Fatal Lies lp-3

by Frank Tallis

  “Indeed,” said Freitag.

  “I wonder, do you have soap and water where you come from, Stojakovic?” said Steininger.

  They suddenly burst out laughing and looked to Drexler for approval, but his face remained impassive.

  “Have you lost your sense of humor, Drexler?” said Freitag.

  “Quite the contrary,” Drexler replied. “I find Hoffmann very amusing.”

  “Oh, well, if your sense of humor is still intact,” said Freitag, “you'll enjoy this-the latest Serbian joke.”

  “Careful, Freitag,” said Drexler. “Some of my ancestors were Serbian.”

  “Don't worry,” said Freitag. “I'll speak very slowly… Now, how do you get a one-armed Serb down from a tree? No idea? All right- you wave at him.”

  Steininger slapped his thigh and guffawed loudly.

  Freitag turned to address their captive: “Why do you Serbians bring a bucket of shit to your weddings?” Before the boy could answer, Freitag added: “To keep the flies off the bride, of course.”

  Again, Steininger fell about laughing.

  “Enough!” Wolf shouted, clapping his hands slowly.

  Steininger collected himself and assumed a more serious expression.

  “Stojakovic!” Wolf continued. “I will ask you once more. Why have you been brought here?”

  “I don't know,” said the Serbian boy-his denial sounded like a desperate plea.

  “Then I'll tell you,” said Wolf. “You have been indiscreet, Stojakovic.”

  “Now, that is bad,” said Steininger.

  “Quite unacceptable,” murmured Freitag.

  “Did you really think,” said Wolf, “that you could blab to Lang in the middle of a calligraphy class and not be overheard!”

  “I didn't-”

  “Speak up!”

  “You are mistaken.”

  “Don't lie, Stojakovic!”

  The sound of Wolf's footsteps preceded his appearance. He emerged from the outer darkness between two columns of smoke that turned slowly in the displaced air. His mouth was a horizontal slit-its linearity suggesting boredom. He had a thin, hungry face, and dull gray eyes. However, his hair was bright yellow-like a cap of gold.

  Wolf drew on his cigarette and stepped up close to the Serbian boy. They were roughly the same height, and their noses almost touched. Wolf exhaled a cloud of smoke and said, quite calmly: “You have attempted to make trouble for us, and you must be taught a lesson. It is your own fault-you understand? You brought it upon yourself.”

  The boy could not maintain eye contact, and looked down at the floor. Wolf trod on his cigarette, turned, and marched toward Drexler.

  “Get up!”

  “Why?”

  “Because I want to sit down.”

  “I'm reading.”

  “Drexler! I won't tell you again!”

  Drexler sighed, got out of the chair, and leaned against the wall.

  Wolf reached into the battered suitcase and removed something- an object. The others could not see what it was because Wolf concealed it with his hands.

  “Now, Stojakovic,” said Wolf, “you will do exactly as I say and no harm will come to you; however, if you choose to disobey me…” Wolf raised his arm. He was holding a revolver. “I will shoot you.”

  Steininger and Freitag looked at each other and laughed.

  “Where did you get that from, eh, Wolf?” said Steininger.

  Wolf waved the revolver from side to side, indicating that his two lieutenants should withdraw.

  “Hey, be careful,” said Freitag. “Is it loaded?”

  “Of course it's loaded, you fool!”

  “Where did you get it from?” Steininger repeated his question.

  “I found it.”

  “Where?”

  “Never you mind.” Wolf thrust the revolver forward at Stojakovic. “Take your clothes off. Don't just stand there-you heard what I said. Take your clothes off. Hurry up-all of them.” His voice had become agitated, and flecks of spittle sprayed out of his mouth.

  The Serbian boy undid the buttons of his tunic and fumbled with his belt. His hands were shaking.

  He hesitated when he reached his undergarments.

  “What are you waiting for?” asked Wolf. “Get on with it!”

  The boy peeled off his woolen vest and stepped out of his long johns. He stood, completely naked, in a cone of milky luminescence. He was a thin, pale boy, with alabaster skin and dark hair. His genitals were barely visible, having retreated into a luxuriant tangle of wiry pubic curls. The effect was quite disconcerting. Stojakovic looked feminine, submissive, sexually ambiguous, and the rapidity of his breathing betrayed the magnitude of his terror.

  Steininger laughed. It wasn't a comfortable laugh. It had a hysterical quality-ending abruptly, and leaving a tense, uneasy silence in its wake.

  “Now what?” said Drexler, snapping his book closed.

  Wolf's eyes flashed at Drexler. They were filled with latent fire, an admixture of malevolence and anger. Drexler, who ordinarily experienced the world as if everything in it were somehow removed or distant, felt his sense of privileged detachment slip. It surprised him-like a jolt of electricity. The sinister cast of Wolf's lineaments had reined him in.

  Wolf got up and walked purposefully toward the Serbian boy. When he reached his side, he inspected his face.

  “Are you crying, Stojakovic?” Wolf asked.

  The boy's head moved-a minute, almost imperceptible shake.

  Wolf lifted the boy's chin with the barrel of the revolver. Stojakovic's cheeks were streaked with silver.

  “Now, what did I tell you about lying, Stojakovic? If you lie to me, you will be punished. It's your own fault-you leave me no choice.”

  Wolf pulled the revolver hammer back with his thumb. It clicked loudly. Then he pressed the barrel against Stojakovic's temple.

  Time stopped.

  Drexler tasted metal in his mouth. The silence pulsed in his ears. A seeping, vitrifying cold spread through his limbs. He could not move, and felt that if he tried to, he would shatter.

  A loud hissing sound filled the room.

  At first, Wolf appeared confused. He looked quizzically at the others, then downward. Urine was flowing in wide yellow rivulets down Stojakovic's legs, feeding an expanding circular puddle, the circumference of which had made contact with the soles of Wolf's shoes.

  “You Serbian dog!” Wolf cried, his mouth twisting in disgust. He struck Stojakovic on the head with the butt of his gun. “You animal, you damned animal!”

  The boy fell to his knees, blood streaming from a deep gash on his forehead.

  Drexler ran across the room and grabbed Wolf's arm, preventing him from delivering a second blow.

  “Stop it, Wolf.”

  “Drexler?” Wolf was no longer angry. Rather, he seemed surprised-as though disorientated after waking from sleep.

  “You've made your point,” said Drexler. “Now that's enough.” Drexler pulled the Serbian boy to his feet. “Pick up your clothes and get out. And no more loose talk in the future, you understand? Get out.”

  Stojakovic scooped up his clothes and ran into the darkness. They listened to him getting dressed: ragged breathing, the clink of his belt, and, finally, the trapdoor opening and closing.

  Drexler looked into Wolf's eyes. The strange light had died, and Wolf's expression was blank. His thin lips were straight again. Slowly, something like a smile began to appear on his face.

  “Drexler! You idiot! I wasn't going to kill him. You're losing your nerve!”

  Wolf looked over at Steininger and Freitag. It was a collusive look-an invitation. They responded with laughter: fits and starts, encouraged by Wolf's widening smile, mounting, until their lungs and vocal cords were engaged in the production of a continuous asinine braying.

  “He wasn't going to kill Stojakovic, Drexler!” Steininger cried, “Whatever were you thinking?”

  “Yes, Drexler,” Freitag echoed. “Whatever were you t
hinking?”

  It was a good performance. But their relief was palpable.

  15

  Rheinhardt's head was buried in his copy of the latest edition of the police journal, which contained an extremely interesting article on the work of Jean Alexandre Eugene Lacassagne-a professor of medicine at the University of Lyon who had made extraordinary advances in the identification of decayed corpses. As he read, Rheinhardt became increasingly aware of piano music: music of incomparable lightness. An innocent, profoundly beautiful melody leaped an octave, before making a modulating descent over a flowing left-hand accompaniment. It charmed him out of the dark, morbid world of mortuaries and rotting cadavers. When the melody climbed again, he lifted his head-as if watching the ascent of a songbird.

  His eldest daughter, Therese, was seated at the instrument, her slim fingers negotiating the naive geography of Mozart's Sonata in C Major. On the other side of the parlor, seated at the table, were his wife, Else, and his younger daughter, Mitzi, engaged in some needlepoint. Mitzi was humming along with the tune. None of them were conscious of Rheinhardt's benign scrutiny.

  He registered the good-humored curve of Else's mouth, the thickness of Mitzi's hair, and the straightness of Therese s back-the way that something of his own likeness lingered in the lineaments of both his daughters and, by some miracle, did so without diminishing their beauty.

  Thomas Zelenka was only one year older than Therese. Although Zelenka wore a uniform and had been taught to use a sabre, he was still-like Therese-a child.

  To die so very young…

  It was a disturbance in the order of things that Rheinhardt could not-would not-accept as natural.

  The music suddenly shifted into a minor key, as if responding to his thoughts. He remembered visiting Zelenka's parents-the empty birdcage, the unoccupied bedroom, the void behind Fanousek's eyes: the four gas towers, like massive mausoleums, breaking the line of a bleak horizon, the terrible, suffocating atmosphere of desolation, misery, and loss.

  How could any parent survive the loss of a child? How would Rheinhardt ever cope, if the piano playing ceased, the humming subsided, and the parlor was chilled by his daughters’ absence? The silence would be intolerable.

  Yes, Liebermann was probably right-by denying juvenile mortality he, Rheinhardt, was railing against fate, attempting to safeguard his children. But did that really matter? The existence of such a mechanism did not invalidate his feelings. Perhaps intuition originated in parts of the mind too deep for psychoanalysis to fathom. Moreover, Rheinhardt comforted himself with the thought that even Liebermann was beginning-albeit reluctantly-to accept that there might be something more to Zelenka's death than Professor Mathias's autopsy had revealed.

  Rheinhardt looked at his daughters again and was overwhelmed by a force of emotion that made his breath catch. It was not comparable to the comfortable affection he felt for his wife, the companion-ate closeness that had mellowed and matured over the years. No-it was something quite different. A raw, primitive emotion-a violent, visceral, instinctive attachment combined with a desire to protect, whatever the cost. And yet, at the same time, it was remarkably satisfying and joyful. It defied description, was characterized by contradictions.

  The music had recovered the tonic major key, and the principal subject was being recapitulated. The inspector counted his blessings and raised the police journal to conceal his watering eyes and the peculiar shame associated with the expression of uncontrollable, improvident love.

  16

  Liebermann and his friend Dr. Stefan Kanner were seated in a private windowless dining room. The food they had eaten was traditional fare, simply prepared but deeply satisfying: semolina dump lings in beef broth, Tyrolean knuckle of veal with rice, and schmalzstrauhen — spirals of sweet batter, fried until golden brown, and sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon. A few schmalzstrauhen remained, untouched and quite cold, on a metal rack. The wine was unusually good: a local red, the color of garnet, redolent of bonfires, plums, and raspberries. Bleary-eyed, flushed-neckties draped over their shoulders-and gloriously drunk, the two men conversed under an awning of cigar smoke.

  “It was a beautiful day,” said Kanner, tracing a flamboyant arc with his hand to evoke the cloudless empyrean. “Jeanette and I drove out to Dobling and had dinner, alfresco… and the following Sunday we went across the Kahlenberg to Klosterneuburg. On our way home, in the railway compartment, her head fell on my shoulder- and she said that she loved me.”

  Kanner pushed the box of cigars into the middle of the table, and encouraged Liebermann to take another.

  “Go on-help yourself. They're Havanas. A gift from a grateful patient-well, her husband, actually-whom I cured of a zoopsia accompanied by gastric pains.”

  “What animals did she hallucinate?”

  “Only one: a dancing bear.”

  “And how did you treat her?”

  “Maxim. Just take a cigar and let me finish my story will you?”

  Liebermann muttered an apology and signaled that his friend should proceed.

  “Still under the benign influence of the sweet vin de paille from the cloister cellar,” said Kanner, “I was quite ready to believe her. My customary skepticism vanished, and when our lips met, I was Kanner s eyes rolled upward. “Transported. The following day, however, my skepticism returned-”

  “Which is just as well,” Liebermann interjected.

  Kanner thrust out his lower lip and blinked at his friend.

  “Have I told you this story before?”

  “No.”

  Kanner shrugged and continued. “I spent the afternoon in Cafe Landtmann… and when the streetlights came on, I went for a stroll in the Rathauspark. It was quite dark-but I'm sure it was her.”

  “Jeanette?”

  “In the arms of Spitzer.”

  “The throat specialist?”

  “The very same.”

  Liebermann threw his head back and directed a jet of smoke at the ceiling. The gaslight flared and made a curious respiratory soundlike a gasp.

  “So, she wants to be an actress.”

  Kanner sat up straight-surprised.

  “How did you know that?”

  “Throat specialists always have a large number of famous actors and singers among their patients. They are frequently invited to first nights, gala performances, and other glamorous occasions. Among the medical specialities, throat specialists are by far the most well connected with respect to the arts. Subsequently, they are common prey to a particular type of young woman: pretty, intelligent, coquettish, of slender means, and with theatrical ambitions.”

  “Jeanette.”

  “Quoi erat demonstrandum.”

  “Yes,” said Kanner. “You know, for a psychiatrist, I can be a remarkably poor judge of character.” Kanner stared glumly into the ruby bowl of his wineglass before adding: “Shame about old Professor von Krafft-Ebing.”

  In his inebriated state, Liebermann accepted the sudden change of subject as though it were entirely logical.

  “Yes, he will be sadly missed.”

  “I used to enjoy his public lectures.”

  “They were very entertaining,” said Liebermann, “but I always found them weak, theoretically.”

  Kanner shrugged again. “People will be reading his Psychopathia Sexualis for centuries. What a collection of cases! And what a fine eye for detail! Do you have a favorite? I have always been rather fond of case fifty, Herr Z., the technologist who was only satisfied by women wearing high heels and short jackets, Hungarian fashion.”

  Liebermann shook his head. “That one escapes me…”

  “He was particularly partial to ladies’ calves,” Kanner continued, “but only when the ladies concerned wore elegant shoes. Nude legs-or nudity in general-did not arouse his interest. I was always amused by Krafft-Ebing's somewhat irregular inclusion of the fact that Herr Z. had a weakness for cats-and that simply looking at a cat could lift him from the deepest depression.”

  Kanner rais
ed his bloodshot eyes. He scratched his head, leaving a tuft of oiled hair standing on end.

  “I too,” he said in a distant, somewhat bewildered voice, “am partial to women in short jackets… and to be perfectly honest, my spirits have often been lifted by the antics of a cat.”

  “Well, Stefan,” said Liebermann, “perhaps you would benefit from one of the late professor's cures. I would be happy to prescribe regular cold baths and monobromide of camphor, if you wish?”

  Kanner made a dismissive gesture.

  “Baths are ineffective. When I was a student, I spent a summer in Bad Ischl, where I allowed a retired opera singer to believe she was seducing me. She frequently took a beauty treatment that involved immersion in a tub filled with crushed ice; however, this had no effect on her libido whatsoever. Her sensual appetite was just as keen whether she had had the treatment or not.” Kanner swayed in his chair. “Be that as it may”-his delivery had become comically pompous-”it is our duty to honor the memory of a great man.” He raised his glass. “To Professor Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing… rest in heavenly peace.”

  “No, no, no,” said Liebermann, banging his fist on the table. “May he go to hell. Surely.”

  “What?”

  “The author of Psychopathia Sexualis would be bored to tears among the heavenly hosts-angels, seraphim, and cherubim, et cet era, et cetera.” Liebermann yawned, patting his open mouth. “Clearly, Krafft-Ebing would prefer hell, where he would find the company much more stimulating-lust murderers, necrophiliacs, and sadists- why, he could start work on the next edition of the Psychopathia immediately on arrival!”

  Kanner raised his glass again.

  “To Professor Richard Freiherr von Krafft-Ebing… may you go to hell-and thoroughly enjoy eternal damnation!”

  Liebermann reached across the table and touched Kanner's glass with his own, producing a chime that sang with a bell-like clarity. Outside, a woman passed their dining room, laughing loudly. It was a young voice-that of a shop girl, no doubt, who was being entertained by a “respectable” bourgeois husband. The grumble of the man's bass produced a lascivious counterpoint to the girl's contrived gaiety.