by Håkan Nesser
The title.
Rein’s manuscript lacked a title; I had noticed that in the beginning, while I was in the process of translating, but then I did not attach much importance to it. From experience I knew that Rein often wavered where titles were concerned. Would usually change them two or even three times before he was satisfied.
Now, of course, it was different. The publishers were forced to decide the issue themselves, and because I was still the one who was most familiar with the text, they thought that I could make a suggestion. It was no more than right, Kerr put it magnanimously.
I let the d’Yquem roll over my tongue.
‘Rein,’ I said.
Kerr nodded encouragingly.
‘It should be called “Rein”,’ I clarified.
‘Just “Rein”?’
‘Yes.’
He thought for a moment.
‘Yes, that’s probably correct,’ he said.
‘How are things going with the copyright?’ I asked. ‘Royalties and such?’
‘That will be a problem,’ he admitted. ‘But we do have his letter and our attorneys have looked at it. Once we’ve released it, we are going to contact his widow. But I think we can assert the right to the original manuscript. Do you know when the trial begins?’
‘The first week in May.’
‘Are you going to testify?’
I nodded. He wiped his mouth with the heavy linen napkin. Hesitated a moment.
‘What do you think?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Is it them? Well, it’s clear that it must be, but how have they reacted?’
‘I haven’t seen either of them.’
‘No, no . . . but are they going to confess or deny it?’
I shrugged my shoulders.
‘No idea.’
‘You haven’t . . . heard anything?’
‘No.’
‘Hmm. Mariam Kadhar is a gorgeous woman, don’t you think?’
I did not reply.
‘Of course I’ve only seen her a couple of times . . . at Walker’s and last year down in Nice, but you damn well can’t help noticing that she’s a thoroughbred.’
Kerr’s imagery was what it was.
‘Maybe so,’ I said.
He hesitated again.
‘Do you understand what it’s about? The book, that is. Seems a bit murky in my eyes . . . but that doesn’t have to be a disadvantage.’
‘Not everything has to be easily accessible.’
‘No, thank God. What I was thinking about was whether there might be more concealed messages than those . . . simple ones. After all, it is possible to hide this and that in a text . . . allegories like with Borges and leClerque, for example. Codes, actually . . . I don’t know if you’ve thought about that?’
I shook my head.
‘I wouldn’t think so,’ I said. ‘He didn’t have time to be that sophisticated. Wrote the whole thing in just a couple of months . . . and the distress signals he sent out are actually not particularly subtle, don’t you think?’
Kerr nodded. ‘No, you’re probably right. Anyway, we’ll release the news tomorrow. Amundsen has arranged a little press conference . . . what do you want to do?’
‘What do I want to do?’
‘Yes, you do understand that you’re the protagonist in this. The spider in the web, damn it, you’re the one who translated the book and got them arrested. You’re going to be a rather hot item for the journalists, we thought you were clear about that . . .’
Of course I should have been prepared for that, but my anonymous existence on Ferdinand Bol had apparently lulled me into some sort of false security. The past few weeks my energy had been completely directed at the Wassingen lead and the search for Ewa, and I was already living my life more in a niche of reality than in its broad stream.
So to speak. I sat silently and thought.
‘Maybe a little interview wouldn’t be completely crazy either?’ Kerr continued, pouring more wine. ‘Exclusive, of course, and only in the right magazines. Naturally you get to decide for yourself, but if we sent a couple of guys . . . Rittmer and a photographer, maybe, so we could guide it the way we want. Maintain control, as Amundsen always says.’
I must admit that I almost admired Kerr for the lightness with which he presented it, but also for both his and Amundsen’s unfailing sense of economic realities. The question was probably whether a saleable reportage with me – in the current situation or in connection with the start of the trial – could bring in at least enough that I became, so to speak, self-supporting down here in A. Speculation about the Rein case was already flourishing, and without a doubt would grow even more in the coming weeks.
And there was a shortage of real news awaiting the courtroom acrobatics. I realized that I did after all know quite a bit. I drank more of the wine.
‘No, thanks,’ I said. ‘I probably prefer to stay underground.’
Kerr observed me in silence for a few seconds, and I think he understood that this was a dead end.
‘Why are you still here?’ he asked.
‘I have my reasons.’
‘I see. Well, do as you wish, of course. Who knows you’re here?’
‘No one,’ I answered. ‘I am a lone wolf, I thought you knew that.’
‘No one?’
I thought.
‘The police and the prosecutor,’ I corrected myself. ‘And Janis Hoorne.’
‘Hoorne?’
‘Yes.’
‘Is he reliable?’
‘If I tell him.’
He nodded. ‘All right. That’s what we’ll do. But you do realize that you are going to be hunted once the trial gets going?’
Yes, I realized that too. But there were three weeks left until the whole thing started rolling, and as long as it was possible to stay outside the spotlight of publicity, it was my intention to do that.
We had time for a couple of cafes too, Kerr and I, and when I put him in a taxi on Rembrandt Plein he was ever so tipsy and in his very sunniest mood. The last thing he promised was to send down a little bonus as thanks for my efforts, and I assumed that it was intended as a seal on our Gentleman’s Agreement.
If I did not intend to let myself be interviewed and prostituted by my publisher, I would certainly not let any other devil over the bridge either.
Naturally that was no more than right and proper.
My second attempt at a car chase went considerably better than the first one. At six o’clock on Monday morning I was already on the scene behind 36D with another rental car – this time a brand-new, and considerably more powerful, little Renault – and I did not need to wait more than forty-five minutes before he came crawling out of the garage.
I had armed myself with glasses this time, and a silly, brownish-red fake beard, which I found in a little novelty shop on Albert Cuypstraat, and I immediately moved close behind him. Like the last time he turned down towards the shopping centre and got into the right lane to enter the expressway into A. While we waited for a green light at the big intersection, I noted the number plate – I had no idea whether it was possible to produce the owner’s name from that, but the possibility vaguely occurred to me in any event.
The drive in towards A. proceeded at rather high speed, but I still had no difficulties keeping up. The traffic was not particularly heavy yet, and I could let him keep a head start of a hundred or so metres without risk of losing him. At Exit 4 after the ring road he turned towards the centre, followed Alexanderlaan and then Prinzengracht all the way to Vollerim Park, where he turned right onto Kreutzerstraat and finally parked on a narrow street by the name of Palitzerstraat. I waited at a distance of about thirty metres, saw him get out of the car, lock it, and cross the street and go into a large office building on the opposite side.
I waited a couple of minutes. Found a parking spot right around the corner and walked back to the entrance. Noted that it was open and stepped into the stairwell. On a directory immediately to the
right on the wall the companies were listed floor by floor.
The two lower floors were populated by an insurance company, as far as I understood, number three by two different firms with unclear specialisms, presumably import companies of some type, the fourth – and topmost – by the magazine Hermes, which I thought I had heard of but could not pin down more closely by genre. I noted the names and thought a moment, while three or four persons passed me on their way up. Then I went out to the street again. Found a cafe on the corner where I parked the car; went in and sat down at a window table with a cup of coffee.
The time was quarter past eight, I noted. I had no view of either the blue Mazda or the relevant building, but I assessed this as less important at this stage.
Not important at all, in reality. I knew where I had him. His home was in building 36 out in Wassingen and he worked here on Palitzerstraat. The latter was of course not completely clarified, but I still deemed that to be a near certainty. To be completely on the safe side I hardly needed to do anything other than check whether the car was still there a few times during the day. Follow it up during the week maybe, and if it turned out that the parking was a temporary affair, it was only a matter of heading out to the suburb and the garage again. It was no more difficult than that.
No, my pursuer would not escape me again, I was sure of that. Presumably I would also succeed in sorting out his name without any major difficulties. He must be one of those I already had written down on my lists; I had not encountered him during my door-knocking raids, but I might very well have spoken with him on the phone.
The pursuer as such was thus no longer particularly interesting, I concluded, while I sipped my coffee and pretended to read one of the morning papers that were spread out on the tables. What must be clarified, on the other hand, was of course the relationship and the connection to Ewa. I had already had plenty of time to think about that. Over the weekend that had passed I had rejected numerous bizarre ideas and possibilities, and gradually decided that there was actually only one way it could be.
Maertens had been right. Ewa really had been out in Wassingen that day when his gimp caught sight of her. She had gone into building 36, but she had done it for the purpose of visiting the pursuer. Not because she lived there. It also seemed equally obvious that it must have been at her instigation that he surveilled me those days in February and early March. Thus it had nothing to do with either Rein or Mariam Kadhar. Ewa had asked him to keep an eye on me, and the reason could hardly be anything other than that she happened to catch sight of me.
By pure chance, presumably.
Somewhere in A. At a cafe. On the street. In a store while I was inside shopping. It presumably was no more remarkable than that. I had searched for my missing wife, but she had been the one who saw me before I saw her. The object became subject, if you will. The prey the hunter.
Naturally it must have given her something to think about when she discovered me, and the most important thing for her would reasonably be to find out what I was doing in A. Did my presence have anything to do with her, or was I just here on completely different business?
What was her husband, who three and a half years ago tried to murder her – and who perhaps hovered in the belief that he had succeeded – doing here, in her new city?
To put it simply.
And her first action to get an answer to that question had been to hire someone to do surveillance.
A good friend? A co-worker? An acquaintance that she trusted?
While I sat in the empty cafe, I went through this logical reasoning one more time, and I could not see any snags or weaknesses. The connection between Ewa and the pursuer was assured beyond any reasonable doubt, and I knew that the breakthrough had arrived. He was the one who would lead me to her.
Sooner or later. By or against his own will. But irrevocably.
These conclusions contained a good portion of faith, of course; I knew that it meant playing the cards right too, and it was this question that gradually forced its way in and demanded my attention and concentration.
How should I conduct myself? What was the correct move?
These damned decisions all the time. This cursed condensed time! I remember thinking.
As far as I could see there were plenty of possibilities to make a misstep, but what for the moment felt most correct was without a doubt not to reveal myself. To lie low, not let the shadow understand that I had found him. If, at a later stage, it would prove to be necessary to pin him against the wall, then naturally that must be done with both emphasis and authority – on my terms, not on his or hers.
Perhaps not without a suitable weapon in hand either.
But thus, for the time being, into the background. When I had got that far in my musings, I left the cafe. Managed to find a parking spot on the other side of the street, almost opposite the office building and in a position where I could have a rather unobstructed view of the people who went out and in.
In this way I then spent the whole day. People came and went, both men and women in more or less equal numbers. The stream was particularly dense during the lunch hours between twelve and two; the majority simply went over to a little neighbourhood restaurant right on the corner behind me, but others ventured further. A few took their cars. The shadow showed up at quarter past twelve together with another man and a considerably younger woman, and they disappeared around the corner over by the cafe. All three returned a few minutes after one thirty, and then it was not until almost five thirty that he came out again. He went directly over to his Mazda and drove off towards Wassingen. I followed him awhile, but as soon as I understood which way he was going, I let him go and made my way back to the car rental agency instead.
During the whole day on Palitzerstraat I had not caught a glimpse of Ewa, and I therefore preliminarily ruled out that she was a co-worker of the shadow. During the afternoon I had otherwise started feeling rather disheartened, and I do not think it was simply the monotony that was the cause. For the first time I also felt a hint of doubt and uncertainty prior to a possible future encounter with Ewa. So far – until that day in the middle of April – I had not been worried at all about that question, and now when I started to be, it suddenly felt incredibly hard, all of it.
Like an old trauma you successfully kept a lid on for years, but which now suddenly will no longer let itself be swept under the rug. A sick pet.
I got rather drunk that evening. Went home with a dark-skinned and very attractive woman after the last bar too, but as we stood outside her door I got cold feet and left her without a word. I hurried home along the rain-wet streets, and I also remember that I heard her open a window and scream something rather indecent after me.
I can’t help thinking she had reason to.
Have not been getting up so early these last few mornings, very much due to the fact that I sit and write until far into the wee hours. Three nights in a row a full moon has hung over the bay and spread a street of silver in the water; it looks almost depressing; a drunken graffiti god, it strikes me, who painted the creation based on a garish, tasteless teenage magazine.
No subtleties at all.
But on the beach an occasional fire is burning during the nights too, and I assume that the youths who are sitting around them and singing and drinking resinated wine do not feel particularly assailed by reality either. Most of them are naked, anyway, and last night, just before I went to bed, I could observe two of them coupling right below my balcony.
It happened quietly and fervently, the girl sat on top of the boy and rode him in the moonlight and I had a hard time removing the image from my retina when I then lay down and tried to fall asleep. Presumably because I wouldn’t have had anything against making love to a woman in the moonlight on a sandy beach either.
To hell with subtleties, I caught myself thinking.
One time, just one time, I returned to Graues.
Yet not really to Graues, because I stayed in Wörmlingen, the village on the o
ther side of the pass, where I had gone that day and where I wrote postcards and where perhaps my wife’s beloved had been staying.
For a whole week I stayed at Albergo Hans, and not until the next to last day did I once again drive the winding road up along the side of the mountain. It was the middle of May, down in the valley the fruit trees were in full bloom; higher up the snow was still deep. The road through the pass had only been opened a week or so before.
A year and nine months had passed. I drove past the brimming reservoir without stopping, continued all the way up to the little parking area again. Got out and looked over the landscape. Nothing had changed. Only after a long time was I able to lower my gaze down over the precipices and let it rest on the green surface of the water. It was there below me, quite even; it was a clear day, but I remember that the sun did not cast any glitter and that the faint breeze did not cause the slightest ripple.
I left the car there and made my way along the road on foot. After a while I arrived at the sharp right curve. I slowed my pace and walked out on the left side of the road.
I’d seen it already, from a distance. Snow and ice had eroded and erased during two winters, but a hole was gaping in the low stone and concrete wall. Not large, and not all the way down to the level of the roadway, but a tear – a jagged V sign, which I tried to remember but could not. Instead, a sense of fatigue and strong nausea came over me; I vomited by the side of the road towards the mountain side and then immediately started walking back up to my car.
Then I drove down, slowly and with a strong feeling of despair, and the next day I left the area forever.
Perhaps it had been my intention to look Frau Handska up too, perhaps have a few words with police chief Ahrenmeyer, but as I said, I never crossed the mountains again.
The office was on Apollolaan and was evidently parcelled out from a large apartment in the big Art Nouveau building. I rang the bell and the door was opened by a pale young man in a black suit and polo shirt. His face was sharp-featured, his eyes deep and reflective. I introduced myself.
‘You were the one who called, sir?’
‘Yes.’
