The Safety Net

by Heinrich Böll

  Eventually, after realizing that she obviously had committed what she herself would call adultery, he could exclude no one as a partner, neither the elderly Helmsfeld, who probably lacked the guts if not the desire, nor even bowlegged old Klober; both appeared in the reports as visitors: Helmsfeld probably at tea parties with a literary turn, Klober usually briefly, to deliver “homegrown vegetables”—lettuce, cauliflower, “guaranteed organic, ma’am,” couldn’t be persuaded not to call her ma’am, was given a cigar, a brandy, but obviously didn’t feel at ease, usually left the cigar less than half smoked, and not one of his visits had exceeded seventeen or eighteen minutes; so one was quite justified in regarding Klober as unlikely.

  Finally there remained—and every avenue had to be explored to the very end—his own men. Among them Zurmack seemed to him the most suspect, suspect when he looked at it from Zurmack’s point of view: he didn’t seem to have any inhibitions when it came to affairs of the heart, for all that he was married, had also on occasion—once, anyway, and in a very delicate situation that might have gone wrong—and without denying it for long, started an affair with the mother of a delinquent while actually on duty. He had arrested a young hashish pusher, had then gone back into the apartment to make a thorough search of the place, and had, as he later admitted, “lain down” with the boy’s mother.

  “Yes, I laid her. She was a nice woman, Elli was her name, I can’t even remember her last name, and she wasn’t a hooker, and yes, after that I sometimes did go to her while still on duty, I couldn’t help myself—and to this day, whenever I pass the house, I feel the urge again because I know her old man and the boy are in the slammer—I’m fond of her, might almost say: I love her—and she simply melts when I arrive, I know it—and Lisbeth, my wife, has never known or noticed a thing. But then I did get cold feet—that it might lead to blackmail—but she never tried anything of the sort, never even hinted at it—Elli, a good woman, a nice woman.…”

  And yet he did exclude Zurmack, not from Zurmack’s point of view but from Sabine Fischer’s. He simply couldn’t imagine it, almost less than Klober, although Klober was a bowlegged, elderly profiteer and Zurmack was a handsome, fine figure of a policeman, with a bit of the old gendarme look about him, athletic, straightforward, probably—seen through female eyes—not without charm. Lühler—he was taking them in the order of probability—in theory any time, without hesitation, he was game for any adventure, had had plenty of them, was unmarried, but: for him this “Bee” was way out of reach—too risky, but for social, not amorous reasons. She was in any case “media-exposed”—and how! That could mean trouble, and Lühler wasn’t keen on that, not Lühler—and anyway, if it did turn out to be one of his men—and damn it, they were only human and male—anyway, that would eliminate any security risk, and the only one left was Hubert Hendler.

  This was a man he had never quite been able to fathom, he liked him, he was one of the most reliable men he had, was well up on his theory, well informed as to the law, had never committed the slightest indiscretion, even when on the vice squad. Kiernter swore by him, by his stable marriage, his behavior, and ascribed Hendler’s occasional edginess, which could sometimes amount almost to irritability, to his financial situation: he had obviously overextended himself in building his house, with his car and other acquisitions, yet there was an “invaluable stabilizing element,” as Kiernter put it: Hendler’s wife, Helga, sensible, affectionate, quiet—and “almost a beauty.” True, in the immediate family there were a few less stable elements, Helga’s sister Monika and her friend Karl Zurmeyen, another of those dropout sociologists but about whom nothing, nothing whatever in the least suspicious was known, though he had been in Berlin at times that could have made him suspect. Only one thing pointed to Hendler as the possible “impregnator”—of all the men under consideration he was the only one to be, if not entirely, at least approximately, “her type.” A serious boy, devout like herself, not without humor although it sometimes seemed so, and with a quiet virility that must appeal to her; in some aspects a religious fanatic—which she was not—and damnably “righteous,” not self-righteous—righteous, had sometimes circumvented regulations and closed his eyes to certain infringements. He was something of an outsider, couldn’t stand off-color jokes, was intolerant of obscenities, had often put up with teasing and sometimes worse—nevertheless had earned respect, indeed liking, among even the most cynical of his brother officers. But could Hendler—his mind rebelled against calling him the “impregnator” and he introduced the word “lover” into his thoughts—could Hendler be or have been her lover? The word “lover” reduced the improbability without increasing the probability of the impossible.

  One of his own men? He could just see the headlines, it would mean the end of him, and no doubt the best course would be to let the matter rest, not to involve Dollmer or Stabski too soon, explain to that newspaper fellow that Mrs. Fischer’s intimate affairs didn’t concern him as long as there was no question of a security risk—and there was none: in the final analysis it could only be one of the neighbors or one of his own men, and none of them was a security risk, perhaps merely a moral risk, and moral risks were no concern of his. Hendler? He was no doubt one of the romantic kind. But then there was that splendid Helga, a pretty, levelheaded young woman with whom he had danced on several occasions, and yet: now Sabine Fischer was at her brother’s in Hubreichen, and Hendler was there to guard her: the walled vicarage garden, that idyllic little annex, the tall trees, the hazel thickets—if they were having a love affair conditions couldn’t be more ideal. Of course her brother Rolf was not one of those free-and-easy, progressive porn types, nor was his capitalistic little sister, in fact he was more of a puritanical socialist type, yet undoubtedly he would neither reproach nor put obstacles in the path of his dear, supercapitalistic little sister if he should happen to surprise her in a tête-à-tête in that splendid garden.

  The affair remained sensitive, explosive even, and probably the best thing would be for him to send all three of them—Zurmack, Lühler, and Hendler—off to a refresher course, to Strüderbeken, where there was open heath and forest and a pleasant officers’ mess. Jogging, football, a bit of target shooting, some theory—that would do them good, they had earned it, and after the course he would send their names in for promotion; they had earned that too, especially Zurmack, whose nerves had been sorely tried by the Bleibl woman—since then he had categorically refused “to go shopping, or be sent shopping, with any of those broads, or to those spas where I have to look on while they get drunk at the bar and wiggle their tits and a fellow’s not allowed to join in the fun. No, thanks. If you don’t mind.” Refresher course, then some leave, transfer: it would do them all good to resume what he called normal police duties. Granted there would be some personnel problems. Mrs. Bleibl Number Four was planning a trip to one of the North Sea islands, and Bleibl had requested the “necessary measures.” This meant he had to consult immediately with Dollmer, perhaps even with Stabski—ask for reinforcements. Not a word about Mrs. Fischer’s pregnancy: that was her affair, her husband’s affair, her lover’s affair, if indeed he knew anything about it. He wouldn’t be surprised if she never, never spoke about it; and if the Zummerling bunch should descend upon her she might be in the soup, but he wouldn’t. But he must phone that newspaper fellow right away and make it clear to him that the Fischer pregnancy had no “security-risk dimension”; he would convince him that he was under no obligation to supply any further information.

  8

  If it came to the worst, she should be able to prove that Breuer had known of her affair with Peter, that he had tolerated it. All it needed, if he really did go to court, was to produce the trip log, which he had certainly examined and analyzed. It showed quite clearly, once or twice a week, that distance of exactly twenty-three kilometers before a stop lasting one, two, or sometimes three hours. Hadn’t he said to Peter with a wink: “Are you seeing someone there?” Hadn’t Peter nodded and agreed that tho
se forty-six kilometers there and back were to be booked and charged to his personal account? And didn’t Breuer know perfectly well that it was exactly twenty-three kilometers from the office to his home—hadn’t they checked that together countless times, if only for tax purposes? There were witnesses who one could only hope wouldn’t fail: like Plein the bookkeeper, who might be required to produce the accounts. What possible other conclusion could Breuer have come to? Would he testify in court: twenty-three kilometers for personal use, two hours for a personal visit, and where? Naturally they had never discussed it, yet there was the evidence—bookkeeper, trip log—and it had gone on for eight, almost nine weeks, and could have gone on even longer if it hadn’t been for that miserable security business, if Peter’s dossier hadn’t contained a few awkward things, plus that stupid pistol, too old-fashioned and childish to have been sold to anyone even as a toy: a revolver dating from around 1912, though admittedly with ammunition.

  True, her attorney had pointed out that it might easily go through even if Breuer denied his connivance. Breuer, he maintained, might plead, even if he admitted his connivance (which was unlikely), that, though he had condoned it, he could no longer do so once it had become a matter of record and thus of public interest—given the press laws that placed Erna, as a neighbor of the Fischers, firmly in the public domain, which was “arguable but not unequivocal.” As the husband he could “condone while suffering” (good God, he hadn’t suffered all that much, he’d probably got some kinky pleasure out of it!), but he couldn’t afford any damage to his reputation, particularly as a businessman, without suing for divorce; besides, it certainly had become public knowledge and—this would have to be argued, it really was arguable—not through her fault or Peter’s but through Breuer himself, who could never keep his mouth shut and was trying to blame his bankruptcy on “injury” of some kind. She thought it quite possible that he had phoned some reporter himself: he was certainly kinky enough for that, and if things got rough she wasn’t going to pull any punches, the whole dirty business would simply have to come out. And if Breuer really did win this case, she could claim—so the attorney had indicated—to have been “a victim of security.” This would create entirely new categories, so her attorney had told her and Breuer’s broker had confirmed, categories which might have to be established in a test case. So: if he insisted on the divorce—fine, but no question of guilt, he’d have to cough up, she knew all about his bank accounts.

  Klober would certainly be on her side too, the investigation of his callers having led to embarrassing revelations: smuggling, and something about heating oil she didn’t understand; but above all, and this had infuriated Klober, many of those types with whom he’d been carrying on, well, not quite legal transactions (Breuer had done the same thing with some mysterious Italian watch dealers!)—those types stayed away because they weren’t keen on “stumbling head first into a fuzz trap.” The business they had done with Klober could also be done with others; and Klober had hinted pretty frankly, without actually spelling it out, that to face a tax audit would cause him some trepidation. At any rate, Klober was clearly “a victim of security,” and there was already a group of attorneys collecting “victims of security” across the country, even in cases where such victimization consisted of no more than the unavoidable annoyance of having the police on the streets or wherever. There was already a case on record of a girl who lived with her parents next door to some big shot, with evidence to show that up to a certain date she had been doing well in school but had then suffered a nervous breakdown, failed her exams, and committed suicide. A drop in the value of property due to “security” was also a matter of record. If it was true, as was claimed, that tax discrepancies and dubious-seeming transactions, or certain “sexual behavior,” were turned up as the result of security investigations yet did not represent security risks—if all that was to be handled discreetly or even kept secret but somehow did leak out through gaps and holes—who would be responsible for the damage?

  On that point her attorney had reassured her. Again and again he had dinned into her never to indicate by so much as a hint or a casual phrase that she would probably have run away someday with Schubler anyway; that could be fatal, might ruin her case, even in the category of “endangered by security.”

  Moving from the bungalow in Blorr to Peter’s apartment had naturally been a shock resulting in many sighs, many tears—from eight rooms and two bathrooms, from garden and swimming pool, to these four hundred square feet, with only a shower, and she did so love to lie in the bathtub, go from pool to tub, from tub to pool, and all that. And she was so short of money, felt so cooped up—and then there were those single men in the apartment building who didn’t hesitate to proposition her, offering her fifty for a “swinging time”—an odd, not unpleasing expression, and seeing how short of money she was … no, she didn’t want to go that route. In the old days, before marrying Breuer, she had sometimes come pretty close to it, when she was still working as a salesgirl for Breuer and rich foreigners were buying jewelry and one of them would sometimes invite her over for a drink at his hotel. No. She had never done that, never for money—besides, Peter would notice and never stand for it, though he himself sometimes had to put in a tough day for his fifty: heaving and hauling—moonlighting of course—and with jobs so scarce he was in no position to insist on standard wages; it was a hell of a struggle, she knew that. And though he never grumbled she could feel how he resented all this, considering he had almost been “promoted” at Breuer’s, not exactly made office manager, say, but maybe something like purchasing agent—after all, he had taken a commerce course. No, no, she had to watch her step, hang on, he really did love her and he made her happy, was never quarrelsome or grouchy, he was just quiet and serious at times, always seemed to have his nose stuck in a book—and he couldn’t be persuaded to watch TV; he might go to a movie and for a drink somewhere after, hardly ever took her dancing, considered himself too old for things like discos. Thank God those tiresome interrogations had stopped, and the newspapers left them in peace.

  And there was one more thing, maybe the worst: the noise outside, even sleeping pills didn’t help anymore. “Those rotten bastards”—who?—had built the freeway right into the city, into the very middle of it, with an access road lying diagonally to it, and that kept grinding, grinding, grinding, day and night, and when it stopped for two or at most three minutes she knew it would come back, swelling, subsiding. She would get up and stand in her housecoat on the absurdly small balcony, smoking and thinking of escape—where to? How wonderful it had been in Blorr, and maybe Breuer would eventually have agreed to some “three-way deal,” somehow, if only this rotten security business hadn’t ruined things. That grinding that sometimes turned into a roar—it was no use closing the windows, proper soundproof glass was too expensive, and she needed fresh air. If she had to sleep with closed windows, she’d suffocate. There was no solution, nothing did any good, neither the protests nor the neighborhood initiatives, nor the meetings held at the corner tavern where they had to listen to the mealymouthed blather of those who were responsible; the only solution was to move out, move away, run away.

  There were hours during the night when, after many cigarettes and drinks, she would stand shivering on the balcony and pound her temples with her fists, on the verge of leaving, simply going away, without any idea where to. Earplugs were no use, and if it happened to be quiet for a few minutes there was still that roaring in her ears, on and on, it was still there when she took the bus to Blorr, looked up old friends who, in spite of their grins, were still very nice to her—the Beeretz family, for instance, when she implored them to rent her a room, even if it was just a poky little cubbyhole where she could get some sleep, sleep, at last enough sleep. But then came the excuses: oh yes, they could have cleared out a little room in the attic, fixed it up for her, would have been only too glad to let her have a quiet corner, “in spite of everything”—in spite of what?—and would have asked, if
not nothing exactly, at least only very little for it. But what they couldn’t accept was that she might sleep there “with that man”; that wouldn’t do at all—but apart from that … And that wasn’t what she wanted: not without Peter, who worked himself to the bone, took on the filthiest jobs, and anyway was by now working only with Turks, hardly even Italians—he had reached the point where a job as a garbage collector seemed to him like a promotion, a social advancement. And he wasn’t to be allowed to sleep with her? No, in that case forget it.

  She didn’t like to go to Mrs. Fischer. She was sorry for the way she had yelled at her over the phone: a nice woman, a pleasant neighbor, and it wasn’t her fault, after all. And she might have been able to spend a weekend at her place except for that husband of hers, who had turned out to be a bit of a groper when she danced with him; no, not that. And as for the Klobers, they might be useful allies, but in other respects she didn’t care for them, they always got so familiar, wallowing in the details of her divorce and hinting sarcastically at the difference in age between Peter and herself. And it was bitter, too, to see, if only from a distance, the bungalow still standing empty. Obviously Breuer was letting the garden go, the swimming pool stagnate, the lettuce had gone to seed and the broad beans were crawling with aphids. Everything had “gone to pot” there, and going home on the bus she thought with horror of the night ahead, of the grinding, the roar, the hell that in the daytime she felt able to stand; and she reached the point when she would lie weeping beside the sleeping Schubler, get out of bed, go back to the bottle, eventually fall asleep, and wake up in the morning when Peter took his shower. Then she would stagger into the kitchenette and make breakfast, but even the coffee didn’t wake her up, and she loved the way he always hugged her as he went off to work, kissed her and whispered: “I’m doing all I can to get us out of here. Don’t hold up the divorce, then we can get married. I do love you so.”