Black Ice

by Hans Werner Kettenbach

  “Can I help you?”

  “I want to buy a book.”

  “What kind of book?”

  “A book about how ice is made.”

  “Ice?” The young man adjusted his glasses.

  “Yes, ice. Don’t you understand that? A book about how to make ice, it’s perfectly simple.”

  “You mean ice cream?”

  “No, no, not ice cream. I mean how do you make real ice?”

  “Well, in the fridge, I should think. Or the freezer.”

  “I know. Are you trying to be funny?”

  “No, certainly not. I’ll try to find out for you.”

  “My God, you’re slow on the uptake. I am looking for a book describing the way ice is made.”

  The young man adjusted his glasses again. “Excuse me, I am not slow on the uptake, but you don’t express yourself very clearly. Do you mean a description of an ice machine?”

  “No, I don’t. I can find all that in the encyclopaedia.”

  “Then I really don’t know what you’re after.”

  Scholten struggled for words for a moment. Then he said, “Kiss my arse” and walked out of the shop.

  He tried again. On Wednesday evening he stopped by a phone box on the way home and called Frings the journalist. He asked if the Met Office could tell you how to make ice. Frings asked questions until it was clear what Scholten wanted to know: whether ice could be made in the open air. An artificial layer of ice on a road, for instance? Yes, that was right, on a road. Or on steps. Say on the steps up to the cathedral.

  Frings said he couldn’t imagine it. It would be impossible. Of course you could pour water over the road or down the cathedral steps, but it wouldn’t freeze unless everywhere else around had a temperature at freezing point. You’d need, as it were, to build a huge fridge over the road or round the cathedral steps. “But that would surely be rather expensive, don’t you think, Herr Höffner?”

  Scholten really wanted to ask Frings how he could be so certain, and wouldn’t it be better to call the Met Office before handing out information? But he gave up. He said, “Well, thanks very much, then,” hung up the receiver, said “Bastard,” and drove home.

  Two days later, on Good Friday afternoon when Scholten was sitting watching television with Hilde, a performance of the St Matthew Passion, he gave up the ice idea. Another and much better solution had suddenly occurred to him in a flash of inspiration: Wallmann had stretched threads across the steps!

  Scholten almost jumped up to fetch his drawing from the desk. But he controlled himself. Hilde would have been upset, and the music really was beautiful. He didn’t need the drawing either. He could see the wooden steps quite clearly in his mind’s eye: the stringboards of the flight of steps sloping vertically down, framing and supporting the planks that acted as the steps themselves. Every plank rested on two strong, long angle-irons screwed to the right and left of the inside of the wooden stringboards. And each plank was fixed to its angle-irons by bolts, one on the right and one on the left.

  The stringboards of the steps rose a few inches above the planks on both sides. Wallmann had only to knock a nail into the top of the stringboards to right and left, three or four inches above the plank, and tie cords between them.

  Erika came down the steps, stumbled over one of the cords and fell. Perhaps there was a little frost on the wood too, and she couldn’t catch hold of anything to break her fall.

  That’s how it must have been.

  Scholten rubbed his forehead. There was a certain amount of risk still involved, of course. Yes, it had definitely been risky; Wallmann couldn’t remove the cords until Saturday evening. And someone might have seen them before then.

  But who’d go up there, at this time of the year too?

  Anyway, cords would have been much less conspicuous than soft soap. And there’d be nothing to scrub off. He could have torn the cords away in a few seconds.

  That was just how it had been. It must be. And now, at last, everything fitted together. The christening, Wallmann’s alibi. The files. It all made sense.

  Scholten gradually relaxed. He let himself sit back in his armchair. After a while he began humming along with the music: O Mensch, bewein dein Sünde gross . . . His eyes filled with tears. The goddamned bastard.

  Scholten gritted his teeth.

  On Easter Saturday he went to confession with Hilde. She took his arm as they walked to church and said she could feel a change in the weather. Dark ragged clouds were racing over the bright sky. Gusts of warm wind blew. She said she’d felt it last night too. The bare branches of the trees bent in the wind.

  After a while she said: “Why don’t you say anything?”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, who else?”

  “I was thinking.”

  “What about?”

  “What about!” He pushed his hat more firmly down on his forehead. “Don’t you ever think before going to confession?”

  “Oh, well, I didn’t know you were doing that. If it’s your confession you’re thinking about, then I’ll say no more. You don’t need to say anything either.”

  “No, I don’t.”

  After a while she added: “You do know you don’t just have to confess the things you’ve actually done, don’t you?”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “You have to confess the bad thoughts you’ve had too.”

  “Yes, right.”

  As they climbed the steps to the church door she said: “If you’ve suspected anyone unjustly, then you have to confess that as well.”

  He held the church door open for her and said: “Oh, do drop the subject. Do you think I don’t know how to confess?”

  She whispered sharply: “Keep your voice down.”

  Scholten helped her as she kneeled down in the pew. She buried her face in both hands.

  The twilit silence of the church affected him. He moved his lips and turned his eyes to the dark red of the Eternal Light.

  Suddenly there was a loud crash. Someone had stumbled over a pew or dropped a prayer book. Scholten looked round and shook his head disapprovingly.

  He went into the confessional after Hilde. She had passed him with eyes lowered and hands clasped over her breast. In the dim light behind the curtain, Scholten dropped to his knees. After the opening formula he said: “I have committed the sin of unchastity.” He hesitated for a moment and then said: “Alone and with others.”

  The priest behind the thin wooden screen sighed. He asked how old Scholten was, whether he was married, and how often it had happened. Scholten gave a rough estimate, saying it had been with various women, at intervals, in a brothel.

  The priest said that at his age Scholten really should be learning to deal with temptation. He asked if he had anything else to confess.

  Scholten thought of Wallmann’s cigars, but that was only petty theft of consumables. He said: “No, that’s all.”

  The priest said it was quite enough and urged him to mend his ways. He might think, added the priest, of the pain his wife would feel if she knew what he got up to.

  As penance he gave him five Our Fathers and five Hail Marys to say.

  Scholten duly said them, and after a while, when his thoughts had wandered off again, he added an extra Our Father. He asked the Lord to help him bring that bastard Wallmann to justice. He concluded with another Hail Mary too.

  The steps. He must go and look at those steps as soon as possible. For heaven’s sake, there must be some kind of evidence he could find there! That goddamned bastard couldn’t get away with it.

  10

  The week after Easter passed, and Scholten was getting very restless. He had hoped Wallmann would send him up to the weekend house again soon. In autumn Wallmann had said the deck of the boat would have to be painted in spring, and Scholten had mentioned that the shutters would want some attention by then too. And by this time there’d be a fine crop of weeds round the house; they grew like mad up there in the middle of th
e woods.

  But Wallmann did not suggest sending him over.

  Scholten wondered whether to ask if he should go. But that was too risky. Wallmann might get suspicious. Or he might say no just to spite him.

  When yet another week had passed, Scholten came to a decision. On Wednesday afternoon he suddenly stood up, clutched his stomach and ran to the lavatory. When he came back Rosa Thelen said: “Anything wrong with you?”

  “I don’t know. I suddenly got such cramps in my stomach. Diarrhoea too.”

  “What have you eaten?”

  “Only my sandwich at lunch. But perhaps there was something the matter with the beer. It did taste rather odd.” He put his hands to his belly.

  Five minutes later he went to the lavatory again. When he came back Rosa had been into the project managers’ office to ask if anyone else was feeling unwell.

  Rothgerber came into the filing room, looked at Scholten and said: “What is it, then? Got the trots? Have some of my schnapps.”

  “Schnapps is pure poison for that kind of thing!” said Rosa indignantly. “I’ll make him some tea.”

  Rothgerber said: “That’ll just make him feel even worse. What kind of tea?”

  “Camomile.”

  Scholten uttered a suppressed groan, clutched his stomach and went off to the lavatory again. Meanwhile Kurowski was already inspecting all the beer bottles from the crate in the storeroom. As Scholten left the lavatory, he was standing in the doorway of the office building, holding a bottle up to the light. He said: “Scholten’s right. This one’s cloudy. I don’t think I’m feeling too good either.”

  Inge Faust was standing in the filing room, watching Rosa Thelen make tea. When Scholten came in she said: “Herr Scholten, you’d better go home. There’s no point staying at work if you have to keep running to the toilet.”

  Scholten sat down at his desk. “No, that’s all right, it’ll pass off. It wasn’t quite as bad just now.” He busied himself with his papers.

  Inge Faust marched over to Wallmann’s office. Two minutes later Wallmann left the building. Out in the corridor he said, raising his voice: “So where would we be if everyone went off sick just because he was shitting himself?” He got into his car and drove off.

  Kurowski, on his way to the door with another couple of bottles, came into the filing room and said: “I tell you what, if I was you I’d shit right here in the middle of the corridor. That man’s crazy. You go home. He can’t do anything to you.”

  Scholten dismissed the idea. “No, no, he’s right. I’ve never gone off work for something like that.”

  He stayed until the office closed. He drank three cups of camomile tea and went to the lavatory another six times. As he took his coat from his locker Wallmann came out into the corridor and said: “Are you ill?”

  “Oh, it’s not too bad. Stomach cramps. And I feel a bit weak now, but that’s not surprising.”

  “You’d better stay at home tomorrow, then.”

  “Oh, well – it must have been the beer. The bottle I drank had probably gone off.”

  “Could be. Or then again you might have something infectious. Stay at home tomorrow, and if you’re still unwell on Friday call and say so.”

  “Well, maybe that’s a good idea. Before I pass any bugs on to everyone else. But I’ll definitely be back on Friday, or I’ll have too much to catch up with.”

  He began worrying on his way home. What would he do if Inge Faust or Rosa called him at home tomorrow to ask how he was? Either of them easily might.

  Next morning he left home at his usual time, five to six. Hilde, in her dressing gown, held the door slightly ajar and watched him go. He waved to her as he reached the landing of the stairs and went on down and immediately realized that it was a mistake. She would notice. She’d wonder why he waved.

  As he joined the motorway he felt fear like a lump in his belly. There was a good deal of traffic on the motorway at this time of day. And some idiots drove like scalded pigs. If he had an accident here there really would be hell to pay. He clutched the steering wheel. Then he tried to adopt a relaxed position. Take it slowly, Jupp Scholten. We have plenty of time.

  He felt relieved when he could turn off the motorway and join the ordinary road. There was hardly anyone driving in the same direction, and traffic coming the other way was light. Once he had passed the small town, and the road began winding its way up into the hills, no other vehicles at all met him. The sun had risen above the woods, the meadows sparkled with dew. Scholten wound down the window and let in the fresh morning air.

  But the hardest part still lay ahead. He turned off the main road sooner than usual, took a circuitous route along minor roads, through spruce woods where the light was still dim, and did not approach Wallmann’s weekend retreat from the usual direction. If he had driven through the village, Grandmontagne might have seen him, or Grandmontagne’s wife, or Hückelhoven the baker, or the Widow Abels. The whole village knew him, and his car too.

  One or two miles before reaching the track that led to the path along the banks of the lake, he turned into a clearing. Take it easy, Jupp Scholten, take it very easy. We have plenty of time. It was a quarter to eight. He drove the car to one side so that it couldn’t be seen from the road. He got out and looked around him. No one in sight, no sound but the twittering of the birds.

  He went to the road and looked right and left. Then he crossed it, searched around for a dry place, jumped the ditch and slipped, saved himself from falling with both hands. His right hand met mud. He wiped it off on the grass. Take it easy, Jupp Scholten.

  He crossed the wood at an angle. Dead twigs broke under his shoes. Twice he didn’t bend down far enough, and his hat was almost swept off his head; he straightened it again. He was feeling warm in his coat. As he reached the path along the banks he felt sweat break out between his shoulder blades.

  He unbuttoned the coat, took a deep breath. Ducks were quacking among the reeds by the bank. The lake lay broad and calm. Only occasionally did a little wave run towards the bank, break and flow back. The blue western sky stood above the tall trees on the little promontory to his left. A faint mist enveloped the black humpbacked wooded land on the far side of the lake.

  Scholten turned right. He followed the winding path along the bank. He took his hat off, wiped his forehead and neck with his handkerchief. A light wind blew over the reeds. When Scholten reached the end of the path he stopped, got behind a tree and looked out over the little sandy bay. No one in sight. The concert of birdsong continued, interrupted only by tiny pauses at irregular intervals.

  The boat was rocking on the water by the landing stage. Scholten saw the bottom of the steps on the opposite side of the sandy bay. The morning sun shone down on their grey planks. His lips moving silently, he counted the bottom steps up to the landing, where the flight disappeared from view behind the steep bank. Fourteen planks.

  Scholten breathed in deeply. Right, here we go. He walked down to the sandy bay, looked around him once more then took his coat off as he walked on. He hung it over a projecting rock on the bank, with his jacket over it and his hat on top of them. He wondered whether to take his pullover off too. No, the wind was freshening, as it always did at this time of day.

  Scholten went up the steps, one hand on the birch tree trunk that did duty as a handrail. On the landing he was about to kneel down but then shook his head. “Come on, take it easy, Jupp Scholten. Take a look at the house first.” He went up the last five steps and, looking all round him, went to the space behind the garage. “Some bloody fool with no business here could be poking around. Or some nosy old woman. Go carefully, Jupp Scholten. You have to be a hundred per cent sure with this kind of thing.”

  The gravel crunched underfoot. Scholten bent down and pulled out a few of the green shoots coming up between the little stones. “He should have sent me up here last week. But it’s all the same to him. He has more important things to do.”

  He looked round the corner of the garage
at the forecourt in front of it. He walked once round the house, shaking a shutter here and there, pulling out a weed now and then. He stopped in front of one of the shutters, scratched the paint with a fingernail. “About time too.” He put both hands on his hips and looked at the thin flakes of colour coming away.

  A jay screeched, very close. Scholten jumped. “Stupid bird.”

  Slowly he went down the five steps to the landing, took a deep breath. “Here we go, then. And you watch out, Wallmann.” He kneeled down, passed his hand over the stringboards of the steps. He thrust his head forward, narrowed his eyes.

  Nothing to be seen.

  He straightened up, thought. Of course, Wallmann would have been crazy just to take the cords away and leave the nails in the wood. Naturally he took the nails out too. It wouldn’t have taken him long.

  Scholten peered closely at the left-hand stringboard of the steps, inspecting it bit by bit. He couldn’t find any nail-marks level with the last step before the landing, or above the next plank either. He felt sweat gathering above his eyebrows.

  Straightening up again, he groaned and passed the back of his hand over his brow. He ought to have brought a magnifying glass. No, that was nonsense. Wallmann couldn’t have tied the cords to drawing pins; Erika would simply have pulled those out. They must have been good strong nails.

  Scholten bent down again. He found a nail-mark in the stringboard above the second plank from the top. He immediately looked at the stringboard on the opposite side, but he found nothing there. He took a deep breath.

  The nail didn’t have to have been exactly level with the one opposite. He searched the cracked wood of the stringboard from top to bottom, bit by bit. But he found nothing.

  Half-lying, he propped himself on the steps, looking straight ahead. As he searched for his handkerchief he heard a distant cry. He jumped in alarm, looked around. A yacht came sailing along the lake, tacking in the wind. The mainsail hid the crew.

  Panic-stricken, Scholten thought of going up to the house, but then he remembered his coat. He hurried down the steps, looking over his shoulder, snatched up his hat, coat and jacket and ran over the sand of the bay, bending low.