‘How is poor Hans?’ Frau Klopp asks. ‘Bernhard says he sounds fine, but . . . it must have been such a . . . such a . . . shock. I can’t imagine . . .’
‘He’s distracting himself, that’s what he’s doing,’ Antonia says, and Nina can hear an edge of reproach in her voice.
Frau Klopp doesn’t appear to notice. ‘Well, that’s probably the only thing you can do, under the circumstances. When I heard, I couldn’t believe it. Such a beautiful, spirited young woman . . .’ she trails off, as if genuinely overcome.
‘You knew Marie?’ Nina finds herself asking.
Frau Klopp looks at her as though suddenly surprised at her presence. The woman’s eyebrows have been plucked a little too severely, and when she raises them a fraction, it gives her face a sharp, artificial look.
‘Yes, indeed.’ She picks up her cup and saucer. ‘We both knew her.’ She nods at her husband. ‘Bernhard and I met her, what, only a few months before she . . . before . . .’ She takes a nervous sip of coffee. It appears to calm her. She continues, her voice now perfectly composed, almost matter-of-fact.
‘Marie won a poetry competition, you know, in June, and I was one of the judges. We had a few – shall we say – turbulent discussions about her poem.’ She smiles, more to herself than to anyone else in the room. ‘A couple of the other judges thought it too dark, too . . . dislocated, a little Kafkaesque, but in the end, we decided that the quality of her writing was simply streets ahead of the other entries.’ She pauses and looks into her coffee cup. ‘It was remarkable, really, when I finally met her at the awards ceremony. She was . . . dazzling. Bright, and sunny. So unlike her writing. We had a lovely chat with her, Bernhard and I.’
This information is unexpected, disquieting almost. It has never occurred to Nina – Marie certainly never mentioned it – that her sister would know any of their parents’ friends. Marie was openly disdainful about their social group, their “caste”, as she put it, to a point where Nina was sometimes forced into defending them. And now Marie was being spoken about in such glowing terms by an archetype member of this caste. Nina can’t pinpoint quite why, but it unsettles her.
Bernhard Klopp leans forward. His cologne is pleasant, and undoubtedly expensive. ‘I was so sorry to hear about what happened,’ he says. ‘To be honest, my wife makes out that we were well acquainted, whereas in fact, we hardly exchanged a word with Marie. But regardless –’ He looks down at the floor. ‘She was so young. Such a tragedy.’
Nina glances across at her mother. She sits straight-backed, unmoving, a sculpted smile on her face, as though she’s listening to a neighbour talking about her prize-winning roses. This is her mother’s public face, practised and honed over a lifetime of acting the perfect wife of an increasingly eminent judge. But Nina can also tell, from the ache in her eyes, that the mask is only being held together by a herculean force of will. She can’t bear the sight and looks away, feeling a hot lump of grief in her own throat, panicked by this awful, piercing connection between them.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says, ‘but I’m afraid I have to go. My husband and son, they . . .’ She stands up, barely nods her goodbyes, and hurries out.
*
Outside, the rain has eased into a fine drizzle. The downpour has brought out a dark, earthy smell from the surrounding gardens and nearby forest, beneath it a subtle, unpleasant tinge of sewage. As Nina fastens her coat, negotiating the water that has pooled on the driveway, she looks up and sees that the Klopps’ car, a sleek black Audi, has parked her in. She turns back to the house just as the front door opens.
‘Sorry,’ Bernhard Klopp says, stepping out and closing the door behind him. ‘It occurred to me the second you left. I’ll let you right out.’
He takes a step forward and places his hand on her arm. ‘Again, I’m so sorry about your sister. I hardly knew her, but I have some, some understanding of what you, your parents, must be going through.’ He pauses. ‘We lost a daughter, Gloria and I. Sophie. She was eight years old.’
His handsome face suddenly looks much older, wretched.
‘I’m so sorry,’ Nina says with feeling.
He gestures, as if to brush her concern away. ‘It was a long time ago. She was riding her bike and got hit by a car. The driver didn’t stop and we never found out who he was.’
Nina doesn’t know what to say. ‘That’s terrible,’ she manages finally. ‘I can’t imagine –’
‘Forgive me,’ he says. He gives her arm a quick squeeze and removes his hand. ‘I didn’t mean to upset you, Nina. May I call you Nina? But I want you to know that if there’s anything, anything I can do.’
‘Thank you, Herr Klopp, but –’
‘Bernhard, please.’ He reaches into his jacket pocket. ‘I don’t normally do this sort of thing, but my position at the Ministry does grant me certain perks. Like knowing who to call to make sure the officers in charge are doing their job properly.’ He holds out a business card. ‘Please call me if you need any help, any assistance.’
‘That is kind of you,’ Nina hesitates, discomfited. ‘But I don’t think –’
‘Please. I insist,’ he continues, pressing the card into her fingers. Her hand is freezing, his is warm and soft. ‘In fact, promise me you’ll call and let me know how the investigation is going. The police, well, I know from experience that they can quickly lose their enthusiasm in the absence of leads or suspects.’
She looks briefly at the card before putting it in her pocket, touched now by his concern.
As she waits for him to move his car, she looks back at the house and glimpses the twitch of a curtain. Antonia is standing at the window, watching. Nina raises her hand in a wave. Her mother doesn’t wave back.
9
It is almost dark by the time they get home. It’s only three o’clock – they stopped at McDonald’s for lunch on Kai’s insistence – but the sky is black with fresh rain clouds. In this light, the house looks sad and old, nothing like the dream home they fell in love with ten years ago. It stands in one of those residential pockets of the inner city that is rarely featured in magazines and travel guides: full of history yet too low-key to attract many sightseers. Nina likes it this way, away from the wheelie-case-dragging Airbnb tourists and all-night-partygoers, but with newsagents and cafés and playgrounds within easy walking distance. The house was a lucky find: built in the 1930s, it resembles a set of small brick cubes set atop each other – the “Lego house”, Kai calls it – appearing streamlined and compact on the outside, while being deceptively spacious inside. Nina has no idea who designed the house originally, but its pleasing architectural feel, together with the mature enclosed garden at the back, means she has never regretted their decision to buy it. With her recent drop in income, however, there’s been little left at the end of the month for maintenance after the mortgage has been paid.
When they arrive, she switches on the outside light and Sebastian puts his key in the lock. He looks up. A part of the drainpipe on the porch roof is hanging loose.
‘This house is falling down,’ he says.
‘The sky is falling down,’ Nina murmurs. Kai looks up at her and laughs.
When they get inside, Kai shoots upstairs to play with his Scalextric set, while Sebastian retreats to the study to finish some work that can’t wait until Monday. He wasn’t particularly enthusiastic when Nina told him about Klopp’s offer of help on the way home.
‘The Ministry of Justice has bugger all to do with the local police,’ he said. ‘And the homicide division certainly won’t like being told what to do by some jumped-up civil servant still steeped in the ways of the past, believe me.’
Alone in the kitchen, Nina sits down at the kitchen table and takes out her phone. She has a message from Sara, asking her to call whenever she feels up to it. Sara is her oldest friend; they’ve known each other since school. For the past three years or so, they’ve made a habit of meeting for brunch once a month at the Café Bilderbuch, a picturesque old café with book-lined
walls and moth-eaten sofas.
She hesitates briefly, then deletes the message. She can’t face Sara, not yet. She’s afraid she’ll fall to pieces in front of her best friend, and right now, she isn’t sure she’d ever manage to put herself back together. No, Sara will have to wait.
Next, she scrolls down the list of numbers in the address book and hits ‘Call’ when Robert’s number appears. He picks up almost immediately.
‘Hi, Robert. It’s Nina.’
‘Nina! Hi.’
He sounds pleased to hear from her. She is relieved.
‘I’m so sorry I didn’t call you,’ he says, and his voice takes on an unhappy note. ‘I – I just didn’t know what to say.’
‘That’s okay.’
‘I’m sorry, about . . .’
‘Thanks.’
There is a brief silence. ‘How’s the new job?’ Nina asks.
‘Fine. The apes are on their best behaviour.’
Nina can’t help but smile. Robert has the best job. He works as a research scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, focusing on the reproductive strategies of chimpanzees.
‘Great.’ She hears the click-hiss of a cigarette lighter on the other end of the line. ‘Still haven’t kicked the habit?’ she asks.
‘What?’
‘Oh, I just heard your lighter. Look, Robert,’ she says quickly. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t want to make this awkward. The reason I rang is that the police officer in charge of Marie’s case, Franzen, told me he was going to Leipzig to talk to you. I was just wondering if there’s anything, you know, anything you can add to the investigation.’
‘No.’ His tone is cool.
‘It’s all I’ve got,’ she says, hearing the desperation in her own voice and willing herself not to crack.
He doesn’t speak for a moment. Then: ‘Franzen wanted to know when I last saw Marie. I told him it was a couple of weeks before she was – before she died.’
‘Did he mention she was pregnant?’
Robert breathes out heavily. ‘Yes. And no – I’m not the father. We broke up three months ago and, well, let’s just say that our sex life wasn’t as active as it could’ve been. I gave Franzen a swab.’
‘I’m sorry, Robert. I’m sorry to get so personal. It’s just –’
‘It’s okay. I guess I’d feel the same way in your position. But it’s not like she wasn’t interested in other guys, even when things were still . . . happening between us,’ he says.
‘What do you mean?’ Nina asks. She gave up smoking fifteen years ago when she was pregnant with Rebekka and has never felt the desire to smoke since. But the urge that hits her now is shocking.
‘Nina,’ he says, ‘I really don’t want to speak ill of Marie. Not now. But – you know what she was like.’
‘There were other men?’ she asks quietly.
‘Yes,’ he says. ‘I’m surprised you didn’t know. It’s not like she made any effort to hide it.’ He pauses. ‘And it’s not as though I was happy about it,’ he continues after a moment, ‘but, to be honest, I loved her. I thought she needed to get it out of her system. It sounds stupid, I know.’
‘No. That doesn’t sound stupid at all.’
‘That’s why we split up. I tried to handle it, be cool, but it just got too much for me. We didn’t argue much – it was a clean break-up. That’s what I told Franzen, too. We –’ he clears his throat, ‘we wanted to stay friends.’
Nina realises she’s out of words.
‘I’m surprised she didn’t tell you,’ Robert continues. ‘There was no shame involved for her and she always said how close you were, how she loved having this older, level-headed sister who did everything right but never judged her for sometimes doing things wrong.’
‘Oh, Robert.’ His words break her heart and she starts sobbing. She gulps down large bubbles of air, but still she can’t breathe for anguish. ‘I don’t know what to do. I can’t deal with knowing I’ll never see her again. I can’t – I can’t do this. Do you understand? I can’t do this!’
‘Hey, shhh, hey, hey. Nina.’ He murmurs comforting words down the phone and she wishes he were actually in the kitchen with her. ‘Listen. Have you talked to someone about this? I don’t mean Sebastian. I mean –’
Nina manages to calm down slightly. ‘You mean a therapist.’
‘Yes. There are people who are specialised in coping with grief. Look, please go and talk to someone. It might help. Just to get over the next few weeks. Please, will you do that?’
‘I’ll try.’ She nods, though she knows she’s lying. ‘But, Robert . . . Did you know any of these . . . these men that Marie –’
‘No.’ He lets out a deep sigh. ‘I wish I did. I wish I’d – well, there’s a lot I wish I’d done differently.’
Nina hears the study door opening. ‘Thanks, Robert. Thanks for telling me this.’
‘No problem,’ he says. ‘And if you ever feel the need to talk again, please call me.’
She hangs up just as Sebastian comes into the kitchen.
10
Nina’s first visit to a therapist was a disaster. She was twenty years old and had collapsed the day after her first-year medical exams at university. She had refused to speak to the on-call psychiatrist at the clinic, and had only been released from hospital on condition that she regularly visit the therapist her parents had arranged for her to see.
Professor Doktor Werner was an old man, well past retirement age, and had an unkempt moustache and enormous red hands that he would wring victoriously whenever he reduced Nina to tears. Which was often. She’s still convinced it was the personal goal of liberating herself from the psychiatric clutches of this sadistic old man that constituted her ultimate recovery – six kilos in nine months – rather than any psychoanalytic insights he claimed to have provided her with. Her recovery was her triumph over him. Still, whenever she hears the name Werner – common enough – it never fails to induce a sting of discomfort.
Thus, Nina immediately discards Robert’s suggestion, however kind. Instead, she focuses on getting through the days under her own steam. She does what is necessary, running on auto-pilot. She keeps her focus narrow and tight, rarely pausing from the moment she wakes until the moment she drops, exhausted and hollow, into bed at night. If she dares to stand still, her mind springs to life like a wound-up toy, allowing grief and panic and anger to take on shape and slip out of her control.
And she recognises the demons: the constant counting of calories has returned, like a computer in her head that refuses to be switched off – she has allowed herself eight hundred a day; sit-ups in the office and endless fidgeting to keep up her metabolic rate; the need to walk up just one more flight of stairs, do just one more squat, walk just one more kilometre, to give herself permission to eat. She recognises the demons and she invites them in, lets them settle themselves around her, because she knows that if only she can get down to fifty kilos, the weight she was before she had Rebekka, then she’ll be okay. Fifty kilos. Not much to ask. It’s nothing like the eating disorder she suffered from twenty years ago. She’s worked through that; she’s recovered.
On a Tuesday, three weeks since Marie was attacked, the office phone rings. The next patient is due in half an hour and Nina is forcing herself to deal with the fresh batch of paperwork sent by her accountant, paperwork that seems to increase, rather than decrease, the more she works through it.
It’s the outside line. She picks up the phone.
‘Hello?’
‘Hello, Nina. It’s your father.’ As though she’s not able to recognise his voice.
‘Hello, Papa. How are you?’
‘I’m fine. A little busy, so I’ll come right to the point. I’ve just had a telephone call from Kommissar Maslowski.’
‘What?’ Her heart skips. It’s an unpleasant sensation. ‘Have they –?’
‘No,’ he interrupts. ‘They don’t have a suspect yet. I spoke to Chief of Police Lampwitz last week, on your
mother’s insistence, and he told me that Franzen and Maslowski were competent detectives and that it would be best to leave them to do their job. The DNA analyses have come back negative, so far. Not the most agreeable conversation I’ve ever had, but it made Mama feel better. Anyway, the reason I’m calling is that Maslowski is releasing Marie’s possessions. And as her heirs –’ He pauses. Nina can tell he’s having trouble keeping a handle on his voice. He clears his throat, then continues in a low tone. ‘As her heirs, your mother and I are required to sign for receipt of them.’
‘I see.’ She can’t think of anything else to say.
‘The thing is,’ he continues, ‘Maslowski tells me that Marie had over fifteen thousand euros in her bank account. Do you know anything about that? Mama and I know that you gave her money from time to time, but this seems rather a lot. But if it was from you, we would return it, naturally.’
Nina frowns, recoiling slightly in surprise. ‘No,’ she says. ‘I gave her two hundred when she came round for dinner, the last time before –’, she steadies her breath, ‘before she died. I don’t know –’ A light on the telephone dashboard blinks, indicating a call waiting. ‘I’m sorry, Papa. I don’t know anything about that.’
‘Hmm. Well, I’ll see to it that the two hundred euros are transferred to your account. I have your bank details somewhere.’
The formality of his tone causes her almost physical pain. She cannot bear it. ‘I have to go now, Papa,’ she says. ‘I have a call on the other line. I’m sorry. Say hello to Mama from me.’
Nina pushes the button that is blinking insistently.
‘Hello? Dr Bergmann speaking.’
‘Dr Bergmann. This is Kommissar Franzen. Do you think it would be possible to come to my office sometime today? There are a few things I’d like to discuss with you.’
Sisters of Berlin Page 6
