“You’re repeating yourself.”
“Come and sit next to me.”
“Are you afraid I’m going to lose it?”
“Let’s talk, Luis.”
“Talk?” she said. “Coming from you that sounds perverted.”
“I just want to find a solution, Luis.”
She went over to her desk and sat down. Bermann seemed tense, and for a moment at a loss.
Niksch stood immobile outside the room. Even though she knew it was him she was unnerved by the tall shadow at the door, as if something dark and threatening was waiting to come in.
Bermann watched her. He appeared to sense that the gravity of the situation was slowly sinking in. His view of the world was simple: it consisted of opposites, which he mockingly referred to as “the real Yin and Yang.” There were police officers and non-police officers, men and women, Germans and foreigners, healthy people and sick people. Where there were combinations of these he stuck rigidly to a hierarchy. Right at the top of this list was “Police.” If someone was a police officer they could have as many negative attributes as you like—female, half Turkish and on maternity leave, for example—but for Bermann they were first and foremost a police officer. One of the family. Family members could be shouted down, ridiculed, double-crossed, despised and punished, but ultimately you had a duty to them. If they collapsed you looked after them. For even if they were wallowing in their own excrement and only grunting, they were still police officers.
This was an advantage of sorts of Bermann’s real Yin and Yang. A distinct disadvantage was that one thing could never be the other. If Bermann thought she was sick, nothing and nobody could convince him of the opposite. He would not relent in his determination to ensure that she went the way of all patients, removed from the set of healthy people and placed with the sick ones.
“Do you remember Calambert?” she said.
“The fucking French pedo.”
“The man I shot. You went one way; I went the other. Calambert was there and I shot him dead.”
Bermann misunderstood her. “Even a blind chicken finds the odd bit of corn,” he said gently. An affectionate joke. In his own way, she thought, Bermann could be sweet.
“That’s when it began. You . . . you know that.”
“No,” Bermann said.
“What do you mean, ‘No’?”
“It began earlier, Luis. You started boozing when your husband dumped you.”
She leaped up. “I don’t booze, for Christ’s sake!” The sentence resonated in her head, just as the footsteps crunching in the snow had echoed the night before. I don’t booze. She almost laughed when she realized that she was exhibiting typical alcoholic behavior: denial. Bermann had Louise where he wanted her, in the set of sick people. So she refrained from pointing out the differences between herself and an alcoholic, which lay mainly in causes and volumes.
“Come here,” Bermann said.
She went to him. Carefully he took her hand and pulled her right up to him. His knees were touching the outside of her thighs.
“If I were the person you’d like me to be,” she said, “I’d think you wanted to kiss me and I’d throw myself into your strong arms.”
Bermann hesitated. The idea didn’t seem to appeal to him. “Open your mouth,” he muttered.
“Listen, Rolf, I’m not saying I don’t have the odd drink, and I’ll freely admit that sometimes I have a bit too much. Yes, I did have a sip or two earlier on and I probably smell of alcohol. I spent the whole night in the forest waiting for us to be attacked . . . In any case, you stink of bacon and scrambled eggs.” She broke away. “Now can we get things moving and request backup and a helicopter?”
Bermann slid off the table. “We’re not going to request anything. Let me put it this way: Just because a pisshead has nighttime hallucinations in the forest and a nutty Jap is wandering around half naked, I’m not sending anyone else out. Do you understand?”
Louise nodded; she’d been expecting that. This was the Bermann she knew, and she preferred him like this to when he wanted to “talk.” When people overstepped the invisible line between the real Yin and the real Yang they became dangerous.
Smiling, she went and opened the door. She could see in Niksch’s eyes that he’d heard too much. But then he looked at Bermann and she understood that he wasn’t going to stab her in the back. She sent Niksch into the next room to use the database and internet to find a Japanese translator and get an overview of Buddhist institutions in southern Baden.
“And call Hollerer,” she said, “to see if everything’s OK.”
“All right, boss,” Niksch said.
“I don’t believe it,” she heard Bermann say behind her.
She closed the door. “Believe what you want, Rolf. Am I going to get my backup?”
“No.”
“So what’s going to happen now?”
“You’re going home, you’re off today anyway. And if Almenbroich comes tomorrow you’ll be on sick leave.” Bermann’s voice had softened again. In his eyes was that anxious sort of anger you feel toward children, patients and dogs. It was how Bonì looked at dried-out plants on balconies. She held his gaze even though she found it sinister. Once again he had overstepped the line.
Bermann remained silent and did not move as she sat at her computer and tried to concentrate. Even if she didn’t know where the monk was heading, she might be able to find out where he’d come from. She’d look through press agency reports, ring the police stations to the south, west and east of Freiburg, ask the radio stations.
She looked at her watch. One o’clock. It occurred to her that she had eaten nothing since Hollerer’s rolls. She felt a sudden voracious hunger. A voracious hunger, a thirst and an indefinable sexual desire.
She sighed. “Fine,” she said to Bermann. “Let’s compromise.”
Today Bermann would leave her in peace. If by tomorrow it transpired that the men in the forest and the danger facing the monk had all been in her head, she would voluntarily go with him to Almenbroich, the head of Kripo, the criminal police, and agree to whatever they decided. Sick leave, rehab, desk work.
When Bermann finally left, she wondered whether this was the abyss she’d foreseen the day before.
4
Niksch had been on the phone to a number of Japanese translators, now whittled down to a shortlist of three. “Three?” Louise said when they got into the car. “We only need one.”
Niksch hemmed and hawed. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to choose one, had said he’d get back to them. “I don’t know,” he said, wiggling his fingers. “You’d be better at this. I’d go for the wrong woman.”
“Woman?”
All three were women.
Bonì picked out a name and called the number. The voice at the other end sounded cheerful and savvy. Louise didn’t consider her a good fit for the monk, but that was probably irrelevant. She agreed to an exorbitant fee and arranged for them both to meet the woman at three thirty.
They ate döners and drank mocha at a Turkish joint near the station. Niksch’s eyes shone. For him, a döner kebab and mocha were synonymous with the big, wide world. “Döner was always a hit in our house, but there aren’t any Turks in Liebau,” he said, his elbows leaning on the high table. “There’s an Italian, but he doesn’t make döners either because he’s a hairdresser.”
She nodded mechanically while leafing through the printouts Niksch had given her. When he stopped talking she read out: “Buddhist Union, Buddhist Center, Dharma Sah, Kum Nye Group, Mamaki Center, Rangring Sangha, Rigpa, Rinzai Zen Association open brackets Kannon Dojo close brackets, Shambla Center, Thich Nhat Hanh Sangha, Urasenke Foundation, Kagyu House, Zen Academy, Zen Dojo Ho Un Do . . . And they’re all in Freiburg.” She took a deep breath. “Heavens. And what’s Vajrayana, the Karma Kagyu tradition and Nyingma? Or Theravada? How about this? Tantra, Tibetan Buddhism, Soto School . . . I thought there was only one kind of Buddhism and that was that.”
> “Hmm,” Niksch said with his mouth full.
“I mean, there’s only one Christianity, isn’t there?”
With his kebab Niksch made a movement that could have been a Yes or a skillful attempt to hide his ignorance.
Her eyes followed the döner to Niksch’s mouth. “I know nothing about Buddhism,” she said. Bread, meat and tomatoes vanished into Niksch’s mouth. His jaws ground with relish. She emptied her glass of raki and said, “I don’t know anything about Christianity either, or not much. All I know is that I don’t believe in God and I certainly don’t believe in Buddha. Which means I don’t believe in anything I know nothing about. Interesting, don’t you think?”
Niksch went on chewing for a while before wiping his mouth with a napkin. “Hollerer says there’s an external faith and an int . . . Do you say internal or inner?”
“No idea, Nikki.”
Niksch laughed and they went to the door. “Well, he says there’s an external faith and an inner one. The external faith is like going to church on a Sunday, singing the hymns, praying, and during the sermon saying the Bible’s right, so loud that everyone can hear. Your inner faith is doing everything God conceives. Hollerer says both are OK.”
Louise could find no fault with this theory either. “Talking of Hollerer . . .,” she said.
This time she called Lederle.
“Ah, Bonì,” Lederle mumbled and then yawned. Classical music was playing in the background. In her imagination Hollerer was sitting bunched up in the passenger seat, trying his best not to dirty Lederle’s Daimler, the interior of which was cleaned twice a week. She laughed silently to herself.
Everything was all right with Lederle and Hollerer.
“What about the monk?”
“He just keeps going.”
“Stay as close to him as you can.”
“Of course.”
Outside the kebab shop the pavements had been cleared and melted snow dripped from the roofs. Milder temperatures and sunshine were forecast for the next few days. The worst was over, she thought, meteorologically at least.
The Kagyu House was nearest, so that’s where they decided to begin.
During the short drive she told Niksch that the monk had been spotted in Badenweiler on Thursday morning. The postman there had called Freiburg police HQ, which had sent a car to take a look, but the monk had already moved on. The officers drove for half an hour around the main roads out of town, but came back empty-handed. They drafted a report and oddly sent a copy to the foreign ministry in Berlin.
Louise had also had a copy of the report sent to her. It was as short as only a report could be. She’d chat with the postman tomorrow and ask him about the monk’s head injuries.
From Badenweiler the monk had headed toward Kirchzarten—a good nineteen miles as the crow flies, Niksch guessed. Nineteen miles through snow, cold and darkness. Niksch was impressed. “In his sandals he can’t be doing more than one and a half miles per hour.”
To the west of Kirchzarten a farmer from Unterbirken had seen the monk. The farmer’s wife had informed the Catholic priest—in the Unterbirken church confessional. With the woman beside him, the priest called the police station at Kirchzarten and another patrol car was dispatched. Again it came back unsuccessful; in the gathering dusk they hadn’t been able to locate the monk.
The Kirchzarten postman hadn’t made a statement and Louise wasn’t able to get through to the Catholic priest. She found herself wondering, bizarrely, to what sins the farmer’s wife had been confessing.
And then the monk had wandered in the driving snow past Hollerer’s window in Liebau on Saturday morning. “Five miles,” Niksch said. “He’s getting slower. The poor guy’s going to pop his clogs at some point.”
She thought of the warmth the monk’s body had radiated and the strength of his hand.
Badenweiler, Kirchzarten, Liebau—he’d come from the southwest. From Badenweiler to the French border it was six miles, perhaps nineteen to the Swiss border. Had he come from a different country?
They were sitting in the car by a community center covered in leafless ivy. From the outside, the four-story building looked like all the others in the street. Bonì was curious; she didn’t have the faintest idea of what went on inside. Niksch had already examined the doorbell nameplates, one of which read JULIANE VON GANDLER–KAGYU HOUSE. He said there was a “strange” smell by the front entrance.
What went on in a Kagyu House?
When they stepped on to the pavement she looked up. On both corners of a large stone balcony on the third floor sat two sturdy, gray Buddha figures, around one and a half feet high, like guards.
Juliane von Gandler was with Lama Tsogyal in India. Kagyu House was being looked after by a punk with piercings, sixteen years old at most. From inside came angry keyboard chords and deep laughter. “Are you her daughter?” Louise said.
The girl nodded apologetically. She was holding a lit cigarette, but there was also a strong whiff of incense. “Has she done anything wrong?”
“No. We just need someone who knows about Buddhism.”
“Rich,” the girl said. “He knows everything. He’s at the university and his wife’s from Japan. Richard Landen.” The girl gave them an address in Günterstal, which Niksch jotted down.
Bonì thanked her, then noticed the can of beer in the girl’s other hand. “Get rid of the cigarette butts and tins before your mum comes back.”
The girl grinned. “That’s not for another two months.”
“What’s she doing in India?”
“Contortions. Then she’s going to organize a demo against China.”
“Against China?” Niksch said.
“China’s occupying Tibet,” the girl said with a gentle smile. “The Dalai Lama can’t go home.”
*
In the car Louise scanned the list of Buddhist institutions in Freiburg. Richard Landen’s name didn’t crop up. Niksch sneezed twice, then suggested she give him a call. “Maybe he’s with Lama Tsogyal in India too,” he said. “If so, we’re driving to Günterstal for nothing.”
“Günterstal’s really close, Niksch. It just sounds like it’s far away.” All the same she took out her mobile, called directory assistance, then Richard Landen. Busy.
“I prefer it when you say ‘Nikki’,” Niksch said, blushing.
“When did I call you ‘Nikki’?”
“When we were having our kebabs.”
“Oh, OK then, bel ami.”
She put away her mobile and tried to remember what connection she had to Günterstal. When the first houses appeared in the gray sunlight it came to her: Lederle had told her that Hans Filbinger lived in Günterstal.
Richard Landen’s small house was surrounded by a wooden fence and stood beneath the bare boughs of a willow. To Bonì it looked as if the willow with its long fingers were making a grab for the roof to lift the house in the air and send it spinning away. In the garden to the side of the building she could see a shed amongst more trees, and in front of it stood some sort of fountain. The grass had a fine covering of snow. Only the stepping stones that led to the shed and the gravel path to the garden gate had been swept.
“Someone’s at home,” Niksch said.
She nodded. Lights were on in two rooms, to the left on the ground floor and to the right upstairs.
They went to the garden gate. The mailbox read TOMMO/LANDEN. Bonì pressed the bell, but heard no sound.
Niksch suddenly grew nervous. His right hand fidgeted with his thigh, his arm slightly crooked. “Funny names,” he whispered.
“Quiet, Nikki.”
From the corner of her eye she saw a curtain twitch at the downstairs window on the left. Nothing moved upstairs. She wondered what it was the willow didn’t like about this house or its inhabitants.
The front door opened, revealing a tall, slim man of about forty. “Come in,” he said. “The tea’s just ready.”
Niksch’s mistrust was visibly aroused once more when the tall
man—Richard Landen—placed what must have been a Japanese cup containing a steaming liquid in front of him. The tea was green. He cleared his throat.
Landen had taken them into a small, maize-colored kitchen. The table, chairs and fitted cupboards were made of light wood. Bonì noted with awe how immaculately clean and tidy everything was. No dirty dishes in the sink, no crumbs of bread, no stains. The towels hanging on hooks beside the window were freshly ironed. On the windowsill sat a shiny black china cat, which stared at her implacably.
Only on the dining table was there any hint of disorder: a plugged-in laptop, beside it books, photocopied pages and pens.
She felt the urge to get out of this kitchen and house as quickly as possible. The orderliness, the cat and Richard Landen all made her feel uneasy. Why, she couldn’t say. She considered asking Landen for a dash of rum in her tea. An old habit, she could tell him, English ancestors. Instead she said, “We don’t have much time.”
“Selly said you were looking for someone who knows about Buddhism.” In Richard Landen’s voice was a friendly, weary calm. She found his expression distant, but open. His right eyebrow was interrupted by a square patch of gray hair.
“Selly?” Niksch said.
“The punk girl.” Bonì moved her right hand toward the filigree teacup in front of her. It trembled faintly and looked like a clumsy paw next to the cup. She thought of all the things this hand had held and done. Stolen, pleasured, hit, and two years ago even killed. Not the ideal hand for such a pretty little cup.
“Tibetan Buddhism?”
“More likely Japanese.”
He nodded. “Go on.”
She withdrew her hand and told him about the monk and his hike from Badenweiler to Liebau and beyond. She described his staff, his bowl, his robe. She didn’t mention his wounds or the figures in the forest, nor the night in the hollow behind the rocks.
Landen didn’t take his eyes off her as she spoke. His face was lightly tanned, as if he’d just been skiing—or meditating in the mountains. She thought again of the rum. If not rum, then maybe sake. Did the Japanese put sake in their tea? Her gaze kept straying to the gray patch in the center of his right eyebrow. It bothered her. A haven of turmoil in a narrow, peaceful, attentive face with slightly reddened eyes.
Zen and the Art of Murder Page 5