She shook her head. “My life’s complicated enough. You still haven’t got a new girlfriend?”
He waved his hand dismissively. “They’re only after my money. I’m a lonely man.”
“My poor darling!” Franza shook her head with mock gravity. “That’s really a shame!” She gave him a friendly nudge. “You probably stare at all of them the way you stared at me earlier. It’s terrible! I always feel like one of your corpses. And today of all days, when I’ve hardly slept. I look ancient.”
He started to grin and raised his right eyebrow. Revenge is sweet, he thought, preparing to deliver the final blow. “Not too old to catch the eye of one of our theater actors, people say.”
She immediately turned red and stared at him, speechless. He enjoyed seeing how astonished she was.
“People are saying that?” she asked.
He lifted his hands reassuringly. “Don’t worry; they’re not shouting it from the rooftops. In fact, they don’t say it at all. It’s just that . . . my hearing is pretty good. Or rather, my eyesight.”
He loved extravagant explanations that didn’t explain anything but made everything even more confusing. She became impatient.
“And what is that supposed to mean?”
“That I saw you, that’s all. At Marinello, on Gutenbergstrasse. About two weeks ago.” He already regretted bringing it up. “His interest in you was obvious. And your interest in him . . .”
He broke off, suddenly embarrassed.
She nodded and realized that she was frightened and becoming even more so. Was that what she had wanted? To take the risk of being seen? By friends like Borger? Or even at some point by Max?
Did she want to hurt Max? To ridicule him by flaunting her lover in public?
Were her feelings for Max still strong enough that she needed revenge?
Should she end it? With Port? Or her marriage to Max?
Enough of this. Forget it!
Pushing the thoughts from her mind, she returned to Borger, who was staring at her blatantly again. “Hey!” she said. “You’re doing it again.”
He’d forgotten how to hide his interest in living faces and bodies a long time ago—forgotten after years of dealing with dead bodies that couldn’t defend themselves anymore. But it just wasn’t appropriate in civilized society.
She tugged on his sleeve. “You can’t stare at people like that!” she said. “Won’t you ever learn?”
Now it was his turn to blush. “I’m sorry,” he said.
It was his job to examine people, but the living felt he was looking for faults. He really wasn’t. Not always, in any case.
“Listen,” he said, “I haven’t told anyone about you and this actor. You can count on my discretion.”
She nodded and turned to leave. It was cool in this greenish, metallic room. She shivered; it was uncomfortable.
“By the way, how do you know who he is?” she asked.
Borger laughed. “Well, my dear, isn’t it obvious? I’m a person interested in cultural things, unlike you. Lots of people around here know him.”
She looked at him thoughtfully.
“Have you even seen him onstage?” he asked disapprovingly.
“No,” she snapped, “I haven’t. I have to go. Arthur’s waiting.”
She was almost at the door when he stopped laughing and called her back. “Wait!” he said. “One more thing. Nothing too important, but still.”
He picked up a pair of long tweezers, leaned over a dish and took something out. “We found it in her mouth. It must’ve come off her tooth when she fell.”
A tiny silver piece of jewelry flashed in the fluorescent light.
“Tooth jewelry,” he said.
She nodded. “I know,” she said. “Young girls wear those things. Max offers it at his practice, too. Is that a moon?”
“Yes,” he said, “a moon. It must’ve sparkled every time she laughed.”
17
Marie wore the moon on her tooth and her eyes shined like apples. She danced through the arcades in the old part of town to the beat of the songs drumming in her ears through the headphones. When her phone rang the first time, she didn’t hear it.
After she’d bought a doner kebab she sat down on a bench and turned her face toward the sun. She’d seen on the weather forecast it was supposed to rain that night, but for now it was a hot, bright midsummer day.
The kebab was a little hot, but it was tasty, and she felt the yogurt sauce running down her chin and starting to drip. She had to laugh, leaning forward as to not drip on her jeans, and finally wiped her mouth with the napkin.
When her cell phone rang the second time, she heard it. She swallowed quickly, dabbed her mouth again, and answered.
She listened for a while, slowly shaking her head. Her face took on an impatient expression. “No!” she said. “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
She hung up, wrapped up the rest of the kebab in the paper, threw it into the trash, and kept strolling in the sunshine.
Her phone rang a third time. She stopped, checked the screen, sighed, and then pushed the “Decline Call” button. Soon after, it rang again.
“Shit!” she muttered. “Why doesn’t he get it? It’s not that hard!”
She let it ring several times before she answered. “I don’t want anything to do with you anymore!” she said angrily. “Is that so hard to understand?”
But the caller was persistent, and Marie gave in.
“All right!” she said. “But only because it’s such a beautiful day and because the sun’s shining. You know, I’m leaving in two days, for my entrance exam.”
The caller appeared to object. Marie laughed. “But I can do it. How can you doubt that?!”
She hung up. The sky had darkened and it had started to drizzle. Lightly. Gently.
She ran through the raindrops, arms outstretched, thinking of her pearl dress, of the strings on the silver background. She jumped here and there through the drizzle, the water forming dark spots on her jeans and T-shirt. Silver pearls, she thought, pearls of rain on a silver background.
The rain became heavier, so heavy that the drops hit the asphalt and bounced back up. Frogs, she thought, little, transparent frogs, quacking, growing in the summer rain.
The train station came into sight. She rushed inside, bumping into an elderly man, sending his bag flying, scattering its contents onto the floor. Marie stopped. “Sorry!” she shouted and raised her hands apologetically. “I didn’t see you.”
“Well then don’t run around like a headless chicken,” the man grumbled.
“Yes,” she said, helping to pick up his things. “I won’t in the future, when I’m not in such a hurry.”
The man shook his head. “You look like you’re always in a hurry, young lady. Why don’t you give yourself a little more time?” He gave her a kind smile as she packed his things back into his bag.
“Yes,” she said and grinned. “I will. Take my time. Yes. When I’ve got time for it, maybe in another life.”
He shook his head disapprovingly as she charged off to check the train schedule.
Later, at the mall, she put her head on a copy machine and copied herself. From the side. In profile. Several times.
As if she didn’t want to forget herself. As if she wanted to be forever. Something forever. Something everlasting.
It was still raining outside, translucent, shimmering. She hopped around through the raindrops.
18
Strange guy, Arthur thought. Borger. If I ever get like that, I’ll shoot myself!
He was glad to be outside. He crossed the road, leaned against the car, and held his face up to the sun. It seemed unavoidable that this job would get to him at some point, although he really couldn’t complain about his superiors, Felix Herz and Franza Oberwieser. As far as he could tell, they had stayed relatively normal, so maybe it wasn’t all that bad. They even had personal lives, in Felix’s case even a rather productive one, three children,
and from what he heard, more on the way. A few things were being whispered about her, too, but well, that’s just police gossip.
He sighed and felt his thoughts turning to Karolina, knowing he shouldn’t think about her, but as always, he couldn’t help it.
He swallowed and sighed. Oh Karolina, insane body, beautiful long legs, flaming Andalusian eyes. Although she was born and raised in the ancient city of Straubing—a Straubinger—she worked at a video store, of all places, to pay for her education. It was the same video store where he chose to rent an innocent little porn video for an innocent little bachelor’s evening. That didn’t go very well. He had flirted with her right away. How could you not with a woman like that?
No. Hang on. Maybe he should stick to the truth. If he started lying to himself at this young age, he’d go downhill in a hurry.
She had flirted with him. Not the other way around.
If he was honest, and he’d just decided to be honest, he had to admit it. That it had been her picking him up, not the other way around. And if he was even more honest, he’d have to admit he’d never have had the guts to flirt with her. Not her. Not this incredible Andalusian woman from Straubing.
But oh well. Look where it got him. A broken heart and a policeman’s split personality.
Five weeks of flying high, five weeks of not eating, not drinking, not sleeping. He hadn’t known this was possible, and yet he lived—no, thrived! He had excelled in his work, or so he’d thought, but after four weeks they declared him non compos mentis—mentally incompetent—because he kept staring into thin air. The rings around his eyes had become too obvious.
Felix and Franza had pulled him aside.
“What’s the matter, boy? Do you have trouble sleeping?” Felix asked.
“No!” he had wanted to say. “No!” he wanted to shout into Felix’s concerned face. “I don’t have time for sleep! I’m screwing! I’m screwing myself out of my twenty-six-year-old mind! I’m screwing the most insanely hot woman on the planet! I can’t do anything else but screw at the moment! And I know it can’t end well!”
Of course he hadn’t said anything. Franza looked at him, and he could see in her eyes that she had an inkling, as if she knew what was happening to him, as if she understood. Since then he’d thought very highly of her. “Everything will work out,” she had said. “You’ll see.”
He had smiled and nodded. She was a woman who knew what she was talking about. But that it would end this way? Bam! And over?
That had been three weeks ago. Three damned weeks.
He could see her in front of him as if it were yesterday.
Karolina. How she had moved to the Konstantin Wecker music. How she’d taken off her clothes and sent them flying through the room piece by piece. And how she’d taken off his clothes and sent them flying, as well. How she’d dripped warm honey on his chest and stomach, how she’d begun to lick it off, her tongue circling on his skin until he was vibrating, inside and out, like the strings of a piano, and how every little hair on his body had stood up, and not only them . . .
But then . . . his cell phone had rung.
And he had answered. Not until after the fourth ring, though. He had to. Felix would’ve killed him if he hadn’t.
But Karolina had jumped off him as if she’d been bitten by a snake. While he was still on the phone, she’d grabbed his shoes and clothes—everything—and chucked them out the door. And she’d made it unmistakably clear that she’d never even dream of being the woman of a shitty policeman, always on call and no boundaries. Then she steered him gently but firmly out of her apartment, handing him a damp cloth through the crack in the door only after he’d exclaimed that he was sticky all over and felt like a licked postage stamp.
Then, to make matters worse, he couldn’t find his boxer shorts, but Karolina wouldn’t open the door again no matter how many times he rang the bell. While he tried to slip on his jeans and T-shirt as quickly as possible, he turned toward the closed door again. A little muted in consideration of the semipublic location but emphatically, he’d asked Karolina what on earth was wrong with her. Was she out of her mind? He was half naked, standing in a stairway in the center of town in the middle of the night. But she was unfazed.
Eventually he had driven to the police station, fuming, where his colleagues were waiting for him, impatient to get started with a late-night stakeout.
When Felix had started sniffing him and asked if he was trying out a new honey-scented aftershave lotion, Arthur had been ready to give up—to quit—but Franza told Felix to leave the boy alone. It was the prerogative of youth to try everything. She stressed everything with that ironic tone she pulled off so well.
Just in time, Felix had planted his hand firmly on Arthur’s shoulder. “Don’t even think about quitting, boy,” he’d said. “You’re in the right place here. Believe me, there are women who can handle our unsettled lifestyle. And they’re not the worst.”
Shit, Arthur thought, shaking his head. There I was standing in front of the corpse of this girl, and what do I do? Wallow in self-pity! At least I’m still alive!
He kicked a stone across the road, and it rolled until it finally hit the curb on the other side—and the foot of someone wearing sandals and just starting to cross the road.
“Shit!” Arthur blurted and looked up.
“I’ll survive,” Franza said indifferently, walking toward him and smiling. “Have you been in the dumps?”
He felt caught in the act. “No,” he said. “What makes you say that?”
She gave him one of those looks he couldn’t fathom, and which made him so uncomfortable he didn’t know which way to look. She shrugged. “Female intuition.”
Great, he thought, that’ll make things easier. He opened the driver’s door and was about to sit down when Franza said “Shoo! Take off!” and shook her head.
He froze and looked at her in bewilderment. “You’ll have to take the bus,” she said. “I have to get another witness statement.”
He shrugged. “I can come, can’t I?”
“No,” she said unmoved, and got in the car. “You can’t. Give my regards to Felix.”
Then she sped off. He stood there, a minute, two, maybe more. “Women!” he said with a growl. Then he walked to the bus stop, kicking stones.
19
Port had the newspaper spread on the table. The dead girl was on the front page. She looked asleep. The headline above the photo read in bold letters: “Unidentified Woman Killed in Car Accident Under Mysterious Circumstances.”
The article described the sequence of events, and also that the girl had already been injured, and probably was confused because of these injuries when she staggered onto the autobahn. The question was how she’d acquired those injuries, and they even mentioned murder. The article closed with the usual plea to the public for any information, particularly concerning the victim’s identity, and provided a phone number.
As was customary in situations like this, several phone lines had been set up at the police station to cope with the expected onslaught of calls. There’d be a lot of irrelevant stuff to wade through, but at some point also significant things. They just had to separate them from all the dark and wild suspicions. It would be a hell of a job to check through everything, but Franza and Felix knew from experience that it was worth it, because sooner or later they’d come across an important piece of the puzzle.
“I know her,” Port said, tapping his finger on the picture in the newspaper and looking at Franza with raised eyebrows. “Believe it or not, I know her.”
He had called just as she was walking from the morgue toward the car. He wanted her to stop by his place, said he had something to tell her he didn’t want to discuss over the phone. He’d spoken with a finality that didn’t leave any room for contradiction, so she’d gotten rid of Arthur and headed over.
She hadn’t expected this, however. She leaned forward and stared at him in astonishment. “What?”
He repeated. “I kn
ow this girl.”
“And?” she asked excitedly. “What’s her name? Who is she?”
He paused dramatically, just for a moment, brought the fingertips of his hands together, and turned up his mouth. “I don’t know.”
Franza felt the excitement draining from her body and being replaced by disappointment. Shit, she thought. “You’re kidding!” she said.
He shrugged. “No, sorry. But I thought anything I could tell you might be important just the same.”
They were sitting on his roof terrace drinking tea. He’d been at breakfast when she arrived, and in an hour he’d go to rehearsal and wouldn’t be reachable until late at night.
He still didn’t have a coffeemaker, and as Franza sipped her tea listlessly she decided once again to get one for his kitchen. Someone like him, she thought disdainfully for the thousandth time, someone like him and he drinks tea!
She sighed. “Yes,” she said. “Sure. Fire away.”
He knew the girl from theater, from the Pechmann to be precise, a bar not far from the theater where actors, singers, and dancers socialized along with those who wanted to be noticed by the artists. Was she one of them? Someone who hung around in the shadows of the artists to be a part of their lives? To make the boredom of their own lives easier to bear?
“No,” Port said pensively. “No, she wasn’t one of those. On the contrary. She was someone who demanded attention.”
“How?”
“Hard to say. She had something . . . ambivalent about her, and she was pretty good-looking. Somehow . . . independent. Radiating freedom, as cheesy as it sounds. But lonely, always a little sad, and that’s a pretty irresistible combination.”
He laughed and bit into one of the croissants Franza had hurriedly picked up at a bakery.
Yes, she thought, I can imagine. Irresistible combination. For you, too?
She knitted her eyebrows and caught her thoughts drifting, imagining the girl and Port together. At disturbing places, doing disturbing things. Drinking tea, among other things.
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