‘That’s how you look to most people,’ said Elly, after a while. ‘When you were a young lawyer, a number of people thought you were a snob.’
‘A snob?’
‘Well, so you are a little bit. On our first date, we went to the theatre, even though you hate the theatre and have no idea what it’s about. You just wanted to impress me. In the middle of the play you whispered to me that Oedipus was the first detective in the history of the world – a man investigating himself without knowing it. Then you said we’d all do the same. You were absolutely certain of yourself. Maybe that’s it: certainty. Anyway, I found that very attractive.’
‘Really?’ He smiled at her. She still looks like a girl, he thought.
‘Don’t get any ideas, Biegler,’ she said.
6
The following morning, Biegler and Sofia boarded the first flight to Salzburg. Biegler complained of the cramped seats. He was not a battery chicken, he said.
A woman in the seat beside Biegler’s ordered curry sausage, pieces of meat swimming in brown sauce, regenerated in a fan oven for fifteen minutes at 150 degrees. The flight attendant put her hand on Biegler’s shoulder and asked whether he would like a sweet or a savoury snack. Biegler began losing his temper. The chief cabin steward came and introduced himself as the purser on board this plane. Biegler informed him that the term purser derived from the Christian seafaring tradition, and indicated that such an officer was in charge of provisions for the journey, but no one could really speak of provisions in this airborne cage.
Sofia tried to calm Biegler down. Biegler said the man had begun it.
‘Why did you become a lawyer, Herr Biegler?’ she asked.
‘I’m no good as a musician,’ said Biegler.
‘Come on, that’s not an answer.’
‘The other answer is a long story, and I wouldn’t like to bore you.’
‘You aren’t boring me,’ said Sofia.
‘Well, maybe it’s not so complicated after all; a time came when I realized that a man belongs only to himself. Not to any God or any church, not to any state, only to himself. That’s his liberty. And that liberty is a fragile thing, sensitive and vulnerable. Only the law can protect it. Do I sound over-emotional?’
‘A little,’ said Sofia.
‘That’s what I believe, all the same.’
‘And what will you do when this case is over?’ asked Sofia.
‘Tackle my next brief, of course. Why?’ asked Biegler.
‘Won’t you get tired of it some day? Don’t the constant attacks on you in the press bother you?’
‘Acting for the defence in court isn’t a popularity contest,’ said Biegler.
‘But don’t you sometimes want to branch out? Go into politics, for instance? Well-known lawyers sometimes do that.’
‘Go into politics?’
‘Yes, the internationally important questions of the day —’
‘The more internationally important a question is, the less it interests me,’ said Biegler.
In Salzburg they hired a car and arrived in the mountain village two and a half hours later. They stopped outside the Golden Stag on the marketplace. Biegler rang the doorbell. When no one came to open the door they walked round the house. The garden gate was open. Biegler saw a man with a pockmarked face and grey stubble sitting outside the house. He was about to wave when a dog jumped up at him. There was no avoiding the animal. Biegler fell against the posts of the garden fence. Their sharp points dug into his back.
The man with the pockmarked face shouted, ‘Down, Rascal.’
The dog took its forepaws off Biegler’s shoulders, looked at him and wagged its tail. The man came over. Biegler straightened his clothing.
‘Good boy, Rascal, good boy,’ said the man. The dog lay down on the ground.
‘I wouldn’t call Rascal a good boy myself,’ said Biegler. His back hurt.
‘He likes you,’ said the man. ‘He usually bites at once.’ The man seemed to be expecting a compliment for Rascal in return.
Sofia bent down to pat the dog. ‘What breed is he?’ she asked. ‘He’s so pretty.’
‘Pretty? You think this dog is pretty? He’s a monster,’ said Biegler.
‘Bernese mountain dog,’ said the man. ‘The best dog for these parts.’
‘We’re looking for the landlady,’ said Biegler. He still had dog hairs on his face.
‘She’s inside the inn.’
‘We rang the bell,’ said Sofia.
‘The bell’s out of order,’ said the man. ‘Who are you?’
‘Biegler, lawyer, from Berlin. And I’m allergic to dog hair.’
‘So?’ said the man. He looked Biegler in the face and grinned. Biegler grinned back. They stood like that for a while, until at last the man gave up. ‘Wait here.’ He went into the inn by the back door, hardly lifting his feet as he walked.
Sofia helped Biegler to pick the hairs from his clothes. The dog leaned against Biegler’s legs, wagging his tail. ‘He keeps looking at me,’ said Biegler.
‘He likes you, that’s what it is,’ said Sofia.
‘He has too much hair.’
A few minutes later the pockmarked man re-emerged from the house and waved them inside. They went through the kitchen into the main room. The tables were light oak, the walls panelled with wood. The place smelled of fresh bread and floor polish. A woman came towards them; she was in her early forties, blue-eyed.
‘Who are you?’ she asked.
‘My name is Biegler, and I’m a lawyer,’ said Biegler.
‘Yes?’
‘We’re here because of Sebastian von Eschburg.’
The woman turned, looked at the man who was still standing by the door, and raised her chin. He shuffled out of the room. She waited until he had gone.
‘Please sit down.’ She pointed to a table, but remained standing herself.
‘Has anyone from the police been here?’ asked Biegler.
‘Why the police?’ asked the woman.
‘Or the press?’
‘No, not the press either. For heaven’s sake, what’s this about? I read about Sebastian’s arrest, but what’s that to do with me?’
‘Excuse me,’ said Biegler, ‘but could I have some water, please?’
‘Of course.’ The woman looked at Sofia. ‘Would you like something to drink as well?’
‘Water too, please,’ said Sofia.
The woman went behind the bar and came back with a bottle and three glasses. She poured the water standing, and then sat down with them.
‘What has happened?’ she asked.
‘I’m sorry, but that’s what I have to ask you,’ said Biegler. ‘Sebastian’s father is also the father of your daughter, am I right?’ He was watching her. Her upper lip trembled slightly, that was all.
‘How do you know?’ she asked.
Biegler waited. He imagined her life in this village. It couldn’t be easy to be a single mother here. A wooden cross hung near the stove. We invented gods because we were lonely, he thought, but even that was no good.
‘Yes, you’re right,’ the woman said after a long pause. Then she began to tell her story. It was like a dam breaking. She told them how she had met Sebastian’s father. That had been over twenty years ago, when she was nineteen. Her father, who was the village innkeeper, had bought a new car, a convertible. Sebastian’s father had hired the car, and she had gone for a drive with him. He had opened the roof, although it was already autumn.
‘He drove so fast,’ she said, ‘he laughed and fooled around. He had such slender hands, and soft hair almost like a girl’s. We went to the lake, we listened to the radio and looked at the water.’
‘And then you stopped looking at the water,’ said Biegler.
She nodded. She had been very much in love with him, she said. After four years she became pregnant. She hadn’t planned it, she said, it just happened. They used to see each other only when he came here to hunt. He didn’t want to lose her, but neit
her could he leave his family.
‘That’s the way men are,’ she said. ‘When my belly grew bigger and everyone could see it, he talked of nothing else, he didn’t know what to do. He wept and discussed it this way and that, and then wept again. His thoughts were hopelessly entangled.’
That was when he began drinking, she said. Drinking spirits, the hard stuff, here at the inn. She knew drinkers, she knew there was no helping them.
‘It was bad enough for me, but I think it was even worse for him. My father took it calmly; he said we could bring the child up here,’ she said. ‘After a while I stopped going up to the hunting lodge. I thought that was the best thing to do, before it all tore him apart entirely. Perhaps that was wrong; I sometimes think so now. And when my daughter was born I was on my own.’
The woman emptied her glass. She had stopped talking as suddenly as she had begun. Her upper lip was trembling again. Biegler brought his cigarillos out of his pocket.
‘May I?’ he asked.
She pushed an ashtray across the table. Biegler lit himself a cigarillo. Sofia was going to say something but Biegler shook his head. The woman looked at the floor, and then watched him smoking.
‘And then I heard that he had killed himself,’ she said at last. ‘I didn’t know until he was already buried because no one at his home knew about me. People said he’d shot his head away. He never saw his daughter.’
I must go on, thought Biegler. ‘But they kept showing your daughter’s photograph on TV. Why didn’t you get in touch with the police?’
‘What photograph?’ asked the woman.
Biegler drew the photo that Eschburg had taken out of the file.
The woman took the picture. ‘Yes, I’ve seen that. But who is it of?’
Sofia and Biegler stared at the woman. She’s not lying, Biegler reflected. He was furious with himself. He must have overlooked something or other.
‘I thought that was your daughter,’ he said.
She shook her head. ‘I’ve never seen this girl before.’ She looked at the photo again. ‘The mouth is a little like my daughter’s, but that’s all.’
The mouth is like her daughter’s, thought Biegler; maybe there’s another illegitimate daughter?
‘Sebastian is accused of her murder,’ said Sofia.
‘Good heavens, no,’ said the woman. ‘Sebastian could never harm anyone.’
‘Do you know him?’ asked Sofia.
‘He’s been here a few times. He inherited his father’s hunting lodge. His mother wanted to sell it but his father had transferred it to his son for life.’
‘Has he ever been here with your daughter?’ asked Biegler. He had let his cigarillo go out, something that very seldom happened.
The woman nodded. ‘Wait a moment,’ she said, and left the room. After a couple of minutes she came back. She was carrying a cardboard box. She put it on the table and opened it. Sofia took out the papers it contained: they were pictures of Eschburg’s exhibitions, newspaper cuttings, interviews, critical assessments of his work.
‘This belongs to my daughter,’ the woman said. ‘She collected everything she could find about Sebastian before she saw him for the first time. He meant the right sort of life to her. She was furious with her father, although she never met him. She used to scream and rage and curse everyone here. I can see why. A stranger can’t understand what it’s like, growing up in a village like this without a father. She always wanted to get away.’
‘And then?’ asked Biegler.
‘She met Sebastian just after her sixteenth birthday. I couldn’t dissuade her. She went to the opening of his exhibition in Rome. After that they were here together twice,’ said the woman. ‘They got on well, they’re very like each other. Before she left she said she’d be part of his art for ever now.’
‘Before she left? You mean died?’ asked Sofia, and Biegler nodded.
‘What makes you think that?’ asked the woman. She looked at the two of them. ‘No, she left to go to Scotland. Sebastian is paying for her to study at a boarding school there – it’s called Gordonstoun. She wants to study art history later,’ she said.
‘What?’ Biegler and Sofia exclaimed at the same time.
‘When did you last speak to her?’ asked Biegler.
‘Yesterday,’ said the woman.
‘Then she’s alive?’ asked Sofia.
‘Of course she’s alive.’ The woman sat very upright at the table and stared at Sofia and Biegler. ‘Has something happened to her? You ask such odd questions.’
‘No,’ said Biegler. ‘Nothing has happened to her.’
‘Can you tell me what she meant by saying that about his art, please? My daughter won’t say,’ said the woman.
‘I have no idea,’ said Biegler. He straightened his shoulders, and stood up. ‘I’m sorry we had to ask all those things,’ he said. Then he went out into the garden.
7
Biegler and Sofia spent the night in the inn’s two guest rooms. Biegler slept poorly. He woke twice and didn’t know where he was. At five he got up, thinking that he would read, but the only available book was a Bible in the drawer of the bedside table.
He dressed and went out into the marketplace. The coat he had brought was only a thin one. There was mist everywhere, and he could hardly make anything out. He walked through the village and turned, but he had lost his way back to the Golden Stag. All the houses looked the same. He wanted a cigarillo, but his lighter wasn’t working. He heard a tractor and had to swerve aside, dazzled by its headlights at the last minute. The tractor driver swore and tapped his forehead. Then he heard a baby being tortured somewhere. He ran in the direction of the screams, stumbled over a doorstep, slipped and hit his shoulder hard on the wall of a house. The screams came from a cat that was sitting on a windowsill, spitting at him. Biegler cursed. Cold sweat stood out on his forehead and his shoulder hurt.
At last he found the entrance to the inn again. All was still dark inside. He sat on the bed in his coat until seven. Then he heard Sofia in the corridor.
They drank coffee in the main room of the inn. Biegler told the landlady that they would like to see the Eschburgs’ hunting lodge. The key used to be kept under a stone on the steps outside it, she said, but she hadn’t been back there since her daughter’s birth. Biegler wanted to pay their overnight bill, but the woman wouldn’t take any money.
Sofia and Biegler drove along a narrow path through the fields up to the hunting lodge.
‘Who can the girl in that photo be?’ Biegler wondered aloud. ‘The girl who disappeared. Who called the police?’
‘Sebastian’s father must have had another child as well,’ said Sofia.
‘Do you really think so?’
‘No,’ said Sofia.
‘Nor do I,’ said Biegler. ‘We’re no further on at all.’
‘Suppose you asked mother and daughter to give evidence in court?’
‘Their blood would be tested. If their DNA matches the traces of blood that have been found, the verdict would probably be not guilty, although nothing else would be cleared up.’
‘And if it doesn’t?’ asked Sofia.
‘Then we’d be facing the same problem again. I’ll do it if necessary: I’ll ask them both to give evidence. But I don’t like the idea. You don’t ask questions in court unless you already know the answer,’ said Biegler.
It had begun to rain. They found the key under a stone on the step outside the front door. The door itself was jammed. Once inside the house they discovered that the electricity was turned off and the shutters over the windows were closed. Biegler crashed into a chair in the front hall. He found the handle of a window and opened it. The catch for the shutters was rusty and Biegler cut his hand on it. He wrapped his handkerchief round the injury. They went through the rooms, opening all the windows one by one.
‘This is terrible,’ said Sofia.
Eschburg’s father had drawn them straight on the walls. There must be hundreds of thousands of them
, all over the entire hunting lodge: crosses had been drawn on every wall, on the ceilings, the chairs, the tables, the cupboards. The crosses were tiny and black, two strokes of fine charcoal to each. It must have taken him weeks.
After they had seen everything, they went outside the door and sat down on the wooden bench under the porch. For a long time they sat there, listening to rain falling on the porch roof.
‘It reminds me of Goya, Herr Biegler. He did the same thing. He painted his nightmares on the walls of his country house; they’re known as the Black Paintings. Subjects like giants eating human beings, biting their heads off. They’re perhaps the best pictures he ever created.’
Sofia’s lips were blue. Biegler took off his coat and draped it over her shoulders. ‘Does anyone know why?’ he asked.
‘Goya had gone deaf; he was living in a world of his own. I think it was because of his isolation, the loss of his hearing.’
Biegler nodded. ‘I’m glad you came with me,’ he said.
He lit a cigarillo but didn’t like the taste of it. ‘Did you know that given the chance, most suicides shoot themselves in the head? Not in the heart, in the head. It’s the horror they feel for themselves. We can’t bear our own guilt. We can manage to forgive anyone else, our enemies, those who deceive us, people who let us down. It’s only with ourselves it doesn’t work. We simply can’t forgive ourselves. We ourselves are the stumbling block.’
‘And yet,’ said Sofia, after a while, ‘the woman loved him.’
‘That didn’t save him,’ said Biegler. He stretched out his legs. The Bernese mountain dog had left paw prints on his trousers.
‘People can change,’ said Sofia.
‘Oh, come on, that’s the kind of thing that characters played by James Stewart say in films. No, people don’t change except in novels. We stand side by side, we hardly touch at all. There’s no development. Things happen to us, maybe they turn out well, mostly they don’t. We learn to hide who we really are,’ said Biegler.
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