Magic Hoffmann

by Arjouni, Jakob

  He lit a cigarette and looked around again. Nobody seemed to be watching him. Should he go home? Was that how his first night of freedom would be?

  He downed his glass and waved at Gerda. When she finally turned round, he grinned and yelled: ‘The drinks are on me.’

  Dawn was breaking as Fred awoke on a bench in the pedestrian precinct. It took a moment for him to grasp where he was and to realise that he was not in his cell. Then he came to with a start.

  Dieburg was still sleeping. Closed shutters, barred up shop windows, a fading street light. The first birds were chirping. Otherwise it was silent.

  Fred’s clothes were clammy. He shook himself, flopped his feet onto the pavement and rubbed his face. Then he came across the crusted blood, which ran from the back of his right hand up his forearm. Slowly it came back to him: he had wanted to give Gerda a farewell embrace, but something must have gone wrong because seconds later someone had grabbed him and hurled him into the street.

  He leaned to the side and threw up into a tub of flowers. He had always had a weak stomach. At least he had managed to get drunk on his first evening. That always seemed to work.

  In his pocket were a twenty note and some loose change. He must have spent six hundred marks, almost his entire prison wage.

  He picked himself up and staggered home. The streets were empty. In the distance he could hear the first cars on the main road to Frankfurt. Had Annette and Nickel returned in the mean time?

  But he could tell from a distance that his ‘Am at Clash’ note was still stuck to the front door. That was that: his postcards hadn’t arrived. Or else…

  He ran faster, forgetting his hangover. When he reached the door, he tore the note off and crumpled it up. Could it be that they knew of his release and still didn’t come to collect him? Or maybe they perhaps planned to leave it till the weekend.

  He opened the door and entered the hall. Pale light filled the long, narrow room with its rose-patterned wallpaper. Grandma Ranunkel’s winter coat still hung on the coat stand. Should he wait for Annette and Nickel here? Between these desolate walls, without electricity or running water and with no Clash in the evenings.

  He slammed the door. He had no time to lose, and certainly not in Dieburg. He would get hold of their addresses, travel to Berlin and fetch the two of them. And if they thought that after four years a day or two wouldn’t matter to him, then they thought wrong.

  4

  In the supermarket on his way to the Schöllers Fred bought a bottle of French red wine for Annette’s mother.

  He had known her since he was a kid, and had he been able to choose a mother, she would have been first choice: big and strong with huge breasts, lively green eyes and a fine narrow face. At home she went around mostly barefoot, dressed only in a bathrobe. She didn’t always do up the belt, and it was a small miracle that Fred hadn’t emerged from childhood with a permanent squint. When she went out she put on make-up and perfume and wore flimsy outfits that the neighbours always thought were too short. She liked to have people around her, was always throwing garden parties and dinner parties, and even the fustiest of her husbands civil servant friends was captivated by her charm and her love of life. As far as Fred was concerned, the fact that she had never visited him in prison was only a way of ensuring no further suspicion fell upon Annette.

  It was shortly after nine, the sun was behind the house, and the Schöllers front garden lay calmly in shadow. Nothing had changed. The garden was still a sort of Mediterranean oasis in comparison to its meticulously laid-out neighbours with their beds of pansies and little fir trees. At the Schöllers the grass hadn’t been mown, shrubs and flowers mingled in wild confusion, and sage and rosemary grew in brown earthenware pots.

  The original Happy Family. Fred could picture them, how they cooked together cheerfully, then sat down at the dinner table, how they laughed about the same things, were interested in the same subjects and even held more or less the same opinions about what was in the newspapers. Fred’s father had once said, either the parents had a screw loose or the children had no guts - but he never had a good word to say about the Schöllers anyway.

  Fred pushed open the garden gate, went to the front door and rang the bell. Nothing happened. He rang again, till the curtain in the first floor window moved and somebody coughed. Then Fred could hear steps on the stairs and he took the bottle out of the bag. When the footsteps stopped, a voice croaked from behind the door, asking who was there. Fred shoved the bottle back.

  ‘Fred Hoffmann . I wanted to speak to Mrs Schöller.’

  ‘Fred?’

  The door opened, and Fred’s heart stood still. It was Mrs Schöller - or what was left of her: shrunk down to a small, pointed, tumorous beer gut, her face a battlefield of festering pustules, rutted lips and glassy bloodshot eyes. Like a cave animal avoiding the light, she remained in the dimness of the hall. Fred could detect a putrid stench of sweat.

  He tried not to make his shock apparent. Just like in the old days when he had been up to some mischief, he gave a cheeky grin and called out: ‘Well then, Mrs Schöller,’ as if he were hoping to give her back her former appearance by adopting the old manner.

  ‘Fred. So you’re out at last.’

  ‘Since yesterday.’

  ‘Come in.’ But at the same moment she looked to one side, as if something had occurred to her. She gathered up her bathrobe and ran a hand through her clotted hair. When she looked up her gaze was full of fear. ‘I mean, if you would like to. You can see…things have changed somewhat.’

  Fred shrugged. ‘Where do they not? Don’t I get coffee here any more?’

  ‘Of course.’ She revealed a row of yellow teeth, and a soft glow scurried across her eyes.

  Fred followed her in to the living room. The curtains were drawn, and isolated sunbeams came through the gaps. There was a smell of Schnapps and stale smoke. In the half-light Fred recognised the same old Protestant furnishings, chosen according to Mr Schöller’s taste: practical bright wooden furniture, orange lampshades, tapestries in woodland colours and a poster promoting understanding between peoples. On the shelf were photos of Annette and her elder brothers. One was a violin maker, the other did something worthy in Africa, Fred didn’t know exactly what. Beside them, a plaster head of Mr Schöller was resplendent. An artist friend had given them the sculpture. It gave him the air of a Greek philosopher.

  Mrs Schöller stood still and rubbed her hands together.

  ‘Do you recognise everything?’ she asked, doing her best to sound cheerful. Fred wished she would leave it out.

  ‘Of course. And still the same old rags on the wall. Don’t the moths eat stuff like that?’

  Mrs Schöller had to laugh. She disliked the tapestries as much as Fred did. For a while she asked him about prison, and he described a kind of cheery holiday camp - for her sake as well as his.

  ‘I’m so sorry for you, Fred.’

  ‘No need. I’m taking it easy, Mrs Schöller, honestly. You know me: if and but aren’t in my vocabulary. What happened happened, and after that it’s up to me.’

  Mrs Schöller smiled. Then she took a couple of clumsy steps towards him and placed her hand on his arm. ‘Annette will always be grateful to you - and so will I.’

  ‘What for?’ said Fred, trying to breathe through his mouth. She mustn’t have washed for days. ‘Don’t start carrying on like the police. Nobody knows who was there during the robbery, and that’s how it stays. But since we’re speaking about Annette: actually I came because…’

  Mrs Schöller had turned away abruptly, and Fred looked on astonished as she sought a chair back to hold on to and stared at the floor for a moment as if hypnotised.

  ‘I have almost withdrawn completely,’ she said suddenly. ‘I’m only ever at home. Well, I…’ and suddenly she looked at Fred with strange, burning vacant eyes, like a saint, ‘as a matter of fact, I’m painting.’

  Fred was embarrassed at the sight of her. ‘Aha,’ he said and wiped somethi
ng invisible from his nose. What did she mean? Painting walls? ‘And ah…how is it?’

  She took him by the hand and led him to a small easel at the window, that Fred hadn’t noticed till then. A black cloth was draped over the canvas.

  ‘Promise me you’ll be absolutely honest.’

  ‘But I don’t know anything about such things.’ Her hand felt clammy.

  ‘All the better.’ She pulled the cloth off in one movement and looked at Fred expectantly.

  Fred stared at the canvas, then at Mrs Schöller, then again at the canvas. His face remained expressionless. The canvas was white, or rather canvas-coloured, straight from the shop.

  Fred forced himself not to shift his eyes away from the fine-grained surface.

  Eventually he frowned and said: ‘Well. Fairly modern, what?’

  ‘Mhmhm.’ Mrs Schöller nodded reverently. Whether on account of Fred or the picture wasn’t clear.

  ‘I would hang it up. There’s something…pure about it,’ Fred pointed at the wall, ‘in any case it’s better than those rags.’

  ‘That’s what I think,’ she said quietly.

  For a while they stood in silence in front of the twenty-nine mark canvas, and Fred was terrified that Mrs Schöller would ask his views on colour and technique. But instead, clearly content, she put the cloth back and said: ‘I’ll make us some coffee.’

  Relieved, Fred watched her disappear in to the kitchen. Through the half-open door, Fred could hear a screw cap being opened, followed by gentle gurgling. Fred had the feeling he was experiencing a flood or an earthquake, one of those natural catastrophes you see on television where whole towns are slowly but surely submerged.

  He went to the window and shifted the curtain aside. Terrace after terrace, swing hammock after swing hammock, barbecue after barbecue. In the morning sun everything glowed as if freshly painted. He imagined how the neighbours wagged their tongues about Mrs Schöller. Just as he was going to take the wine from the bag and put it on the table, the front door slammed shut. Shortly afterwards Mr Schöller entered the room. Professor Schöller. Deputy headmaster Schöller. Shortarse Schöller.

  Almost everything about him was small or short, down to his briefcase and his corduroy suit. His trouser legs hung in creases over his shoes, and only his fingertips protruded from his sleeves. He wore sideburns to fill out his narrow face; and so that no one hit upon the idea that this was down to vanity, he let it grow wild and unkempt. The same applied to his dirty-blond, slightly wavy hair. His eyes, which had once been a piercing blue, had become dull in recent years and looked like water-colour on parchment.

  The noises from the kitchen ceased. A soft metal click could be heard in the room. Mr Schöller was rotating his key ring between his fingers and stood motionless, observing Fred. Then his mouth formed into a mild narrow smile, as always when he was angry about something. He had never liked the boy, something that Fred only realised much later.

  ‘You again.’

  Fred nodded. ‘Hello Mr Schöller.’

  The click stopped, and Mr Schöller put his hands and the sleeves of his sports jacket in his pockets. Slowly he took a few steps across the room, while keeping his distance from Fred.

  ‘When did you get out?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  ‘Congratulations, if that’s the right word.’

  ‘No idea, Mr Schöller. The main thing is it’s from the heart.’

  Mr Schöller stood still and watched Fred carefully. He was still smiling.

  ‘And what are your plans now?’

  ‘To drink coffee.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. I mean of course,’ he took a sleeve from his pocket and waved it round in the air in front of him, ‘in the long term.’

  ‘Don’t know. This and that. Maybe a teacher, then I could do my teaching practice with you.’

  ‘Wonderful, I’m sure.’ Mr Schöller gave a dry laugh, then he looked at the floor. ‘I would like to know if you have it in mind to see Annette again.’

  Fred didn’t answer. How stupid can you get? The smile disappeared, and Fred chalked up a point. One point for wiping the smile off Mr Schöller’s face, two for making him blush, three for throwing him in to such a rage that he loses his cool, and yells at you from so close that you could see his little bald patch from above. Three points were hard to get. Fred had done it precisely five times during his school days.

  ‘If that is the case, I’d like to ask you to desist.’

  ‘Bad luck. I came to get Annette’s new address.’

  ‘Then you came for nothing.’

  ‘Hey.’ Fred raised his hand, ‘I’m a friend of your daughter. And besides, I wanted your wife to give me the address, not you.’

  ‘You were her friend - if you can call it that.’

  ‘How would you call it?’

  ‘I’d say you got her mixed up in your dirty business and used her.’

  Fred gasped. ‘My God, you’re really on the ball. Maybe I’ll do my teaching practice somewhere else after all.’

  ‘That would be advisable,’ said Mr Schöller and gestured towards the door.

  Fred was amazed. Plasterhead couldn’t really mean that. After all he wasn’t just some moron who had washed up here - he was Fred, Fred Hoffmann. He had been coming and going here for twenty years. Annette’s best friend.

  Fred looked across at the kitchen door. It was ajar. He said in a loud voice: ‘I wonder what your wife would think of how you’re moaning at me. But unfortunately she’s fallen in to the coffee machine.’

  Just then the sounds from the kitchen started up again. Mr Schöller also looked across at the doorway, and his face fell.

  Fred’s thumb was pointing at the kitchen. ‘She got lucky.’

  Mr Schöller turned round, and suddenly the parchment eyes seemed to glow. But he wasn’t angry - or at least not just angry. ‘Get out of here.’

  ‘Not without the address.’

  When the kitchen door opened, sunlight flooded into the dingy room. Fred could see Mr Schöller wincing. Mrs Schöller appeared in the doorway, rattling cups and a coffee pot in her hands. She looked somewhat better now and was standing more or less straight. After glancing at the men, she placed the china on the dining table.

  ‘Back already?’

  Mr Schöller hesitated. ‘The lesson has been cancelled.’

  Cups banged down on wood and were shoved in place. Mrs Schöller turned her back on them. ‘Will you join us for a coffee?’

  ‘I was just explaining to Fred…’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘But we agreed…’

  ‘We agreed a great deal.’ Grasping the table, she turned her head around. ‘So what? Why are you staring at me? Go and correct your homework, write your letters to the paper. Be off with you.’

  Fred looked at the two cups painted with cheerful animals and wondered how the three of them could sit at the table.

  Mrs Schöller staggered back into the kitchen.

  ‘Give me Annette’s address and I’ll bugger off.’

  But Mr Schöller didn’t answer. His head thrown forward, his eyes on the ground, he seemed to have forgotten Fred. Mrs Schöller had won the jackpot: Professor Schöller’s bald patch would have gleamed in the back row of the classroom.

  Fred turned to the kitchen door. ‘Mrs Schöller, I’d like Annette’s new address.’

  When Mrs Schöller returned with milk and sugar, she said: ‘What a beautiful morning. We should sit in the garden.’

  ‘Mrs Schöller, I…’

  ‘Maybe we’ll play a game of Scrabble?’

  Fred watched her as she put the milk and sugar down, went to the shelf and pressed a straw hat on her head, took the Scrabble, sat down at the table and began pouring something into the cups that looked to Fred like hot water. To his own surprise, he turned round and sought help from Mr Schöller. But the place where he had stood was now empty.

  ‘I’m sorry Mrs Schöller, but I really must be going now. I…I have an appointm
ent with my probation officer.’ Fred nodded to her. ‘I’ll stop by one of these days.’

  Mrs Schöller sat in front of the two steaming cups and smiled. ‘Do you take sugar?’

  ‘Mhmh,’ said Fred as he edged slowly towards the door, ‘two spoons.’

  ‘Milk?’

  As the front door closed behind Fred, and he walked past the pots of sage and rosemary to the garden gate, he recalled Grandma Ranunkel saying you couldn’t live in Dieburg and behave as if you lived on the Côte d’Azur; at some point you’d wake up with empty hands and begin to detest yourself and your affectations. But was it a reason for cracking up? And why hadn’t Annette written to tell him of Mrs Schöller’s condition? And where in the hell were Annette and Nickel anyway? Why had they left him to wander around this insane place? Without turning round, he slammed the garden gate and hurried away from the terraced houses.

  In the nearest phone booth he dialled the numbers of a few of Annette’s friends, until one finally replied and gave him a Berlin address and phone number.

  ‘Would you happen to know if she had any plans to come to Dieburg round about now?’

  ‘Definitely not. I phoned her last week and she’s up to her eyes in work. What’s your name again?’

  ‘Tom.’

  Fred hung up. Nobody should know that he was looking for Annette.

  Yet again he was overcome by an uneasy feeling at the thought of hearing her voice. Phoning simply wasn’t the right thing after four years. Certainly not if you happened to have a heap of questions to ask. He kept seeing Mrs Schöller’s ravaged face next to the empty canvas. And there was something else: Annette was up to her eyes in work. In her letters it had said she was involved in movies. There was no mention of work. But even if it was the case, how long was this work business going to continue? He, for one, had no time to wait until she had dug herself out from under.