The Silent Death

by volker Kutscher

  Fatboy Czerwinski was standing there grinning beside him. Prison clothing hardly made him more attractive.

  ‘I don’t believe it,’ said Rath. ‘You? Out and about without Henning?’

  ‘He doesn’t want anything to do with Fasching.’

  ‘I know how he feels.’

  ‘Ha, good one!’ Czerwinski nudged him in the ribs.

  Rath was about to explain the difference between Fastelovend, the name for Carnival in Cologne, and Fasching, when a second prisoner emerged from the darkness carrying two beers. Detective Inspector Frank Brenner suddenly became less friendly when he recognised his colleague in the captain’s uniform. Without saying a word, he passed Czerwinski a beer, and the men clinked glasses and drank.

  ‘Will you look at that,’ Rath said. ‘I see you’re commandeering my people after work too.’

  ‘Your people! If we belong to anyone, it’s Wilhelm Böhm, yourself included. I hope you’re looking forward to Monday. The boss is livid!’

  ‘I could never stand Mondays.’

  ‘Hey!’ Czerwinski gestured with his beer glass towards the dance floor. ‘Isn’t that Ritter over there?’

  Rath didn’t respond.

  ‘It is, you know,’ Brenner said. ‘She makes a good Iltschi, doesn’t she?’

  ‘Iltschi’s the name of Winnetou’s horse, you idiot,’ Rath said.

  Brenner wouldn’t be deterred. ‘She’s a hot number, that one. That arse! Tits a little small for my liking. I wonder how she is in bed.’

  Rath felt the anger rising within him. It was all he could do to keep himself in check.

  ‘Apparently she let you have a go.’ Brenner was clearly determined to provoke him. ‘So, how was she? Did she take your dick in her mouth?’

  Rath grabbed the fatty by the collar and his beer glass fell to the ground with a wet clatter, spraying beer and shards everywhere. ‘If you don’t shut your fucking mouth, I will have you.’ Rath’s face was millimetres away from Brenner’s.

  ‘You think you’re the only one that little tart’s blown?’

  Rath channelled all his rage into a crisp blow to Brenner’s solar plexus. The detective in prisoner’s clothing bent double and Rath slammed him upright with a left hook. Czerwinski grabbed hold of his upper arm. Brenner was panting and cursing, bleeding from the nose and mouth. ‘Did you learn that from your gangster friends?’

  People were staring. Some had even stopped dancing, among them the Cowboy and Indian.

  Charly’s cute face was horrified. Hopefully she hadn’t recognised him.

  ‘It’s all right,’ he said to Czerwinski, tugging against his astonishingly firm grip. ‘It’s OK, Paul, let me go. I won’t hit him again.’

  Czerwinski’s grip loosened, and Rath tore himself away, leaving the room without a backwards glance.

  13

  He has prepared everything, arranged the light, the film in the camera, laid out his tools, filled the syringe; everything is ready. As he regards the evidence of his careful preparation, he is assailed once more by a feeling of impotence, this feeling that causes his knees to buckle, to sense the void at the pit of his stomach; this strangely hollow feeling that he knows only from dreams, which allows him to glimpse his own core and – worse – realise it is empty.

  It ought to have happened here.

  It ought to have happened now.

  If she were still alive.

  The feeling of impotence remains and calls forth an image he thought he had long since cast to the bottom of the ocean, never to return to the surface. But now it emerges as he opens his eyes, spinning slowly, turning on its own axis, so that he can view it from all sides. Even with his eyes closed, he sees…

  Even with his eyes closed, he sees Anna.

  The contours of her face, her beautiful profile that is silhouetted against the bright window.

  Her lips move softly, quietly.

  It isn’t so bad, he hears her say.

  Her hand moves to stroke him, and he recoils. Sits up. Turns away.

  I love you, he hears. We’ll manage.

  We won’t manage anything.

  His first words after the failure.

  We won’t manage anything.

  He should have known. He had been hoping for a miracle, for love, for Anna whom he so endlessly desires. He underestimated the disease. It is stronger than everything else. He hasn’t vanquished it. How did he ever imagine he could? He will never vanquish it. The most he can do is forget about it for a while.

  The disease has destroyed him, neutered him, he is nothing, a spirit wandering ceaselessly over the earth, a sexless spirit whom no one can set free.

  We’ll manage, Anna says, we have time. Lots of time. I want to share my life with you.

  Impossible, he says, I’m not normal. I’m not capable of being normal.

  Normal? Who is? As doctors, we know that best of all.

  There’s no point. I’ll never be able to be a real man. Never.

  You’re a desirable man. Do you know how much our fellow students envy me? To say nothing of all the nurses who pine after you.

  She laughs. Why is she laughing?

  I’m a sham, an empty shell, I’m not a man.

  She tries to take him in her arms, but he pushes her away.

  Her cry as she bangs her head against the bedside table. Her hand that feels blood. Her disbelief, and the tears that flood her eyes.

  He didn’t mean it, he never meant to hurt her, never, but he is incapable of going to her, of comforting her, of apologising; he sits there as if paralysed and just looks at her, until finally he averts his gaze.

  He doesn’t see her dressing, just hears the door slam as she exits the room.

  Her horrified expression, her eyes staring at the blood she has wiped from her forehead… It will be the last time he sees her.

  He doesn’t return to university.

  He never dates another woman.

  A few days later he buys his first cinema.

  He knows where he belongs now; the disease has shown him.

  Paradise: a movie theatre in which a never-ending film is screening images from his dreams, complete with the voices and songs he hears in them. Sounding images that assuage his homesickness, which is really wanderlust, a yearning that has no purpose and knows no end.

  14

  Sunday 2nd March 1930

  The demons had returned, only he hadn’t recognised them at first.

  He lay in bed, heart pounding, unsure of where he was until, slowly, familiar contours emerged from the darkness, the outline of his bedroom. The heavy curtains only let in a little light.

  The demons had returned, but in a different guise. Even now, panting in bed with his forehead wet with sweat, staring at the ceiling, the visions were as clear as if they were on a screen. Everything had been different, but no less appalling for that.

  A forest, its trees unusually tall and straight, their tops out of sight; the trunks covered in black moss and disappearing into a thick, white mist. The forest floor was lost in fog too, the trees rising from it only to become obscured again further up.

  He wandered here looking for something, though he couldn’t remember what until, amidst the monotony of black trunks, he had suddenly come upon red spots of colour in a sea of black and white. Someone was standing there: a woman in a red coat.

  He approached her as if magnetically drawn. Her back was turned, but it had to be Kathi. It was her coat.

  ‘Kathi,’ he said. ‘Good that I’ve found you at last. I need to talk to you.’

  The woman turned slowly, as if struggling against a viscous mass. He saw the face but couldn’t recognise it; its contours were fuzzy, as if her features had been left behind in the gooey matter the air had become. He saw her as if through a layer of thick paste. Something dark opened. Her mouth. She spoke and he heard Kathi’s voice.

  ‘Baumgart,’ the woman said. ‘What are you doing here?’ It had to be Kathi. It wasn’t just her voice, but her fig
ure under the coat, her breasts, her hips that were slightly too wide.

  Rath tried to contradict her, to say his own name but couldn’t, nothing came out, not even a husky croak. Instead, his right arm moved. Rath saw the Kathi woman stare at his arm. He turned his head and saw the long knife in his right hand; tried to prevent the movement or at least divert it but couldn’t, even though his arm was moving as slowly as a film being shown at the wrong speed.

  ‘Let me go!’ Kathi cried, for it was indeed Kathi. Her face was becoming ever clearer. The thick air was dispersing and growing more transparent. ‘Help, please help!’

  The knife continued on its way, slowly but with irresistible force, penetrating her chest with a repulsive squelch that seemed to go on and on. Even after the first blow it was as if the air had been taken from her lungs. Kathi’s screaming died immediately, but still it wasn’t over. The knife stabbed again and again, unbearably slowly, but relentlessly until, at last, he could stop. He saw the blade in his hand, now broken, and Kathi’s blood-soaked body as it slid slowly down the tree trunk, covering the bark in a dark, damp red.

  He wandered on through the forest until suddenly there was an electric hum somewhere overhead and spotlights came on one after the other, lighting the way. Only then did he realise he was wearing a Royal-Prussian captain’s uniform. The uniform was covered in blood, but at least the knife had disappeared, filling him with an enormous sense of relief.

  ‘Are you looking for me?’ he heard a woman say.

  Vivian Franck stood in front of him, just as he remembered her from Venuskeller, smiling the same smile she had used to try and seduce him.

  ‘Come on, we don’t have much time.’ With these words she exposed her upper body, revealing her gorgeous breasts, wagged her finger at him enticingly, and twirled round.

  When her back was turned, Rath saw the knife. Her pretty dance dress was soaked with blood. He recognised the butt: the same knife he had been holding moments before. He tried to follow the actress and pull it out, but couldn’t move an inch and had to look on helplessly as she swayed, only to recover and take a few more steps before falling to the ground.

  Black shapes, barely visible through the mist, scurried to the corpse and tore it apart, tore it in every direction. Rath tried to intervene, but it was as if his feet were nailed to the spot.

  ‘Have no fear, they’ll look after her! Everything will be all right.’

  Even before he turned, he knew who had spoken. He knew her smell. Charly had returned and was leaning against a tree, smiling at him, white as snow, red as blood, black as ebony, her head tilted to one side as if mildly ashamed.

  Suddenly all his worries were forgotten, his guilt and fear too.

  ‘Everything will be all right,’ she had said, and it was true. Charly was there and everything was all right.

  ‘You’re back.’ He drew gradually nearer to her. She just nodded. How good she smelled!

  ‘Do you still love me?’ she asked, turning her face towards him.

  He was about to reply but could only recoil in terror when he saw the grotesque face staring back. One side, hidden up until that point, was a giant scorched wound; her hair was gone and her features were unrecognisable.

  That was the moment he had awoken, heart pounding and gasping for breath, her scent fading as soon as he recognised the contours of his bedroom, the images dissolving like wisps of smoke in the wind. The telephone rang.

  Rath looked at the bedside table. The alarm clock had fallen and the time was impossible to read. The telephone rang again.

  No, he didn’t have to answer.

  It rang twice more before falling silent. He sat up, his head throbbing slightly. The knuckles of his right hand were more painful. A captain’s uniform lay on the chair, not as neatly folded as was customary in a Prussian barracks. He felt a shooting pain when he propped himself up using his right hand. Damn it! Gradually his memory returned. His fist in Brenner’s face. He had given the arsehole a good clout.

  Charly’s horrified look on the dance floor. The way she had stared at him. And the cowboy next to her. Rath felt the same stabbing pain as the night before.

  Damn it! It was the first time he had seen her with another man. He hadn’t thought it would hit him so hard.

  Their brief romance was months ago now. Why had he made such a pig’s ear of it? He had gone behind her back, deceived her and taken advantage of her, without intending any of it. She hadn’t been able to forgive him, just as he hadn’t been able to forgive himself.

  Not that that was any comfort. Quite the opposite.

  In summer he had tried to win her back, and failed spectacularly. She had talked to him, been cordial, friendly even, but that didn’t alter the fact that she had sent him packing for good.

  Avoiding her wasn’t so easy since, alongside her legal studies, Charly worked as a stenographer at Alex, in Homicide at that. Their inevitable meetings had mostly been fine: sober and businesslike. The one time they had fought had been about Wilhelm Böhm, whom Charly idolised and Rath would have sooner wished in hell.

  He had watched her deal with all kinds of men at the Castle but this was different.

  It was the first time he had seen her looking at a man the way she had once looked at him. The way he wanted her to look at him again.

  He had to get her out of his head this instant!

  His bare feet stuck to the cold hallway floor as he made his way to the bathroom, where he peed and started up the boiler, before going into the living room to put on a record. His cognac glass was still on the table. He took it into the kitchen and placed it in the sink. The kitchen clock showed half past nine. As he brewed coffee he came upon a sheet of paper: the letterhead of the Greater Berlin Taxi Owners’ Alliance with the taxi driver’s address, which he had placed on the kitchen table before throwing on his captain’s uniform.

  The uniform he had to take back!

  Already two reasons to leave the house. After finishing his coffee, he returned to the bathroom, cleaned his teeth and turned on the shower. The water never got particularly warm, but it was cold enough to bring him to his senses.

  The taxi driver’s name was Friedhelm Ziehlke and he lived in the shadow of the Schöneberg gasometer. It was midday by the time Rath arrived. The drive to Babelsberg took longer than anticipated, with any number of day trippers heading for the country and blocking the road when all he wanted was to return the stupid uniform.

  The street in front of the Ziehlke household lay deserted. The stairwell smelled of cabbage. Rath hoofed it up to the fourth floor and rang the bell. He had to wait a minute before a woman in a stained apron opened. The place smelled of onions and fried liver. Rath hated liver. Someone else was responsible for the cabbage odour.

  The woman looked at him disapprovingly. ‘What do you want?’ she asked. ‘We’re eating.’

  Rath showed his badge and her eyes widened.

  ‘Cheeky little brat,’ she hissed, ‘and he told me he was at the cinema with his girl!’ She turned back into the flat. ‘Erich,’ she cried. ‘The cops are here. What’ve you done now?’

  Rath made a placatory gesture. ‘Please. I need to speak with your husband.’

  ‘My husband?’ Her eyes were popping out of her head. Before she could say anything more, a young lad of seventeen or eighteen shuffled round the corner. Hands in pockets, he gazed at Rath and his mother defiantly. ‘I was at the cinema! What the hell is this?’

  ‘It’s OK,’ the woman said, eyeing Rath suspiciously. She looked as though her worst fears had become reality. ‘This gentleman wants to speak to your father.’

  Erich disappeared once more.

  ‘It’s nothing bad,’ Rath said. ‘Just a few questions. Your husband’s a taxi driver, isn’t he?’

  Her face brightened. ‘Please come in,’ she said.

  Rath removed his hat as he entered. The liver smell was unbearable. The Ziehlke family was sitting at table in the spacious kitchen-cum-living-room, with three m
ore sons sitting alongside the head of the family and Erich, the oldest of the four. Friedhelm Ziehlke was the only one with a beer.

  ‘Friedhelm,’ his wife said, ‘the gentleman here is from the police and…’

  Ziehlke pulled his braces over his shoulders and stood up. ‘Is this a new police method, descending on a Sunday afternoon?’

  ‘I apologise if it’s a bad time, but this is urgent. Just a few questions, and I’ll be on my way.’

  ‘What’s it about?’ The man spoke with a Berlin accent.

  ‘Can we go somewhere more…’

  Ziehlke shrugged his shoulders, opened a door and led Rath into the bedroom. Three beds, a large one and two small ones, as well as a giant wardrobe, meant there was barely room to stand. Nevertheless, there were two chairs inside, one of which was in front of a table by the window. It didn’t smell much better here than in the kitchen.

  ‘Please sit,’ Ziehlke said, showing Rath to a chair. ‘It’s the best I can do.’

  ‘No, thank you.’ Rath remained standing and took the piece of paper from his pocket. ‘You drive taxi number two-four-eight-two?’

  ‘Correct. Is something the matter with it?’

  ‘No, no. It’s about a passenger you picked up on the eighth of February, a famous passenger, an actress…’

  ‘Well, there’s plenty of them in this city!’

  ‘Vivian Franck.’

  ‘Old Franck! Yes, I remember. That was on the eighth?’

  ‘I need to know where you took her.’

  ‘Somewhere near Wilmersdorf, I think… But wait, I make a note of everything.’

  He fetched a dark chauffeur’s jacket from the wardrobe and rummaged in the inside pocket.

  ‘Here it is!’ He showed Rath a little brown notebook. ‘So,’ he said after leafing quickly through. ‘Sonnabend. Eighth of February, nine thirty from Charlottenburg, Kaiserdamm. Drove on till Wilmersdorf. Hohenzollerndamm. Corner of Ruhrstrasse.’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘Pardon me?’

  ‘Did she make you wait? Did you go on somewhere? To a station perhaps, or the airport?’