‘That’s it,’ said Biegler.
‘Are there any other statements or explanations?’ asked the presiding judge.
‘Yes,’ said Biegler. He leaned forward. ‘The second part of the explanation is a video. With the permission of the court, we will show it now.’
The two policemen on duty drew the yellow curtains in the courtroom, plunging it into semi-darkness. Using a remote control, Biegler switched on the large screen. The television set was so far behind the judges’ bench that everyone in the courtroom could see it.
It was a computer-animated film. The mechanical Turk appeared on the screen. He was moving his arm as he played against an invisible opponent. Now the Turk was playing faster and faster, sweeping the chessmen off the board. In the end the only pieces left were the black king, two black rooks and a white pawn. Those pieces now appeared on the screen in close-up. The black king and the two rooks were wearing judges’ robes. They looked down at the white pawn. The pawn bowed and then became fluid, turning into a white substance that ran over the chessboard and trickled down into the automaton.
A door under the mechanical Turk opened. A naked young woman climbed out from between the cylinders and cogwheels in the chest; she was the same colour as the fluid that had been the pawn. She stood with her back to the camera and slowly turned round. Hundreds of small black crosses were drawn on her skin. The camera zoomed in on her face. It was the face of Eschburg’s half-sister.
To left and right, two more faces emerged from the darkness: the faces of Eschburg and Sofia. All three faces were the same size and shown in the same light. A scalpel appeared, cutting out the parts of the images showing Sofia’s eyes and Eschburg’s nose. Both parts were moved to fit above the half-sister’s face; only her mouth remained the same. A large eraser smoothed out the joins. The new face was made up of the faces of Sofia, Eschburg and his sister – and everyone in the courtroom recognized it. It was the photograph that had been found everywhere in Eschburg’s studio when it was searched – the woman the police had been looking for.
The woman with the new face turned and went over to the mechanical Turk. She had a gun in her hand. She aimed it at the figure’s head. The camera followed the shot cartridge; the head exploded into thousands of tiny balls. They were dark green and formed into a line of text:
Down the rivers of the windfall light
After that, the television set turned itself off.
There was commotion on the spectators’ benches. Some of the journalists were hurrying out to call their editorial offices. The police officers on duty opened the curtains again. The presiding judge tried several times to restore peace and quiet in the courtroom, and then told one of the officers to make a note of the names of those responsible for the disturbance.
When it was finally calm again, Biegler stood up. ‘Your honour,’ he addressed the presiding judge, ‘at the same time as that film was being shown in this courtroom it also went out on all available video platforms on the Internet. However, I can also give you two documents. The first is an investigation of the DNA of Eschburg’s half-sister. It is established beyond any doubt, and was certified by a notary present at the investigation a year ago at a medical laboratory in Austria. The DNA of the blood and scales of skin found in the course of police inquiries is identical with the half-sister’s DNA.
‘The second document comes from a police station at Elgin in Scotland. At my request, Eschburg’s half-sister went to the police there yesterday, taking all her documentation with her. She is studying at a boarding school in the vicinity. The police sent me a photograph of her yesterday, which I also add for the record. She is the woman with the crosses on her skin whom you have seen on the video. But above all, she is undoubtedly alive and well.
‘To put it another way, your honour and ladies and gentlemen on the judges’ bench: you found no body because there was no body. The woman who disappeared never existed. Von Eschburg has been accused of the murder of an installation.’
After this further explanation, there was so much noise that the presiding judge had to adjourn the trial for the day. It was some time before the spectators had left the courtroom.
‘That was the strangest day I’ve ever spent in court,’ said Biegler when he was alone with Eschburg. ‘But surely it was coincidence that the police officer wanted to torture you, wasn’t it?’
‘Of course; I couldn’t plan that ahead,’ said Eschburg. ‘But I knew you’d be able to make something of it.’
‘But why did you stage it at all? It could have gone wrong,’ said Biegler. ‘Why go to such lengths? For your sister? For art? For the truth?’
Eschburg looked at him. ‘At the end of Titian’s life his eyesight was getting worse and worse. He painted his last pictures with his fingers.’
‘What do you mean by that?’ asked Biegler.
‘He couldn’t bear to have anything between him and the pictures any longer. Titian was painting with himself,’ said Eschburg. He sounded exhausted; his cheeks were hollow.
Biegler shook his head. ‘I hope I’ll understand it some time, but at the moment I’m too tired.’ He took his coat from the row of hooks and put it on.
‘I have one more question, Herr Biegler, a question that a woman once asked me. After all this, can you tell me the answer? What is guilt?’
Biegler looked at the judges’ bench. He thought of all the trials he had seen in this courtroom, of the murderers, drug dealers and lost souls he had encountered. ‘The police officer here will take you to your cell,’ he said. ‘You can pack your things there. Sofia will meet you at the exit from the prison. Be nice to her; she really is a good woman.’
When Biegler left the courtroom the journalists outside almost knocked him down. They were all shouting questions at once. A woman in a trouser suit was standing behind them, leaning against the wall. Biegler could see the pale scar on her forehead. She nodded to him calmly. The woman looked exactly as Eschburg had always described Senja Finks. Biegler was going towards her, but the journalists wouldn’t let him through, and by the time he did get to the place where he had seen her, she had disappeared. Biegler shrugged his shoulders. Guilt, he thought, guilt is mankind.
Two weeks later, Sebastian von Eschburg was officially pronounced not guilty of murder.
WHITE
On the other side of the bridge, Eschburg climbed down into the river. The water was cold, and pressed hard against his gumboots. He had his wickerwork bag and his old rod with him, but he was not concentrating on fishing. Sometimes he stopped in the middle of the river to smoke a cigarette. He took the case with the jade stone out of his pocket and ran his fingers over the Japanese characters on the inside. He thought of Sofia and he thought of their son. Soon he’d take the boy fishing with him. He would teach him how to throw out his line, and where to find the shady places in which the trout gathered during the heat of the day, and he would show him how to cook trout on a stick over the fire. He didn’t know if he had done things properly, or whether there was in fact any proper way to do things.
We get up every morning, he thought, we live our lives, all the little things that go into them, our work, our hope, making love. We think that what we do is important and that we mean something. We believe we are certain, love is certain, and the society and places in which we live. We believe in all that because otherwise nothing works. But now and then we stop, time tears apart for a moment, and in that moment we understand, all we can see is our own reflections.
Then, gradually, things come back: the laughter of a strange woman in the corridor, afternoons after rain, the smell of wet linen and iris and the dark green moss on the stones. And we go on in the same way as we have always gone on, and as we will always go on again.
The summer fields were bright until they reached the bank. Eschburg was walking downstream. He threw his line far out. For a brief moment the fly lay on the water, gleaming green and red and blue in the sun. Then the river swept it away on the current.
&nb
sp;
The Girl Who Wasn't There Page 15
