On Friedrich’s lot, he remained in the car for long minutes. The engine was running, warm air flowed over his face and his feet, and yet he was freezing. The pastor. He must have followed him. Or one of his accomplices, whoever they might be. Why did he have to confront Cornelius with the truth? Without witnesses, without being able to share his suspicions with anyone. Except for Carolin, of course, but she didn’t believe a single word he said.
No, he had to confide in someone, had to seek help. But who in the village could he trust? Who did he really know? Martin Wehrke was himself an outsider, and neither the postman nor the shopkeeper Johannsen he deemed trustworthy. But Otto Friedrich? Through the window of the showroom he saw salespeople behind their desks, two families looking at the shiny, clean cars inside. The children squeezed behind the wheel and were pulled out immediately by their parents.
Benno looked at the clothes Hanne had bought him just this morning. His knees were dirty, his coat stained. He wished himself at his desk in the office, wished for nothing more than to stop at a Chinese restaurant and walk with a bag of spring rolls and noodles to Hanne’s apartment. Carolin would be able to cope, might even be happier without him. But Tim. He couldn’t simply disappear and let down the boy. He had to find him.
“Can I speak to you for a moment?”
Friedrich wasn’t alone, but Benno didn’t want to be deterred by indecisive customers. The dealer looked at him, nodded and said, “You can sit in my office. I’ll be with you in just a minute.”
Benno sat down on one of the stained chairs and waited. A digital clock flickered on the desk. He leaned forward and grabbed the photo of Friedrich’s daughters. Corinna stood in the middle and smiled a little too persistently into the camera. The background was a dark brown color, probably taken in a photo studio in Grevenhorst. The photo looked too stiff and carefully lit not to be the product of a professional photographer. The girls had daffodils in their hands, and their faces looked completely lifeless.
“What’s going on? You look awful.” Friedrich walked around the desk and sank into his leather chair.
“Tim has been kidnapped.”
“Kidnapped?” The car dealer raised his eyebrows. “I heard something else.”
“Have you?”
“Yes, that he ran away. We are a small town, news get around real fast.”
“He didn’t run away.”
“Excuse my bluntness, but your marriage is . . . you’re having problems, right?”
“Did that also get around?” Benno couldn’t decide whether to be angry or ashamed, but his face felt hot anyway.
“Maybe he wants to teach you a lesson?” Friedrich seemed genuinely concerned, his forehead was creased, his voice soft, his smile kind. It was the same expression that he’d worn when they had refused to buy the bigger Scorpio.
“He would never leave his dog behind.”
“Oh,” Friedrich said ambiguously. “But who could have kidnapped Tim? And why? Have you notified the police in Grevenhorst?”
“We have. But . . .”
“You don’t trust them?”
Benno shook his head.
“May I ask why?”
Could he really trust Friedrich? The question still banged around in his head. He was respected in the village, he had business dealings with everyone—he must have little interest in the concerns of a newcomer. But Friedrich didn’t like the pastor, and Cornelius seemed to hate the car dealer. Benno had little choice.
“The pastor,” he started, but all of a sudden his suspicions against Cornelius seemed outrageous even to himself. A village pastor who killed waitresses and kidnapped little boys—who would believe this? Then he thought of Tim and of Carolin, who was waiting for him at home. He thought of Irina Sobieski’s body, how it had looked when he’d found her in the summer, and with a jerk, he sat up and told Friedrich everything he knew. He even mentioned his arrest the night before. He needed help, and Friedrich knew the village. They had to find Tim.
Afterward it was very quiet in Friedrich’s office. Across the car dealer’s face ran different expressions, like clouds in fast motion, but none stuck. He asked, “Can you prove any of this?”
“I have a witness remembering that the pastor visited Irina Sobieski in Lübeck. And a bullet is still stuck in my car.”
“The pastor.” Friedrich laughed sadly. “I never thought that someone from the village could have anything to do with the murder. Never in my life.”
“And now he’s got Tim.” Benno watched the car dealer for a long time, but he seemed to be lost in thought.
“Who’s the king?” Benno asked into the silence.
“Yes,” Friedrich sat up. “Who? And what does that have to do with your boy?”
“I had hoped . . .”
“That I could tell you.”
“The Wild Hunt, the crown, someone has to know what is actually going on here. The way people stare at Tim—they must know something.”
“But you don’t belong here. Why should they trust you?” Friedrich emphasized his words with a nod. “And I have no idea what to make of the king. Sounds mysterious.”
“Did you see your father back then? Before the funeral?”
Friedrich frowned. “Why do you ask?”
“I’ve heard . . . maybe just a rumor. That your father was killed. I thought maybe he was . . . involved in something. Every twenty-four years . . . some terrible thing seems to happen here.”
An ugly laugh gurgled up Friedrich’s throat. His face contorted as if someone had hit him. “You know,” he said. “If you weren’t worried about your son, I would throw you out right now.” His right hand clenched into a fist, slowly opened and then closed again quickly. “That would have been almost a relief,” he said. “If someone would have killed him. But no, he had to kill himself, and let his family down. It just brought grief to everyone involved. Grief and shame. I’ve done my best to get over it, but every time I look in the mirror, I see my father tying a noose around his neck. I look exactly like him, and I am almost his age now. Not a day passes that I don’t think of him. I’ve even taken over his business. I’m his spitting image, both inside and out.”
“I’m sorry,” Benno said.
“There’s tons of rumors in the village. It’s more interesting than what we see on television about the big, wide world.”
“Sure,” Benno admitted. “I just thought . . .”
“Of course. How would you know whom to believe? I’m not taking offense. But what are we going to do? My father is dead and buried, and he cannot help us find your son.”
For the ‘we’ and ‘us,’ Benno could have hugged Friedrich. It was the first offer of help he had received.
“I’ll keep my eyes open, ask some people,” promised the dealer and grinned. “We don’t have any caves or secret bunkers, as far as I know. If someone in the village kidnapped your boy, we’ll find him.”
“Thank you.” Benno struggled to suppress tears. “Thank you. I was afraid you’d think I’m crazy.”
The car dealer smiled. “Granted, your story is strong stuff. The pastor in cahoots with the police. But Tim is gone. Everything else is secondary at the moment.”
Benno shook Friedrich’s hand far too long and then limped out of the office into the disappearing day. It was past four o’clock, the sky was clear and sinking into a strange high-pitched red.
With a sigh of relief Benno got in the car. He had done the right thing. It almost felt as though he had already found Tim, and with renewed energy he drove to Schulstraße and parked in front of his house. Carolin ran to meet him, but when she saw that he was alone, her face turned pale.
“You don’t have him,” she said.
He shook his head. “We’ll find him, definitely.” The shots and his talk with the pastor he didn’t mention, nor did he tell Carolin that he had just confided in Otto Friedrich.
“I have to go again,” he said, “but I’ll be back in two hours.”
Carolin said not
hing, just nodded.
I won’t let you down, he wanted to add, but she had already turned away and was walking back inside with her head down.
23
He arrived just in time to be still admitted into the archives, but the attendant looked at him reproachfully as she handed him the two registers. “You have twenty-five minutes,” she said, after checking her little gold watch.
Benno took the books and sat at a small table. When he opened the first, he felt almost dizzy—he could barely read the tall, sharply curved font. In 1941, the so-called Sütterlin longhand had still been taught in schools.
The entries were sparse, not many people had died in Strathleven. When had the shooting festival been celebrated? He hoped that the March date had been the same, and he copied all the names, without knowing what they said.
The speaker system crackled, and a tinny voice let him know that the archive would close in fifteen minutes. Benno closed the first register, and then devoted himself to the year 1917. As before, he simply copied all the names as best he could. Even though they looked like Osnfom, Ohngruft, and Viutnu, he hoped that maybe Hanne could decipher them.
For 1893, there were only three entries in March, and these he could read with some effort. Only two were men.
At three minutes to five, he gave back the registers and received an icy look from the archivist. Then he limped back to his car. At the town’s exit, he stopped at a phone booth and called Hanne, but no one answered, and no answering machine came on. He didn’t have the number of the library with him, and the Lübeck phone book had only ten or fifteen pages left—the rest had been torn out.
His breath steamed up the windows. The cheerful yellow paint had never looked so gleeful. He hated the countryside, the loneliness, the darkness. He hated the flickering light of TV sets behind the curtains, the brick façades, and timid neon signs. Most of all he hated himself. He couldn’t even remain faithful to Carolin, couldn’t feel guilty when he called Hanne. He couldn’t find his son, and that made his infidelity only worse. As though Tim had to suffer for his father’s faithlessness. With his right foot Benno kicked the phone booth’s window. The sharp, red-hot pain stopped his tears and made his loneliness nearly bearable.
When he stopped in front of the sandbox, the headlights struck the pastor and seemed to pin him against the house wall. He was hugging Carolin and then turned into the light, his eyes small slits, his face fleshy, naked and radiant.
Furiously, Benno pushed open his car door. “Go away,” he shouted. “Where is my son? Where are you hiding him? Yes, I’m still alive. Where do you have your gun? Where do you hide it? Where?”
The pastor turned and walked over to his house. Carolin waited patiently at the front door.
“What did he want?” Benno’s voice cracked. “Caro, he’s got Tim. He is behind everything. You mustn’t let him into the house. He shot at me.”
“Benno.” Her voice was very quiet, completely even. “You should really talk to Cornelius. He told me everything, and he is not angry with you. He knows that you’re worried.”
“He’s not angry?” Benno forced himself not to scream, but his voice fluttered nervously. “He’s not angry? He almost killed me.”
“He understands that you suspect him.”
“Caro, he killed the woman. He’s behind everything.”
Carolin laughed. “Nonsense. How should he have done that? Where should he have been hiding her?” Before he could answer, she said, “come,” and led the way into the kitchen, where she poured two glasses of wine. Her hands didn’t even tremble. The bottle was almost empty.
“Has the police called?” Benno asked. “Because of Tim?”
“Have you called your lover?” Carolin asked quietly. Her face was as full and soft as that of a much younger woman.
He took the glass, but he didn’t feel at home. He missed this house already, as if he were standing in a memory.
“I don’t have a lover,” he insisted.
“And you call the pastor a liar?” She drank the blue-red liquid, which immediately stained her bitten lips.
He was silent. She was right, he was a liar. For a while he stared in front of him, looked at a tiny piece of cork. Then he took a deep breath, and without looking at Carolin, he said: “Yes, I lied.” Hastily he added, “But that doesn’t exonerate the pastor.”
“Do you still have a job?”
Benno nodded. “Yes. For now.”
“Is she beautiful?”
He didn’t know how to answer that question. Whatever he said, he would betray and destroy something he loved. “That’s not it.”
“What is it, then?”
“We have to get out of here.”
“We?”
“For Tim’s sake.”
“You’re sweet,” she said, and smiled timidly. “You really think that Cornelius is hiding him?”
Benno nodded.
“You’re really sweet. I know that you care about him.” She put down her glass of wine and walked into the living room. He followed her silently, sat down beside her on the sofa. Rasmus was sleeping in his bed under the window, from time to time making small noises, as though he were hunting squirrels or rabbits in his sleep.
“How are you?” Her voice was too serious, too gentle, to laugh at her question. She grabbed his knees, looked at the dark stains on his pants.
“They shot at me today.” The sound of his words was all wrong; he wasn’t someone people shot at. It sounded like a stupid lie.
“They?”
“I know that you trust the pastor. And the police. And the people in the village.”
“But you love it, right?”
“What do you mean?”
She ran a finger over his shoulder and down his arm. “I haven’t seen you so happy in a long time. Your face glows like a little boy’s.”
“How are you?” he asked, instead of answering her.
“The uncertainty is eating at me.” She wiped her face, it glistened wet. “And what’s worse . . .” A strange sound came from her mouth, almost like a burp. “Sometimes I catch myself wishing he wouldn’t come back.”
Benno remained at her side, took one of her hands in his. A moment later, she leaned her head on his shoulder.
“The doctor visits, the tissue and blood tests, the scrapes and scars. I wouldn’t have to worry anymore.”
His shirtsleeve was wet, and still he said nothing.
“It was so nice to think that he would be normal. A real boy.”
For several minutes they sat in the darkness, listening to the snoring of the dog. Only their hands moved in and around each other, sweaty and as if they’d taken on a life of their own.
“I don’t want you in the house,” she said softly.
He nodded and still didn’t let go of her hand. His throat felt impossibly narrow, a ball of fire seemed to rage in his stomach, but he held her hand, and she held his. They didn’t let go of the other. He realized that this moment with Carolin was only possible because they had already given up on each other. Not yet completely, not yet without pain, but the break was irrevocable.
What would she do? Would she stay here? Would he stay in Lübeck or return to Berlin? What would Tim say to that?
“That doesn’t matter,” she said into the silence. She had to know what was going on inside him. “Tomorrow, Cornelius will ask the congregation to help look for Tim.”
“But . . .”
“Yeah, as if he were already dead.” Carolin sobbed. “I know you don’t trust Cornelius, but that’s none of your concern. You can do whatever you want, but I won’t refuse his help because of you.”
He nodded. “Well.” After a while he added, “Call me when you have found him.”
“Where?”
“At the Strandkurier. I have to look for an apartment first.”
“Yes,” she said softly.
“If you need anything . . .”
“Yes,” she said again, and as if on cue, they huddled
together. Entangled into each other they sat silently on the couch, and Rasmus opened his eyes and whimpered. Only when her breathing had calmed and her head suddenly grew very heavy and rolled to one side, did Benno pull away, grab his coat and step outside. The light above the entrance wasn’t on. Carefully, he pulled the door shut.
What should he say? How should he begin? ‘Can your daughter remember the rapist? What did he really want from your daughter? Had it something to do with the dead woman?’
For a long time he stood before the Antlers’ house. It was one of those white-washed buildings that seemed to come from a kit. The color was not quite fresh, and the garden looked unkempt. Then he pulled himself together and rang the doorbell. A woman in her forties opened the door and looked at him questioningly.
“Excuse me,” Benno began. “I am . . .”
“I know who you are. It’s already late.”
Benno nodded. He waited for a sudden inspiration, but it wouldn’t come. “I’m not here as a journalist,” he stammered.” I just wanted to ask . . . because of my son . . . does Sybille remember anything? Who attacked her?”
The door was slammed shut so quickly that it almost hit him in the face. Benno rang again, then a third time, and finally a man’s voice shouted from inside, “Go away! I’ll call the police.”
He had to talk to Sybille. Limping, he left the Antler’s house.
It was only ten o’clock when he arrived in Lübeck and took a room in a guesthouse in Mariesgrube. He had no toothbrush or pajamas or anything clean to wear. Only his dirty clothes, car keys, and Wehrke’s family history, which he had taken from the trunk. He lay down on the bed and stared at the white ceiling. The curtains were made of rough polyester and were a toxic shade of green. Through the window he could see the roof of the house on the opposite side of the street and a church tower in the distance, a red light flashing on top of its spire. He had eaten nothing since breakfast, his stomach growled, but his ankle felt so hot and bruised that he rejected the idea of walking to a restaurant.
Knives, Forks, Scissors, Flames Page 21
