Poachers Road

by John Brady

  He wondered about the Himmelfarbs. The boy the giant, he should start calling him might not leave the house for weeks now.

  He remembered Himmelfarb muttering, and Gebhart’s ways of trying to calm him. Ausländers, he had said, with some vehemence that Gebi had taken to be panic. Had he said something about gypsies too, or was Felix imagining that? But many people that age, especially the likes of the Himmelfarbs who’d lived up in God’s country all their lives, would have mental furniture like that. It was no secret.

  Felix moved his gaze to the ceiling. That didn’t help. The grey there became a screen for the images that swirled into his mind. He saw again the forensic team stooping, with those funny-looking white suits that almost glowed white against the trees, the camera flashes, the detective talking into a recorder of some kind. The big move had happened very late in the afternoon, getting the bodies into bags and carrying them to the wagon.They had not been asked to help. He had looked away. Gebhart, he knew, had not.

  So why, Felix wondered, was he thinking of his own father now? Maybe it had been the memorial yesterday, or the photo of the roadside taferl the Association had built for their fellow officer. As his eyes moved about the ceiling, he remembered this man who was his father coming into the kitchen after his shift, proud to wear his uniform home, and smelling a little of what he’d later know was a liqueur brandy. He’d tickle and then grab him, and soon he’d have Felix doing “the plane,” spinning at arm’s-length, the big hands on his ankles like a vice. Laughing, but being a bit scared too, the room flying by him.

  NINE

  “YOU SLEPT AT ALL?”

  Felix wondered if he should surprise Gebi by telling him that young guys always slept well because they got laid.

  “Medium,” he said.

  Gebhart came over with a sheaf of papers. He separated them, and laid them out on the counter next to the armoury safe.

  “Come here.You’re involved here, okay.”

  Felix saw the first was a print out of the statements he’d filed on the computer last night. Another was a list of the changes for the court appearance of the burglary gang they’d caught up to back after Christmas. There were lists of the grundschules for the public safety visits.

  Gebhart tapped his finger on the list of schools.

  “This will be a decent change today. You’ll get a giggle out of this anyway,” he said. “The small kids actually will put up their hands to ask your permission to go ludeln.You better be wide awake for that. Actually, I learned you should ask the teacher if the kids have been to the klo first.”

  “What, they get agitated or something?”

  “Too true they do. They get scared some of them. They’ll stare at you.You’ll be taking reflective armbands or something, but they’ll be staring at you like you’re God, not hearing a word you say.”

  “As if they ever do,” said Korschak from the far side of the cabinets.

  “Fred,” Gebhart called out. “You have the biggest ears. I’m going to miss them.”

  Felix looked down the list. He didn’t recognize any of the teachers’ names.

  “The rumours will be flying today, I tell you,” Gebhart said, and nodded toward Schroek’s office. Felix looked up from the list.

  Gebhart had a printout of notes from yesterday.

  “You heard Himmelfarb?” Gebhart went on, scanning the paragraphs. “He went though the whole list, I think. Did he actually say Russians at one point, even?”

  “I don’t think so. If he did, I didn’t hear him. Did you?”

  Gebhart stared at some point beyond Felix’s head.

  “Huh,” he said. “I wonder if there was any sleep at Himmelfarbs’ last night.”

  He looked to Felix then for corroboration, but his eye was taken by whatever he saw through the blinds on the glass that opened out to the public office. A short man with Gandhi glasses and a Gandhi hairdo had stepped in.

  “Shit,” said Gebhart. “Already.”

  He walked to the doorway.

  “The Kontrolinspektor is on the phone,” he called out.

  Felix watched the man’s reaction. A smile, a glance at his wristwatch, a hand holding a small device.

  “Keep him waiting,” said Gebhart when he came back. “Do him good.”

  “Who is he?”

  “A scribbler, from the Kleine.”

  “A reporter? The Kleine . . . ?”

  “Correct. What, you don’t read the Kleine Zeitung? Everyone else in the province does. But this one has got the foreign angle already, no doubt. Now you forget about that side of things, okay?

  That was yesterday.You’ve done your paperwork, and it’s moved on.

  And remember: don’t talk to any reporter or media type. Schroek does that stuff.”

  Felix nodded.

  “You’re set up for the morning anyway, okay?”

  “I think so.”

  “Bike safety video? Armbands?”

  “Got it, and the posters.”

  “Those new bookmarks with the ‘cool’ website? The T-shirt prize?”

  Felix almost grinned at how Gebhart did the air quotes for “cool.” Again, Felix nodded.

  “Well, bugger off then.”

  Gebhart yawned and sighed.

  “Didn’t you sleep?”

  “I slept like a Christian, in case you need to know. But in the Coliseum.”

  Felix waited until Gebhart looked up from the paper.

  “What is it? You have a question?”

  “Have you done stuff like that before? Yesterday, I mean.”

  “No.”

  “Nothing like this? Never?”

  Gebhart seemed to gather his thoughts by staring at his desk.

  “You mean scare-the-hell-out-of-yourself stuff, or just things you see? Car accidents? Factory accidents?”

  “I suppose.”

  “There was one thing comparable maybe,” Gebhart said. “But I was in the army.Yes, I was keen, after National Service even. I took five years in it. You’d learn things, you know? Straightened me out actually.The service, it bred fellowship, you know? No, I don’t mean mountain rescue camp or the trekking or the rest of it. Maybe we knew who the enemy was, then.”

  Felix zipped up the bag.

  “Ach, you wouldn’t want to hear it.”

  “What enemy, the Russians?”

  A look of irritation crossed Gebhart’s face.

  “What’s with all the Q & A today? Go do your duties.”

  “My dad said it was partly the whole Eastern Bloc thing, to be ready at least, if they came in. But that’s been gone for years.”

  “Oh, I get it. The sun rises in the west now? The official line is we need Uni boys, more computer jockeys, more foreign languages.

  Well let me tell you something. Maybe we were a bit rough around the edges, or we didn’t use the dictionary much, but, boy, you knew where you stood. Yes, we got things done. And no, that wasn’t ancient times.”

  “Was it in the army, or in the Gendarmerie?”

  “The thing that happened? It was the army. It was a winter exercise. Winterwerk, we used to call it. They gave us a lot of gear, and we had a hell of a lot of lugging to do. It was up high, you know, with a load of heavy snow. Anyway. A heavy machine gun went off on a guy. Seven or eight rounds, just like that. Everyone was bone tired, see? Sleeping in the goddamned snow. It was careless. But it was bad, I tell you.”

  He looked down at the nylon carry-all that they called the School Bag.

  “Four hit him. And that’s the nearest I’ve been in my life. It’s not like TV.”

  He stretched again.

  “I had nightmares, for a while, then.”

  Then Gebhart jerked his head up.

  “No more yammering,” he declared. “Scram, will you? You’ve got stuff to do.”

  Leaving, Felix caught a glimpse of Schroek’s stone face as he listened to the reporter ask some questions. It was a look that he had seen on other cops too, part of the buttoned-up look th
at cops seemed to pick up with their uniforms and wore when they were not amongst their own.

  But it was Giuliana’s face that rose up in his mind again as he crossed the yard. This time tomorrow they’d be leaving, maybe on the road already. He’d be practising his Italian, but it wouldn’t be serious for long. It was almost a year since that Night They’d Never Forget, a terrible evening of arguing and shouting and tears that had quickly become The Night They Never Mentioned Since. The closest they had come was “that other time . . . ” or “we don’t want to go there again . . . ”

  It had been a stressful time for her, with evaluations and things.

  Felix himself had been grouchy, full of doubts and aversions to the training at the Gendarmerieschule, and the future he could imagine in the job. The bottles of wine hadn’t helped. Maybe he’d brought it on unconsciously. Maybe she had?

  He winced as he sat into the patrol car, remembering.

  “Can you commit to anything?” she had yelled. “Anyone?”

  Commitment: did the word haunt everyone these days?

  It was true: he had been whining, and he had been whining because he was covering up something, even from himself. She sure had hit a nerve when she yelled that he was faking it.

  Faking? All his moaning: how this had all been rigged by his mother, and that he should have known it; how he’d signed up at a time of guilt and bad judgment, when he was broke and unsure, and the dates had gone by for readmission to repeat the year; that many others in his class were stand-offish because he’d gone beyond a Matura. Others in the class hadn’t even finished that far in school.

  Felix had never found out, and never tried to find out, for sure if some of the trainees had heard about his father. And he had to admit that he too would have wondered about this Kimmel guy and if someone hadn’t greased the way for the poor widow Kimmel’s young lad to join up the Gendarmerie.

  Faking, most definitely. The simple fact was that he didn’t mind the training at all. The complex fact however was something that Giuliana had latched onto right away in that rousing, bitter fight. It was that he complained because he was beginning to enjoy the demands made of him, its impositions and schedules, its rules and habits. He just couldn’t admit it to himself.

  He checked his walkie-talkie and then the car radio. Korschak okayed him and reminded him to speak slowly. Ha ha. He pulled out of the yard, mentally plotting his way to the school again, and scanned the platz and the corner by Gasthaus Weber as he coasted by. He returned a small wave from the geezer who usually hung around on the bench there.

  That was the thing with Giuliana, he’d understood: she said it right out. Always.

  It was as if she could reach right in and say exactly the thing he couldn’t, or didn’t want to, put into words. She had learned that growing up, he was sure. Her father had walked out when she was four. Her mom had been a waitress, a cleaner, and some kind of higher up at the old folks place in Weiz. Too proud to go back to some place near Milan, the mom had stayed and made a new life, that of a single mom, with an Italian accent that could only remind all she met in the small town where they had been stranded that she was from an inferior society. You didn’t get many chances with a background like that.

  Felix got by the lights near the schule and was soon in sight of the huge chestnut trees that hid much of the library across from the school. He began to add up the years people spent in schools of one kind or another. He thought of Vikki, a perpetual student in the making. If he was up at all, he was maybe in some café in Graz. He was probably chatting up a girl. Now that the spring was here, he might even be up on the Schlossberg at that café near the top, looking for unattached female tourists of a certain age.

  It would be only later in the day that his friend would be arguing in that mocking way he had about how people were addicted to work, or how Austrians were boring, dutiful. Cowed that was his word. That required beer, probably at the Parkhaus in the evening, the restaurant in the city park that had just been rebuilt and had returned to popularity, pretty well instantly, with the mélange of bohemians, disguised civil servants, artsies that Graz brought together with ease. As long as someone was paying for the beer, of course.

  Felix found himself smiling at the thought as he drove along.

  Vikki would always be okay for a night on the town, even if Felix had paid for most of the beer again. Would he ever tell Vikki how he had hiked up a half a kilometre hand in hand with a retarded kid?

  That he counted that as part of his day’s work, the “Nice job” that Gebhart had called it? Probably not.

  He parked near the library and took the carry-all and the case with the projector out of the back of the patrol car. Already there were faces in one of the windows upstairs.

  It went well at the start.The little ones were suitably awed. Most got passionately involved with the welfare of Helpless Hans, the cartoon character. Hans was thoughtless near traffic, stupidly did what his sneaky peers wanted of him. There he was drinking from bottles whose contents he did not know. Next he was distracting a shopkeeper while his so-called mates rifled chocolate from a shelf. He was then telling whoppers at home to cover for himself and others.

  The false friends all had eyebrows that arched, Felix noticed.

  Felix himself had done pretty well all these things in varying degrees. Now his work was to urge others not to follow in the miscreant’s way. The colouring sheet and word puzzles were a hit.

  There were no men teachers at these ages apparently, and, so busy and keen were the little ones, that he had time to chat with a few teachers about the Internet, about burglaries, about a first cousin stationed in Judenburg name of Rudi, and about other matters. He had a little time to stroll the hallway. It wasn’t Helpless Hans he was thinking of then for a moment, but a different Hans, the unshaven Hansi Himmelfarb. He distracted himself by paying attention to the wild improbability of the art on the walls. He liked the serious intent on the kids’ faces, and the cheerful teachers.The tiny chairs, and the huge toys made him smile. Some kids picked their noses fearlessly.

  He heard at least one fart.

  Fortified by not-bad coffee in the staffroom where he saw but two men amongst a dozen teachers, he had forgotten what the older kids could be like. His guide was a talkative, bespectacled nerd in the senior class. He kept asking Felix how fast he had ever driven “chasing the bad guys” while he unhelpfully guided the trolley with the TV and video, and Felix’s charts and handouts, down the terrazzo hallways.

  They had congregated two classes for the presentation. The teacher who remained was a defeated-looking guy with a finely trimmed beard. He expected to be left to mark things and after a few perfunctory remarks, retired to a desk and began writing things.

  The kids had that X-ray vision and a feral instinct for new teachers, visiting teachers, and it transferred well to the probationary Gendarme.

  Questions started early. Felix heard himself say “Good question” too many times and for a while he was unable to stop. He managed to improvise, however: “Let’s take that after you see the video.” One dickschädel, a short fellow with a smile that was more of a leer, a ringleader no doubt, kept going, of course. He wanted to know about drugs, parties, and if you had to say even one word to a policeman who wanted to talk to you. And had he ever shot someone, by the way? And why? And had he been shot?

  By the end of the hour Felix was close to the edge. He wanted to walk over to Teacher Man and tap him on the head so he’d look up. Then he wanted to tell Junior Lawyer of the Year that a little pisser like him would last about a nanosecond on the street with a mouth like that.

  It was recess when he left the room. A smartass followed him down the hall and told him about Rohypnol, MSN house party lists, and how a kid he knew had to go to the hospital last Christmas with alcohol poisoning.

  “Thanks,” said Felix. “I think it’s recess, isn’t it?”

  “They know so much,” said the useless Teacher Man, safely behind his glasses
and with a vacant look to him. “But they understood so little.”

  Felix, who had badly wanted overpaid Teacher Man to wade in a half-dozen times so the big mouths could be shut up, nodded. He even offered a sympathetic shrug when Teacher Man droned on about the perils of unsupervised Internet access at home and the American video games that were so violent. And the movies and TV, Mein Gött!

  But as he passed by the doorway, Felix heard the shouts from the schoolyard. Recess was definitely his best subject at that age. It was a breezy, sunny day now. Kids were on swings, playing soccer.

  The winter was gone. This wasn’t the time or place for thoughts of two dead men in the woods. He and Giuliana would be making their escape tomorrow, and they’d head down to the beaches on the Adriatic side. Soon, there’d be time to bum around the Hofgasse to take a day at the hot springs in Waltersdorf.

  He caught sight of the kid who’d been the pain in the ass in the senior class Mr. Rohypnol, he would call him calling out something that his friends laughed at. Felix didn’t see the victim of his wit, but Mr. Rohypnol caught his eye. Felix nodded. Mr. Rohypnol mimed smoking a joint to his friends.

  Felix turned away and strolled down the hallway. He rehearsed a conversation with Gebhart, one he would never have, while he waited for recess to end:

  Felix: Gebi, this is going to be hard on you. It’s about our work.

  Prepare yourself.

  Gebhart: You’re a Gendarme for five months and suddenly you’re a genius?

  Felix: Listen, it came to me today, in school. I was actually conflicted.

  Gebhart: Get married. That fixes all that psychological stuff.

  Felix: Here it is: we’re actually inciting kids to do things that we warn them against. It’s the old forbidden fruit thing!

  Gebhart: That’s you. I wish I could forbid you from talking.

  Felix: Kids want to be trouble; they want to do the naughty stuff.

  Gebhart: What a colossal idiot you are. Unbelievable.

  Felix: It’s evolution, Gebi. There’s nothing we can do.