I Confess

by Johannes Mario Simmel

  spoke very little. Yolanda seemed to be asleep. Mordstein drove fast. He had a big powerful car, a sleek Hispano. By seven o'clock we were in Salzburg and Mordstein drove me to the station. "Your train leaves at eight. At eight-fifteen I'll be looking for you at the exit of the station in Freilassing."

  "Good," I said.

  He handed me my small suitcase. Yolanda didn't move. I walked through the cold rain, to the station, and bought a second class ticket to Munich. Then, since there was time, I sat down in the station restaurant and drank a few cognacs. I had already been very nervous when Mordstein had dropped me, and this wouldn't do. All my difficulties still lay ahead. It was essential that I keep calm if I was to cope with them. After the fifth cognac, I was calm.

  The big clock on the wall read seven-forty, I paid and walked across the dirty brick plaster of the platform to customs which was situated in a large, brightly lit room. Travelers to Germany went through customs here on Austrian soil. The next station, Freilassing, was already in Germany.

  The large room was filled with people who were also taking the eight o'clock train. This put me at ease. I went and stood at the end of a long line which was moving up to and passing the table in front of the customs officers. Two men were checking passports, two others the luggage. They looked into my shaving kit, dug around among my underwear, examined my coat pockets and then stamped my passport twice. "Thank you, Mr. Frank," one of them said, and I was through.

  I strolled out onto the platform where others were already waiting. It was cold and dark out there, but the cognac was still warming my stomach pleasantly and I was again in full control of myself. I bought another bottle of cognac at the buffet and had them open it for me.; I also had them give me three paper cups. It was necessary that they find alcohol in Mordstein's blood when he would be examined.

  The train was punctual. It was an Express-D train that had a long trip behind it and a long one ahead. I sat down in an empty compartment and drank from the bottle again. The train would stop only two minutes in Freilassing to take on mail. I knew that so I got off hastily before the train had come to a full stop, jumping down between the tracks so as not to be seen. The train hadn't left yet by the time I was running down the steps toward the station exit. The barrier was in the front, beside the entrance. I had been told that you had to give up your ticket. That didn't fit in with my plans so, in the dark, I climbed between some high bushes over a low fence and was out on the street. That was simple. It was foggy; you couldn't see much more than ten steps ahead of you.

  Mordstein was standing beside his car. He had parked alongside a freight train shed and lifted a hand when he saw me. "Well, there we are," he said as I got into the car. He sounded relieved. Evidently he had feared that I might try to escape with the train. I didn't look at him, I looked at Yolanda sitting in the back. She answered my look with the barest nod. Her white face with the big red gash of a mouth looked grotesque in the dark. Mordstein got in and we drove off. Here and there on the autobahn there were traces of snow. The rain beat against the windshield apd the wind was stronger here. I got out my bottle and drank.

  "Let me have it," said Mordstein. "I can do with a drink."

  He drank, copiously, then handed the bottle to Yolanda who in turn gave it back to me. I let it do the rounds three times. When it was half-empty I laid it down on the seat between Mordstein and me. At ten minutes past nine we passed Traunstein. According to Yolanda there was a large gas station after Traunstein. I was to watch out for it. We still had ten minutes to go before reaching it.

  Mordstein was in a chatty mood. *'And what are you

  going to do now, Mr. Chandler?" (He called me Mr. Chandler to the end.)

  "I haven't made up my mind."

  "No money, eh?"

  "No."

  "You know, I've thought it over. Fm not gomg to take all you have. I intend to leave you some."

  "Thanks."

  "I never found you unsympathetic, Mr. Chandler. Believe me. But life is hard; every man has to look out for himself. I am taking your money without bearing you any sort of a grudge."

  "I'm glad to hear that. I was under the impression that you didn't like me."

  I gave him the bottle again, then I saw the gas station. It was brightly lit and only one car was parked in front of it. I waited until we were directly in front of the pumps, then I began to count evenly from twenty-one to thirty. At twenty-nine I grabbed the steering wheel, at thirty Mordstein screamed. I didn't look at him. I looked straight ahead and bent every effort to preventing the car from skidding. Mordstein's hands were still clutching the steerhig wheel and were turning it to the right and left. His foot slipped off the gas pedal; I put my left foot on it and the car drove on.

  I could feel the jack handle against my neck. Yolanda was pressing it against Mordstein's throat—she had put her arms around him from behind. Then I heard him groan and right after that an ugly snapping sound. I don't want to write what Yolanda had done with the iron bar. Anyway, two minutes later Mordstein was dead. I steered the car onto the shoulder and stopped.

  It had all happened fast.

  Yolanda helped me shift Mordstein to the seat which I had occupied. He didn't show any signs of having been hurt; he was not bleeding. Only his head hung forward and had the tendency to dangle from side to side. We went through his wallet for the luggage tickets and found them at once. I pocketed them and took my seat beside him at the steering wheel. "Get in," I told Yolanda.

  "In a minute," she said with a choked voice. Then she ran a short distance into the trees that lined the autobahn. She. came right back. She bent down and scooped up a handful of snow and put it in her mouth, then she spat it out again. "Come on," I said.

  She got in and closed the door behind her and I drove off. Mordstein fell heavily against my shoulder and slipped forward onto the steering wheel. "Hold onto him!" I hissed.

  "I was holding onto him!" she screamed.

  "Don't shout!" I shoved the dead man to one side; she grasped him and pulled him back until he was sitting upright.

  "I'll scream as much as I want to."

  "Not now. Now we need our nerves."

  "You? You need your nerves? What have you ever done? Have you ever thought of me?" She was sobbing hysterically. I freed one hand and passed the open bottle across to her after pulling out the cork with my teeth. She

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  drank, also with one hand, then gave me back the bottle. "How far to the bridge?"

  "Half an hour."

  I stepped on the gas.

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  Half an hour can be a long time when a dead man sits beside you and the woman with whose help you killed that man sits behind you. The road flies at you, now and then a car comes toward you, now and then one passes you, and every time you feel your armpits start to sweat, your shirt sticks to your body, your teeth start to chatter. Then the strange car has passed you and it's all over. The darkness and your thoughts wash over you again. And you have plenty to think of in that half hour. The thoughts come, nothing you can do about it; they come, they penetrate, they won't let you go.

  Another drink from the bottle.

  It doesn't help. You have killed a man. And you haven't done it alone. Alone wouldn't be so bad. Alone you could put it behind you more easily. But the way things have turned out, you didn't do it alone. You did it with Yolanda. You did it with a woman. A woman who thinks she loves you. Are women to be trusted? Regardless of whether they love you or not? Have you ever been able to trust a woman? Never. Could Mordstein trust Yolanda? No. She left him for me, she fled from him, and in the end she broke his neck.

  So?

  What next?

  How do you think it's going to be? You and she. Now

  you are truly one. Now you can never break away from each other. Never. Whether she loves you or not. And you don't love her. You love Wihna. You can't forget Wilma. But now Yolanda's got you where she wants you—under her thumb. But you also have her. Only you don't want
her. Surely she thought of that too when she made her plans. You're a part of her plan. And Wilma. That was why she smiled when Wilma called; that was why she had nothing to say against it. She had you where she wanted you. She didn't have to do a thing, everything happened of its own accord. Now it's over, now you and she are one, whether you Uke it or not. Now you have to do what she tells you. To the end. To the miserable end.

  You drink again. You stare out into the dark. The motor hums. The rain pours down, and then, slowly and eerily, a sticky, ice cold certainty creeps over you from the tips of your toes to your heart: the world isn't big enough to hold two people who have killed a third person. Wherever you choose to go, however much you drink, wherever you hide—the world isn't big enough for you and this other person. For you and Yolanda.

  A half hour is a long time when a dead man sits beside you. You think: so what are you to do? Yes, what am I to do? What must I do to be alone at last, to finally be free, when I know only too well that I'm too much of a coward to free myself in any other way? Kill Yolanda. A great idea. I want to be free of her; I want it almost as much as she wanted to be free of Mordstein. Because— one way of looking at it—I'm just as subservient to her now as she was to Mordstein. And that's an unpleasant feeUng. And not a healthy foundation for the business of murder.

  What would happen if I killed her?

  Nothing. I would take away her false papers, the ones on which she is listed as Valery Frank. I'd sit her up beside her ex-husband, and the car would carry them both over the gap in the Bavaria Bridge into the valley below. When the two are found, if there is anything left to

  find, the identification will read: Mr. and Mrs. Mordstein, victims of a car accident caused by negligent driving under the influence of alcohol. Things don't turn out quite as Yolanda had planned, still no trace is left behind. And I am free. Free for the short tune left me. Free for Wilma who is waiting for me ...

  I hear a voice. It startles me. "Yes? What is it?" It is Yolanda who has spoken. The Bavaria Bridge lies directly ahead. I stop the car.

  A lot of thoughts come to you in half an hour.

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  The bridge lay straight ahead. About a hundred yards away red Ughts Ut up the barrier. The detour into the valley below turned off to the right. These were dangerous moments. If another driver saw us, we were lost.

  We worked fast. I shoved Mordstein into position behind the steering wheel. I let the motor run, and jumped out of the car with Yolanda. She was standing on the grass beside the road, breathing heavily. No snow here. That was good because of footprints and brake marks. I went up to her. She looked at me out of her big green eyes in their dark, painted hollows. "Kiss me," she whispered.

  I kissed her. She moaned and clung to me. She didn't see the jack handle. Not until I lifted my arm did she step back. Too late. And I heard the same repulsive snapping sound again. She sank to the ground. Her body shuddered once, then she lay still.

  I picked her up by the armpits and dragged her to the car and threw her in beside Mordstein who had slopped

  over the steering wheel. There they were, the Mordsteins, united again. The motor was idling regulariy. I found Yo-landa's handbag in the back, found her false papers, pocketed them and threw the bag back into the car.

  I was lucky. It was a dark night. Not a car to be seen as I opened the door on Mordstein's side, I stood for a moment on the running board and pulled out the throttle as far as it would go. With the jack handle I pushed down the clutch and held it firm as I put the car in first. Then I released the clutch. The car began to move. I held fast as it moved straight for the barrier, colliding with it and smashing it to one side, after which it drove on. Ahead of me I could see the lane of the damaged bridge. I pressed the clutch down again, shifted to second, then, through the fog, I could see where the lane ended rushing at me. I jumped off and fell face down on the ground. I put my hands over my head and waited. For what seemed an eternity, I heard nothing. The drop was deep, very deep. When would I hear the impact? When?

  I couldn't stand it any longer. I sat up, then I heard it, followed by a much louder noise. I got to my feet, staggering at first, and ran to the place where everything ended. And in the valley below I saw red flames. The car was burning. The gas tank must have exploded.

  I brushed the dirt off my coat and picked up the jack handle which I had dropped. Then I walked back to the detour. I wandered across fields and through woods to Rosenheim. It took me five hours, but I had no difficulty finding my way. I had a detailed map of the area. Yo-landa's map. She had bought it in Vienna. It had been her idea to walk to Rosenheim through the fields and woods when it was over.

  I got there at about three a.m. The train to Munich came through at four. I bought a new ticket. At 6 a.m. I was in Munich. I breakfasted in the station restaurant, then I went and got my small package that contained the money. It was handed over to me without question. The train to Augsburg left at eight. I retrieved my money there, too. From Augsburg I took the train to Stuttgart, where I bought some more jewelry, worth seventy thousand marks all in all. I spent the rest of the day in a hotel room.

  The Vienna express arrived in Stuttgart at nine p.m. I bought a sleeper ticket, gave the conductor twenty marks and had the compartment to myself. At midnight we were in Munich. I made a small package of the money I had left and stuck it in the bowl of the toilet at the end of the corridor. Customs at the Austrian border was formal and fast. The money wasn't found. If it had been found I would have said it wasn't mine. I had thought for a long time how I could best get it across the border, but in the end it had become strangely indifferent to me whether I got it across or not. In any case, I felt I had enough.

  As soon as the train left Salzburg, I got my package, lay down on my bed and looked at the headline of the Munich evening paper which I had bought at the station. "Fatal car accident on the Bavaria Bridge." I read the report through carefully twice. It said that on Friday night or early Saturday morning a car had driven through the barrier in front of the Bavaria Bridge and had plunged off the edge into the valley. Both passengers were killed. Since the car had caught fire both bodies were burned be-

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  yond recognition. However, according to the license number, the owner of the car was a certain Robert Mofdstein from Munich. I threw the paper out of the window and slept.

  On Sunday, at ten a.m. I was back in my apartment at the Reisnerstrasse. I bathed and changed. At noon I called Wilma. She wasn't home. I tried again at the office, where there was no answer, and at the theatre where Felix came to the phone. "Wilma isn't here," he said. He recognized my voice and he sounded angry.

  "Where can I reach her?"

  "I don't know."

  "When will she be coming back to the theatre?"

  "I don't know that either."

  "When she comes would you be good enough to tell her to call me?"

  "Hm."

  "Thank you, Felix," I said. "It's very good of you."

  I lay down on my bed, and tried to sleep. But I couldn't. I was waiting for Wilma to call. No call came. The room smelled of Yolanda's perfume and a few of her things were still lying around. I got up and collected them. Then I built a fire in the fireplace and lit it, because it was a cold day. I sat close to it and watched the flames dancing along the birch log. I thought that, first of all, I would like to go to Italy with Wilma. That wouldn't require a visa, and it would still be warm in the south. If I could speak to her today, we might be able to leave tomorrow.

  I took out the jewelry I had bought in Germany and picked out the ring I would give to Wilma. I stuck it in my pocket. Then I sat down in front of the fire again and waited for her caU. But it was five o'clock before the phone rang.

  I walked through the dark apartment to the phone and lifted the receiver.

  "How wonderful that you're back!"

  "Yes, Wilma. Things went faster than I had expected."

  "Can we see each other?"

  ^'Whenever you want. Th
e sooner the better.'*

  "Are you alone?" She sounded worried.

  "Yes. I am alone."

  "Your wife . . ." She sounded hesitant.

  "... stayed in Germany." I said it unhesitatingly.

  "Oh . . ." Wihna's voice faded; there was a rushing sound in the wire.

  "What is it?"

  "Nothing, Walter. Did you ... did you speak to her about . . ."

  "Of course. That's why she stayed in Germany. We have separated."

  She was silent.

  "What's the matter, Wilma? Aren't you pleased?"

  "Oh yes, of course." Suddenly her voice was loud. "I must see you. Tve got to talk to you."

  "And Fve got to talk to you too, Wihna. Come to me here."

  "No. I'd rather not. Let's meet in the tea shop."

  "All right," I said, a little disappomted. "When?"

  "In half an hour," she said.

  At five-thirty I was at the tea room. The fat owner hurried up to me, looking dehghted. "What a pleasure to see you again, sir! The young lady is waiting."

  "Bring me ..."

  "... a double cognac. I know," she said and disappeared.

  I walked into the tearoom. Wilma was sitting in a window niche and was smiling at me. She was wearing a grey pullover with a matching skirt and looked adorable. I hurried over to her and kissed her, but she freed herself quickly. The fat proprietress came with my cognac. The cat followed her majestically, then sat down in front of me and stared at me. I stroked Wilma's hand and felt light-hearted. I had reached my goal, now aU was well, now we could be happy.

  "I'm so glad to be back," I said

  She was smiling, but her eyes remained serious. "So am I."

  "Now we can be together."

  "Yes, Walter."

  "We're going to Italy, Wilma."

  "I don't know if my parents . . ."

  "I'll talk to them. You must introduce me to them. I'm goine to marry you.'*

  "But you are married."

  "I'm getting a divorce." I had to laugh. T couldn't think of Yolanda anymore nor of the bridge, nor of the jack handle and the repulsive snapping sound. "And I have brought your engagement ring with me." I took the ring out of my pocket. The stone glittered in the light of the lamp. WUma sat up and looked at me seriously.