“The incineration chamber’s been fired up. We can do this now, as far as I’m concerned.”
“Both at the same time?”
“Both at the same time,” says the man.
You thought it would be more dignified. You thought you’d stand there and watch first your uncle and then your friend go up in flames.
The man leads you away from the coffins and along a corridor.
“We don’t need the boy’s ashes,” says Tanner.
You don’t contradict him. You step into a low-ceilinged room with two monitors and a keyboard on a table. The man points to the monitor on the right-hand side. You see the two coffins starting to move and sliding into the oven chamber. The man looks at his watch again.
“If I can just put the remains through the grinder we’ll be finished here in no more than an hour and a half. Will that do?”
“That’ll do,” says Tanner. “We’ll wait outside.”
And then you wait outside.
Two hours later you go into a restaurant on Olivaer Platz that is one of your father’s favorites. You’ve spent every birthday and every Christmas here. The cooks are on first-name terms with you, and the owner has been trying to set you up with his daughter forever.
Your father is sitting with Leo by the window, his hand on the menu, his thumb drumming gently on the paper. Even though no one can really see it, your father’s psyched up. The calmer he looks, the tenser he is.
You sit down. He asks if it all went well. Tanner opens the menu and doesn’t reply. You understand that the question was meant for you. It was your task to deal with the corpses.
“No problems,” you say, thinking about the urn on the backseat of the car.
My uncle. Dead. My best friend. Dead.
You want to say it out loud, you want to ask how on earth something like this could happen, even though you know the answer, so it’s better to keep your mouth shut. You can be anything. Stupid and anxious aren’t in your repertoire. On the way back, when you asked Tanner what sort of grinder the man at the crematorium had been talking about, he laughed and asked you to finally grow up.
“Your father doesn’t want you thinking simplistically.”
He clapped you on the chest with the flat of his hand.
“You should stop putting your brain into your muscles. If you don’t understand something, then try to understand it. The answer will come all by itself.”
You looked down at the urn in your lap and felt like a child. Tanner left you dangling in midair for a good five minutes, then he said, “When you cremate someone, not everything always gets burnt. A thousand degrees is no guarantee. And you can be sure that people don’t want to see bits of bone or teeth when they’re scattering the ashes. So the remains are put through a bone grinder.”
Of course you’d already thought of something like that, but you can never keep your trap shut. Tanner’s right, you have to grow up. Think everything through, then you can spare yourself all the remaining questions that won’t leave you in peace: What about Mirko? Has he just disappeared now? What will his mother say? And what will I tell the rest of the gang?
You’re like somebody looking out of the window and seeing rain and having to say out loud that it’s raining. Death is perfectly self-evident, learn to cope with that, because death is now a part of your life.
“The urn was still warm,” you blurt out.
The men look at you. Your eyes are moist again. Seventeen years old, a boy among men. Your father hands you the menu. You take it, you open it. The menu’s full of indecipherable signs that have no meaning to you. Find a meaning, give them a meaning. Tanner saves you by flicking you on the ear and saying, “At least they didn’t freeze-dry Oskar, or you’d have frozen your balls off on the way back.”
The men laugh. You laugh with them. Self-evident.
You’re on your appetizers when David comes into the restaurant and wrecks your plans for the whole day. Your father won’t be going to the theater this evening, Tanner will disappoint his girlfriend and cancel dinner, Leo will sit at the wheel again, and you’ll have to miss your training.
David tells you the Lasser family called.
“Bruno’s in a coma, a van hit him. They don’t know exactly what’s happened. But it gets even better. Oswald bled to death outside the café, and one of the girls bought it too.”
“Which one?” asks Tanner.
“The blond one that Darian beat up.”
You hiss between your teeth. They look at you, you mustn’t bat an eyelid, stay calm, they want you to be cool, so you’re cool and ask the right question.
“What about the other girls?”
David spreads his hands.
“Disappeared.”
Your father wipes his mouth with his linen napkin and pushes the plate aside. No one’s interested in Oswald and Bruno. They’re soldiers, they’re expendable. The same is true of the girls. They should have known better, they’d been warned. Your father sips his wine and looks out the window. Nobody speaks, nobody moves, the waiters keep their distance. At last your father turns to Tanner and asks him his opinion. Tanner doesn’t hesitate.
“We can’t let that be.”
Your father waves to the waiter for the check, then looks at you one by one.
“Leo, you drive us. Tanner, tell the Lasser family to stay out of this, it’s our problem. David, we don’t need you. You stay in Berlin and take care of Oskar’s house. All traces must disappear, clean the place from top to bottom and find the goddamn access code for the Range Rover. Tell Fabrizio to keep a line open for us and locate the girls’ cell phones every five minutes. I want to know if they move an inch from the spot.”
He glances quickly at his watch.
“We’re leaving in half an hour. Any questions?”
You have no questions.
“Fine. As soon as we’ve found them we’ll head home and scatter Oskar’s ashes. And Darian …”
He looks at you. At last. He hasn’t forgotten you.
“… you will prove to me that you’re more than just my son.” He doesn’t take his eyes off you, he’s no longer your father, he’s your boss. You say nothing. Your boss doesn’t expect an answer.
You know that they will come. You think it’s appropriate to go back to the beginning, because everything started here on the shore, so it will end here too. Your head is dull and disconnected. Thinking doesn’t help right now, action is required.
The water glitters below you and reminds you of a dress. You were very small at the time and can’t remember where the party took place, just that there were unbelievably large quantities of cakes, and what that dress of your mother’s felt like. As if her skin had turned liquid. Look, what you’re doing, it is very clever. You’re thinking your way past your problem. Keep going like that. You consider surprising your father. Perhaps you’ll take that journey to Berlin, kidnap your mother and bring the family together. Your father would never forgive you. But it would be a heroic feat. You’ve felt heroic since abandoning the Range Rover. You’re also aware that there will probably be no Later as far as you’re concerned.
You shake your head. You know it’s nonsense. So much is unresolved. You’ve achieved so little in your life that it’s shaming. You haven’t climbed a mountain, and you haven’t swum in the ocean. You haven’t even solved your problem of falling in love. If you disappear right now, no trace will be left of you.
The footsteps behind you are different. They’re not the footsteps of strollers going somewhere. Not those footsteps. No. You don’t want to be afraid, and no one should be afraid. Fear is for sissies, Grandpa Max told you. Remember that. You never wanted to be one of those people who keep their heads down. Not then, not now.
You don’t turn round.
Sweat trickles down the back of your neck, your clammy hands cling to the railing. You stare down at the water flowing by, as if the answers to all your questions were hidden in there. The footsteps fall silent behind you. The water f
lows and flows. The strollers are still walking, the day moves tirelessly toward evening and your instincts yell at you to get yourself in gear.
Run, get away, just do it.
You might be your father’s son, but at the same time you’re also his opposite—you aren’t going to run away and spend eight years licking your wounds.
Not you.
No, not me.
They lean against the railing, one on each side of you. They don’t touch you, you don’t look at them. You wait. You’re playing black, and that means being patient, because white makes the first move, it’s always been that way and it always will be. An eternity passes, then the first move is made and a voice on your left says, “We’re here.”
You’re standing by the Heiligengeistfeld, and the sky is the same crystal blue as the innocent eyes of a newborn baby. You put on your sunglasses. Your car is parked thirty yards from the Millerntor in a no-parking zone. You wait for Tanner to get out and confirm the coordinates again.
The Hummelfest fair is being set up, the stalls and most of the attractions are already standing there, ready for the surge of visitors which is supposedly going to break last year’s record. It isn’t due to open for another three days, and right now you couldn’t be less interested.
“Something smells bad about this,” says Leo.
Two and a half hours have passed since you left Berlin. You’re so close to the girls that they should be able to feel your breath, but Leo’s right, something smells bad. Tanner comes over to you and says, “It isn’t a mistake, Fabrizio’s checked the coordinates three times.”
You set yourselves in motion in sync. You’re a smooth machine advancing on eight legs, avoiding a crane, walking past the whitewater ride and stopping by the big wheel. You look up. The topmost gondolas are shifting gently in the wind.
“They can’t be up there,” says your son.
A technician tells you no one’s allowed up the big wheel yet. Tanner puts a few bank notes in his hand. The gondolas start to move and rotate slowly past you. Leo checks each individual one. In the twenty-sixth gondola you find a plastic bag on the seat. The technician gets nervous.
“Is that a bomb or what?”
No one replies. Tanner opens the bag, you all look in, look at each other, look back in the bag. Four cell phones look back at you and one of them lights up. The first notes of a song ring out. You take the phone and press receive.
“We need to talk,” says a voice.
You push your sunglasses up on your forehead and look around, you listen to the breathing in your ear and scour the area with your eyes.
Where is he?
You know he needs visual contact. He doesn’t wait for your reaction. He tells you where to meet, then the line goes dead. You drop the phone back in the plastic bag. Your mood hits bottom.
It’s Friday afternoon, and even in Hamburg no one works at this time of day. The whole of Germany is taking a long weekend and laughing in the face of the global economic crisis. The promenade is crowded. Strollers, joggers, mothers with baby buggies, and a few lunatics with dogs smiling indulgently at other lunatics with dogs. He’s chosen a good spot. He’s leaning against the railing with his back turned to you as if he didn’t have a care in the world. He doesn’t deceive you. You stand on his left, Tanner on his right, Leo sits in the car, your son waits a few feet away and keeps an eye on everything.
“We’re here.”
He looks first at you, then at Tanner, then his eye returns to you. Now he knows who’s in charge. You would guess he’s in his mid-twenties. His hair is long and well looked after. You can see the film of sweat on his forehead. He smells of expensive aftershave. Whoever he is, you’ve never seen him before.
“Keep your elbows on the railing,” you tell him, “and spread your legs.”
His left eyelid twitches.
“Why should I do that?”
“Because I’m not talking to anyone who’s carrying a gun in his waistband and thinks I’m not going to notice.”
He could run now, he could try to draw the gun. Instead his elbows stay on the railing, and he spreads his legs slightly. Your son steps forward and frisks him, pulls the pistol out of his waistband, shows it to you, you nod, your son puts it in his jacket before stepping back to where he was.
“Good,” you say and lean against the railing again, “we’ve got that out of the way. Who are you?”
“Neil.”
“Neil who?”
“Neil Exner.”
“Oh, shit,” says Tanner from the other side.
You don’t move, and search Neil Exner’s face for similarities.
The Emperor’s grandson? How absurd is that?
You were at the boy’s christening, you’d never have recognized him. And how could you? The last time your paths crossed he was nine years old and sitting on a bicycle while you chatted with his grandfather.
Just how small is this world?
You’re sure this isn’t coincidence. There are lots of Exners in Germany, but running into an Exner on the shores of the Alster after your brother’s been murdered and you’ve had five kilos of heroin stolen has nothing to do with coincidence, there’s planning behind it. Suddenly everything makes sense. The girls are just a tool. Put two and two together. Then there’s your brother’s nervousness over the past few months, as if something was in pursuit of him, as if there was a burden weighing him down. It all fits together. But what is it about? And why would Exner’s family want to fuck you over?
Yes, why?
How unprofessional is that? Is there something you’ve misunderstood?
You know that Ritchie Exner is dying of cancer, his crazy brother Ruprecht is lost in contemplation, and the Emperor is in his grave and hasn’t planned anything new for eleven years.
And here we have the little Exner.
Ask him.
“What does your family have to do with this whole business?”
“Nothing.”
“I’m going to ask you again, what does your family have to do with this whole business?”
“My family has nothing to do with it, okay?”
Perhaps it’s the okay, or the way he replies—your fingers itch to smash his head against the railing.
“Does your father know about this?”
“I talked to him this morning, but as I said, the family has nothing to do with it.”
“So is it pure chance?”
“Looks that way.”
You observe a boat bobbing past, you study a seagull turning languidly in the sunlight like a tossed coin, in defiance of gravity. You’re very glad you live in Berlin.
“You know what I think of chance?”
You spit. You spit on Hamburg and on this whole day.
“That’s what I think about it. So start from the beginning and convince me your family has nothing to do with it.”
He tells you he was in Berlin three days ago. And when he was there he met a girl. Stink. They spent the evening together and this morning she sought him out here in Hamburg because she and her girls needed money.
“And you gave them money?”
“They don’t know who I am or who my family is,” he says, avoiding your question. “And they don’t know I’m talking to you.”
“And you gave them money?”
“A bit.”
“Did they tell you what they’d done?”
He nods.
“And do you know what will happen to those girls if I find them?”
“That’s why I’m here.”
He clears his throat and takes a deep breath.
“I want to suggest a deal. I know where the drugs are. The whole package.”
You wait for him to say something more. He doesn’t. He’s waiting for your question.
“What do you want in return?”
“The girls.”
You’re confused.
“We haven’t got the girls.”
“I know. I want you to let them go. You wi
ll get your merchandise back, and that will be that.”
Tanner laughs, his laughter startles Neil Exner, who flinches for a second. He looks at Tanner, who shakes his head as if Exner has made a big mistake. He walks over to your son. Neil Exner now belongs to you alone.
“My brother’s dead,” you say.
“I’m sorry, but I think—”
“You don’t need to think. I said, my brother’s dead. After that sentence there’s a full stop. After the full stop you have nothing more to say. I don’t expect any sympathy from you. You owe it to your grandfather that you’re still alive. Do you think these strollers all around us would stop me from pulling your heart out? What’s wrong with you? You meet me and you’re carrying a gun? Are you completely nuts? Where did you get that gun from, anyway?”
“From the girls.”
“How did five girls from Berlin get hold of a gun that’s used by a French anti-terrorism unit?”
It’s obvious he has no idea.
“If I find out that your family has anything to do with this problem, I advise your clan to hide itself very well or—as your Uncle Ruprecht has already done—disappear without trace. I’m asking you one last time: do you really think that chance brought us here to the Alster?”
“Perhaps it was fate.”
You laugh at him.
“Kid, fate is a guy with syphilis and a hard-on, who fucks you in the ass every time you look in the wrong direction. Do you think I’d ever turn my back on fate?”
“Not really.”
“Then forget fate. We’re here because we feel too much. Me for my brother, you for some girls you don’t know …”
Suddenly you slam on the brakes and understand what you’re doing here. You don’t want to tell this boy anything about your anger and feeling of helplessness. Stick to the facts.
“Were the cell phones your idea?”
He nods and says that GPS isn’t an obscure bit of terminology these days, and that he thinks you must have tracked the girls down to the café somehow or other.
“And the big wheel? Did you stage all that just to gain some time?”
“I want to protect them, I want—”
“Who do you want to protect them from?”
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