He can never find his matches, which are buried beneath the papers. He doesn’t look at Frank. He rarely looks him in the face, and when he does it is with perfect indifference. Who knows if the other two, the altar boys, aren’t there just to keep an eye on Frank’s reactions and report on them afterwards?
‘Do you know Anna Loeb?’
Frank doesn’t bat an eyelid. He hasn’t batted an eyelid for a long time. He thinks about it. It’s a name he doesn’t know, but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Of course, like everyone, he knows the name Loeb. Loeb’s Brewery: he has been drinking their beer since he was old enough to drink it. The name is displayed in big letters on the gables of houses, on the walls of cafés and groceries, on calendars, and even on the windows of trams.
‘I know the beer.’
‘I’m asking if you know Anna Loeb.’
‘No.’
‘And yet she was one of your mother’s girls.’
So it must be someone else of that name.
‘You may be right. I don’t know.’
‘Perhaps this will help you to remember?’
He takes a photograph from a drawer and holds it out to him. He is a man who always has photographs in reserve. Frank has to restrain himself from crying out, ‘Anny!’
Yes, it’s her, but an Anny quite different from the one he knew, maybe because she is in a smart summer dress, with a broad straw hat on her head, smiling and giving her arm to someone the old man hides with his thumb.
‘Do you know her?’
‘I’m not sure.’
‘She lived in the same apartment as you recently.’
‘It’s possible.’
‘She says she slept with you.’
‘That’s possible, too.’
‘How many times?’
‘I don’t know.’
Has Anny been arrested? You never know with them. It’s in their interests to tell lies in order to get at the truth. It’s part of their job. Frank is never completely fooled by these pieces of paper.
‘Why did you bring her to your mother’s?’
‘Me?’
‘Yes.’
‘I never brought her to my mother’s!’
‘So who did?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Do you mean to say she presented herself of her own accord?’
‘There’d be nothing incredible about that.’
‘In that case, we can only assume that someone gave her your address.’
He doesn’t yet understand, senses a trap, doesn’t reply. There are long silences like this, which is why these interrogations can last an eternity.
‘Your mother’s activities are illegal. We don’t need to go over that.’
That could just as easily mean that Lotte has also been arrested.
‘So it was in your mother’s interests that only a small number of people should know about her. The reason Anna Loeb showed up at her apartment is that she knew she could find refuge there.’
The word ‘refuge’ rings warning bells for Frank, who has to fight simultaneously against sleep and against vague thoughts that, at the least lapse in concentration, take possession of him and which he rejects only reluctantly, because in reality they are now his whole life.
He repeats the word like a sleepwalker. ‘A refuge?’
‘Are you claiming you know nothing about Anna Loeb’s past?’
‘I didn’t even know her name.’
‘What did she call herself?’
That’s what he calls cutting them some slack. He’s forced to do it. ‘Anny.’
‘Who sent her to you?’
‘Nobody.’
‘Your mother accepted her without any recommendation?’
‘She was a pretty girl, and she could make love. That’s all my mother asks.’
‘How many times did you sleep with her?’
‘I don’t remember.’
‘Were you in love with her?’
‘No.’
‘Was she in love with you?’
‘I don’t think so.’
‘But you slept together.’
Is he some kind of puritan, or a pervert, to attach so much importance to these questions? Or is he impotent? He did the same when asking about Bertha.
‘What did she say to you?’
‘She never said anything.’
‘How did she spend her time?’
‘Reading magazines.’
‘Did you go out and get these magazines for her?’
‘No.’
‘How did she get hold of them? Did she go out?’
‘No. I don’t think she ever went out.’
‘Why not?’
‘I have no idea. She only stayed a few days.’
‘Was she hiding?’
‘I didn’t get that impression.’
‘Where did the magazines come from?’
‘She must have brought them with her.’
‘Who put her letters in the post?’
‘I don’t think anybody did.’
‘Did she ever ask you to post letters for her?’
‘No.’
‘Or to convey a message for her?’
‘No.’
It’s easy, because it’s true.
‘Did she sleep with the clients?’
‘Of course.’
‘Who, for example?’
‘I don’t know. I wasn’t always there.’
‘But while you were there?’
‘I didn’t pay any attention.’
‘Were you jealous?’
‘Not a bit.’
‘She’s pretty, though.’
‘I’m used to it.’
‘Were there clients who came specially for her?’
‘You’d have to ask my mother that.’
‘We have.’
‘And what did she say?’
In this way, they force him almost every day to relive a little of the life of the apartment. He talks about it with a detachment that visibly surprises the old man, especially as he senses that he is being honest.
‘Did anybody ever call her on the phone?’
‘There’s only one phone that works in the building, the one that belongs to the caretaker.’
‘I know.’
So what is he trying to find out?
‘Have you ever seen this man?’
‘No.’
‘What about this one?’
‘No.’
‘Or this one?’
‘No.’
People he doesn’t know. Why does the old man take care to hide part of the photographs, to let him see only the faces, to prevent him from making out the clothes?
Because they’re officers, of course! Maybe high-ranking officers.
‘Did you know that Anna Loeb was wanted?’
‘I never heard about that.’
‘Were you also unaware that her father was shot?’
Actually, it’s at least a year since the brewer Loeb was shot, because a whole clandestine arsenal was found in the vats of his brewery.
‘I had no idea he was her father. I never knew her surname.’
‘And yet it was in your apartment that she came to take refuge.’
It’s amazing actually. He slept two or three times with the daughter of the brewer Loeb, who had been one of the richest and most prominent men in the town, and he didn’t even know! Every day, thanks to the old man, he discovers new secrets.
‘Did she leave you?’
‘I can’t remember. I think she was still there when I was arrested.’
‘Aren’t you sure?’
What is he supposed to reply? What do they know? He never took a liking to Anny, who seemed so contemptuous – not even that, so absent, which is worse – when he made love to her. None of that matters now. Has she been arrested? Have they carried out a full-scale raid since he has been in prison?
‘I think so. I’d been drinking the day before.’
‘At Timo’s?’
‘Maybe. And other places.’
‘With Kromer?’
The old bandit never forgets a thing!
‘With lots of people.’
‘Before taking refuge in your apartment, Anna Loeb was the mistress of a succession of officers, and she always chose them carefully.’
‘Oh!’
‘More for the position they occupied than for their physique or their money.’
He doesn’t reply. It wasn’t a question.
‘She was in the pay of a foreign power and she went to look for shelter in your apartment.’
‘It’s not hard for a woman who isn’t too bad-looking to be accepted in a brothel.’
‘You admit it was a brothel?’
‘Call it what you like. There were women who made love with clients.’
‘Including officers?’
‘Maybe. I wasn’t standing guard on the door.’
‘Or at the fanlight?’
He knows everything! He guesses everything! He must have inspected the apartment with particular care.
‘Did you know their names?’
‘No.’
Is it possible that the old man’s sector is working against the other sector, the one where Frank was hit with a brass ruler? The word ‘officer’ keeps recurring with a frequency that intrigues him.
‘Would you recognize them?’
‘No.’
‘They sometimes stayed a long time, didn’t they?’
‘Just long enough to do what they came for.’
‘Did they talk?’
‘I wasn’t in the room.’
‘They talked,’ the old man asserts. ‘Men always talk.’
As if he knows as much about it as Lotte! He knows where he is going, in his patient, meticulous way. He is far-sighted. He has all the time in the world. He grabs a piece of thread and delicately untangles the whole skein.
The time for soup has passed. Frank will find the liquid ice cold in his dish, as happens almost every day.
‘When women get men to talk, it’s so that they can repeat what they’ve said to someone else.’
He shrugs.
‘Anna Loeb made love with you, but you claim she didn’t say anything to you. She didn’t go out and yet she sent messages.’
His head is spinning. He has to keep going to the end, until he can get into bed, until he can finally sink into the planks, his eyes closed, his ears humming, and listen to the blood circulating in his arteries, feel his body live, think at last about something other than all these stupid things that allow him to go on, think about a window, four walls, a room with a bed, a stove – he doesn’t dare add a cradle – a man who leaves in the morning knowing he will come back, a woman who stays and knows she isn’t alone, she will never be alone, the sun rising and setting always in the same place, a tin box you take with you under your arm like a treasure, grey felt boots, a flowering geranium, things so simple that people don’t really know them, or else despise them, even go so far as to complain when they have them.
He has so little time!
3.
Last night was one of the most exhausting sessions. They must have woken him up in the middle of the night, and he was still in the office when a volley of shots was heard from the courtyard, followed by a single, fainter shot, as usual. He looked at the windows and realized that it was already dawn.
It was one of the few times when he nearly flew off the handle. He really had the impression the interrogation was being dragged out for the sake of it, that he was being asked questions at random. He was asked, for instance, about Ressl, the editor. Frank replied that he didn’t know him, that he had only spoken to him once.
‘Who introduced you?’
Kromer again . . . It would be so much simpler and less exhausting to throw him right in it once and for all, especially since, as far as Frank is able to judge, he has been careful to go to ground somewhere out of the way.
He was asked about people he doesn’t know. He was shown photographs. Either it is to tire him, to push him over the edge, or else they imagine that he knows much more than he really does.
By the time he left the office, the air smelled of dawn, with a touch of smoke from the neighbourhood. Did he see the open window? He can’t remember. He saw it, but he would be unable to state categorically – to the old man, for example, if he was asked a specific question – whether it was in a dream or not. He is sure, though, that he had his eyes open.
He can’t remember, ultimately. And now he is already being dragged from his bed again. He walks, with the plainclothes man in front and the soldier behind, surrounded by the sounds of two pairs of shoes. He is still asleep. He has time. Usually, he is made to wait on the grey-painted bench. This time, they don’t let him wait; they cross the room without stopping and immediately enter the office.
And there in the office are Lotte and Minna.
Does he give them a look of annoyance? He isn’t aware of it. He sees his mother give a start, open her mouth as if to let out a cry, then contain herself and stammer with an element of pity in her voice that he no longer understands:
‘Frank!’
She feels the need to wipe her eyes with one of those lace handkerchiefs she is in the habit of drenching in perfume. As for Minna, she hasn’t moved, hasn’t said anything. He sees her standing there stiff and pale, with tears running down her cheeks.
He hasn’t thought about it lately: it is his missing teeth, his beard, and probably also his red eyes, his jacket that has really lost its shape. He hasn’t taken the trouble to change his shirt.
That upsets them, obviously. Not him. He is almost as cold as the old man. From the first glance, he has noticed that his mother is dressed in grey and white. It’s an old habit that takes hold of her every time she wants to look distinguished. That was more or less how she used to dress when she came to see him at school – the real one – and even then, although they hadn’t yet come back into fashion, she would wear transparent half-veils.
She smells clean. She smells of rice powder. Which means she has come from home. If she was in prison, she wouldn’t have been able to spruce herself up like this.
Why has she brought Minna? To see them, you would think they were the mother and the female cousin come to pay a visit to the young man. Minna looks every inch the cousin, with her sky-blue suit, white blouse and almost total absence of make-up. She has got thinner.
He looks around for the suitcase, the parcel they have brought him. There are none in the room, and he thinks he understands; Lotte’s embarrassment proves to him that he’s right. She doesn’t know how to start. It’s the old man she is looking at, much more than her son – maybe to make it clear to Frank that she hasn’t come of her own free will?
‘They were good enough to let us come and see you, Frank. So I asked if I could bring Minna, who’s always talking about you, and this gentleman kindly gave us permission.’
It isn’t true. It’s an idea of the old man’s, he would swear to it. Two weeks ago, he talked about Bertha, a week ago about Anny. Now, with his air of stopping off along the way, he has got to Minna. He doesn’t need to hurry, because he has her to hand. Minna looks away, embarrassed.
It’s clever all the same. Because Frank doesn’t believe in chance. The old man has finally understood that if there was one girl, among all those who have been through Lotte’s, for whom Frank might have different feelings, it was Minna.
In actual fact, Frank doesn’t like her. He was deliberately hard towards her. He no longer remembers exactly what he did to her. There are many things he did outside that he has wiped from his memory. But he feels somewhat ashamed in front of Minna. He is aware that he behaved badly to her.
All three of them are standing. It’s a bit ridiculous. The old man is the first to become aware of it, and has two chairs moved forwards for Lotte and her companion. With his hand, he authorizes Frank to use the stool from the seated interrogations.
Then he resumes
his absent air. To see him, you would swear that what is happening has nothing to do with him. He leafs through some files, then goes back to his pieces of paper and sorts through them.
‘I have to talk to you, Frank. Don’t be afraid.’
Why does she add these last words? What has he got to be afraid of?
‘I’ve done a lot of thinking in these past six weeks.’
Six weeks already? Or only? The word strikes him. He would like to look at her less severely, but he can’t. For her part, she doesn’t dare raise her eyes to him for fear of bursting into tears. Does he really look so bad because he is missing two front teeth and has stopped taking care of himself?
‘You know, Frank, I’m sure that if you have done something wrong, even something serious, it’s because you let yourself be led astray. You’re too young. I know you. I was wrong to let you go around with friends who are older than you.’
She’s lying badly. Usually, Lotte’s a good liar. Talking about her clients, or about men in general, she happily admits to taking them for a ride. Is she deliberately lying badly, to confirm that she is only here because she was ordered to come?
There is no car in the courtyard. They must have come by tram.
‘Some important people have advised me, Frank.’
‘Who?’
‘Mr Hamling, for example.’
The fact that she utters that name means she is allowed to.
‘I know you don’t like him very much, but you’re wrong. You’ll understand one day. He’s an old friend, maybe my only friend. He knew me when I was a little girl and, if I hadn’t been so stupid . . .’
Frank’s eyes have narrowed. A thought has occurred to him, one he has never had before. Mightn’t there be a good reason for the chief inspector coming to see them so often, being so familiar despite Lotte’s more than dubious position, giving the impression that he has taken her under his wing, assuming the right to talk to Frank as he sometimes has?
He is almost as tense as before. His face has suddenly started looking like it did when he was having a particularly bad day back in Green Street, and Lotte, who might have been about to impart him a confidence, beats a retreat.
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