The Dark Frontier

by A. B. Decker

  “But what else do you have apart from theatre?” Frank asked forlornly, raising his voice further to compete with the cacophony of the crowd. “What else do you plan to do? What are you going to live on?”

  If fanciful dreams could elicit no response, he thought, then perhaps the practicalities of life in exile might.

  “I’ll find work,” he replied with cool matter of fact.

  “Just like that?”

  Frank grew angry with his friend, whose grasp of reality seemed even weaker and more questionable than his own.

  “Do you have any idea how much unemployment there is here? And what about a work permit? You’re not even legal. How do you expect to get a job?”

  Achim smiled. “We’ll manage. I have one or two ideas.” He paused briefly, then turned the tables. “But tell me, Frank, how do you manage to keep your head above water?”

  Frank was all too aware of the implications of this question. And it made him slightly uneasy. He had been living on his unearned inheritance for too long. And he knew that he would soon find himself dipping below the waterline if he failed to change the hotel life to which he had become so comfortably accustomed.

  “I’m still living on what my father left me. But you’re right. I need to adjust my living habits if I’m to stay afloat.”

  “That reminds me, Frank.” He had the impression that Achim was more than pleased to have an opportunity to change the subject. “Apropos your family, we came via Cologne and took the chance to visit your mother.”

  “How is she?” Frank asked, trying not to appear too indifferent, as much for his own conscience as for any other reason.

  “She’s not too well, I’m afraid. She obviously took your father’s death very hard. And now that she’s lost the dog as well, she hasn’t a companion left in the world. Except the dragon of a nurse. It was quite upsetting to see her after all these years. I had always remembered her as a rather cheerful lady.”

  “What happened to the dog?” Frank asked.

  “I don’t know. It was hard to get any sense out of her. Some bully-boy thugs by the sound of it, but it was hard to tell.”

  “I must try and get up to see her soon,” Frank said in an unconvincing tone.

  “What about somewhere to stay, Achim?” he added, keen to change the subject himself. “From your letter I wasn’t sure what your plans were, so I had a look around at a few possibilities, but I don’t have anything concrete as yet.”

  “Don’t worry. That’s taken care of already,” he replied with an air of mystery. “I was recommended to stay in the Hotel St. Gotthard, so we’ll be there for a few days at least, until we find something more permanent.”

  Achim clearly saw the sense of alarm in his friend’s expression, because he quickly followed this with: “Why?”

  “I just wonder who might have recommended that place to you. You know that was Wesemann’s stamping ground?”

  “Who?” Achim asked.

  “Come on, you must have heard about the Gestapo agent who’s just been put away for abducting that journalist? It was a huge story. In all the papers.”

  Signs of a wakening memory began to show in Achim’s eyes.

  “Yes, I heard about it,” was all he said.

  “Heard about it? It caused a major diplomatic row, almost put the country’s neutrality at stake, and you just heard about it. Well, just in case you hadn’t heard this: the Gotthard is where he used to hang out. And he may still have friends there. So take care.”

  His expression gave way to a look of concern, and Frank could not escape noticing the way he gave Gertrude a reassuring squeeze of the hand.

  “But you don’t need to worry,” he continued, trying clumsily to put their minds at rest. “I’m sure they wouldn’t try anything like that a second time. And anyway, what possible interest could they have in a stage designer?”

  Another uneasy silence spread over the table. Achim and Gertrude became submerged in unspoken exchanges with one another. Frank noticed how they had both changed almost beyond recognition since he had last seen them. Gertrude had grown so quiet and timid; her bubbling enthusiasm, her electrifying beauty had all been swallowed up by anxiety. Her eyes resembled those of an animal in captivity, the lids now drawn with depression where once they had displayed her magnificent eyelashes with such pride. Achim for his part had exchanged the carefree excitability he once knew for an almost suffocating, protective concern, continually but silently comforting Gertrude throughout their conversation. But Frank told himself they were probably just suffering the rigours of their long journey. As he was contemplating this idea, Achim looked over the table at him with an oddly pained expression on his face.

  “Were you always such a naive optimist, Frank? Of course they’ll try it a second time. And a third. And as often as they want. That whole Berthold Jacob affair, and Motta’s nauseating two-faced response to it simply reinforced them in their bullying self-esteem.”

  Achim was starting to get heated again, his voice louder by the second. Frank tried discreetly to signal the need for restraint. It seemed to him unwise to speak so disparagingly of a Swiss politician in such a public place. Especially with a strong Berlin accent.

  “You do know they eventually released him again after the Swiss protested?” Frank said.

  “Only after they tortured the shit out of the man!” Achim cried and brought a fist down on the table with a thud that brought questioning glances from the table next to them.

  It was plain to Frank that Achim had more than heard about the case: he had made himself familiar with every detail of events in Switzerland these past months.

  “You only have to look at their arrogance over the trial of that man who shot Gustloff in Davos. The blatant contempt displayed by the propaganda hounds they unleashed on the Swiss courts. Their self-righteous zeal as they bayed like hungry wolves for the head of a man who had the guts to stand up to them.”

  Then he added with a final, ominous flourish: “Don’t you worry, they’ll try that kind of thing as many times as it suits them – and as often as they’re allowed to get away with it.”

  Achim’s fervour embarrassed Frank into silence. For the first time in their long relationship, he had made Frank feel like an unworldly, ineffectual simpleton – like an empty shell washed up on the beach, rinsed of all emotion and opinion by the salt water. But Achim seemed unaware of the effect his words were having on his friend. At times he appeared almost to be talking to himself. And his impassioned monologue left Frank wondering why he had initially pretended to be so ignorant of the whole story. But his friend gave him no time to call him out on this contradiction as he added almost without pause: “Come on, let’s pay for this and get moving.”

  He gestured to Gertrude that she should see to the two sleeping infants on the bench seat beside her. Then got to his feet, carefully arranging the mysterious rucksack on his shoulders.

  “I’ll get it,” said Frank. He pulled the wallet from his pocket, gave the waitress a ten-franc note and opened the inner pouch for the small change.

  “What’s this?” asked Achim, reaching down to pick up the lock of strawberry-blonde hair that tumbled out of the wallet. The broad smile that lit up his face was the first sign of cheer that Frank had seen in him since they met. But he hurriedly retrieved the lock of hair and slipped it back into the wallet, ignoring his friend’s amusement.

  By the time he had brought Achim and his family to their hotel, it was already late in the afternoon.

  “You know, there’s a Kolping house just the other side of the river,” he said as they stood at the entrance to the hotel. “I’m sure you could find lodging there for a time. It’s not only cheaper, but you would also find it a whole lot safer than this place.”

  Achim squeezed his friend’s shoulder.

  “I’ll look into it,” he said, as much to reassure his wife as Frank. Gertrude gave him what seemed a worried and imploring glare. He squeezed her hand. Then they turned and disappe
ared into the hotel lobby.

  Frank returned to his own hotel room to wash and brush up. The reunion with his old friend had been deeply dissatisfying. And left him feeling more alone than ever. He needed the promise of that evening with Patricia to keep him from dipping below the water that he felt was slowly flooding the life out of him.

  So it was a sense of desperation that had him leave his hotel at five-thirty already to head for the Spalenberg and the wine tavern just around the corner. The huge Persil advertisement covering the entire blind wall of the end building stared down at him as he turned the bend. Perhaps a reminder that everything eventually comes out in the wash, he told himself. And smiled at the idea as he entered Lisettli’s wine tavern almost half an hour early. During the next thirty minutes, he marinated his thoughts with half a litre of pinot gris, rendering him certainly too carefree to create a serious impression on her when she turned up.

  The tavern was almost empty. In the far corner, an elderly couple sipped coffee together exchanging a few quiet words with each other every now and then. Two tables from them sat a slightly dishevelled old man poring over a newspaper, nursing a cigarette in his mouth and a glass of red wine in his right hand – ready to be raised at any moment. Otherwise, there was nothing to dispel the sense of tired early-evening indifference that filled the space between the empty tables and chairs. Frank took up a strategic position two tables away from the door so that Patricia Roche could not miss him the moment she entered.

  He recalled the gentle curvature of her back as it touched the frame of the chair. The way she parted her lips every so often to sweep away the strands of her raven hair. These warm memories coupled with the thoughts provoked by his disturbing reunion with Achim occupied Frank almost to the end of his second half-litre of pinot gris. The elderly couple had by now been replaced by a succession of other guests. Only the old man poring over the newspaper seemed a permanent fixture. When he got up to go, Frank finally shook the wishful alcoholic haze out of his mind and looked reality in the face. He would not be seeing her tonight. But that was no reason to walk out on a dream that was only just beginning. He ordered a last glass of wine.

  As the waitress set the glass down in front of him, another customer sat down at the table next to his. Between him and the door. There was something different about this one. He wore a conspicuous otherness that set him apart from the earlier passers-through. This one did not exude the contentment with his lot in the way the other guests had done. His face displayed a doughy sheen about it with an unhealthy shade of pasty grey. It belied the calm, eager-to-please smile that was fixed into place.

  Frank lifted his glass, almost as a kind of reflex response to the anxiety this man instilled in him. He became aware of the man’s insistent eyes homing in on him from the other table. Involuntarily Frank turned his gaze towards him. The stranger smiled with thick wet lips that seemed about to pout their message across the room with a blatant, almost unctuous self-assurance that Frank found both disturbing and disgusting.

  Inclining his head coquettishly, the stranger raised his glass to Frank, who just about caught the words ‘zum Wohl’ distorted slightly by the spittle in his mouth. It was clear to Frank that it was well past time for him to go.

  But even this, even his leaving, was not allowed to pass without the stranger insisting himself on Frank’s unease. As he edged by the table where the man was sitting, and drew level with him – almost waist to shoulder – the stranger raised his glass again, and wished Frank a pleasant evening. Without so much as a glance in his direction, Frank kept straight on through the doorway but still he could sense the man’s expression, his staring eyes, his luscious lips radiating their obsequious smile.

  The fresh evening air brought welcome relief. It cleared his head of all this interference and left him space to consider his reunion with Achim and his non-existent rendezvous with Patricia Roche. Two diametric opposites. And both signalled failure.

  The way from the wine tavern to the Storchen was short. Too short. Five minutes if he really took his time. And time was a commodity he needed to take in very large measure. So, when he came out into the fresh air, he headed immediately down to the market square. And into the teeth of a cold wind that blew into the square off the river. It reminded me that spring was still a long way off. The market had long since closed and the place was almost empty. He crossed over and headed up the narrow mediaeval street that led to the cathedral square.

  After the day’s disappointments, he knew that he would not be finding any peace that night. So it came as no great surprise when he realised, as he was climbing the steep cobbled street, that he was being followed. It was not a feeling he was familiar with. To his knowledge he had never been followed in his life before. Yet without turning, stopping, or hesitating in any way, he knew that someone was there in the shadows behind him. Watching.

  Frank did his best not to let panic get the upper hand. He persuaded himself that it was merely a fellow stroller who just happened to be on the same path as him. Not without some difficulty he kept his composure and continued on towards the cathedral. But his ears were alerted now. And every hint of movement had his full attention, had him analysing and interpreting the content of each and every sound. When he reached the square, he paused at the large stone fountain under the trees, ran his fingers through the icy water, and turned his gaze back in the direction he had come from. The street and the square were empty, lined only by a mass of shadows from the trees, which whispered suspiciously with each rustle of wind through their branches. A stray scrap of paper scampered across the ground in the darkness. In every meaningful sense of the word, the place appeared to be deserted.

  Yet still he could feel the presence. Somewhere not far away. In the black recesses of the night. His heart started to race. A chilling anxiety began to close in on him, threatening to shut out the natural noises of the street in all its emptiness: the cold wind sweeping round the cathedral walls from the river; the ice-cold running water of the fountain; a distant tram. He struggled to keep his grip on these small footholds in reality.

  But the stark looming edifice of the minster behind him threw a vast shadow over his unease. He wondered how many scenes of religious intolerance and persecution these cold sandstone walls had already witnessed. What mystery they were being treated to at this very moment. The darkness still whispered shades of menace. And he speculated as to which of the eclipses in the orbit of this building might conceal the threat that was meant for him.

  With breathless agitation, he made his way around the cathedral to the terrace overlooking the river. He remembered feeding the pigeons here only a few days before, and now sensed he was throwing himself at the mercy of vultures. But who were they? And what did he have to be frightened of? Nothing. Yet everything. Frank recalled the story of Berthold Jacob and his abduction not far from where he was standing. But Jacob was a journalist – and a Jew into the bargain. A man who had invited trouble through his provocative articles. What was Frank by comparison? A nobody with no secrets and no commitments.

  While his paranoid state appeared to dwell on a plural enemy, there was no good reason for assuming that he was being followed by more than one person. Or even that he was being followed at all. The shadows and the mediaeval edifice remained totally loyal to their protégés. Not a single movement out of place did they betray. From the open safety of the terrace, his back to the river, he stood watching these shadows for a single false move. It seemed an eternity until he felt secure enough to start sidling cautiously along the terrace wall. At an opening in this wall he stopped, hesitated a few seconds as he surveyed the darkness one last time, then darted away and down the steps that led to the river.

  Once down on the promenade and round the corner he sought the safety of the bushes and trees. And waited, breathless, for his pursuers to appear. He shivered in the breeze blowing off the water when suddenly he heard what sounded like the giggling of a female voice. Through the bushes, he watched a coupl
e arm in arm emerge at the bottom of the steps. She was all over him, a little tipsy judging by her laughter. But he was evidently enjoying the attention and allowed himself to be firmly anchored to the trunk of a tree, where she proceeded to take her pleasure of him.

  The extravagance of her enjoyment made Frank feel a shade uncomfortable and more than a little absurd as he stood behind a tree barely two metres from their boisterous passion. And since their exhibition provided him with the kind of cover that would distract anyone who might be on his tail, he considered it a good opportunity to go. So, as silently as the undergrowth would allow, he detached himself from the tree and, confident that he must surely now be alone, made his way back to the safety of his hotel room.

  Chapter 7

  It was Friday already. Ellen had by now been treated to Marthe’s favourite tea house and a whole series of sights and historical landmarks that meant very little to her. To end the tour, she was also keen that Ellen should see the house where C.G. Jung lived – something of “a shrine for my psychiatrist husband,” she said. “It’s on the other side of town in the harbour area. But Basel’s a small city, and we can do the round trip in an hour, just have to change onto the number 8 tram.” So off they went.

  But the whole time Ellen was out sightseeing with Marthe-cum-travel guide, her mind was elsewhere. Her attention was on the people who passed by. On the men striding ahead of her. On the faces in trams and buses. On the crowds at tram stops and the people on benches. On the vaguest of hopes that Frank might be among them.

  When Dr Zellweger arrived home early that Friday evening, he was still unable to give Ellen any further news of Frank. There had been no reports of anyone bearing the slightest resemblance to her missing husband. He seemed to have simply vanished off the face of the Earth.