by Håkan Nesser
On 10 January my mother marries her boss, Oldenburg the dentist. She sells the apartment on Wolmarstrasse and moves in with him in his house out in Grafenswald. The same evening, as the removal van leaves, my father calls from Saarbrücken and tells me that he has cancer of the testicles.
‘Both?’ I ask.
‘Both,’ my father says. ‘The whole damned shit.’
He is rather inconsolable but I do my best to make him see reason anyway.
The Thalia Company has existed since the 1700s and in 1983 it is an even 200 years since the first production – Simson de Staël’s An Offering – took place. In connection with this, and with the Chekhov success in fresh memory, the university administration contributes funds so that the anniversary can be commemorated in worthy and artistically consummate forms. The theatre administration discusses presenting de Staël’s play anew, but the piece is considered antiquated on good grounds. Instead a decision is made to invite a professional director to produce a Shakespeare play. In early February we have a group meeting and our artistic director, Marcus Rottenbühle, whose regular job is as associate professor in the philosophy department, has the pleasure of reporting that he has succeeded in engaging David Goschmann from Munich and the actor Robert Kauffner to produce King Lear.
David Goschmann is a charismatic director who, despite his youth, has made a great name for himself through strong productions of classics in Munich. He has also done a couple of original plays for TV, and it is truly a feather in the cap for Rottenbühle that he has managed to get him on the hook.
Robert Kauffner is, of course, legendary.
‘King Lear,’ Rottenbühle says, tugging on his grizzled black beard. ‘The play of plays! Ten roles approximately plus Kauffner. Suits us exactly.’
‘How will we assign the roles?’ Erwin Finckel, who played Tusenbach in Three Sisters, asks.
‘Goschmann will assign them,’ Rottenbühle explains. ‘He wants to have a classic audition. Cordelia is most important, but everyone is significant. The Clown. Gloucester. Edward and Edmund.’
‘Goneril and Regan,’ I say.
‘Naturally,’ Rottenbühle says. ‘Major female roles, requires careful rehearsal.’
But I have decided.
I will play Cordelia. And I do not intend to leave anything to chance.
To:
Agnes R.
Villa Guarda
Gobshejm
Grothenburg, 30 January
Dear Agnes,
So we’ve decided! I cannot deny that I feel an excitement that I have a hard time keeping a lid on. If all goes as it should he will be dead in two weeks – that actually works out ever so well, because the girls have a little break the following week; I mean, this way, their school attendance won’t have to suffer much.
This morning as we were having breakfast it suddenly occurred to me that he suspects something. No, Agnes, don’t get worried, I don’t mean that in some strange way David has gotten wind of our plans, it was something else. As if a streak of awareness of death passed over him, I think; and isn’t it the case that animals (and people too, I assume) can sense it when their hour is approaching? It seems to me that I read about this phenomenon not so long ago in some magazine. He sat there completely calm having his morning coffee with the newspaper supported against the toaster, just like he always does – but then he raised his gaze and looked at me for a few seconds with a quite special expression in his eyes. Then he smiled and said that he loved me despite everything and that I should take care of myself.
Despite everything, he said.
I asked why he said that, and what he meant by ‘despite everything’, but he simply observed me with the same serious smile, and then Rea upset her juice glass and the moment fell apart.
But it was so strong, Agnes, and it has stayed with me the whole day – maybe it’s the case that I feel some sorrow that things must go this way. Don’t believe for the world that I’m starting to change my mind, dear Agnes, far from it – but when all is said and done it is not a pleasure to have to get rid of a person you once believed would stand by your side all through life.
Although that’s the way it is, of course, and when I think about how he has conducted himself I immediately feel something quite different. Death to that swine, I think, and then that excitement comes creeping up. Two weeks, Agnes!
Now, however, I have to leave all this emotional turmoil and focus on questions of a slightly more practical nature. The past few days I have started wondering about what the police are actually going to think when they find David’s body. It is probably the case that they’ll wonder a bit about the motive, what is behind it, so to speak. And here perhaps we have to think a little, Agnes. Shouldn’t we make the whole thing appear like something it isn’t? To be prepared for all eventualities. Serve the police a kind of motive, in other words. I think so, and the only solution I’ve come up with is that we have to aim for a robbery with homicide. In any case, that seems the simplest. If you can make sure to liberate David from his wallet and his Rolex watch once you’ve shot him, it should be in the bag. The police are going to believe that the perpetrator is some rootless wretch who was after money, an addict perhaps, and why shouldn’t they think that? Especially as they have no reason to suspect anything else.
Are you with me in this, Agnes? As far as I can see it shouldn’t be particularly problematic. Whatever circumstances prevail when you shoot him (in a room? in a dark alley?), it can’t take much more than a couple of seconds to stick your hands in his inside pocket and snatch the wallet. And his wristwatch is really an ever-so-conspicuous affair, without a doubt it would be strange if a thief left it behind. But it comes off very quickly, so don’t worry, Agnes . . . and if, by the way, he’s in bed when you make your effort, then he surely has both the wallet and the watch sitting on the bedside table, he always does.
Oh well, you can think about these questions, Agnes, and let me know how you view them. But now to something else – the details about David’s stay in Amsterdam! I simply went into his email and found the programme they sent him, there were no difficulties.
The whole conference will be held at some place called the Niels Franke Institute, or simply the Franke Institute; it is also located rather centrally, right at the end of Vondel Park, and it starts with some sort of welcome introduction between six and eight o’clock on Friday evening. The 14th, that is. The number of participants is 82 and right afterwards there is dinner at the institute, so I assume that David won’t be back at the hotel (Figaro, Prinsengracht 112, just as I wrote in the last letter), until rather late. On Saturday they carry on between 10.00 and 6.00 with a subsequent dinner, and on Sunday between 10.00 and 3.00. Naturally, David is likely going to meet colleagues and go to a bar or two on Friday and Saturday evening . . . if it isn’t the case that he has plans to meet someone else!
And if someone else hasn’t already put an end to him. Yes, I don’t really know the best way for you to go into action, dear Agnes. Or when. You must probably shadow him a little in some way, sit in a car and wait outside that institute in the evening perhaps? I can’t help you very much on that point, instead I trust that you will think of a plan and a method. Perhaps it’s simplest if you stay hidden at the hotel, after all, and simply wait for him? But how simple – and how risky – is it to do that? I don’t know how big Figaro is; the bigger the better, it seems to me – oh well, of course it will be your business to find that out too. In any event I am quite sure that he is going to check into his room before he heads to the Franke Institute on Friday; he’s taking the train and will already be at Amsterdam C at 3.15, you see, there was a confirmation from the travel agency in his email too. Perhaps it would be an idea if you were also there at that time? Perhaps it is possible to strike then?
But anyhow, as stated, I won’t get involved in the execution itself. That’s your job, Agnes, and I trust that you will resolve everything to your full satisfaction. I have also, as we agreed on, deposited a
nother thirty thousand euros in your account – it strikes me that it could be hard for you to explain where these amounts come from, but of course we are never going to end up in such a situation. There is no – none whatsoever! – connection between you and David, that is of course the very prerequisite.
I also realize that we will not have time to exchange many more letters before it is time – one from each direction I’m guessing – and it is naturally correct as you propose that we must have access to quicker channels during the weekend in question. I have reserved a room at a hotel in Munich called Regina, it is on Hildegardstrasse not far from Marienplatz. My mobile number is 069-1451452, and I have a proposal:
When you are finished with your mission you call me up and leave a fictional message, you can choose one yourself – but don’t forget to relay the exact wording in the next letter!
If for some reason you had problems, you will say something else instead – and if you want me to call, then you will add something additional. (Isn’t it a bit strange that we still haven’t spoken with each other, Agnes? After all this writing and planning, it will be so nice to hear your voice again!)
Well, say what you think? Simple and clever, isn’t it? Send me your three codes – one for OK, all clear!, one for Trouble! and one for Call me! – in your next letter, which I assume will be the last (or perhaps next to last?)‚ before it is time.
Everything else is everyday, dear Agnes. Life goes on as usual; both of the girls have had a bout of flu, but David and I have escaped that.
And the snow is still on the ground.
Be in touch soon!
Wishes your obliged
Henny
P.S. What will we do with the letters, dear Agnes? There have turned out to be a few; I hate to burn them, but perhaps that would be wisest?
To:
Henny Delgado
Pelikaanallé 24
Grothenburg
Gobshejm, 2 February
Dear Henny,
Thanks for your long letter. Yes, we are indeed approaching D-Night (day? morning?) by leaps and bounds. Like you, of course I feel a certain excitement, but at the same time deep down I am calm. Perhaps it is because I am not nearly as emotionally engaged in the matter as you are, Henny. I am completing a mission, doing a good friend a service and getting paid for it. It’s actually no stranger than that. We must keep in mind that thousands of people are murdered in Europe every day, David is only going to be a small fraction in the statistics.
Yet we must obviously proceed with the utmost care, so thanks for all the important information you are providing, Henny. As I see it I am going to have plenty of alternatives to choose from; I’ll drive up to Amsterdam on Thursday afternoon (fortunately I have no teaching on Friday, the Barth family has already been informed and are happy to take care of the dogs; it is primarily their two daughters in their early teens who are so fond of Wagner and Bartok) – so I will have time to both do a little reconnaissance and be on the scene when he arrives at the central station. I have reserved a room at a hotel near Leidse Plein where I stayed once before; it is no more than a couple of hundred metres from Figaro, I’ve looked at a map.
The fact is that I also know about the Franke Institute; I was there for a course once ten or twelve years ago. It has some connection to the university, if I’m not mistaken.
Where the idea of robbery with homicide is concerned, I agree with you completely. Naturally we have to make everything as understandable as possible for the police. Will you want the wallet and Rolex back, or is it safest if I get rid of them? Oddly enough my husband also had a Rolex (which the greedy son for some unfathomable reason has not laid claim to!), and I truly have no use for two.
Although the most fun of all has been to think about this thing with the codes. I definitely think that we need three of them, just as you suggest, and I think it was generous of you to leave it to me to work them out. So, here they come:
1) If David is dead and all is OK: Good day, George, this is Aunt Beatrice. I just want to say that the black hollyhocks are ordered and paid for and will arrive on Tuesday. You don’t need to call me, that’s just an unnecessary expense! (Naturally a wrong number like the others.)
2) If anything fails but you don’t need to make contact: Hi honey! It’s Maud. I’ll be a little late, but we can still go out and eat when I come home. Kiss, kiss!
3) If you need to call me: Good day! This call is coming from the tax agency. Would you be please contact the administrator, Hilmer at 1716 646 960. Thanks!
Pretty clever, don’t you think, Henny? And then of course you must have my mobile number – yes, you just have to reverse administrator Hilmer’s: 069 646 6171!
Yes, dear Henny, I guess that’s all. In eleven days I will get into the car and wend my way towards Amsterdam. We will hopefully have time to exchange a few words by mail before then, but as far as I can see there are no more details we need to go over. It is my conviction that everything is going to go as smoothly as anything, and – a wish you expressed in an earlier letter – your spouse is going to be in the ground long before Easter.
And – I almost forgot this – thanks for the money! In reality I only need a little more than eighty thousand to be able to arrange the house issue, but the remaining cash will of course come in handy when we are out travelling in the autumn. Don’t you think, Henny? You cannot sense how much I am looking forward to that.
Hope also that you stay away from the flu even in the future; here in Gobshjem it has not yet appeared this year, but you can never be certain of course.
Signed
Your faithful girlfriend
Agnes
P.S. The letters, yes! I am afraid that it must be as you say. We’ll probably just have to burn them. But we can wait on that until the very last in any event, can’t we? I like going back and reading what you’ve written so much.
The great fear.
As I am driving home from H-berg it comes over me. A quite physical sensation of something big and unstoppable; it is so strong that I get short of breath, have to stop the car and get out for a while. Stand there smoking a cigarette despite the thin driving rain and try to calm down.
I am on the outskirts of the village of Worms, with Leuwel’s valley below me and the old stone church at my back. A mass of fog settles over the landscape, twilight is about to give way to darkness. Somewhere up along the mountainside someone is sawing timber with a chain saw, in the cemetery a man walks around with a spade over his shoulder.
I stand there by the car and try to understand what is affecting me. I feel surrounded by signs I don’t understand: church, car, man, spade, fog, darkness, sound, cold.
But perhaps it is just solitude. The solitude in this project; I must do everything on my own. I have no one to talk with, not even him, and how will I know that I am judging things correctly? How?
I won’t be able to talk with anyone afterwards either; never get any confirmation that I acted correctly – and how can I be sure that I can live with this? That I won’t just crack and everything turns out to have been wasted?
And how should I weigh this sudden fear? This weakness; if it is only something passing I will be completely right to resist it, but if it concerns something more fundamental, what happens then?
It’s not yet too late, there is still room to turn around. I tell myself that is the case at least, but to be honest I cannot imagine the consequences if I were to withdraw right now. I have been aimed in this direction for so long. Weeks and months.
Nights.
I put out the cigarette. Still feel the worry in my body, it aches like nausea or an approaching fever; I see that the village bar is open and guide my steps there. Order a glass of red wine from Herr Kammerer and sit down in a corner with a newspaper.
Perhaps it’s the letter writing. Before the most recent letters I felt great agony; not about reading hers, but about authoring my own. When I wrote the last ones I was drunk, it was impossible to bring the un
willingness under control any other way, and I assume that I will have to use the same means the next time too. Reasonably it will be the last, there is scarcely time for more.
I finish the wine and smoke yet another cigarette. Herr Kammerer comes and wants to refill my glass, but I say no. It was no longer needed; just this miserable drop of alcohol in the blood so that I will feel normal again. Perhaps it isn’t so bad after all? I pay, thank him and walk back to the car in the dark. The rain has picked up, I get thoroughly soaked in only a hundred metres.
Once at home I prepare tomorrow’s seminar on the Brontë sisters. Browse a little in Wuthering Heights and think about this business of love versus morality.
Think that they belong in such separate categories that actually you can never set them against each other. Yet we do all the time. On what level playing field would a chess player meet a sumo wrestler? What a strange image, I have to smile at it.
You can’t pair a duck with a fish, I also observe. None of us was right back then.
No one was wrong.
Perhaps not now either. We are tiles and pieces in a game that must proceed to its resolution. If we decide to play to the end, that is, and it is certainly here – nowhere else – that our choice is. To play or not to play.
I take only a short walk with the dogs this evening because of the rain. Drink two glasses of wine and am in bed by eleven o’clock. Pray for a dreamless night.
‘And what is so remarkable about King Lear?’
We are sitting in the sauna after swimming. Henny lifts up her breasts, observes them and weighs them in her hands.
