by Dan Vyleta
The janitor had turned around, and he acknowledged her presence with a mumbled ‘Grüss Gott’. He rose now, kicking over his bottle, then bent hurriedly to pick it up from the floor: stood licking beer off his dirty fingers while he eyed her with suspicion. She noticed the smell that clung to him and cut through the mildew: gamey, cloying, as though of aged meat. He moved slowly, shook wood shavings off lap and chest.
‘Fräulein Speckstein,’ he said at last. ‘Does the Herr Professor need anything?’
She hesitated, looked again at the girl. ‘What is she doing here?’
The man shrugged. ‘She came after school. Agitated. Some children found a dead body in the bushes.’
‘A dead body? Who?’
She had asked the janitor, but it was Lieschen who answered.
‘It was a woman,’ she sang out, after another pirouette. ‘Sepp said she was naked.’
She raised two hands before her chest and cupped them in imitation of the boy’s gesture. ‘The policeman wrapped her in his coat.’
‘How perfectly awful,’ said Zuzka, and crouched down by the side of the girl. ‘Don’t you think you should go upstairs now? Get some rest? You must have had quite a shock.’
Lieschen looked at her: clear, open eyes, painful in their trust.
‘It was awful,’ she whispered, ‘though I didn’t really see. There was a man there and he cried and cried and cried.’
She slid down to her knees and erased the chalk circle with the heel of one hand.
‘I’ll wait for you and then go up.’ Her movements were simple, direct. There was no way of avoiding her scrutiny. Zuzka turned to face the janitor.
‘My uncle requires the spare keys. To the house, I mean.’
The man took it in, shrugged, walked over to a metal box that hung screwed into the wall. ‘Which ones?’
‘All of them.’
‘All of them? But why?’
She shook her head. She had always found it easy to lie. It was just a matter of believing what one said.
‘I really cannot say. He just barked at me to get the keys. He has’ – she paused for effect, found real fear spreading through her body – ‘a temper.’
The man nodded as though this made sense to him, then took three iron rings from their hooks, each of them threaded with a dozen keys.
‘Front wing,’ he said, lifting up the first ring, then repeating the gesture with the other two. ‘Side and back. The keys aren’t labelled.’ He pointed to coloured pieces of string that he had attached to each key. ‘My own system, helps me tell them apart. Do you need the keys to the basement as well?’
‘My uncle didn’t say,’ she answered cautiously. ‘He asked for discretion,’ she added, then saw the man was baffled by the word. ‘To keep quiet. Party business, I suppose.’
‘Yes. Of course.’
She had expected the janitor to be more difficult, but he was meek as a lamb; passed the keys over without further ado. His hands were large, the cuticles stained by rust or blood. Too many suspects, it came to her head all of a sudden. She smiled and curtsied, wished him a good evening.
‘I will bring the keys back when my uncle is done with them,’ she told him when she was already at the door, the child following her with a ballerina’s mincing step.
‘Of course. A good night to you. And good health. Dr Beer tells me you have been sick.’
‘Yes,’ she breathed, and reached back to take the girl’s hand. Together they ascended the stairs and re-emerged into the yard. It was past six o’clock, the whole courtyard in shade. Lieschen was looking up at her with an odd expectancy. Zuzka bent down to her, took her hands in her own, felt the stick of chalk that she had buried in one palm.
‘Is Herr Speckstein going to spy on someone, Fräulein Zuzana?’
‘Call me Zuzka. It’s nicer that way.’
The girl smiled at that but wouldn’t let go of her question. It stood there, in her red little face. Her mouth curled around it. Zuzka made another effort to throw her off scent.
‘You should go home now. Your father will be back soon.’
Lieschen shook her head. ‘Not until eight, he won’t. So who is he spying on? My father says he spies on everyone.’ She lowered her voice. ‘Even on us.’
‘And do you have any secrets?’
Once again the child shook her head, then stopped herself. ‘One,’ she said after some thought. ‘I have one. But it’s only for me.’
‘You won’t tell. Not a single soul?’
‘Only when I want to. But not before.’
She smiled at the thought of her own vigilance, raised her chin proudly into the air, her body following the gesture, the neck welded to her chest. Zuzka watched her, returned her smile.
‘Well, the keys are a secret, too, you see. No one must know.’
‘Not even me?’
‘Not even you.’ She hesitated, licked her lips, allowed her anxiety to win out against her better judgement. ‘Not unless you promise to help.’
The girl’s face lit up. She nodded with great earnestness, then raised a hand to her heart to seal her holy oath.
‘I promise, promise, promise,’ she whispered, and danced another pirouette in the half-dusk of the yard.
Quickly, without speaking, Zuzka took Lieschen by the arm and led her over to the side wing. They entered cautiously: paused in the open doorway for just a moment and took their bearings. The entryway was long and narrow, the staircase to their left, the door of the hallway toilet ahead, the ghost of a light creeping through its cracks. They stood and listened, then stepped inside.
‘Here, Lieschen,’ said Zuzka, having marched the child up to the turn in the staircase, halfway to the first-floor landing. ‘You stay here and wait. If you hear a noise – if I shout for help, or if someone comes in after me – you run like the wind and get help.’
She waited until the girl had sat down, smoothed the dress down over her knees. ‘Can you do that for me?’
‘Yes,’ said the girl, again with that earnest rocking of her body, her face so serious it made her look old. Zuzka smiled, turned around, then back, gave the girl a quick little kiss.
‘Most likely I’m just being a silly goose,’ she whispered.
The keys were jangling in her hands.
She knocked first: walked up to the landing, found the door, made sure to knock. Just in case, that is: in case he had returned while she was in the basement; and in case it was his wife back there, sick with the flu, indifferent to rescue. Then she tried the first key: chose it at random, a yellow string double-tied through the hoop, tooth jagged like a crone’s. It fit but wouldn’t turn. She tried another, and a third, the noise of her failures loud in her ears. The seventh key fit: she knew it even before the lock snapped open and the door swung inwards under her pressure. ‘Hello,’ she called ahead, half shout, half whisper, her tongue dry against her gums. The flat beyond lay in semi-darkness, looked large, mysterious, the back room blocked from view.
She stepped in and turned to close the door; felt her breath fail at the sound of the latch clicking shut. She reopened the door, looked out, saw the girl; shut it again (the snapping of jaws), and locked herself in, all the time looking over her shoulder, fearful of what was in the second room. Perhaps, she thought, it was better to have a clear path of escape. She unlocked the door again, opened it. The girl remained sitting on the steps, the stairwell silent, empty. This time, she turned the key without closing the door first: leaned the door shut against the deadbolt, then dragged a chair there, to lean against the handle and give her warning in case someone should follow her in. All the while her heart was in her mouth. She had never understood the phrase: had read it in her father’s Homer, been puzzled by it, dismissed it, a poet’s tall tales, all until now, when her lips and palate had acquired a pulse.
The door secured, she turned and walked across the room: stayed away from the windows, threading a path through dirty clothes. His smell was everywhere, the smell of sweat and s
omething oddly fishy, old smoke clinging to the walls. She stopped once to bend and pick up a magazine; found a naked woman staring back at her, fat stomach rolling underneath two giant breasts. The woman lay sprawled across an armchair; looked cramped, uncomfortable, one buttock puckered like a wind-bruised sea. She laid the magazine down again, circumvented the bed, the crumpled sheet, blankets crusty with old dirt. The second door was only a step away. She reached and held its handle like the hand of a friend; gently, that is, for comfort and strength. Her fist rose: she knocked, drowning out the wheezing of her lungs.
There was no answer.
It wasn’t long before she opened the door, and waited for the light to follow her inside.
6
Nine-year-old Anneliese Grotter was sitting on the stairs leading up to the first-floor landing of the building’s side wing and wishing she had brought Kaiser San along. Zuzka had long disappeared through the door at the top of the landing: had struggled with the keys for a while, her breath a broken whistle groping for a tune. Then silence had fallen, a silence full of muffled sound, steps in the ceiling, the murmur of the walls, the tinkle of pipes, all far too loud in the girl’s straining ears. Twice she’d stood up, stretched out her legs; crept up to the door to find it wasn’t locked but leaned shut against the deadbolt. Lieschen had put a hand to it, applied some pressure, felt a weight shift on the other side. Afraid, excited, she’d gone back to her perch upon the stairs; pulled her dress over knees that were bumpy with cold, gave herself over to the passing of minutes. She tried to count them, found herself racing through the seconds; used the rhythm of her heart (Father had shown her, three taps for every two seconds, one had to count out loud or soon lose track), but found it, too, was racing through its beats. It might have been three, it might have been twenty: two lines of spittle running down her chin. At some point, she had pulled a braid into her mouth and started sucking on its strands.
Then a racket roused her, scared her, a rush of water underneath her bum. She leapt up, nearly choking on her hair; recognised the flush of the hallway loo, the tread of a man stepping out. Before she could move, he had walked into sight: stood head bent, hands still busy with his belt, a rolled-up newspaper jutting from his pocket. He wore a black hat and evening clothes, his features creeping with the hallway’s shadows. In the dim light the only thing Lieschen was sure of was the slant of his eye. Another moment and he would turn; see her, search his pocket for a knife. She was two yards above him, three yards to his left; a measly foot from the shelter of the staircase’s turn.
Her feet obeyed her. Later, in the safety of her room, she would feel grateful for their courage, would praise and spin them through another pirouette. Just now she simply stepped away, was on the staircase one moment, and up on the landing the next. She heard him follow her, a heavy man’s shuffle, had a second to make up her mind, crooked neck trained down into the stairwell. She could run or she could hide.
The door gave under little pressure: a chair slid aside, making no noise, her fingers guiding shut the door behind her. She fell to her knees and pressed an eye against the keyhole. The big man was walking towards her, then turned sharply to his left; stopped at the bottom of the stairs (she could nearly read the headline on the newspaper peeking from the pocket of his coat), broke wind, and carried on, his leather soles making a racket on the stone. The knife he carried remained safely in his pocket.
Lieschen exhaled, relieved. She jumped to her feet and turned around, expected Zuzka there, glaring at her, ready to scold. But the room was empty, save for its clutter, and smelled like her father’s, of alcohol, cigarettes and sweat. At the far end, another door stood open upon a shadow of movement. She drew closer, curious, slipped on some magazines that lay littered across the floor, their pages open at some pictures. A bent-over lady stood looking at her, adjusted her stocking; a beer bottle lolling just left of her rump. The girl stepped over it – and her – and on to the threshold. The braid was long back in her mouth.
The second room was dark. A pair of curtains blocked the sole window, hung heavily, as though weighted by lead. The bed stood against the far wall, narrow, a body spread along its length: Zuzka standing in front of it, her shoulders rolled into a hunch. She was reaching down to the body with both hands, had lifted one of its arms into her chest. It was dark, and Lieschen didn’t see much, just Zuzka’s movement, her left hand holding on to the woman’s elbow, the right hand pinching along her naked bicep. She’d grab a twist of skin between forefinger and thumb and turn it, turn it hard, it seemed to the child, up and down that long naked arm. The only other things visible to the girl were a foot, sticking out from under the sheet at one end, and a face sticking out at the other. But what a face! Lieschen had a picture book of angels who looked like this: bones fit for birds, stretching smooth the elfin skin, the long, thin face of a fairy, running to a point on a dimpled chin. Her eyes were big and hungry and green: it was as though a patch of moss had sprung up amongst the lashes, the only thing of colour in the half-dark of the room. They did not move.
It was hard to tell whether or not she was dead.
Then she blinked, both lids coming down over her eyes, blinked once, unhurried, the skin so thin you’d think that it might rip. Zuzka saw it, too: let go of the arm, a cry of anguish falling from her lips. She tore off the sheet that covered the woman, found her naked on a rubber mat; put both hands on her hip and rolled her slowly on one side. The skin, so white on chest and arms, turned raw and livid on the back: holes the size of Lieschen’s palm, staring out the midst of her, pink at the edges, their centres liver-dark and wet. She was slick with moisture from the waist down. It was only now that Lieschen saw it that the girl recognised the smell of rot and urine standing in the room. The woman’s hair had been cut, roughly, into a two-inch tangle that ran from scalp to ear to nape. The spine looked like a row of knuckles gathered for a punch.
Zuzka dropped her. She should have eased her down gently, rolled her over on her side, but did not seem to have the strength for it: dropped her, slipped and lost her balance, crying, turning, finding Lieschen standing there and gathering her in her arms.
‘The swine,’ she murmured, hugging Lieschen hard, ‘the swine.’
Their cheeks were side by side, the child’s chin flat against her crouching friend’s shoulder. It left free the view of the stranger in her bed, eyelids blinking from their perch upon the pillow, one flutter, then two, then three.
‘Beer,’ Zuzka said into her shoulder. ‘We must fetch Dr Beer.’
She lifted Lieschen up and carried her, legs dangling, away from the room and out on to the landing, then dropped her back to her feet intent on locking the door behind them. The child watched her as she stood searching for the right key: she dropped the key ring twice, had trouble finding the hole, was muttering to herself, the evening light from the windows starting to fail, her breath a penny rattling in a tin. When she dropped the keys yet again, Lieschen stooped to pick them up for her, tried one in the door. It fitted and the lock turned under the pressure of her hand.
‘What’s wrong with that woman?’ she asked as she handed the keys back to her friend. Zuzka took them, held on to her hand.
‘A man lives in that flat,’ she said. ‘He’ – she paused, uncertain – ‘he’s bad. A bad man, you understand? But you must go home now.’
She turned, dragged Lieschen behind her down the stairs, ran out into the courtyard.
‘You must go home,’ she repeated, but wouldn’t let go of her hand, dragged her behind her instead, into the main stairwell and up the sweep of the stairs. It was all Lieschen could do just to keep up. She didn’t think she had ever run quite as fast as this.
7
Anton Beer opened the door to the bell’s shrill ringing and found Zuzka and the child there, standing winded hand in hand. Zuzka reached out a palm and – mistaking the gesture, his mind still busy with the files he had been studying – he took and shook it, gave the ghost of a bow. Then he felt her tug,
jerky and insistent, and became aware of the spasms in her breathing. Beer searched her face, found her habitual nonchalance wiped from her features. She had been crying, he saw, the cheeks were still wet, tears and sweat beading on her upper lip.
‘What is it?’ he asked, but was answered only by her tug.
‘But you must come inside,’ he murmured, shaking off her grip and stepping to one side. It was the child who marched in, crooked neck bent forward as though she were leaning into the wind.
‘There is a woman who is lying in bed,’ Anneliese told the doctor, her own emotion audible only in her lack of modulation. ‘On the other side of the yard. Her back’s full of holes, and she has lovely green eyes.’
‘But where?’
‘Come,’ she said. ‘I will show you.’
Without waiting for Beer’s reaction, she chose a door at random and headed left, into his study. His desk was there, standing at the centre, the chair facing into the room. The desktop was covered with police files, a glass of brandy rising from their midst, his cigarette still smoking in its ashtray.
The child spent no time taking in her surroundings. She ran to the window, parted the curtains, stuck her head through the open frame. ‘Over there,’ she shouted, rising to the tips of her toes and pointing deep into the courtyard, her chest pressing hard into the windowsill. ‘But you can’t see, ‘cause the tree is in the way.’
‘You mean the side wing?’
‘Yes. Shine-a-man lives there. I saw him tonight.’
He nodded, confused, made to return to Zuzka whom they had left in the hallway, still gathering her words. He nearly collided with her in the doorway to his study.
‘We must go at once,’ she said. ‘Help that poor girl.’ Again she reached for his hand. This time he let her.
‘Is it the man with the trumpet? Has he done something to her?’
‘I pinched her,’ said Zuzka, ‘to see if she was alive. She didn’t even flinch.’
‘But who? You really must slow down. I can’t understand a word you’re saying.’