Rain Girl

by Gabi Kreslehner

  He paused for a moment, folded his hands, and put them up to his pursed lips. “Although I really can’t imagine her . . .”

  He cleared his throat and gestured around the room. “I mean, you can see for yourself, our restaurant is . . .”

  “Not suited for the lower classes?” Arthur finished the sentence, causing the maître d’ to break out in a fit of coughing.

  When he’d recovered, the maître d’ made one last attempt. “Why is this so important anyway?”

  Arthur sighed. “We’re trying to get a picture of her last few hours alive, and any small detail might be of importance. So could you please ask your colleagues? Otherwise I’ll have to, and I probably won’t be as discreet as you.”

  The man coughed slightly again, took the photo between his thumb and index finger as if it were poisonous, smiled unhappily, and disappeared.

  Poor bastard, Arthur thought.

  When he returned he was accompanied by a Marilyn Monroe–like buxom blonde. She was easy on the eyes in her tight skirt and fitted blouse, which showed off her curves.

  “My colleague,” the maître d’ said in a surprised tone of voice, “does indeed have some information for you.”

  Arthur stood up politely, and the woman smiled into his eyes and nodded as he presented his ID. When she continued to smile, ignoring the ID, he started to feel a little stupid, wondering if her deep smile wasn’t directed at him at all. Then they sat down.

  51

  “I’m going to Berlin,” she’d said. “We can’t meet anymore. You’ll have to find someone else. Or you could try monogamy for a change.”

  She giggled but quickly turned serious again. “Your wife’s lovely—why do you cheat on her?”

  “Don’t be stupid!” he said. “She’s nothing.”

  They were quiet a moment. “All right,” he said then. “Go to Berlin. I’ll come with you. I’ll leave my wife. We’ll get married, and I’ll find a new job.”

  Marie laughed, stabbing at her fish. “You’re crazy,” she said. “No, you’ll do no such thing.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Yes I will. I can’t lose you again.”

  She lifted her head and gave him a strange look. “What do you mean again?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “Nothing at all.”

  But she already knew anyway.

  52

  “Yes I do have information,” the Monroe look-alike said. She’d finally released Arthur’s eyes, pursed her lips, and was tapping the photo on the table with the perfectly manicured fingernail of her right index finger.

  “Of course I recognize her. She was in the private room with her guy. They came in Monday night around ten o’clock, acting like they didn’t want to be recognized by anyone.” After a brief pause she added, “At least he was.”

  She fluttered her blue eyelids, laughing a deep, cooing laugh.

  “Why didn’t you contact us earlier?” Arthur asked. “Her picture was all over the newspapers.”

  She tilted her head to one side and put on a rueful expression. “Oh, you know,” she said, “unfortunately, I’m not much of a newspaper reader. I never got into it. But now you’re here, thank God.”

  She beamed at him sincerely, which made his heart beat faster.

  “He was so hot for her, I can tell you that,” she said with some amusement. “Horny as a bull, excuse the expression. I can tell things like that, believe me.”

  “I have no doubt about it,” Arthur said, losing himself in Monroe’s eyes, which were at least as blue as her eyelids. He realized he was feeling the same way about her. “Yes,” he said. “I bet you can tell with absolute certainty. But can you describe the man, too?”

  She could.

  She described him so thoroughly and accurately that Arthur’s jaw dropped. He imagined Marilyn must have spent two hours standing next to the poor man, devouring him with her eyes.

  “Wow!” Arthur said admiringly. “I’m blown away! Would you mind coming by my office tomorrow so we can prepare a sketch? We hardly ever get such a detailed description. You’re incredibly observant.”

  She gave him a pleased smile, and he was sure she had talents in other areas as well. Then she surprised him again.

  “Yes,” she said, slowly licking her bottom lip. “I am, aren’t I, Herr Detective? But I have to admit I had plenty of time to study him closely. After all, I spent two years in his class.”

  53

  At dinner, she asked, “Do you know where I’m from?”

  And he said yes, he did. He’d known from the start.

  The name had made him sit up at first. He used to know a carpenter named Gleichenbach in his village. Then the principal’s secretary brought her into his classroom, and she stood there. He looked at her, and he stopped breathing. The room began to sway, and his legs practically gave way.

  He asked the secretary to take over for a moment—just for a short while. They were writing an exam . . . all she had to do . . . he really needed to, just quickly . . .

  He walked out of the room, ignoring the puzzled look on the secretary’s face and the students’ giggling. Then he started to run, which calmed him down. When he reached the staff toilet he locked himself into a cubicle, leaned against the wall, tried to stop shaking—to breathe—and inhaled two cigarettes so deeply his lungs burned.

  Had he seen a ghost?

  He soon found out that it was much simpler than that. She was the daughter of the carpenter from his village. But more importantly, she was Judith’s daughter.

  “Everything all right?” the secretary asked with a sneer when he returned to his classroom. “Did you see a ghost?”

  He smiled uneasily. “No, no, don’t worry, I just remembered . . .”

  She shook her head and left.

  The class had been taking a chemistry exam. Judith’s daughter looked at him with Judith’s eyes out of Judith’s face.

  He cleared his throat. “Your name?” he asked.

  “Gleichenbach,” she said. “Marie.” And smiled.

  She hit on him. She could sense that he wanted her. She could always sense things like that.

  He was slightly annoyed. Until now he’d never had to pay for sex. But she was Judith’s daughter. That changed everything.

  She called him at the most impossible times from the most impossible places and ordered him to come. “That’s just how I do things,” she had said with a little smile. “That’s how I do it with all of them.”

  She didn’t even pretend he was the only one. In a soft voice she told him what and how she’d already done it with the others, and what she’d do in the future, while his breathing became hoarse and he drowned in her.

  He lost control as she chased him from climax to climax, like a tiger chasing its prey. Often he lost all sense of time and Marie and Judith became one and the same.

  If anyone had told him he was plunging headfirst into disaster, he wouldn’t have believed it.

  They drank champagne. It tickled as it went down. She barely touched her fish.

  “Listen,” she said. “I’ve fallen in love.”

  “With me?” he asked. “That’s good.”

  “No,” she said. “No, not with you. You know that.”

  He gave her a dark look. We can solve this problem, he thought.

  She brushed her hand through his dark hair. “You’re smart and handsome,” she said. His heart twitched, it sounded like good-bye.

  We can solve this problem, he thought again.

  Before dessert he slid his hand between her legs. He traced her collarbone with his tongue, and then her neck. “You taste so good,” he whispered.

  She hesitated at first, but then she let him continue. “No charge today,” she said. “Because it’s the last time, and because I’m happy.”

  He nodded, feeling humiliated, but he nodded. They drank champagne; it tickled in their throats.

  She ran out into the rain, arms wide open, and said: “Take me to Berlin.”

  “When?”
he asked. “Now?”

  “Yes!” she shouted into the rain. “Now, right now, and we’ll be there by the morning!”

  “Yes, OK, I’ll take you to Berlin. I’d drive you anywhere, wherever you want to go.”

  He took this for a good sign. It fueled his hopes. He was tipsy enough—they hadn’t stopped at one bottle.

  They had stopped at the rest area because he needed to pee. When he returned, she was sitting on a bench underneath the ugly tent-like shelter, talking on the phone. That was when he first began to see red. He sat down next to her, but she just kept talking as if he wasn’t even there. That irritated him.

  “Great,” she said. “So we’ll meet there tomorrow. You’ll have to get up early. Yes, one o’clock. I’ll be there.”

  She laughed. Cooed. “I can’t wait to see you.”

  Like a pigeon, he thought, disgusting.

  Then he confronted her. “What’s that supposed to mean, ‘one o’clock; I’ll be there.’ What’s all that about?” he asked. “Who did you call? Who are you meeting tomorrow?”

  She gave him a blank look. “That’s none of your business,” she said.

  Her bluntness had pushed him over the edge. “What are you trying to say?” he shouted. “I’m driving you to Berlin, remember? So I think it’s damn well my business if you’re meeting someone else there!”

  She glared at him. “You already got your reward tonight, remember?”

  He thought he was dreaming. How could he have been so wrong?

  “But I love you,” he said. “We’re going to Berlin together.”

  She shook her head, stunned. “No,” she said. “No, we aren’t.”

  “I’ll leave my wife,” he said. “I told you! Only an hour ago! And I’m coming to Berlin with you.”

  “No!” she said. “No!”

  She shrank back slightly, as if she sensed danger, like a faint vibration in the air.

  He laughed, trying to defuse the situation.

  “Come on,” he said. “Relax. Don’t be so serious. Where’s your smile? I’ve got a bottle of wine in the car. I’ll get it and we’ll crack it open. Then you can tell me all about this guy you’ve been talking to. And then we’ll tell him to forget about it, OK?”

  He stood up and walked to the car, getting the bottle and a corkscrew from the trunk. “I’m afraid we’ll have to drink from the bottle,” he said. “I don’t have any glasses for madame.”

  He bowed gallantly and waited for amused laughter. But it didn’t come. She was in defense mode.

  “Listen,” she said. “There’s something you don’t understand, and I want to sort it out once and for all. I’m going to Berlin with Ben. Not with you, but with Ben. Ben’s a friend—my boyfriend. We’re both going to school there, and we’re going to live together. I’m meeting him tomorrow at one o’clock at the train station. Do you understand?”

  He just stood there, bent forward, breathing heavily. He was holding the bottle in one hand and the corkscrew in the other. His eyes had narrowed to hostile slits. His mouth had taken on a bitter expression.

  Marie’s heart contracted with fear. She lifted her arms.

  “Don’t worry about taking me to Berlin,” she said, frightened by the trembling in her voice. “It’s just too far, and we’re both tired. Let’s just go home now. I’ll take the train in the morning.”

  Slowly she edged closer to him. She wanted to touch his face and comfort him in her good-bye.

  He slapped her hand away, angry, hurt. The bottle slid out of his hand and went flying through the air, crashing onto the pavement and narrowly missing the car. The bottle broke with a muffled sound and the wine disappeared in the rain. He took out a cigarette, and then another.

  With some effort, they both calmed down.

  Because they knew there was no other way. Because they knew they had to calm down. They had to do something, soon. They couldn’t stay here forever, at this stupid rest area under this stupid roof.

  He went and got another bottle from the car.

  Cautiously, Marie suggested that maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. Maybe they’d had enough to drink, and they still had to get back to town. If they got caught at a police checkpoint, he’d lose his license.

  He gave her a dark look and tried to think of what to do. Then he sent the second bottle flying and started to laugh. He laughed and laughed until he wasn’t sure if he’d ever be able to stop, until he wasn’t sure if he was still laughing or if he was crying.

  Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, Marie sat down next to him. He began hoping again, and told her he longed for her, he longed for her so much.

  He asked her to sleep with him one more time, here and now. He started to beg, brushing her neck with the back of his index finger. He felt her tremble. “Come on, please!” he said and felt his heart beating faster. He felt alive, like he always did when he was with her. “Baby, do it for me, sleep with me. I need this now, please.”

  He’d never had to beg before in his life. Women had always been eager to fall into his arms and then into his bed. At first he’d been surprised, but then he got used to it and simply accepted everything they were willing to do for him and give him. They were drawn to his mysterious silence and his eyes, distant and unreadable. It made them want to explore. They didn’t understand that he couldn’t lose himself. They didn’t understand anything, but that didn’t matter.

  Karen? She was the least important. The least essential. She’d given him an alibi for his search—she was nice, servile, never asked questions. She was a little mouse keeping him warm when he was cold, because sometimes he was cold.

  He was always gentle and tender, always gave them what they wanted. But they didn’t make him feel alive, none of them, and when he left—and he always left abruptly—they whined and cried and claimed he treated women badly.

  He couldn’t understand why. He’d never raised a hand against a woman since the one time, so how could they say he treated women badly?

  Because he didn’t see them and left them alone. Because he drove them crazy but didn’t let them get close, protecting himself so they couldn’t get under his skin.

  But wasn’t that what had attracted them in the first place?

  That shut them up. And him?

  Once—only once—had he experienced the humiliation of being left, the pain of rejection. Back on that terrible afternoon when Judith had walked away and disappeared around the corner in her white tunic and white pants and pinned-up hair, taking his life with her.

  Ever since then he had searched. For her, for Judith, for his life. Yet he knew it was hopeless, she was lost to him—forever. Because of that one desperate moment, she was gone forever. As far removed from him as if she’d died.

  And then . . . she turned up, this one here. Marie. And brought back the magic feelings lost so long ago.

  And now?

  She humiliated him. No—worse than that—she was going to leave him. Just like her mother did.

  “Come on!” he said. “Come on, let’s do it. I need to feel you, right now.”

  But she said no. No, at least not until they were back in town. Then she’d take him back to her room, sneak him into the building, into her room. It’d be so exciting, an adrenaline rush with Hauer in the office just down the hall. He’d love it, he’d see.

  She humiliated him. It pierced through him like a stinger.

  She pulled out all the stops to convince him. She wanted to go back. She was getting cold in her light dress. She started shivering, goose bumps on her arms, her nipples hard against her dress. Why did he have to keep looking at her, fondling her?

  She pushed him away, gently but firmly.

  “Come on,” she said. “Let’s go. It’s cold; I’m freezing. Let’s do it later, in my room. I want you.”

  Her voice was flattering, cooing, but that was a mistake, he saw through it.

  Like a pigeon, he thought, Disgusting, go fuck yourself you stupid bitch!

  �
�Give it to me!” he said. “Give it to me right now!” He stood with his legs apart, opened his trousers. Nothing was decided yet. Things could still go either way.

  But what did she do?

  Nothing. Looked for something to talk about and chose the wrong topic. Her mistake.

  54

  The newspaper article was about a hit-and-run accident in which a nine-year-old girl had died. In the paper her face looked happy and curious, just like a typical nine-year-old.

  The detectives ordered the file.

  The case dated back more than twenty years and had never been solved. The officer working on the case had retired shortly after, and a year later died of a brain hemorrhage, so they couldn’t interview him. There hadn’t been a single real suspect back then; no one had seen or heard anything. The storm around the time of the accident would have allowed the person or persons to flee the scene.

  The girl and her family had been vacationing from up north, visiting relatives down here. She had been playing by the Danube while her parents had gone to buy groceries for dinner. Pasta was on the menu. Lisa had become friends with the children from the village and wanted to stay while they went shopping. When the storm hit, the other children had scattered.

  The parents became worried because of the storm and came back to the beach to look for her. Around the same time, an anonymous woman called the emergency number to notify the police of an accident. She described the scene and asked for an ambulance. But help came too late, and the parents had to take a dead girl home.

  “What a tragic story,” Franza said, and put the Lisa Fürst file down.

  She looked at the photo again. What was its connection to the newspaper article? And what was the connection between the Fürst and Gleichenbach cases?

  Franza sighed and held the picture right up to her eyes, but it didn’t help. The faces were too small and it was almost impossible to make out anything.