if you could just be patient for a moment.”

  Although it wasn’t a question, she seemed to be waiting for a reply. I bowed my head: “Sorry, Mrs. Commissar, I’m a little nervous … What are my twenty-seven wives going to say after they haven’t heard from me for such a long time? And my grandfathers, and my mother, oh Allah, my mother! She’ll put me back in the sheep pen, the way she did when I let my brother Hassan play with that hand grenade—”

  “Mr. Chatem!”

  She slapped the desk with her palm and looked stem. Then she strode past me and hunkered down in front of a cabinet. The ribbed contours of her underwear showed through the fabric of her pants. I turned my head and drawled: “She’s got some hot little panties, doesn’t she, your boss?”

  Before one of the brothers could r
eact, she turned, still sitting back on her heels. She hissed at me. “What did you say?”

  “I said I’m sure you’re hot to trot, and why don’t we have a little foursome? We’ve got a few minutes, don’t we?”

  Her stare lasered into my forehead. She got up slowly and walked toward me. Her left hand played with the necklace.

  “What did you say I was?”

  “I said you were hot to trot. To fuck. Fuck, or screw …” With a silly grin on my face, I turned to my guards and shouted: “Screw, screw, screw!” Then back to her: “And let me tell you, I’m hung. Back home, the folks call me Ali the Flagpole.”

  Her pupils had contracted. I winked at her: “And when I say beam, sweetie, I mean pole.”

  She slapped me so fast and so hard that I fell off my chair. While I was still on the floor, the door opened. I raised my head and froze. The tall gray-haired man with the angular face stopped in the doorway and took in the scene. His voice sounded a little hoarse when he asked: “What is going on here?”

  “Mr. Chatem has insulted me.”

  “Chatem?”

  I grabbed the edge of the desk, pulled myself up, brushed off my sleeves. “The sister is referring to me.”

  Höttges closed the door, thrust his hands into his pockets, and walked slowly up to me. Once again his cold gray eyes held mine. Without turning away, he said: “Mrs. Henkel, leave the room, please.”

  “But, Commissioner, what does that—”

  “And take the officers with you.”

  By the door, she turned back. “Should I make a reservation for him on the next flight?”

  “Just leave!”

  After the three had left us alone in the office, I leaned against the edge of the desk and lit a cigarette. Höttges followed my actions with his eyes. Otherwise he was motionless.

  “So, what do you know, I did hit the right office yesterday morning, didn’t I? Do you know the reason that Larsson, or Manne, or whatever his name was, gave for transporting the refugees from the villa to the bunker? He claimed that a neighbor had called the police. The same neighbor Klaase wasn’t allowed to tell me about in your office—because you knew it was a hot tip. Even if the rationale for the move was an invention—because the real reason for it was I—Larsson could have found out about the neighbor only from you!”

  He had remained stone-faced, but the skin around his nose had paled visibly. Now he looked down, and the muscles around his jaw twitched. I couldn’t tell whether he was about to fold or whether he would try to shut me up. I knocked the ash off my cigarette.

  “And that explains why the gang was so well informed about people who had been issued deportation orders. They had it from the horse’s mouth—from you, the man who issues those orders. Inspector Hagebrecht’s key to the bunker was the final clue. I’m sure he is not in on the scheme, but he’s not the kind of guy who would wonder where his superior officer had obtained such a key. What I can’t understand is why your partners didn’t let you know about me? It was really stupid to lock me up in the bunker.”

  He was still staring at the floor. Then he turned his back to me and started pacing. “You’re in no position to harm me,” he said. His voice was firm but strained.

  “That’s correct. A few refugees hide in a bunker, are discovered by the police, get deported. They are illegal aliens, and from a purely legal point of view, they get what they deserve.” I dropped the butt, stepped on it, lit another one. “Or that would be all there was to it—if I hadn’t found a corpse in Gellersheim.”

  He stopped. “A corpse?” Then, haltingly, he resumed his pacing. His face reflected a blend of fright and the confirmation of his worst fears. I nodded. “And even though it’s unlikely that you committed that murder, and even though nothing else can be traced back to you, I can still get you some publicity that won’t smell too sweet. It might even lead to things like suspension, dismissal, loss of pension.”

  He had stopped by the window and was looking at the police parking lot and the entrance to the arrival hall. A family returning from vacation in colorful hats, sandals, and socks made their way through the sliding doors. The son was wearing a pair of diving goggles.

  Höttges cleared his throat. “How much?”

  “Not how much. I want the file.”

  “What file?”

  “The one you made disappear yesterday morning. The Rakdee file.”

  A pause. He looked out the window again. “Is that all?”

  “No. Give orders to the effect that none of those people will be deported for the time being; that they get a chance to speak to their attorneys; and that they get some real food brought to their cells.”

  He nodded. His expression almost made me feel sorry for him. I gave him a skeptical look. “No need to be so down in the mouth. Until now you’ve always acted the sergeant major. It’s your job to hunt people. But to rob them of their money and jewelry, in cahoots with mobsters—if someone happens to tread on your toes after that, you might as well hang on to the old stiff upper lip.”

  When he raised his head again, he had aged years. His eyes were murky, and the angular chin was just a brittle and trembling bone. Then he shouted: “What do you know about it! In cahoots with mobsters! Once in my life, I made a mistake!”

  I put out my cigarette. “Should I hazard a guess? Köberle found out about that mistake, and you’ve been on his list of collaborators ever since.”

  I pushed off from the desk, went to the door, and put my hand on the doorknob. By the window stood a broken man staring at an empty parking lot.

  “Anybody can get involved with crooks, and then get blackmailed by them. But as an immigration officer I find you simply disgusting. That file will be in my mailbox by tomorrow morning. And don’t even think about warning Köberle. If he calls, just tell him I’m on my way to Istanbul. Good day.”

  13

  Ten minutes later I stood in the phone booth by the Pan Am desk and called every newspaper and organization I could think of to tell them about the pending mass deportation. The last call I made was to Benjamin Weiss, director of an advice center for refugees, occasional bass player with the legendary club combo The Wicherts from Next Door, and decent skat player. We knew each other from our university days. He had started out majoring in philosophy, I in law, and we had both dropped out after a year. He, because he began to suffer from insomnia and thought this was caused by his ability to master half the material during lectures; I, because I couldn’t stand the surrounding adolescents constantly snapping their legal briefcases open and shut. Now Weiss lived with his wife, two sons, and fifty shelf feet of jazz records in Gallus, and when he wasn’t working, he was either sick or flying kites with the kids. At the office, there was no reply, and it was too dark to be flying kites. At his home number the phone rang four times until a weak voice replied. “Ye-es?”

  “Kayankaya here. There’s thirty people at the airport about to be deported.”

  “How many?”

  “Thirty.”

  “If this is supposed to be an April Fool’s joke—I’m in bed with strep throat.”

  “No joke. They had me locked up there with those people—I just got out a moment ago.”

  Somehow, he managed to emit an amused noise from his afflicted larynx. “So where did they want to send you?”

  “I suggested Sardinia.”

  He repeated that noise, then asked: “What exactly happened?”

  “It’s a long story. Why don’t you come over?”

  “O.K. I’ll be there in half an hour.”

  “I’ll be in the departure hall.”

  We hung up. I jingled my change for a minute before I put it in the slot and dialed Weidenbusch’s number. After I had given him a broad outline of the progress of my investigation, all the way to the bunker, I paused briefly, then said: “But, sad to say, your girlfriend wasn’t there.”

  “No? Are you sure?”

  “Pretty damn sure. Unless she didn’t want to be recognized.”
>
  “But even so I would think she’d have contacted me in the meantime.”

  “She may be unable to do that.”

  “What do you mean? If she wasn’t in the bunker—”

  “Maybe someone has other plans for her.”

  He gulped audibly and asked me to excuse him for a moment. I heard him open a bottle, pour a drink, and smack his lips; then he came back to the phone and sounded full of resolve: “She must have been scared. That’s why she didn’t say anything. I’m sure she’s in that holding cell! I’ll go to the airport.”

  “How come you’re so excited, all of a sudden? Yesterday you told me you wanted to get rid of her.”

  “Oh, that was just a bunch of bullshit. I was totally exhausted. Please forget what I told you yesterday.”

  Weidenbusch came waddling through the waiting area, holding on to his belly with both hands, as I was enjoying coffee and ham on toast and perusing a travel brochure. Panting, he sat down and yelped: “Where are the cells?” The West End yuppie accustomed to sipping red wine had turned into a derelict barfly. He reeked of alcohol and cigarettes, his hair hung into his face, his shirt front was stained, and his eyes had dark rings around them and gleamed feverishly. He took off his glasses and wiped the sweat off his forehead.