She followed him, frozen by now. Her feet were blocks of ice, her trouser legs stiff. Well, well, what have we here? she thought, taking the bottle of Jägermeister from her pocket. Warmth briefly returned to her belly.
From time to time she scanned the countryside around her. Once she spotted a distant walker in the infinite expanse of white. Leaping around the figure was a large dog. The monk had caught sight of them too and paused for a moment. He spoke to her in his high-pitched monotone. Although she couldn’t understand him, she knew what he was saying. “Don’t waste your breath,” she grunted. “I’m coming with you.” He shrugged. That’s sorted out then, she thought.
Between scraps of cloud stood a sickly, pallid moon. The sun was nowhere to be seen.
*
About forty minutes after Hollerer had vanished down the other side of the hill Louise heard the revving of an engine. A patrol car was approaching, careening across the field. At the wheel she recognized Niksch, and beside him Hollerer. Niksch was radiating concentration, Hollerer gripping the dashboard with both hands. The monk glanced at the car but didn’t stop.
While she waited for the two men, she felt anger brewing inside her. What business was it of Hollerer’s what she did? Had he rung Bermann? Bring that madwoman back! he would have said. She also imagined Bermann saying, Hey, it’s a man’s world. With a big grin across his face. It dawned on her for the first time that Bermann had used this phrase on occasion, before and after Calambert.
Hey, it’s a man’s world, he’d said, throwing up his hands in resignation.
The police car stopped beside her. Hollerer got out, while Niksch kept the engine running.
“Bugger off!” she said.
“Hang on a minute,” Hollerer said. He opened the trunk and took out a rucksack. “Blanket, sweater, undergarments, walking boots, socks, hot tea, hunting knife, radio, salami roll for you, cheese roll for him. Have I forgotten anything, Niksch?”
“My very expensive Maglite torch,” Niksch said.
“Look after it, won’t you?” Hollerer leaned the rucksack against her legs. “With Amelie’s compliments.” He smiled grimly.
“Thanks.”
“Do me a favor and use the radio once in a while.” Hollerer got back into the car. “Oh, you might come across some reporters. Ponzelt was just on the radio talking about the monk.”
“Tell him to back off.”
“No need. He’s going skiing tomorrow with his sons. And when he’s got something planned with his sons nothing will stop him, not even Eastern terrorists. The crusade will kick off on Monday.”
“We’ll see about that. Say hi to Amelie.”
Surprised, Hollerer raised his eyebrows and nodded.
Fifteen minutes later they came across a path that led into the forest. After a few yards the monk stopped and looked blankly at Louise, then at the rucksack on her back.
She narrowed her eyes. “What now?”
He didn’t reply, but went on.
Darkness descended in the forest. Although flashes of bright gray still appeared between the trees behind them, night already seemed to be oozing from the narrow trunks. Bonì removed her sunglasses and it struck her that soon it would be too late to turn around. Not that she wanted to. For some inexplicable reason she was enjoying tailing the monk. She didn’t mind where they were heading either, at least for the moment. He was taking her away from something, after all.
He’s taking me away from Calambert, she thought. From Bermann. From myself.
It struck Bonì that he was leading her away from her life in more than just a symbolic way. He was escorting her through the snow from one life to another. The narrow path through the forest was like a bridge, at the other side of which lay something different. They were passing through an intermediate realm.
She shook her head. Jägermeister meditations. Not as nutty as vodka meditations or even ţuică meditations. That was the worst. When she drank ţuică with Ronescu and listened to his dark vowels, everything in her head went haywire. Faces, memories, fantasies and visions hurtled through her skull like a meteorite storm. Connections and relations changed, faces switched names, heads swapped bodies. Germain, her brother, dashed from life to death and back again. Mick, her ex-husband, was elected pope. Nobody was what they’d been a few seconds before.
Only the end was the same each time. When the ţuică bottle was empty and Ronescu lay snoring on the sofa, her father would barge his way into her consciousness. You’ve got to look after me! he’d scream, You’ve got to look after me, do you hear? You’ve got to look after me right now!
In real life he was more subtle, especially since Germain’s death in 1983: he said nothing at all.
The monk had stopped. To their left, a little farther ahead in the forest, rose a sixteen-foot-high vertical mass of earth. There was no snow on the narrow strip that ran beside this elevation. Laying his stick and bowl on the damp ground, the monk disappeared between the trees into the dusk.
Louise went in the opposite direction and relieved herself behind some rocks before changing her clothes. She briefly felt as if she were getting herself ready for a ceremony.
But Amelie’s clothes weren’t quite right for a ceremony. She was clearly the same dimensions as Hollerer. You could have fitted a basketball inside the extravagant briefs, and she couldn’t feel the long johns against her skin until she put the slacks on top. The length was right at least. She passed on the flesh-colored bra. Hollerer must have been mightily amused when packing the rucksack, if it hadn’t been too annoying a task. Amelie’s fleece sweater hung in folds from her body. But the walking boots were a perfect fit.
Hollerer had thought of the monk too. At the bottom of the rucksack, as if he’d hoped Louise wouldn’t find them, was a rolled-up pair of men’s long johns.
When she returned to their camp the monk was sitting on the ground with his back against the earthen wall. His eyes were open but he wasn’t looking at her. In the gathering darkness his two injuries looked like dark plague marks.
She tossed Hollerer’s long johns into his lap and turned away. Rustling noises told her that the monk was putting them on.
They shared the rolls, and it turned out the monk was not a vegetarian. As they ate she offered him a cup filled from the thermos, but he shook his head. He said something then rapped his chest and coughed gently. She nodded, poured tea into his bowl, then drank from the cup.
“Origami,” she said. “Sushi. Harakiri. Banzai. Samurai. Er . . . Mikado.” She grinned. “Kawasaki.”
“Yes,” the monk said gruffly in English.
“Sorry,” she said.
The next hours passed agonizingly slowly. For some reason she’d expected the monk’s presence to keep her ghosts at bay. But as she sat beside him on the narrow, snow-free strip of forest floor, wrapped in the blanket, they all paid a visit: Calambert, Germain, Mick . . . even her father.
Not moving, but with her eyes open, she surrendered to the images. Calambert amidst the crystals of blood. The weight of the smoking Walther in her hand. The acrid smell from the pistol. Germain, who overturned his car on an icy French highway. Mick, who as they went up the mountain in thick snow in Scuol confessed to so many affairs that the chairlift ride wasn’t long enough to enumerate them all. Who looked at her with such naivety and resignation that she whacked him on the side of his head with a ski pole when they got to the midstation.
At some point she was overcome by tiredness.
When she woke again, barely an hour had passed.
*
Louise lay on her side facing away from the monk, freezing miserably. Well, well, what have we here? she thought and searched through the pockets of her anorak. But they were empty. Half-heartedly she drank some tea, which was also running low.
The monk was still sitting upright. His eyes were closed, but she didn’t think he was sleeping. He looked tense and alert, coughing gently now and then.
She was about to lie down again when she heard
a muffled crackling from the rucksack and Hollerer’s voice. “Frau . . . er . . . Bonì? Can you hear me?”
She took out the radio. As she looked for the push-to-talk button with the flashlight she heard Niksch whisper, “You’ve got to say ‘Over,’ boss.”
“My, my Niksch, what would I do without you?”
“‘Over,’ boss.”
“Leave me alone.”
“Everything’s OK,” she said. Her watch read ten o’clock.
“She’s got to say ‘over’ too.”
“For Christ’s sake, Niksch!” Hollerer lowered his voice. “How are you?”
“Freezing, but still alive!”
“What about the monk?”
“He’s wearing your thermals and sends his thanks.” She heard Niksch giggle. Hollerer growled something incomprehensible.
Suddenly she felt the monk’s hand on her arm and she turned. He moved his head closer and put a finger to his lips. There was urgency in his eyes. Softly she said, “Hollerer, I have to go now.”
“Wait . . . Your boss rang, Bermann. Want to know what he said?”
The monk was tugging roughly at her sleeve.
“No.”
“I’ll tell you anyway. He . . .”
“Hollerer, I’m absolutely fine. That’s all.” She took her finger off the button and switched off the radio. And then her mobile in the chest pocket of her anorak.
She looked thoughtfully at the monk. His finger was still pressed to his lips. What was he afraid of? She felt goosebumps forming. Now the monk dropped his hand and leaned back.
Louise stared at the trees in front of them. She became aware for the first time of the sounds of this winter night. Icy branches cracked while the rising and falling of the wind produced a soft rustling. Nothing could be seen.
Unsettled, she drank the last of the tea and it was a long time before she fell asleep again.
Bonì woke as the first traces of the morning light appeared in the sky. It took her a moment to understand what had woken her. She could hear a man’s voice talking softly nearby.
The monk was awake too and wide-eyed with fear. He put a finger to his lips again and gestured for her to follow him. Her unease intensified. Quickly, and as quietly as possible, she gathered up her things and packed them into the rucksack. The monk waited impatiently.
When she stood it was silent again; she could no longer hear the voice, but she became aware of other sounds.
The muffled crunching of snow.
Footsteps.
The monk waved frantically to indicate that they should leave and pointed to the ground. She must stick to the snow-free path.
They walked along the wall of earth, which became lower after a few yards as the slope fell steeply. At the point where it leveled with the forest floor the monk stopped. He signaled that they would walk on the snow to the left, but backward. She smiled: what an idea. He raised his eyebrows—OK? She nodded.
Before Louise turned, she scanned the rows of trees in front of her. The crunching of footsteps was getting closer but still she saw no one. Who was it? Hollerer and Niksch? Knowing she was armed they would have called out to her. The reporters Hollerer had spoken about? Possibly, but unlikely. Ponzelt and a mob from Liebau? Hardly.
A hissing sounded behind her. The monk motioned to her to get moving. Carefully Louise took one step back, then another. She clenched the right pocket of her anorak with both hands to stop the empty Jägermeister bottle from clanking against her keys.
After a couple of dozen paces she stepped on to soft, snow-free forest floor and turned. Before her towered rocks covered in moss and earth.
The monk had disappeared.
Anger and panic rose inside her, anger most of all. Cursing to herself she walked a few yards alongside the rocks. It was as if a temperamental god had shaken the boulders like dice in his huge hand and let them fall at random.
The hissing again. She spun around. Seven feet above her the almost-bald head of the monk bobbed amongst the rocks. A hand waved her up.
Noiselessly Louise hurried back and climbed in amongst the heap of dice. When she’d almost reached the monk she glanced in the direction from which they’d come. On impulse she crouched down against the rocks. A hundred or so yards away several dark shapes were moving in front of the white tree trunks that faced the wind. She held her breath and closed her eyes.
When she opened them again the shapes had vanished.
Jägermeister visions, she thought with relief.
But the figures reappeared. She counted three. She blinked. Four, or only three? She was unwilling to believe that these were people. People who might be after the monk. Three or four Calamberts, maybe armed, maybe intending to kill him. A man as defenseless as Annetta, who would end up folded like a piece of paper in someone’s car trunk if she didn’t prevent it.
Hearing a voice in her ear she looked at the monk in astonishment. “What?” she asked softly.
“No,” he whispered. “No.” He shook his head vigorously.
Only now did she notice that he was clinging to her arms. She was holding Hollerer’s pistol in her right hand and had moved as if about to run off. She closed her eyes and let the monk pull her back down.
It was dark behind the boulders, and not as cold. Three or four people could have fitted into this cavity. Huddled together they waited, arms clasped around their knees. Bonì noticed a pleasant warmth emanating from the monk. She heard and saw nothing save for his deep breathing and the second hand of her watch. Had the figures moved on? Were they climbing over the rocks?
She closed her eyes and concentrated, but her ears picked up no sound. As the seconds ticked past, she found the silence all the more unnatural, like the artificial silence of a soundproofed room.
Mick’s drum kit had stood in a soundproofed room. Annetta had lain in a soundproofed room for four days. A room with a large, square window. That’s the porthole, Annetta’s mother had said. She’s on a long voyage and she can look out whenever she wants. And we can look in.
Louise tried but failed to visualize Annetta in the soundproofed room. Had she visited her in the hospital? Had Annetta ever been in such a room? And if so, why? She couldn’t remember. Whenever she thought of Annetta she pictured Calambert. The victim faded, the murderer remained.
She could clearly picture Annetta’s mother, however. And her father. A short, muscular man in an elegant, gray three-piece suit. Thanks, the father told her after Annetta had disembarked in her ocean liner. He placed both hands on her right hand and said, “Thanks for doing away with that bastard.” No agitation in his voice, just contentment. He could just as easily have said, “Thanks for bringing the pizza round.”
Jägermeister memories.
It seemed to be getting warmer in the hollow, as if the monk had an internal heat source. She shifted closer and felt a thin arm, a leg. The now-familiar smell of sweat, dirt and foreignness grew stronger. She resisted turning away. What might his name be?
Calm, deep breaths, the ticking of her watch. Darkness in the soundproofed space as day broke on the other side of the rocks. Nothing else existed. No Calambert, no Bermann, no Mick, no loneliness. Nothing. She was overcome by a feeling of inner peace.
Then she fell asleep with Hollerer’s cold pistol in her hand.
*
She woke at around nine. A ghostly gray light seeped into the hollow. The monk was awake too, gazing at her with a serious expression. He looked helpless, without hope. But maybe it was just the light.
She thought they had waited long enough. Whoever had been out there, they must be long gone by now. She needed something to eat and drink, to organize some protection, have the evidence secured. Pee. She stretched and began to get up.
“No,” the monk whispered. He tapped his wrist with his finger. Not yet. Let’s wait a while longer.
She shook her head and placed a hand on her stomach.
“No,” the monk repeated.
“Yes,” she said, pulli
ng herself up. He yanked her firmly back down. Anger surged inside her. “Fine,” she hissed. “You’ll have to watch me pee then.” On her knees she shifted a little away from him, then opened her belt and zipper.
For a moment the monk stopped breathing, then quickly looked away.
“Look at me,” she said. But he didn’t react.
At 9:30 a.m. they left the crevice. For minutes they crouched against the rocky wall and surveyed their surroundings. Nobody to be seen or heard.
They didn’t return along the path, but hurried alongside the rocks in the opposite direction. It felt warmer than the day before. Somewhere in the gray above them Bonì sensed rays of sun, and the snow gleamed gently.
She found herself wondering whether they were still in the intermediate realm. Or had they reached the other side of the bridge?
If so, this new life looked just the same as the previous one.
3
Hollerer and Niksch arrived at around eleven o’clock. Louise was waiting at the edge of the forest. She had tried in vain to stop the monk, but he had put his hands together, bowed and continued on his way. Her eyes flicked uneasily between the approaching patrol car and the monk heading into the distance. The dark robe was easy to make out against the white of the snow. A simple target for a marksman, even from far away.
“Your boss is right about you,” Hollerer said when he opened the passenger window.
Louise slipped off the rucksack and sat in the back. “No doubt.” She gave Hollerer back his Sig. It was warm inside the car, almost as warm as sitting beside the monk in the hollow. All of a sudden the tiredness returned, the exhaustion. She sank back. She needed sleep and something to eat. She thought, soberly, that her excursion into the other world was over.
They watched the monk.
“If someone really is after him, we’ve got to get the guy to safety,” Hollerer said eventually. He sounded vexed. It seemed he had given up wanting to wait and see what happened.
Zen and the Art of Murder Page 3