Under the Ice

by Gisa Klönne

  Manni doesn’t even bother to turn off his computer; he needs to get out and think things over – the faster the better. Seconds later he’s back in the fleet Vectra, which he’s beginning to grow rather fond of. He takes the A4 slip road and is soon approaching Königsforst lay-by where Mr Snack’s van is still shuttered and bolted, waiting for weekend trade. Manni gets out and locks the Vectra – at present, the only car in the lay-by. The picnic bench and toilet building are deserted – the motorway is almost empty too.

  It’s nearly light when Manni reaches the shelter. He sits down where the dog handlers and the forensics team say Jonny must have sat. The wooden bench is uncomfortable. What would drive a scouting boy into this hut? Did he come in here to hide? Hardly – even the bench inside the hut is clearly visible from the path.

  Manni looks at the silhouettes of the trees and watches them assume substance and depth as the sun rises. We’ve been asking the wrong questions, he thinks. We’ve let ourselves be lulled into a stupor by well-meaning teachers, a desperate mother and a silent stepfather. Manni recaps the statements from the reports. A nice boy – clever, good at school, popular, but happiest on his own. A Red Indian fan. A member of the school chess club. How pallid and insubstantial all these descriptions are. And yet they have accepted them; they have omitted to ask the most important question of all: who is Jonny really?

  The second most important question also remains unanswered: what did this boy who loved watching others see here in the woods? What was it that frightened him so much?

  *

  Clouds drift on the lake – pink, of all colours – and the forest floats in the water at the shores. Judith is sitting on the wooden jetty, engrossed in the contemplation of a double sky.

  ‘The wind often drops so still at night that it turns the lake into a mirror,’ David says from the shore.

  She half turns to look at him. Just a moment ago they had been clinging to each other like people drowning – or starving. Not that such clichés can convey anything of the unconditional way in which their bodies had responded to each other.

  He joins her on the jetty, a wine glass and a bottle of Canadian red in his hand, and pours her a glass.

  ‘Aren’t you having a drink?’ she asks softly.

  ‘I’m going to see to the food now.’

  After making love for the first time, they had swum together. Then they made love again in the water – calmer, more aware of what they were doing. Judith sips her wine. It tastes of woodland berries and reminds her of the evenings playing boules with Karl-Heinz; all that seems like another life now. She rolls herself a cigarette and dangles her feet in the clouds that are floating past the jetty in slow motion. It’s all so surreal. Everything is in excess: the colours, the beauty, her happiness. It can’t be real; it can’t last, but, God, she wishes it would. Four hours have elapsed since she arrived in the wilderness. There has been no sign of Charlotte.

  Two water birds appear as if from nowhere – sharp-beaked silhouettes. As they glide closer to Judith, she recognises the characteristic white pattern on their throats and backs – the pattern she knows from pictures and from her dream. Perfectly round red eyes glint at Judith – timeless gazes; vacant, but searching. One of the birds rears up in the water and beats its wings. The next instant, the loons have vanished from the surface; try as she might, Judith can’t see them. It’s minutes before she spots them again – dark shapes, far out on the water.

  The colour of the clouds intensifies and then fades. Maybe it’s all quite simple, Judith thinks. Maybe this is reality – or rather, this is what matters: an evening by a lake with a man who is still a stranger and yet already close; a glass of wine, a fire and, covering everything, this silence, like someone holding their breath. No investigations. No death.

  They eat spaghetti with smoked mussels, and peppers that David has prepared over the fire. Night is coming fast now, bringing with it a cacophony of unfamiliar sounds: courting frogs, gurgling water, the cough of a racoon, an unidentifiable rustle – and the unearthly call of a loon.

  ‘The Native Americans say that loons dive back and forth between the realm of the living and the realm of the dead,’ says David. ‘There are countless myths where loons help humans with their magical powers. I once read somewhere that the Scandinavian Sami people believe something similar; they even think you enter the realm of the dead through the lake bed. Sájvva is their name for it.’

  ‘Maybe they’re right. There is something mystical about the way the water reflects everything.’

  ‘Loons are certainly very ancient birds. All life began in the water, and loons still can’t live without it. They need it to take off from and land on. They can dive for minutes at a time; they hunt under water and their bodies are almost better adapted to swimming than to flight. They have barely changed for millennia; all their closest relatives are extinct.’

  ‘So it’s entirely plausible that a scientist like Charlotte should devote herself to loons?’

  ‘Their cry is the symbol of the North American wilderness; even our dollar coin has a loon swimming on it – loonies, the Canadians call them. But there has been very little research done on them. They’re too timid. Hard to watch, too, because of the double life they lead, above and below water. A real challenge.’

  Is that what Charlotte wanted – a challenge? ‘Tomorrow,’ David promises, and again Judith thinks she sees a sadness in his eyes – but what does she know of him?

  He has given her the bare bones of his life: his escape from Germany, where he felt hemmed in; a failed marriage to a Canadian; his love of his job, of nature. She could have asked questions, probed deeper, but she didn’t want to. She didn’t tell much of her own story either. It isn’t important – not here, not now.

  Later in the evening, David carries a canoe down to the lake. Myriads of stars glitter in the blackness over the treetops. The canoe glides almost soundlessly over the surface of the lake which shows them a second firmament, a watery sky. Far out on the water, David pulls in the paddle and they watch the moon rise out of the trees – a cold, hazy gold.

  Then the loons begin to sing – a single call at first, almost questioning – and then the answer, high and quavering and far away, until slowly the sound swells to a collective tremolo, a lament that hovers over the water, with no clear origin, infinitely mysterious – a message from a world out of reach.

  ‘Don’t forget this,’ David says later, when they are lying under his sleeping bag in the log cabin. ‘Whatever happens, don’t forget this.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The loons. Us. Don’t listen to what people say.’

  ‘I’m a detective. I don’t forget anything.’

  It was meant as a joke, but faintly, almost imperceptibly, Judith feels David’s arm tense. She tries to make out his face, but it’s too dark and she is tired, and he still has his arms around her, his embrace soft again now and seductively warm. She wants to ask him something – to reassure him that she’s here for personal reasons – but instead she falls asleep.

  Friday, 29 July

  ‘That suitcase, Mother, my checked children’s suitcase – have you found it?’

  Elisabeth resists the temptation to hang up. Seven in the morning – Carmen has never rung this early; unlike her mother, she isn’t a morning person. But she wants something from Elisabeth and isn’t going to give up until she’s got it. She’s always like that when she’s set her mind on something – unrelenting, merciless. Always has been. It never ceases to amaze Elisabeth that she managed to produce a being so different from herself.

  ‘I was too tired to go up to the attic yesterday,’ Elisabeth replies.

  ‘You said you’d look, Mother. You promised.’

  ‘You normally tell me to take things easy.’

  ‘Goodness, Mother, don’t you understand? Someone left a dead dog outside the church in Frimmersdorf, in a suitcase with my name on it. That can’t be a coincidence. I have to call the police – unless you ca
n persuade me right now that the suitcase is still in the attic.’

  ‘All right, all right, I’ll have a look.’

  ‘I’ll ring again in a quarter of an hour, Mother.’

  Barabbas pads across the kitchen linoleum and lays his head on Elisabeth’s knees. She scratches him behind his ears. She had done her best to protect him, but it wasn’t enough. She hadn’t even realised Carmen had written her name on the suitcase; the girl must have done it secretly when they were on holiday on the island of Juist all those years ago. Yes, that must be what happened; that would be just like Carmen. Mine, mine, mine – her daughter always had been possessive, even as a child. Now Carmen is a persistent woman of almost fifty. Elisabeth feels tears pricking her eyes. She can’t fetch Carmen’s suitcase back; it hadn’t occurred to her that her daughter would ever ask for it, and she knew nothing of the name in the lid. She had, of course, got rid of the address label and the flower stickers, and unpicked the monograms from the sheets. She’d never dreamed that the suitcase would be on the news. They’ll take Barabbas away; they’ll kill him – and it will be her fault.

  The telephone begins to ring, shrill and harsh, like Carmen’s voice when she feels hard done by. Elisabeth forces herself to reach out her aching arm and pick up the receiver.

  ‘You’re right,’ she says, when Carmen says hello. ‘The suitcase isn’t in the attic. I remembered as soon as I got up there – I put it out on the street last year for the dustmen. Somebody must have taken it.’

  ‘You put my suitcase out for the dustmen?’

  ‘I’m sorry, Carmen, I didn’t think you were particularly attached to it.’ You never gave a toss about our holidays, Elisabeth wants to add, but she stops herself. You only ever wanted to get away from us, she thinks. But she mustn’t get into an argument now; she doesn’t have the strength. Every word is an effort as it is. And it’s important that Carmen believe her. It’s her last chance to save Barabbas.

  ‘I can’t believe that, Mother; you never put anything out for the dustmen. You never part with anything.’

  *

  Ignoring Tim’s protests, his father drives him right up to the school gate. Frau Keyser, his class teacher, is waiting at the entrance; now there really is no escape. Tim climbs wearily out of the Mercedes, feeling like a lamb to the slaughter. Frau Keyser smiles at him.

  ‘Everything all right, Tim? Feeling better?’

  Tim nods. What else can he do? He botched last night, so here he is again. Next week the holidays begin at last, but there are still another six days of school to get through. The thought is unbearable. Behind him, somebody laughs. Tim’s shoulders stiffen and his heart begins to race. Don’t turn round, he tells himself. Don’t turn round. That only makes it worse; it’s what they want. He pleads silently with his father to leave, but his father lets the car window down and starts to talk to Frau Keyser. Tim slopes off. More laughter. Tim’s back aches from drawing his head in as far down between his shoulders as he can; he can’t feel himself move. It takes an inordinate amount of self-control not to hurl himself on the ground or press himself up against the grimy brick façade – close his eyes and pray to be made invisible or, better still, turned to stone.

  ‘Your dad says you miss your friend.’ Frau Keyser has caught up with him. She lays a hand on Tim’s tense shoulder, making him start. ‘We all miss Jonny. We all hope he’ll be back soon. Don’t give up hope.’ She nudges him in the direction of the art rooms, where Tim has his first two lessons. Art – there’s another subject that once meant quite a lot to him. Once.

  The room falls silent when he enters. Do they all know? Have they all seen the shameful photos, stored them on their phones, gloated over them, laughed at them. shown their friends? Tim sidles to his seat like a scared animal. A few of the girls throw him curious, almost pitying glances – or is he imagining things? Lukas is leaning up against the wall by the window, a furtive look in his eyes.

  ‘Since when does your dad bring you to school, Rinker?’

  ‘Dunno, just today.’

  ‘Have you been telling lies again?’

  Tim shakes his head. The art room is so quiet you could hear a pin drop.

  ‘Lies!’ Very slowly, Lukas pulls his phone from his trouser pocket. ‘Vik texted me a picture, a really funny one. Hang on a sec, where is it?’

  ‘No one here is looking at texts just now, thank you. Switch off your phones, please, and come and sit down.’ The art teacher isn’t standing for any nonsense. Their topic is Expressionism, and he wants them to start by painting something that is important to them – to follow their feelings. Loud groans and grumbles. But soon the whole class is at work, even Lukas. Tim stares at the sheet of paper in front of him. He knows that Expressionist paintings are colourful – as colourful as the fish he carved up yesterday evening.

  ‘What’s this, Tim? Is this a joke?’ The art teacher tears Tim’s picture from his pad and holds it up. Tim has covered the entire sheet in black paint. The others jeer.

  ‘What is this, Tim?’

  The deep sea, Tim thinks. That’s what it’s like right at the bottom – no colours, nothing but black. But he doesn’t say it out loud, because nobody would believe him.

  *

  There’s something different about Martina Stadler. It isn’t her clothes; she’s still wearing the same T-shirt and baggy tracksuit bottoms as the day before, still clawing her slender hand into the woollen shawl that’s wound about her shoulders in spite of the heat. It’s something in her manner – something about the way she looks at him. She is composed and almost calm – and for some reason that Manni can’t put his finger on, that unnerves him.

  ‘Frank isn’t in,’ Martina Stadler tells him. Then, more softly, with a glance at the two little brats who are standing in the hall behind her, gawking at Manni, she adds, ‘I don’t know where he is.’

  ‘We have to talk,’ says Manni.

  She nods, as if she’d been expecting it. ‘Go on into the kitchen, I’ll just . . . Leander, Marlene, come along, you can watch a video.’

  How quickly you get used to a place, Manni thinks, taking up his usual seat at the kitchen table. Only a week ago he didn’t even know this family; now they have become part of his life.

  ‘The Lion King,’ says Martina Stadler. ‘That’ll keep them quiet for a while. They aren’t usually allowed to watch TV in the mornings.’ She sits down opposite Manni on the corner bench.

  ‘Jonny,’ Manni begins. ‘We still know too little about him.’

  ‘I’ve told you everything I—’

  ‘No you haven’t.’

  She seems to freeze, but she holds his gaze with her inscrutable green eyes. Beautiful eyes in a beautiful face that is now ravaged by pain.

  ‘Who is Jonny? What makes him unique?’ Manni asks.

  ‘Leopold,’ a child’s voice pipes.

  Martina Stadler leaps to her feet. ‘Marlene, what are you doing here? You were going to watch the film.’

  ‘Can we have some chocolate?’

  Martina Stadler flings open a cupboard door, presses two bars of Kinder chocolate into her daughter’s hand and pushes her back out into the hall.

  ‘Blackmail,’ she says. ‘Little monsters. They know when they can get away with it.’ She sits back down on the corner bench and again seems to freeze in position. ‘Jonny really was like Leopold,’ she says stiffly.

  ‘Leopold?’

  ‘Leopold is a glow-worm. The main character in Marlene’s favourite book. Jonny often read it to the kids. They loved it. They had this bedtime ritual – first they’d look at the book and then Jonny would make light signals for them with his torch.’

  Martina Stadler clasps the torch as if in confirmation.

  ‘What’s so special about this Leopold?’

  ‘He brings light to the others.’ Martina Stadler’s voice sounds very far away. ‘You don’t notice him at first, but when you’re scared of the dark, he’s suddenly there, switching on his little lantern for you. L
eopold’s not scared.’ She smiles, an unnatural, tight-lipped smile. ‘Jonny was just the same. He had a real talent for looking on the bright side, because he had such a big imagination. Marlene and Leander worshipped him. After his parents’ awful death, he really did bring light to our lives – once he’d got through the worst phase of grieving.’

  ‘You talk about him in the past tense.’

  ‘He’s dead.’ She looks at him. ‘You know he is. Anything else is impossible.’

  ‘We don’t know what’s happened; we can only speculate.’ The dog squad has given up searching. Of course, that isn’t to say the boy isn’t buried somewhere in Königsforst. Or elsewhere. Manni’s seen it all before. A few bones, some scraps of soft tissue, hair, shreds of clothing – not much is left after a week in the open in the middle of summer. But they don’t even have that. No hot leads, no ransom note, no corpse – nothing at all, nada. Manni suddenly craves clarity, even if it would almost certainly mean he’d be off the the case.

  ‘Jonny would never have let anything happen to Dr D.,’ says Martina Stadler.

  ‘Maybe he didn’t realise what was happening. Maybe whoever did it was quicker than him.’

  Martina Stadler shakes her head. ‘They were inseparable.’

  And that, Manni thinks, must have made it all the more awful for Jonny when someone did hurt his dog – when he realised he couldn’t prevent it.

  ‘He would have protected that dog, whatever happened,’ Martina Stadler insists in a strangely monotone voice. ‘That’s just the way he was. If someone was in trouble, he had to help them. At the swimming pool, for instance, Jonny would intervene when the kids got into a fight, even if they were bigger than him. I always thought it was foolish but, oddly enough, he always got away with it. It was the same at school. He was the smallest, the youngest, highly intelligent – an obvious target for bullies. But, in fact, the others respected him.’