by Max Landorff
‘And how did Professor Kufner judge the work of the American therapists?’ Maler asked.
‘Outwardly he condemned them, of course, and also in our interview. But I didn’t really believe him. Because deep down Kufner followed a philosophy which many modern psychotherapists believe in: there is no one truth, only the construct of many personal truths. And that particularly applies to the soul. Let me put it differently: if a patient has panic attacks and receives a plausible explanation for why these attacks occur then this explanation helps him. Is the explanation the truth? Doesn’t matter, the main thing is it works.’ That had been Professor Kufner’s area of research, Treysa said. Kufner had talked about new constructs, which patient and therapist should build together. Kufner, according to Treysa, always talked about clients, he didn’t like the word patients.
Maler wanted to say something just when the parrot from next door interrupted. Two or three times the word ‘woof’ was clearly audible.
Treysa told the story of a dinner with Kufner in Vienna. Kufner’s wife had joined them, herself a psychologist. It had been a really nice evening. A beautiful restaurant, wonderful food, Tafelspitz (boiled beef, the local speciality) and the superb fluffy desert, Salzburger Nockerln. ‘Well, we all had a bit too much to drink. And at one point Mrs Kufner told the story of how her husband had once pacified a particularly irritating friend over coffee and cake.’
‘Pacified?’ asked Maler.
‘Sounds odd, doesn’t it? But he simply put this exhausting and always much too noisy friend into some kind of trance over coffee. I followed up, of course, and Mrs Kufner said her husband had used certain code words, which he repeated again and again in his conversation with the woman. In a way he reprogrammed a loud woman into a quiet one. If you ask me, Inspector, a commercial winner.’ Treysa laughed.
Maler also laughed and then finished his water. ‘Tell me, in your article you are talking about the extremely controversial professor of psychiatry. Why was he so controversial? I guess not because of these coffee and cake experiences.’
‘I’ve already said that Kufner was very charismatic. And he was prone to acting out the genius who changes the world. He once told me: “just imagine you could re-programme all the sick souls in the world...”’
Maler repeated his question: ‘That’s why he was so controversial? A new version of the Frankenstein-theme? Only now in psychology?’
‘That’s about it. Many of the so-called serious scientists don’t like megalomania, especially in others. In addition to that there were always those rumours which circulated about Kufner. Some people said Kufner was very rich. He himself didn’t talk about it. But there were persistent rumours that he made his services available to influential bosses of industry. There was even talk of involvement with some secret service or other. There was never any proof. Kufner only laughed when you spoke to him about it.’
The conversation had come to an end, and Treysa accompanied the inspector to the door.
Maler asked: ‘Do you think it possible that somebody murdered/killed Kufner because of his work?
‘You are asking the wrong person there. I’m only the little editor of an even smaller psychology magazine.’
‘How did you become the editor, by the way?’
‘In my case, it was the fact that I was a therapist myself once upon a time, not even a bad one, but nobody liked me. I was too negative for them somehow. That’s why I became editor of my own magazine.’
*
When Inspector Maler had disappeared into the lift, Treysa went back into his office. He had not yet sat down before he picked up his mobile phone and dialled Gabriel Tretjak’s number.
‘Hi. The inspector was here just now. He asked me lots of questions about Kufner.’
‘Did he ask you about me?’ asked Tretjak.
‘No,’ said Treysa.
Oberronnberg, Lower Bavaria, 11am
Father Joseph Lichtinger unlocked the little church in Oberronnberg with mixed feelings. It was just after 11 o’clock in the morning and he was almost an hour early for the appointment. But he wanted to collect his thoughts a little bit. He had been to the hospital this morning to visit the old farmer’s wife Sigl whose eyes were dimmed by glaucoma, and the mechanic Staiger, who had just had an operation on his gall bladder. And he’d had to administer the final sacraments to a nine-year-old girl. She had been knocked off her bicycle last night at the nasty corner near the station in Neufahrn, where so many accidents had happened already because everybody collided there; the pedestrians coming out of the underpass, the cyclists from the Marktberg, and the lorry drivers using the old commercial road. And little Jacqueline, called Jackie. Lord, be good to her.
In the little church of Oberronnberg regular mass had not been held for a long time. The church had been incorporated into Joseph Lichtinger’s congregation of Grisbach and was only opened for special occasions like baptisms, memorial services and now and again an intimate wedding. It was situated at a distance on a hill, with big cornfields in front and the forest behind it. Inside there were ten rows of wooden benches on either side of the aisle and a simple altar at the front. On the wall behind the altar hung the gem of the church: a relatively big, hand-carved oak cross, which was quite famous around here because its Jesus did not appear to be suffering but angry. The little steeple was directly above the altar and the bell rope was wrapped around a brass hook on the wall beside it.
Lichtinger sat down in the front row and lifted his eyes towards the cross. He was of medium height and had an athletic figure, which even the badly-cut black priest’s outfit could not obscure completely. In his youth, he had been an active gymnast. Horizontal bar. And he still played football, as a member of the senior team of Grisbach. His most striking feature was his straw blond hair and bright blue eyes, which had always been the cause of much ridicule here at the place of his birth. Joseph Lichtinger was one of four brothers, the youngest, and they all had these eyes and this hair, despite the fact that both their father and mother had brown hair and dark eyes. A good-looking Swede must have passed through the area once upon a time, so the joke went when the four boys entered elementary school in Grisbach. His brothers had been dispersed all over the world. He had initially gone abroad as well, but then he had come back wearing a black suit and white collar. The nickname ‘Swede’ had stuck, priest or not.
He had not heard from Gabriel Tretjak for two years and had not seen him... How long ago must that have been? Tretjak had called last night, and the sound of his voice had unsettled Lichtinger.
‘What’s up?’ he had asked, ‘is there anything wrong... in our affairs?’
‘Maybe,’ Tretjak had answered. ‘Possibly. We’ve got to talk.’
He could come over straight away, Lichtinger had proposed. But Tretjak had declined. He wanted to go stargazing first. At least in that respect nothing had changed. A clear sky had always put an appointment with Tretjak at risk.
Oberronnberg was not a well-lit church, the windows were on the small side and colourfully painted with scenes from the New Testament. They did not let in a lot of light. Maybe it was because of this strange twilight at midday that Father Joseph Lichtinger – the Swede – suddenly became very calm and let his thoughts wander back a long way into his own past. His memories were connected with warm feelings as if he were not remembering himself but another person he had once known well and liked, but now did not know what had become of him. That person had been a physics student back then, and for a brief moment now in the little church he thought he could solve a differential calculus without difficulty despite the fact that this had been over 20 years ago. The lectures had taken place in the southern wing of Munich’s Technical University, a concrete building which had been razed in the meantime. At that point he had owned a dark blue racing bike, a Montarino with ten gears, a Dunlop Maxplay squash racket, and he had inhabited a student pad in Freimann. He had a girlfriend at the time, Helen, an English girl from Bristol – and a best friend. Ga
briel, a guy who had showed up at a lecture on theoretical physics one day, who looked foreign somehow – you would not be surprised to see him at a PKK rally – but who had opened his mouth and spoken with a broad South Tyrolean accent.
He was not a student of the Technical University, but was reading psychology and philosophy at the other Munich university, the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität. But he was interested in the theory of relativity– the expansion of time, the curvature of space – and quantum mechanics. At some point they happened to be sitting next to each other and immediately started arguing. ‘If I move much faster than you,’ Tretjak had said, alluding to the phenomenon of the theory of relativity, ‘then my time passes more slowly than yours and you age faster. Does that also apply if I think faster than you?’ It was now clear to Joseph Lichtinger that this particular discussion had never ended: throughout the following two years, it had continued during lectures, in cafes, at nightly parties, while walking along the Isar river... it had not even been interrupted when the two had not been together because they had only used the breaks to gather new ammunition: questions, phenomena, theses. Fundamentally, it had all been about two questions. Can one predict the future if one knows all the facts, the premises? And on the other side of the same coin: how fundamentally can one alter the course of matters, redirect them, if one alters these facts?
They had incorporated every discipline of science into their discussions: like junkies constantly needing a new fix they had read biochemistry, the newest discoveries about the brain, research into human communication... They had placed bets. Can we succeed in manipulating the couple at the window over there into having a flaming row? In most cases it was Tretjak who bet on something like that, carefully observing them first and then taking action. For example, he knocked over a glass of wine, which emptied itself over the dress of an already fidgety woman. Another time he pressured a shy man into a conversation, which annoyed the woman... Then they just sat back and watched.
They had played games. At one point Tretjak had hired a private detective to have him, Lichtinger, watched. They had such fun watching the guy despair because they stage-managed the whole thing, mixing in a bit of quantum mechanics. Tretjak donned a blond wig and the appropriate clothes, turning himself into a copy of Lichtinger, and he arranged for the detective to observe Lichtinger getting off his bike and walking towards the entrance of a building. But at the same time the exact opposite would take place as well: Lichtinger leaving the building and getting on his bike. Tretjak was mainly interested in the end of the game, namely the report of the detective. He was fascinated by how the human brain could rearrange what it had perceived until it appeared logical, until it fitted its own way of looking at the world.
‘You can challenge anything,’ Lichtinger had once said, ‘except the laws of physics.’
‘That’s what Newton said as well,’ Tretjak had laughed, ‘and along came Einstein. And then Einstein said the same thing. But then Heisenberg shows up.’
Following a sudden impulse, Lichtinger got up, stepped behind the altar and took a book of matches and two big, white altar candles from a wooden box. He placed them on the altar and lit them. Two candles for the two young men they had been. And it was as if the white wax was taking over the warm, forgiving memories, as if they were only continuing to glow in their flames. The warmth had faded from Lichtinger’s mind. He thought of where the boisterous games had eventually taken them. He thought of the old grey cardboard suitcase, which was lying amongst the junk in his attic, seemingly carelessly tossed there by mistake. Inside the suitcase was a steel strongbox with a number lock. And inside the strongbox was money, lots of money, in orderly bundles. What was sitting in the attic of the vicarage in Grisbach was 50 million dollars.
The road up to the little church in Oberronnberg had no tarmac surface. Even before noticing the sounds of a car engine, one could hear the wheels on the rough gravel. Joseph Lichtinger went to the entrance to the church, opened the door and stepped outside. He saw the charcoal-grey BMW approach. The sunlight made it impossible to recognise Tretjak’s face behind the windscreen, but the headlights of the car flashed a greeting.
‘I once asked you a question,’ Tretjak said, ‘a long time ago. I wanted to know what I would have to envisage when it is said that physicists are searching for a global formula. Do you remember?’
Lichtinger looked at him and only shook his head in a tired way. Tretjak was wearing blue jeans, black loafers and a lightweight black pullover. He was sitting on the altar step, on the floor, next to his open laptop. Lichtinger was sitting opposite him, in the first row of wooden benches. He had locked the door of the church behind them. The first thing Tretjak had done was to extinguish the two candles. ‘Permit me...’
One couldn’t really say that he had indulged in small talk. He had started up his computer and had rapidly filled Lichtinger in on everything that had happened in the past few days. The message in the hotel in Sri Lanka, the murder of Kerkhoff, the curious occurrence with his cleaning lady, the floral missive and now the murder of Kufner. Tretjak had documented everything on his computer; even a picture of the racehorse Nu Pagadi had appeared on the screen. As in the past he was eager to be precise and did not leave out any detail – they sat there for over an hour. Just to complete the picture, as he put it, Tretjak had told him finally about his client Melanie Schwarz and the disgusting politician.
Tretjak rubbed his forehead. ‘Back then you replied to my question by saying that I should imagine a couple in love having dinner together, man and woman, a beautiful, candle-lit meal with champagne, fitting music from the CD player – maybe he had invited her and had cooked the food. Finally they end up in the bedroom, leaving the empty plates on the table.’
Tretjak looked at him again. ‘Now you remember. You said I should imagine scientists from another world, from a different part of the universe, where they know nothing about us humans. They investigate the dinner table, because that’s the only thing they’ve got. They measure everything, analyse everything, every particle is sent to the lab to be checked: the remainder of the sauce, the lipstick on the glass, the traces of sweat on the napkins. They put forward their theses, then reject them. And then they go on analysing, even more precisely. At one point they realise that there were living beings present, beings who need to eat and drink – maybe they even realise that these beings had a language, because the music gave that away. You explained to me that the scientists found out a lot about what happened that evening. But there was one fundamental realisation missing, and only that realisation completed the picture.’ Tretjak paused. It was very quiet now. ‘Only when they discover love, this phenomenon which is not made out of anything, only then will they fully comprehend us humans and what went on that evening. That’s how you explained it to me back then. The global formula is that all encompassing idea – the physicists are not just looking for some numbers, but for the big idea that explains our world.’
Lichtinger nodded. Yes, he remembered. That’s how he saw it back then. Today, however, he wasn’t so sure anymore where they were, those theoretical physicists. He saw Tretjak get up, with arms akimbo, and look down at his laptop, which was standing on the stone step in front of him. ‘I don’t know what’s happening here, Joseph. I am standing in front of it like your extra terrestrials in front of the dinner table.’
Lichtinger thought of the name somebody had supposedly given Tretjak. ‘The Fixer is at a complete loss?’
Tretjak looked up. ‘And the man of God? Does he know what to do?’
Lichtinger had now got up as well. ‘You are not really at a loss, Gabriel, are you? You know exactly what is happening here. Nu Pagadi. A bill is being presented, in Russian. Why did you come? Do you finally want to tell me exactly what happened back then? What exactly you...’ he stressed this word, repeated it, ‘what exactly you did back then?’
‘Do you want to hear my confession, Father? Are you kidding?’ Tretjak’s voice turned cold. ‘You know
exactly what happened back then. You were there, you know what we did and what we wanted to do.’ He looked up to the ceiling. ‘And your Almighty knows it as well.’
‘I only know your version of the story, don’t forget that,’ Lichtinger said. ‘Your version of the story and the money, that was all you served up to me. And if your version is the truth then what’s happening right now shouldn’t be puzzling. Somebody wants their money back. And that somebody is pretty angry that you got it off him back then.’
‘Somebody...’ Tretjak shook his head. ‘That somebody doesn’t exist anymore.’ He rummaged around in his trouser pockets. ‘Do you have a toilet here?’ he asked.
Lichtinger immediately noticed the South Tyrolean accent and he almost smiled. ‘No,’ he said, ‘I’m sorry.’
‘And water?’
‘We’ve got water. Just behind the screen you’ll find the tap.’
Tretjak took a few steps, moved the screen away, opened the tap over the little basin and didn’t even try to conceal that he was taking some pills.
‘Aren’t you afraid?’ he asked when he turned around.
‘Fear... No, not anymore. Of all the emotions inside me connected to that effing suitcase, there is only one left over now: I am ashamed.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Tretjak, ‘Saint Joseph.’
‘Maybe nobody knows about me...’
‘I want to tell you something,’ Tretjak interrupted him, ‘whoever is behind this knows a hell of a lot, he knows my life inside out, he knows much too much. We can therefore assume that he also knows about you.’
‘Isn’t that your doctrine,’ said Lichtinger. ‘Know everything about the key person. Maybe you said so to these guys back then.’ Lichtinger remembered how Tretjak had drawn diagrams on pieces of paper, like spider webs. In the middle was the most important person. Now he asked himself whether Tretjak had mapped out such a diagram for him, his former friend. How much did Tretjak know about him? Everything? This thought unnerved him.