‘And now I’m supposed to kill him! Isn’t it that what you’re saying? Well, I’ll be happy to. I’ve been waiting for this opportunity for years. But couldn’t you have chosen a better place than Schlossberg for that kind of thing?’
‘You just take it easy, Lankau. It’s an excellent place. At three o’clock in the afternoon all the school children will have left. At that time of day, in the middle of September, there won’t be a single observer in the colonnade. You’ll be able to get your revenge in peace.’ The old man dipped another biscuit into his coffee. It was a Saturday privilege that his doctor would have castigated him for. Kröner knew this from his own son. Diabetic patients had a habit of breaking the rules. ‘In the meantime, you’ll see that both your families go away for the weekend, won’t you, Wilfried? And I suggest we meet at five o’clock at Dattler’s when it’s all over. Then we can get rid of the body together. I’ll find a solution to that little problem, don’t worry. But until then we have some things to do. First and foremost, yet another little job for you, my dear Wilfried.’
Kröner looked at him absent-mindedly. He had been wondering what he was going to say to his wife. She would ask questions. Peter Stich placed his hand on top of his.
‘Before you do anything else, Wilfried, you must pay Erich Blumenfeld a visit.’
Chapter 38
Feelings of joy and sorrow, tension and relief, anxiety and sadness kept on sweeping over him in unpredictable and self-contradictory waves. One moment he stopped breathing, the next moment he was gasping for breath.
His tears blurred the contours of the surroundings.
James hadn’t made it. It didn’t come as a surprise, but as an accusation.
The feeling of having let James down was no longer merely latent.
‘Have you seen the grave?’ Welles enquired at the other end of the line. Bryan could all but see his incredulous face.
‘No, not yet.’
‘Are you sure he’s dead?’
‘The nurse thought so, yes.’
‘But you haven’t seen the grave yet! Shall I carry on until Monday as we agreed?’
‘Do as you like, Keith. I think we’ve reached our goal.’
‘You think so.’ Keith accentuated Bryan’s reservation. ‘You’re not certain?’
Bryan sighed. ‘Certain?’ He rubbed the back of his neck. ‘Yes, I suppose I am. I’ll let you know when I know more.’
One of the waitresses gave Bryan an indignant look. The pay phone was their greatest obstacle between the kitchen and the cafeteria. They all nodded towards a notice printed on the wall above the telephone. Bryan couldn’t understand what it said, but presumed it referred customers to one of the phone boxes he’d seen on the ground floor of the department store. Bryan shrugged his shoulders every time they edged past him with overfilled trays, shaking their heads. It had been his third phone call. Or rather his third attempt.
After several tries he could only conclude that Laureen was not at home in Canterbury. There was a good chance of her having accompanied Bridget back to Cardiff.
The next call was to Munich. They hadn’t had need for him in the Olympic City. The exchange of words was brief. They spoke solely of England’s victory in the women’s pentathlon. Apparently this triumph overshadowed everything else. Mary Peters had exceeded the magical 4,800 by one single point. It was sensational. The world record was within reach. Despite pauses in the conversation, neither party found occasion to touch upon the tragic events of recent days. The desecration of the Games had been discussed, screamed and written to death even before the victims had been buried. But in sports, the show must go on.
His heart was hammering at a dangerous pace when he finally reached Hotel Rappens’ entrance on Münsterplatz. The bar was almost full. Bryan saw nothing and no one else but Petra. She was sitting by the door facing the square in her overclothes, sipping a large glass of draft beer. The froth on the uppermost part of the glass had already solidified. She must have been waiting for some time. So his being early didn’t matter.
It was ten minutes to two.
Before the hour struck, she had deprived him of his last hope. The realisation made Bryan’s lips tremble. Petra kept her eyes on the table and shook her head slightly. Then she looked at him and put her hand on his arm.
The taxi driver had to ask three times before he understood where Bryan wanted to go. Bryan was already regretting not having stayed with Petra so they could try to come to terms with their common past. But he had no choice.
He simply had to get out of there.
She had confirmed that Gerhart Peuckert was dead. Once again the shock was instantaneous. James had been buried in the common grave of a memorial grove – another shock that took Bryan unawares. Many people had been killed in the raid on 15th January 1945, and many had been buried without having been identified – a fact that dawned on him only now. James had been laid to rest without a name, without a stone to mark his grave. That was what was worst of all.
The conversations with Captain Wilkens, who had guided the Allied bombers to the hospital, came back all too vividly now.
Painfully vividly.
When Bryan finally reached the Kuranstalt Saint-Ursula where he’d parked the mutilated Volkswagen, his mind was in complete turmoil.
Everyone reacts differently to having his or her patience put to the test under pressure. Bryan remembered clearly how James always became sleepy in such situations and instantly looked around for some place to stretch out. That’s how it had been prior to taking off on a raid, and that’s how it had been on exam days at Eton and Cambridge. A gruff exam leader had often had to shake some life into James before he could sit down and face the examiners.
This was an enviable talent, and a blessing.
But it had never been like that for Bryan. Waiting made him restless. It made him get up from his chair, then sit down again. Constantly. He had to wriggle his feet, run out into the fresh air, hurriedly scan the syllabus again, dream of freedom. Do something.
This feeling overpowered him now for the first time in ages. The waiting fever had taken possession of him. There was an hour before he could go up Schlossberg to see his best friend’s grave. An hour where agitation and irrationality would reign. He was under pressure and he was impatient.
He looked at his wreck of a Volkswagen again. It stood out from the other cars on the street. Although hard to imagine, it was filthier than ever. There wasn’t a square inch that wasn’t covered with dust. It was no longer black, but grey.
His intention had been to drive the Volkswagen over to the little bodega by the railway bridge and park it there so its previous owner could fetch it again, as they’d agreed.
Bryan folded his arms on the roof of the car, not noticing how black his underarms were getting, and looked over at Kuranstalt Saint-Ursula.
Like all institutions housing psychological deviants, Saint-Ursula naturally had its secrets. His hope had been that James was one of them. But that was not the case, he knew now. However the pockfaced murderer, Kröner, was a part of that place. An unknown part. He could be anything at all.
The Volkswagen rocked slightly when he struck the roof. He’d made a quick decision.
The waiting fever had had its effect.
Several minutes passed before the director, Frau Rehmann, appeared in the administration unit. Until then an unwilling orderly had tried to turn him away. But the bouquet Bryan thrust towards him confused him and cleared the path into Frau Rehmann’s front office. Bryan glanced at the bouquet, already wilting from the heat, and congratulated himself on his resourcefulness.
It had been intended for James’ grave.
The front office was neat and tidy. Not a piece of paper to be seen. Bryan nodded appreciatively. The only decorative object in the whole room was the framed photo of a young woman looking over the head of a dark-haired boy. Therefore Bryan assumed that Frau Rehmann’s secretary was a man, and expected the worst of her.
And
he was right, though only partially.
Frau Rehmann was just as impregnable in reality as on the telephone. It had been her firm intention all along to throw Bryan out. But as she was about to guide him out again, Bryan’s sudden presentation of the bouquet pacified her long enough for him to sit down on the edge of the secretary’s desk and flash her a broad, authoritative smile.
It was a question of negotiation. Bryan was an expert at this even when, as now, he hadn’t the slightest idea of his goal, let alone his motive.
‘Frau Rehmann, do forgive me! I must simply have misunderstood Mr MacReedy. There was a message left at my hotel saying that the morning hours wouldn’t suit you, so I took it to mean I should come in the afternoon, instead. Shall I go again?’
‘Yes, please, Mr Scott. I would appreciate that.’
‘Of course, it’s a shame, now that I’m here. The commission will be very disappointed.’
‘Commission?’
‘Yes. Naturally we know your clinic is run according to the best management principles. Yet I’m sure you’ll agree with me, Frau Rehmann, that there isn’t a single administrative enclave that wouldn’t benefit from the available funds.’
‘Available funds? I don’t know that you’re talking about, Mr Scott. What is this commission you’re referring to?’
‘Did I say commission? Well, maybe that’s putting it a bit strongly, in so far as it hasn’t been set up yet. Let’s call it a commission committee. That’s probably a more appropriate term.’
Frau Rehmann nodded. ‘I see. A commission committee.’
Bryan felt manic. The seduction of this bony woman in front of him was therapeutic in itself. He glanced at his watch. It was half past two. Now he wouldn’t have time to park the Volkswagen outside the hippie’s bar.
‘Yes, it’s a matter of EEC funds that are in the developmental phase at present, but that we venture to presume are in the offing. All private clinics like yours may come into consideration regarding some quite substantial funding, Frau Rehmann.’
‘Aha, the EEC!’ she said, thoughtfully. ‘Yes, I think I’ve read something about it somewhere…’ Frau Rehmann was a terrible actress. ‘You say it’s in the committee stage? When will the commission be set up, Mr Scott? I mean, when will you come to a decision regarding the distribution and size of the funding?’ Frau Rehmann laughed a bit awkwardly. Now Bryan knew where he had her.
Frau Rehmann was both accommodating and instructive as she showed him around the clinic. Bryan nodded with polite interest and posed few questions, which seemed to suit his guide admirably. Despite Bryan’s expert knowledge, most of Frau Rehmann’s copious psychiatric terminology went over his head. His thoughts were elsewhere.
It was a modern establishment. Light and friendly, with subdued colours and a smiling staff. In one wing practically all the patients were sitting in the lounge. Everywhere the Olympic Game finals resounded over the television.
The great majority of patients in the first ward seemed to be suffering from senile dementia. They were sitting passively in a drug-induced stupor, the saliva flowing unimpeded down their chests. Some others were constantly digging around discreetly in their crotch.
There were remarkably few women.
Although Frau Rehmann appeared to be taken aback, Bryan insisted on being allowed to take a peep into all the rooms.
‘Frau Rehmann, I’ve never seen a higher standard. That’s why I’m still curious. Can your entire institution really be like that?’ The director smiled. She was half a head taller than all the men they had encountered on their rounds. Most of this difference in height was due to her unusually long legs, and even more so to a hairstyle that was constantly threatening to topple over. She reached up and touched this enormous superstructure every time Bryan complimented her. Now she did it again.
It was already three o’clock when they passed the counter in the front hall on their way to the other wing. An immense, indefinable exotic plant stood on each side of the entrance, stretching its leaves towards the skylight in the roof. Besides being decorative, the purpose of the plants was to mitigate the sight of two abominable, freestanding clothes racks where Bryan had been instructed to hang his coat upon arrival.
Behind these gigantic plants and behind these clothes racks, a large figure with a scarred face had withdrawn, unnoticed. He was breathing between his teeth, quiet and controlled. The sight of Frau Rehmann’s companion made him clench his fists.
It wasn’t until they reached the last room that the director’s attention was deflected from showing Bryan around. There had already been several attempts to call her on the intercom, but with no apparent effect.
Bryan looked about. The interior was the same as in the previous ward.
But here, however, the condition of the patients had changed. A world of difference from the quiet death of geriatric psychosis.
Cold shivers ran down Bryan’s spine. More than anything else, this ward reminded him of the time he spent in the SS hospital’s psychiatric ward. The inarticulate forms of speech and body language. The underlying apathy and a feeling of things having been hushed up.
Although Bryan hadn’t seen any really young patients anywhere, the average age here was scarcely more than forty-five. At first glance some of the patients seemed to be fairly healthy, politely acknowledging the director’s curt nod – so curt that her hair scarcely concurred with the nod.
And there were other patients whose entire body language bore the mark of schizophrenia. Lethargic, contradictory facial movements and deep, disquieting eyes.
They were all staring at the television set from their respective places. Most of them were sitting in a row of oak, architect-designed armchairs, some on colourful sofas, and a few in large, high-backed armchairs that faced away from the entrance doors.
As Bryan looked the TV viewers over, he noticed a new and more serious expression on Frau Rehmann’s face as she stood beside the intercom. Then she said a couple of words, made straight for Bryan and took him gently by the arm.
‘I’m so sorry, Mr Scott, but we must hurry on. I do apologise, but we still have an upper storey to inspect, and some events have occurred that will demand my presence shortly.’
Several of the patients watched them listlessly as they left the room. Only one had failed to react at all. He’d been sitting immobile in a high-backed armchair that many years of seniority had given him the right to have for himself. Only his eyes moved slightly.
Whatever was taking place on the screen had riveted his attention.
Chapter 39
The moment they left the room, the man in the armchair continued where he’d left off. He began, as usual, by moving his feet up and down at the ankle. Then he spread out his toes until they hurt, took a deep breath and relaxed. Next he flexed his calves until they also began to hurt, followed by his shin- and thigh muscles. Having flexed and relaxed each set of muscles in his body in turn, he started from the beginning again.
The grainy television screen kept changing colour. It seemed the bodies on the screen had been sweating and displaying their exasperation for an eternity. Now it was the third time the same sprinters had lined up for the same race. They slapped their arms and flung their legs about. Some of the track shoes had three stripes and others just one. At the sound of the shot they all took off, pumping their arms forward and back, then upwards as they passed the finish line. They were all muscular, especially the black men. Muscular all over, from top to toe.
The man rose carefully from his chair and stretched his hands towards the ceiling. None of the other patients took their eyes off the screen. They ignored him. Then he began flexing his muscles again, group by group. His body was in harmony, top to toe, like the black men.
Some runners collapsed on the green turf. None of these were black and they were all wearing light-coloured shorts. The light-coloured shorts were in the majority. As he stretched his hand towards the ceiling for the tenth time he counted the officials who were lined up
at the barrier facing the spectators. For every shift of the camera he counted them again. There were twenty-two.
Then he sat down and began his series of exercises once more.
The runners moved around, arms to their sides, as they loosened up. He had seen this race before as well. None of the athletes looked at each other. Most of them had shoes with three stripes. Only one had settled for a single horizontal stripe. Then he counted the number of officials at the barrier. There were only a few this time. Eight. He re-counted them.
In the middle of a break between events he got up again. Bending forwards, he took hold of his ankles and pulled his body in towards his thighs. He closed his eyes and listened to the sounds in the room. The buzzing of the spectators was replaced by the silence that boded the appearance of new runners. It was still the same as what he had seen the day before.
He tugged hard at his legs, so his forehead struck his knees, and began counting backwards. One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven… Once again a shot rang out. He looked to one side and let the picture of the room whirl past him upside down, still counting backwards. The features of a face in the chair next to him dissolved as a result of his intense movements. Colours ran together on the screen and again he heard the crowd shouting in broad, deep, inarticulate harmony. He straightened up, fixing in his mind a glimpse of the massive array of arms and colours on the screen. Then he closed his eyes again and began counting the heads from memory. Sounds in the background were fading. He always began to get dizzy at this point in his routine. The last thirty toe-touches were performed reflexively. He took a couple of quick, deep breaths and straightened up. After a few spasms in his neck subsided, he again stretched towards the ceiling and didn’t sit down until the dots on the screen had again assembled themselves into one picture.
Alphabet House Page 30