The Safety Net

by Heinrich Böll

  “Well, one thing’s certain, and you mustn’t mind my saying it: you probably won’t have to support us. It’s funny, but I can’t be angry with her, she has such a pleasant voice and she’s so happy with her little girl. I’ll get a job, stay at Monka’s for a while, there’s plenty of work there, and Bernhard will be happy there. And you—don’t you dare leave the police! I’ll go to Holzpuke, to Dollmer, I’ll even go to Stabski if I have to—after all, that standing around beside swimming pools, at parties, and in shoe stores—you’re not the only one to blame, if you’re to blame at all. No. The point is, I married a policeman, and if this policeman comes back to me, if, I want him to remain a policeman. Ask them to put you in the shark department, if there is such a thing—I mean, to kill those money sharks who are skinning us alive. Oh, Hubert, if you’re going, go soon.”

  “Yes,” he said, “I’ll go today. I’ll drive over there right now and take her away, after all I’m still her protector. I’ll leave the car in Hubreichen, you can pick it up there.”

  He left the car in the driveway, helped Helga with her grocery bags. Bernhard came running toward him, holding out a slip of paper: “You’re to call this number, Dad.” He drew the boy with him toward the phone, put an arm around him as he dialed the number.

  It was Lühler’s number; he had recognized it although he didn’t have, or want, much private contact with Lühler.

  “You’ve probably heard already,” said Lühler.

  “I can imagine,” he said. “The training course is off.”

  “Right. Cemetery, and not Horrnauken but Hetzigrath. They want us to close off the whole place. Everything strictly hush-hush—top-secret funeral with top-secret participants, including the corpse. Special orders: uniform. Seven-thirty a.m. outside the village on the road to Tolmshoven. Holzpuke sends his regards. Dollmer himself will personally conduct the deployment in Hetzigrath, invisibly of course, probably from inside the town hall or from a helicopter. Quite a famous corpse—infamous too—not as a corpse but when he was alive. See you tomorrow. Training course not canceled, merely postponed.”

  “I won’t be there—I’ll be far away … I …”

  “What? Are you sick?”

  “No … I’m just going away.…”

  “With Helga and your boy?”

  “No.”

  “Alone?”

  “No … tell Holzpuke to look for a replacement.…”

  • • •

  Helga had already carried the suitcase and the bag to the car and opened the trunk. “Your uniform is in there too,” she said, “I didn’t want to unpack it again”—she smiled—“maybe it’ll come in handy, you never know. And now I suppose you’d rather stay here, wouldn’t you?”

  “Yes, I would—but I’m leaving.”

  “Don’t make too much of it with Bernhard, don’t be too solemn about it. I’ll tell him some story about special duty, make it sound all mysterious.”

  “Till the papers find out and the nature of this special duty becomes known. No, please don’t use that expression.”

  He looked at her, her voice so unfamiliar, part bitter, part wistful with a hint of cynicism. “Don’t forget,” said Helga, “that it isn’t that simple, that easy, nor for her, either.”

  He gave a wave to the boy, who was just coming out of the house, quickly got into the car, turned the ignition key, and drove off.

  19

  The tears wouldn’t come when she discovered the picture in the newspaper. The first thing she noticed was the shoeboxes lying around in tumbled heaps, some of them bullet-riddled, and on one of them she could still make out the printed 38; an official, obviously German, was bending down behind the shoeboxes over something that must have been Bev. Originally she had been determined to carry out all his instructions, except the very last one, to the letter, and she wondered whether it would be fair to give up now, so close to the target, whether she shouldn’t accord Bev a final honor, a final act of loyalty by proving to him—to the very grave, as it were—that his plan could be precisely carried out, and that all their security fuss was useless—would have been useless if she hadn’t been determined from the very outset not to carry out his final instruction. She would not place the bomb, the loaded bicycle, under their noses: instead, she would sound the All Clear.

  Rain was falling onto the plastic roof of the snack stand in the eastern outskirts of Enschede; she ordered another portion of croquettes, and some bread, helped herself to mustard, ordered another Coke. Only ten kilometers to Horrnauken, and she started to have some strange thoughts: was she to favor a German police officer or a Dutch one with the glory of nabbing her or of her surrender? She had read of cases where such triumphs had not turned out too well for the officers. In some cases the glory had gone to their heads and they had run amok in their private lives: excesses, porn, divorce. Besides, she wasn’t sure whether she would be able to explain the dangerous nature of the bicycle to a Dutch officer. They might think she was nuts and handle the bike carelessly, while a German security officer might have received the bucket warning and would know what it was all about.

  So far everything had gone according to plan: the bicycle, identified by a blue ribbon tied to the saddle, had been standing as arranged in front of the main post office in Enschede, and it sent a little shiver down her spine to imagine how many secret helpers he must have had and that he had been in contact with all of them. Bev had specifically told her that it was Germans, not Dutch, who had booby-trapped the bike. “In case they catch you and make you talk. So don’t forget: Germans. So they can’t unload their jitters.”

  Her passport had attracted no attention whatever, and in her light-blue woolly cap, her round glasses and yellow waterproof jacket, she must really look like a Dutch teacher or student. The game appealed to her, as well as the loyalty to the precision of his plan, although he hadn’t allowed enough time for the shoeboxes to be picked up. In Horrnauken she was to ride straight to the cemetery and demand admittance. She could produce a passport in the name of Cordula Kortschede, a relative from the Dutch branch, and she had come over here to visit her grandmother’s grave. It remained to be seen whether they were really callous enough to refuse a grieving granddaughter permission to visit her grandmother’s grave, and if they did she was not to hesitate to make a scene and have herself removed by force. The important thing was to push the bike into the hedge between entrance gate and chapel and leave it there; the crucial thing was first to push aside the two safety catches on the handles, then to twist the handles inward, the left one to the right, the right one to the left. He had assured her that nothing, absolutely nothing, could happen before the safety catches were released and the handles twisted inward, and even then there would be a further interval of forty-five minutes.

  The important thing was that, whether she was allowed in or not, no one would notice the bike in the anticipated hubbub. She had made sure of the safety catches on the handles, and of course she would never release them, never. But the idea of actually riding to the cemetery and asking for the officer in charge of security there was tempting, tempting, too, was the thought of actually going to Verena Kortschede’s grave, but then she would never bring that off, Verena was buried in the family plot where her father was going to be buried today. She remembered the funeral they had all attended, the whole lot of them, including Bev and Rolf and Katharina: a summer’s day on the heath, and it must have been from that occasion that he remembered the cemetery so vividly that he had been able to tell her the location of the grave of her alleged grandmother Henriette Kortschede: “In the right-hand corner, toward the edge of the forest, the last row but one, so that you can walk there purposefully and then disappear into the trees.”

  • • •

  Even more tempting was the phone booth next to the snack stand: she had to speak to Rolf or Katharina, right now, explain that the boy, Holger I, was the time bomb; he had become a stranger to her, even more of a stranger than she could ever be to her parents
and parents-in-law—in him, with him, the word “alienation” acquired an entirely new meaning. “They”—who, who?—probably Bev too, had fed something into Holger that was more dangerous than the stuff used to make bombs; Holger was in urgent need of—treatment. How? by whom?—Rolf should think about that, discuss it with Katharina. The expression “bomb in the brain” had been used—that made dynamite or detonator superfluous—and obviously the boy had the bomb in his brain; it had—how? how? how?—to be defused. How to handle him—hands, not words, might be able to heal him.

  But at this distance it would be easy to trace the call, and she didn’t want to be caught, she wanted to give herself up, to prove to them how easy it was to get this far with the bucket, and how easy it would have been to make her way into the cemetery. Probably it was better not even to begin the last set of the game, to forgo the final serve—that might mean hours, maybe days of delay. The best thing would probably be to give herself up immediately after crossing the border onto the German side. Yet she would have so much liked to visit Verena Kortschede’s grave again. It had been really heartbreaking the way that miserable pseudo-leftist had bagged her for himself and then dropped her as soon as it turned out she didn’t have that much money. And that weak tea at Verena’s in Berlin! It had always been weak, though her father was supposed to be one of the big tea merchants; the mild chatter about socialism; she was kept quite short by her parents, they were thrifty not from avarice but on principle, you could see it just by looking at her pale-faced father who was going to be buried over there today. Tolm would be sure to give a wonderful speech. No, she would call off the game before the last set.

  • • •

  She attached herself to a group of four cyclists riding toward the border. They seemed to be really enjoying the rain, singing as they rode along. On the Dutch side she was waved through with the group, on the German side there was a thorough inspection: identification, baggage, even the bicycles. There were not only border officials but police, motorcycles, transceivers. Detaching herself from the group, she walked over to one of the police officers who was holding his crash helmet and watching the inspection. She pushed back her hood, took off glasses and woolly cap, and said: “I’m the person you’re looking for. It’s urgent, serious, call your boss and tell him: the bucket has arrived, Veronica Tolm has brought it as far as the border.”

  “Don’t try and be funny,” he said.

  “I’m not being funny,” she said, “and watch how you handle my bike, it’s loaded with explosives. Please, call him.…”

  He still hesitated, she said softly: “Go on, you won’t make a fool of yourself. I promise. It’s really me.”

  At that he raised his transceiver and said: “Victor eight urgent call for Oscar one.” By this time the Dutch group had ridden on, the officers were crowding around her. She heard him say: “There’s a young woman here who claims to be Veronica Tolm, and I’m to tell you: the bucket has arrived, she’s brought it as far as the border.” She couldn’t hear the reply, but the policeman held the instrument out to her and said: “Go ahead, speak.”

  “Hello,” a voice said, “my name is Holzpuke, you’ll be seeing a lot of me. What’s this about the bicycle?”

  “It’s booby-trapped, I don’t know how, I only know how to release the safety catches. Have it put in a safe place, and don’t let anyone twist anything on it.”

  “I’ll be there in a few minutes, I imagine you’d like to make a phone call. I recognized you by your voice.”

  “Yes, I’d like to make a call—if you’d permit it.”

  “Of course. Let me speak to the officer again.” She handed back the instrument, heard the voice indistinctly, then the officer placed his hand on her shoulder and said: “Come along, I’ll take you to the phone.… After that …”

  20

  As she turned the key, took it out, and dropped it into her purse, she was struck by the silence. The guards were gone, the photographers and the reporters seemed to have disappeared too, and there was no sign or sound of Holger the older, of Sabine and Kit, of Erna Breuer and her friend: nothing. Rolf had left with Holger the younger to go to the doctor’s and do a few errands and wouldn’t be back before one o’clock. It was still raining, not quite as hard, and she stopped for a few moments to listen: nothing, not even an apple falling from a tree, not a nut onto the concrete paths; in the distance, infinitely far away it seemed, she could hear the Polkt twins, who had been picked up by their mother and were noisily making their way home. Although there was no need, she made doubly sure that the big room was locked and realized she was nervous about having to walk the hundred and twenty steps diagonally across the garden. As she stepped out onto the path, hesitantly as if walking on thin ice, a logical train of thought passed mechanically through her mind: if the guards are gone, Sabine is gone too, and if the photographers are gone, Holger the older is gone too, and if … She was startled to see Roickler coming out of the annex toward her, and the expression “bearer of bad news” came to her mind. And indeed his smile was somewhat forced as they drew near each other and he took her arm; he looked very tired and smelled of cigar.

  “Yes,” he said, “don’t be alarmed—a lot of things have happened,” and started by telling her how he had gone with Erna Breuer to her parents’ and that “prodigal daughters have a worse time of it than prodigal sons”; told her—and dropped his voice so that she could hardly hear him—that Veronica had turned herself in and had phoned and urged them to keep an eye on Holger the older; too late, he had managed to slip away, early in the morning just after Rolf had left, he had persuaded one of the photographers—well, it was all so crazy—to take him to Tolmshoven and there he had—well—started a fire while Mr. and Mrs. Tolm had been burying Beverloh in Hetzigrath. “A lot has happened,” Roickler said, “and no one’s been hurt,” and finally her sister-in-law had been picked up with her little girl by a police officer in uniform whom the guards had cheerfully greeted as one of their colleagues without even bothering to question his orders, and it had turned out to be not exactly an abduction yet an action that, if not exactly criminal, “was certainly dubious, with disciplinary repercussions still to be investigated.” Roickler smiled and repeated: “A lot has happened, and no one’s been hurt—yet someone is sitting in there waiting for you who has nothing whatever to do with what has happened but to whom something has happened: your friend Heinrich Schmergen. The main thing is: your sister-in-law Sabine would naturally have liked to thank you and say goodbye, but circumstances didn’t permit it. Everything had to be done very quickly. She”—he smiled again—“asked me to wait for you and explain it all and tell you how very much she is looking forward to seeing you again. By the way—in case it wasn’t quite clear—the police officer is her lover, the father of the child she is expecting. I suppose it’s all a bit much.”

  “Yes,” she said, “it is rather much.”

  He held her arm as they walked toward the cottage and told her about his long conversation with a senior police officer who had described “that Mr. Hendler” to him as a particularly reliable colleague, teased but also respected for his piety. Roickler then pondered for a while on the fact that the only four people “in this strange ensemble who were actually or apparently fully integrated, your parents, your sister-in-law, and that young police officer,” had cleared out. “But now I must go, to my Anna, and you must go and look after that young fellow who’s waiting in there for you.”

  Heinrich Schmergen was sitting beside the full ashtray and the coffee cup and told her haltingly that he had been on the bus from Cologne to Hubreichen reading a book called Castro’s Path, minding his own business and not noticing how the people around him were reading newspapers with reports of Beverloh’s death, and suddenly, just before Hurbelheim, he had been startled by the deathly silence in the bus—he had looked up and seen them all staring at him, at the book, silent and hostile, icy and grim, “as if they were ready to strangle me any minute,” and he had been sca
red, properly scared, so much so that he’d almost done it in his pants, and he had got out in Hurbelheim and walked the rest of the way, and now he wanted to get away, just get away, never mind where to. “Any place where a person can read books, even on the bus, without being scared like that. I don’t mind arguing. I don’t mind even having a row with someone—I don’t mind, well, maybe even a debate—but those silent, murderous looks … oh God,” he said, “Katharina, I believe you’re kidding yourself, we’re all kidding ourselves—I’m getting out of here, I just wanted to say goodbye to you, to thank you and ask you if you could let me have some money, perhaps—I’ll look for a country where I can sit on the bus and read whatever I like in peace.”

  “Cuba?” she asked, and bit her lips, she felt her question had been cruel.

  “No,” he said, “but Spain perhaps—right away, I want to leave right away. Today, right now—I won’t even say goodbye at home. Say hello for me to Dolores and Rolf, and let me have some money, just for the first few days, I’ll go to Holland first—I’m prepared to do any filthy job till the end of my days, carry shit if I have to—I’ll send you back the money.…”

  • • •

  She took her purse out of her handbag, placed it beside his coffee cup, opened it, and said: “Take half,” and when he hesitated in embarrassment she said firmly: “Go on, don’t be squeamish, come on,” then took out the bills herself, tipped the small change onto the table, sorted it with her fingertips to left and right into bills and coins of the same denomination, divided a fifty-mark bill by pushing it to the left and maneuvering twenty-five marks from left to right, counted “sixty-eight for each of us,” and finally pushed the ten-pfennig pieces toward him, thirteen of them, saying: “Take those too, it might be a cup of coffee, a loaf of bread, maybe ten cigarettes, I don’t know how much they cost in Holland—and matches, lots of matches … take it.” And as he was still hesitating, she stuffed it all into his jacket pocket, saying: “Those who ask for money should accept it. You’ll have to learn that … and more than that. It’s too bad, we’ve been very fond of you. Maybe you’ll come back someday.”