The Russian Passenger

by Gunter Ohnemus

  We turned round at the hotel or restaurant and drove slowly back to Passau. A road runs down the hill beside the derelict shirt factory, and we hadn’t gone far when a big black Lancia – not a Mercedes or a BMW! – turned off it and started following us.

  We drove across Ludwigsplatz and over the Danube, then up the Ries to the castle. The black Lancia was still behind us. It disappeared from view occasionally, but it was still there. In the castle car park I got out and walked the hundred yards or so to the viewing point. My driver also got out but stood beside his taxi smoking a cigarette. The Lancia had pulled up beside the kerb about two hundred yards away. While I was admiring the view it drove slowly past the taxi, then back down the road and out of sight.

  Sonia! They’d wanted to see if Sonia was in the taxi. It didn’t surprise me that they’d driven off. There was only one route back into town. The road to Ilzstadt was closed to traffic.

  We drove back, then on past Ilzstadt to Hals. The cabby waited below while I walked up to the ruins to stretch my legs a little. I got to the hotel just after half past eight, and at that moment Sonia came out of the restaurant and walked across the street towards me. She said hello and gave my driver a nod and a smile. I paid him and told him to drive round the corner into the next street, where the underground garage emerged. My wife had to get something from our car, which was parked there, I told him. She would join him in a minute, then he could take her on.

  Sonia and I went into the hotel. I fetched the holdall from the cubbyhole and gave it to her. We hugged each other. I’ll call you, I told her. From now on we must be grown-ups, not children. They’re driving a black Lancia, so keep your eyes peeled.

  Sonia went down to the underground garage. In two minutes she would get into the taxi, which was waiting for her at the exit. Everything was going perfectly. I asked for the keys to both rooms and went upstairs.

  In our room the first thing I did was draw the curtains and turn on the bedside lights. It was ten to nine. I wondered if our plan had really allowed for every contingency. Half an hour later I called Sonia at the other hotel on my mobile. Everything had gone smoothly. She had got the cabby to drop her at the station and returned to the hotel on foot.

  At half past eleven I paid a brief visit to Signore Schmitz’s room and turned the light out. Shortly before one I checked my automatic again and turned out the bedside lights in the double room. Having hung the please-do-not-disturb sign on the door handle, I returned to Signore Schmitz’s darkened room. The street lamps shed enough light, even through the curtains, for me to get my bearings.

  I sat down in an armchair, put the gun on the table beside me, and waited for Aliosha.

  My entire body and brain had never been so tense. I heard the blood roaring in my ears and kept rapping my head with my knuckles to get rid of the noise. I didn’t dare go to the bathroom to cool my burning face, I couldn’t risk it. I sat there and waited. The slightest sound made me flinch as if I’d had an electric shock. I was so wound up, I continued to hear it for minutes afterwards, until the roaring in my ears took over again.

  Aliosha turned up just after two. I heard a faint footfall on the stairs, then the sound of someone at work on the door of our room. It was almost inaudible. No one in the entire building could have heard it apart from me. I didn’t know whether Aliosha would simply walk in and fire at our beds, or whether he wanted us alive. Then I heard the door click open. All at once I felt completely calm. I stood behind my own door, gun in hand, and slowly opened it. Just then I heard some dull thuds that might well have been shots from a gun with a silencer. Then, after an infinitely long moment, I heard muffled curses. Moments later the door was closed from the inside. Aliosha was in the trap. Everything had gone according to plan. I had only to wait until he came out again. I aimed my gun at the door.

  Then, through the door, came a faint whispering sound. I couldn’t account for it at first, but then it dawned on me: he was phoning someone. He had a mobile with him! We hadn’t thought of that. He was probably calling the driver of the black Lancia. The car must be parked somewhere near the hotel or in one of the side streets. But Aliosha couldn’t risk a shoot-out. What was he planning?

  I heard him make another call. His voice sounded different this time, louder and more distinct, almost normal. Then I caught a word: Fire! He was calling the fire brigade! That was a really shrewd move. If the fire brigade called back it might only be another minute before the hotel was alerted, but I doubted if the fire brigade called back when there was a fire somewhere – they probably set off at once. Aliosha could always call the night porter, who would naturally raise the alarm. Within seconds the hotel corridors would be swarming with agitated guests, and Aliosha would be able to escape in the confusion. Before that happened I had to make my escape. I raced down the stairs and out of the hotel.

  The hotel fire alarm sounded just as I emerged. At the same time I heard sirens, but they were quite a long way off – you could hear them only if you knew what to listen for. I had to find the black Lancia. I wondered where it could be. Or rather, I didn’t stop to wonder, I simply ran to the spot where I myself would have parked a car if I’d had to wait for someone leaving the hotel in need of a quick getaway, and that was in the little side street with the entrance to the underground garage. And there it was.

  The Lancia was standing with its back to me, and when the driver saw me in the rear-view mirror he probably mistook me for Aliosha. In any case, he started the engine, leant over, and opened the passenger door as far as it would go. At that moment a shadowy figure emerged from behind some parked cars. With both arms extended, it crouched down on the pavement beside the open passenger door. It was Sonia!

  She was holding a gun. The driver switched off the engine and slowly got out. The sound of the sirens was quite close now. I relieved the driver of his gun and his mobile and forced him to lie down in the boot. There was barely room for him, but I didn’t know what else to do with the man. Just as I was closing the boot Sonia whispered something urgently. I didn’t catch what she said, but I turned and saw someone coming towards us. It had to be Aliosha.

  At the same moment Aliosha spotted that something was up and came to a halt. I shut the lid of the boot and drew my gun, which I’d stuck in my waistband.

  Aliosha drew his own gun and fired at once. I’d been expecting that, or something or someone inside me had. At all events, I dived between two parked cars and heard two or three bullets slam into the boot.

  Then Sonia opened fire. She’d dodged back into the shadows behind the parked cars. As soon as I heard the shot I jumped up and saw Aliosha take aim at her with his gun in both hands. I yelled his name and he spun round to face me. I was quite calm, in fact I felt almost happy. I pulled the trigger, I don’t know many times. Subsequent news reports stated that he’d been hit by five bullets from two different guns.

  Come on! Sonia called, and it was only then that I heard the sirens again, together with a lot of confused shouting. We left the side street in a hurry.

  What now? I said. Where shall we go?

  To the other hotel, the way we planned. Everyone will think we’ve skipped town. Besides, our money’s there.

  Why didn’t you stay there?

  She stared at me wide-eyed. Because I was worried about you. I simply couldn’t stand it any longer. I hung around here until Aliosha turned up, then I waited to see what would happen. He wouldn’t have got away from us. I waited for him in case you didn’t make it.

  He called the fire brigade, I said.

  Sonia smiled. We never thought of that.

  * * *

  Back in our hotel room we flopped down on the bed and lay there for a long time without speaking. At some stage Sonia took my hand. I thought it would be best if we stayed another two days. No one would look for us in Passau. They might check the hotels for suspicious residents, but I was a long-established guest: Dieter Müller from Sonthofen. Everyone including the police and the Mafia would think we’d
crossed the frontier into Austria – or that we intended to do so. The roads were bound to be watched for the next few days, so it would be better to stay put. The only thing we couldn’t afford to do was walk the streets. Passau was a small place, and we might be spotted by some employee from the other hotel. We’d always have to take the car; we could never go around on foot, nor should we spend long driving through the town.

  Sonia said: Aliosha is dead. He must be.

  Yes.

  When you shot Dmitry and Viktor I told you we were done for. I said we’d never have another moment’s peace – they would never rest until they’d caught up with us, remember? I said they’d hunt us down for all eternity. Do you remember that? Well, now we’ve lost eternity as well.

  * * *

  It was on the six a.m. news. A hoax call to the fire brigade. One dead Russian, one badly wounded man in the boot of a black Lancia. Six cartridge cases had been found in our hotel room. The police suspected an act of revenge by members of the Russian Mafia. They had some rough descriptions, but our names were not mentioned.

  I went down to the breakfast room at eight. I had to show my face, make sure I didn’t arouse suspicion.

  Did you hear? asked the young waitress who brought my breakfast. A shoot-out in the street, right in the middle of town. One man dead, one badly wounded, and two people vanished without trace. They’re bound to catch them soon, though.

  The weather was very warm. At eleven we drove to a swimming pool a little way out of Passau but still within the city limits, because we didn’t want to run into a roadblock. Sonia had breakfast at a bakery on the way. We spent nearly all day beside the pool. Who would look for a Mafia killer in a swimming pool? Sonia swam one length after another in the hundred and fifty-foot pool, I went in off the diving platform a couple of times. I’m not a keen swimmer. At some point we went to the restaurant and had a bite to eat.

  On the evening news they knew a bit more, not just that Aliosha had been hit by five bullets from two different guns. The six shots fired at our beds (At us, Sonia! I said. At us!) had come from Aliosha’s gun, like those fired at the man in the boot of the Lancia. The police weren’t sure what this implied.

  By the time the late news came on they’d discovered that one of the five bullets in Aliosha’s body was from the gun with which Viktor and Dmitry had been killed, and now my name cropped up. The police assumed that I was the hotel guest Aliosha had intended to shoot while asleep, and that my female companion was the woman who had been seen with me in France.

  In the course of the next few days it transpired that the cartridge cases of the four other rounds in Aliosha’s body were very probably from the same weapon as those found near Dmitry’s body.

  Forensics had really done their homework. I had indeed used Dmitry’s gun, just as Sonia had used Viktor’s, the one with which I’d shot him and Dmitry. And now, for the first time, Sonia’s name was mentioned. My female companion, they said, was very probably a German citizen of Russian origin named Sonia Kovalevskaya, who also travelled under the names Gesine Kerckhoff, Catherine Marchais, and Patrizia Calabrese. A woman named Calabrese had booked the two hotel rooms. Moreover, two banks in Passau had changed some US dollars and French francs for a woman who gave her name as Patrizia Calabrese and Catherine Marchais respectively.

  They must have got that from the Mafia, said Sonia. All my names.

  The late news gave more details supplied by the Mafia. It appeared that Sonia had been married to the victim of the shooting, so the whole affair was probably attributable to a crime passionnel rather than an outbreak of hostilities within the ranks of organized crime. A TV commentator told the studio audience that organized crime ought to work off its outbursts of emotion like everyone else, and not in the street. He used the expression “civilized society” at least four times.

  Sonia kept waking up during the night. Either that or I woke up first and woke her because I was awake.

  Now we’re all alone in the world, she said. There’s nowhere we can go.

  We do have one advantage, I told her. The police won’t bust a gut looking for us. All the dead belonged to the Mafia. No cop is going to risk getting a bullet in the face at a roadblock for the sake of a few mafiosi.

  A few dead Russian mafiosi, you mean.

  No, Sonia, I mean a few dead mafiosi, period. Quite right too, in my opinion. No point in risking your life for a bunch of killers.

  So where do we go now?

  We’ll go to Italy.

  We both knew that you always had to produce some ID when staying anywhere in Italy. The particulars would then be faxed to the Carabinieri. And we no longer had any ID fit to produce. I could tell that something was going through Sonia’s mind – something that had just occurred to her. After a while she said: We could always turn ourselves in.

  I’ve no wish to go to prison, I said.

  They’d acquit us. The case mightn’t even go to trial. You acted in self-defence, after all. We acted in self-defence.

  I doubt if the police would see it that way. I set a trap for Aliosha because I meant to kill him. I wouldn’t exactly call that self-defence.

  But you set a trap for him because he would have killed you. It was force majeure, so to speak.

  I don’t want to go to prison, I repeated. I don’t even want to be remanded for questioning. Besides, the Mafia would find it child’s play to bump us off inside.

  No, she said. Our people always like going to prison in Germany. German prisons are secure. No one can kill them there. You Germans have always been good at that. When you build prisons and camps in which people are meant to be killed, they’re killed, and when you build prisons in which people aren’t meant to be killed, they aren’t. We Russians have never managed that. With us, you can never be sure of getting out alive.

  I didn’t comment. I simply said I wasn’t going to be locked up, even for questioning.

  Just picture it, Sonia. Picture our release after being remanded in custody. We walk to freedom, and there, just outside the prison gates, the people from the Mafia are waiting for us. Plus a bunch of journalists and camera crews. No, I won’t do it. I’m not in favour of the death penalty.

  So it’s Italy, is it? Where would we stay?

  * * *

  There was someone in Italy who didn’t like me but would always put us up for a few days, possibly longer: Luigi Scalisi, my old foe from university and the streets. My favourite enemy. We had been at university together in the 1960s and had dropped out in the spring of 1969, after a few semesters of German and English language and literature. Luigi because he wanted to join the Underground, I because I aspired to be a writer but found that university could teach me none of the things I needed. I learned nothing there I wanted to know. And Jessie was born in the spring of sixty-nine. On 16 April.

  I not only quit university, I deserted the group to which Luigi and I belonged. They were filled with hatred of their parents and the system and the rich and the United States. I could never hate anyone for long. Despise, yes, but not hate. Besides, I knew plenty of rich people I liked as well as plenty I didn’t. They were just like anyone else. I had no reason to hate the wealthy. My mother was one of the first employers to introduce Christmas bonuses, holiday pay, and thirteen months’ salary per annum. She installed a crèche at the factory, too. My left-wing friends thought it was all eyewash – a cosmetic operation on the part of the system. I didn’t, and I would never have planted a bomb outside the front door of anyone like my mother. I wouldn’t have done that to anyone I knew, whether I liked them or not.

  You’re a daddy now, Luigi said at the time. A class enemy as cowardly as any Italian. He was one of the few members of the group who didn’t stop speaking to me or arguing with me. There were some who no longer greeted me when we passed each other, and who sometimes, when they felt too embarrassed, crossed over to the other side of the street. They were just as bourgeois as the bourgeois parents they despised so heartily.

  A few
years later Luigi took refuge in our flat because the police were after him. I’m safest with you, he told us. No one will ever look for me here. He stayed for six weeks or so. We often took Jessie to the playground or to a beer garden, or down to the Isar. It was excellent camouflage. Ellen and I learnt cooking from him, and à la Luigi became one of our stock phrases. It was strange, someone cooking so serenely while the police were after him. Luigi made spaghetti, all the risottos he knew, monkfish in white wine, carré d’agneau, roast venison, osso bucco, scaloppine al Marsala – all those things. For an anarchist he really was a very good cook. He was a very good cook, period. And a very good anarchist. And he was absolutely captivated by Ellen. What a woman! What a woman! he kept saying. Sometimes he said it when she was there, and she would say: What a cook! It was part of their game that he always looked downcast until she smiled and said: What a Luigi! And sometimes he said: Life here with you is almost the way it was meant to be. Except that the distribution of capital should be a bit fairer. And the division of labour. And the police shouldn’t be after me. Then Ellen would fetch her purse and sit on it. That’s the problem, said Luigi.

  You’re a kind of friend of mine, he said once. And a kind of enemy. I like you and I can’t stand you. I can’t stand you politically, but there’s something that’ll always be in your favour, both politically and personally: the fact that you’re with Ellen. Or rather, that she’s with you. It doesn’t help much that you refrain from using the money you’ve inherited. That’s just a handsome gesture on the part of someone who can afford such a luxury, but one forgets it when Ellen’s around.

  He wasn’t saddened or dismayed when he heard, many years later, that Jessie was dead. Not to begin with, at least. Jessie, Jessie, Jessie … How old would she be now? Twenty-one? Twenty-two? Around the age we were when she was born. I always promised to take her dancing when she grew up, and now? What am I to do now? Tell me! And what about you, now that Ellen isn’t there any more? What’s left of you, Harry? How can you go on living?