The Hermit

by Thomas Rydahl

  – I’m afraid I can’t help you, she says a little hesitantly.

  She would’ve already gone back inside if she was going to stand her ground. But he needs to use soft arguments. – Señorita… Vasquez. He sees the name written on her badge. – A little boy was found dead in the backseat of this car. I’m trying to locate his mother, and I need to see the car.

  The woman now removes her sunglasses and rubs her eyes, scrutinizing Erhard. He must look like an innocent old man, because she quickly puts the glasses back on and whispers, –I’ll check the computer to see if we have a Passat.

  To let him in, she’ll have to press a large button located on an electrical box a few metres from the fence. She eyes Erhard.

  – Why is a taxi company searching for her? Isn’t that a police matter?

  Erhard doesn’t have a good response. – Unfortunately, Señorita, your colleagues are too busy with other cases. Only a few of us worry about dead kids.

  It’s not an answer to her question, and it’s risky. If she doesn’t have children of her own, she’ll sniff out his manipulation. But if she has children, then she’ll push the button.

  She loses her focus for a moment. – What happened to the boy?

  – The Cotillo case?

  – Oh, yeah. I’ve heard of that.

  He tries to nudge her. – Can you believe she abandoned him in a cardboard box?

  She regards Erhard at length. Then she pushes the button. – You have to promise you won’t touch the vehicle. It’s the only thing I request.

  – I just need to see it. I’ll stand a few metres away and just look.

  – Everything in here is evidence.

  The gate begins to creak open.

  – Here, take my card. And you have me on film, of course. Erhard points at the camera. – I won’t touch anything, and I’m not trying to destroy a case.

  – I’ll give you three minutes, Señor. I’ll go with you.

  As soon as he’s inside, she presses the button again, and the gate closes.

  The facility is dark. A few faint lamps light up as Erhard and the woman walk among the rows of cars, motorcycles, boxes of junk, and strange objects wrapped in plastic. Everything divided into numbered units. Only one out of every eight units or so houses a car. Or the remains of a car. He sees flattened vehicles, charred delivery vans, a roofless bus.

  They walk in silence. The place reminds him of a mortuary. A war mortuary with dead soldiers. Every item has a story. A fate. A police report. They pass a huge cage, its door swung open, the kind that can hold a tiger or a bear. A motorcycle sidecar without a motorcycle. A chest freezer. He wants to ask the woman where all the things come from. What are their stories? But he knows she won’t answer. And he’d rather save his questions for later. They pass a row of cars, some dark blue and one a Volkswagen. Erhard just shakes his head, it’s not the right one. He needs to stroll around without the tall woman nipping at his heels. He pauses before a row of peculiar items, twisted and unrecognizable in the darkness. The woman’s torch sweeps swiftly over them: an exercise bike, a fountain, a bar stool. It’s almost funny. A kind of grotesque children’s game, in which one must remember everything one has seen. But his smile quickly fades. In reality, it’s all just row after row of worthless stuff that, at the end of the month, will be hauled to the dump north of the city.

  – You’ve got many fine things here. Are you responsible for all of it?

  She seems uncertain whether or not he’s being ironic. – You could say that. Me and Levi, our carrier, and a few night watchmen.

  Erhard tries to think of something with which to praise her without sounding phony. People like her love that kind of thing. – Most people would probably turn on more lights, he says, but you manage with just your torch. You must have guts, Señorita Vasquez. You’re a rare breed.

  That last part was a bit over the top and didn’t sound like a compliment, but the guard didn’t seem to notice.

  – I’m just doing my job, she says, flashing her torch on another car, a Seat.

  Erhard shakes his head, and they continue down through the centre of the hall.

  – Well, thank you for your help anyway.

  – It’s nothing. When was it confiscated?

  The girl’s photograph from Cotillo Beach was taken on 6 January.

  – About a month ago, he says. It’s hard to believe.

  – Then we should’ve gone…

  Before she completes her sentence, he sees the car and stops. Dark-blue, but black in the darkness. A 2011 model.

  – May I borrow that? he says, meaning the torch.

  She shines the light on him. – But don’t touch it. She hands him the torch as if it were an axe.

  Erhard approaches the car. He runs the torch over the body, bottom up, searching for sand marks along its sides, and peers through the windows into the backseat as if the box with the boy was still inside. Then he walks around the car and squats next to the bumper. The guard stands beneath the lamps and is just about to say something, but Erhard makes sure to keep his distance. He studies the bumper. He keeps the torch light trained on it, scanning from left to right, and before long begins to see movement in the lacquered, shiny surface. He lets his eyes roam back the other way now, slower this time. He’s certain he’ll find a mark, a dent. When the guard steps back a couple paces, Erhard quickly slides his fingers across the rear of the car. Smooth as only a factory-new car can be. A fact that surprises him. He stands and walks around the car.

  – Two minutes, Señor.

  – OK.

  Erhard squats next to the front bumper. It’s just as shiny and smooth as the rear bumper. He focuses on the minutest details, but the guard – now standing a couple of yards behind him – puts him on edge, and his eyes dart this way and that, unable to locate what he’s looking for. Inch by inch he inspects the bumper’s natural curves, created by some computer somewhere in Volkswagen’s design department. Perfectly executed and perfectly painted. He sees nothing out of the ordinary.

  – Time’s up, Señor. I’m sorry, but…

  Erhard gets to his feet, and the guard begins to guide him back towards the door. Swiftly he spins and runs the pads of his fingers across the bumper. The guard turns and yells at him, but he’s half-concealed in darkness and can now feel, in the very centre of the bumper, a level bump, a directional shift that didn’t come from the factory. It’s a 20-centimetre-wide area, which can only have been made by something large and heavy. That’s why he didn’t see it before; it was too big for him to see it. He’d been searching for something minute, but he was looking at the wrong scale. Erhard turns towards the woman and raises his hands.

  – I’m sorry. I just had to feel it.

  She has brought her telephone nearly to her ear, as if she’s called someone, but she hasn’t said a word. She looks at the telephone, then presses a button and clips the phone back on her belt. – I told you not to touch anything. You better come with me.

  She’s not simply irritated, but also hurt, as if he’s disappointed her personally. She nudges him towards the door. Behind them, the lights snap off.

  – I’m sorry, he says over his shoulder.

  – I don’t think you are.

  – You won’t get in trouble. No one knows I’m even here.

  – Yes, I will.

  – I just needed to see the car. For the boy’s sake.

  – Stop nattering about that boy. That’s just a story you invented to trick me. They’ve reached the door, and now head outside. The light is strong, but the air is sweet. – I need to ask you to leave, Señor, she says, as if he’s not already on his way, and she buzzes him out the gate. Erhard wants to thank her one last time, but before he can say anything, she’s turned her back on him and retreated inside the hangar.

  He returns to his car and drives to Casa Negra. He orders the spicy codfish and a tall glass of beer, even though he’s told himself that he’s not allowed to drink any more today. While he waits, he j
ots down every possible scenario on a napkin: The car was stolen in Amsterdam and later from a container terminal. The car was stolen in Amsterdam and sold to the mother or father here on the island. The car was… He can’t bring himself to write this one down. The car was stolen in Amsterdam, fell out of a container on the open sea, and somehow washed ashore here on Fuerteventura.

  ‌

  49

  Already in the lift he hears something. Music and choppy voices all the way up through the shaft. When he passes the fourth floor, he thinks it must be Raúl. So he’s returned home after all. So he’s just been on one of his drinking binges with his friends, stuffing drugs into every orifice, under the radar, outside of Daddy’s reach and far away from everyone who loves him, so that no one could try to bring him back. So he’s returned to a life in almost total overhaul. So he’s home again. He’s found Beatriz, and he’ll ask Erhard who was cremated and poured into an urn in Alto Blanco. The game is over. In the best-case scenario it’s back to Majanicho for him.

  Then he remembers the new set of keys. The noise must be coming not from his flat, but the corridor. The doors of the lift open. There are twenty or twenty-five people standing in the hallway. It’s the classic crowd one finds in any bar, just dressed in finer clothes, ties, and gold necklaces instead of ragged tattoos on their ankles. He searches for Raúl’s eyes, bloodshot after weeks of drinking and random sex. He searches for his friend’s face. But as he scans the crowd, it occurs to him that his friend isn’t among them. He will never be here. They are hired men and women, no one you know or like. They are little more than sandwich boards, rented to fill space. A pair of Maasai girls stand together against the wall, waiting as if for a big blowout sale. None among the crows seems to know who Erhard is, or even care to find out. He cuts through the throng and towards the door, next to which, preoccupied with a Maasai girl – the nearly coal-coloured doll – stands Emanuel Palabras.

  – Piano Tuner, he says loudly, hurrying to pour a glass of champagne that he hands to Erhard.

  – What are we celebrating?

  – Your first day of work.

  – I would hardly call it a day’s work.

  – Get used to it. You’re the director now. You’ve no need to tally up your hours any longer.

  – So you thought you’d bring over some whores and homeless people in suits.

  – Speak nicely about my ladies of the night. They hear you. Besides, it’s hardly your flat, but mine. Even if you’ve changed the lock.

  – I thought you said the flat gave you the creeps.

  – If I tell you to party with the best girls and boys on the island that money can buy, then that’s what you should do.

  There’s something in the tone that sickens Erhard. It makes him feel bought and paid for. The man he’s visited and helped for many years, and whom he almost viewed as a friend, is in reality a calculating businessman. But he cannot muster the strength to tackle it now.

  – If we’re going to party like this, we’ll do it on the rooftop terrace, not in the flat. I don’t want to see a single one of your little friends down here, or you, Señor Palabras, unless it’s to go home or to use the loo. Agreed?

  – You’ve accustomed yourself to this fine station rather quickly, Palabras says. – But we’ll be good, of course, won’t we ladies and gentlemen?

  Everyone nods their assent.

  Erhard keys open the door and steps inside the flat, snapping on the light. He stands blocking the hallway to the bedroom and watches the group march into the living room, then out on the balcony, and finally up onto the rooftop terrace led by Palabras and the hobbling Charles. One of the girls kicks off her high heels, and one of the men opens another bottle of champagne.

  He checks on Beatriz and locks the bedroom door before taking a glass of champagne and heading up to the terrace. One of the perfumed girls tries to sit on his lap and wrap an arm around him, but he pushes her gently away. Palabras talks about celebrating his victories and grieving his losses. It’s the lot of the mediocre man to let his days merge into one grey lump, he says. One should drink champagne any chance one gets. It’s the only civilized thing to do, Palabras roars across the terrace.

  They rearrange the furniture and empty the bar. Erhard already feels as though these are his things, and it irritates him how they’re making themselves at home. They even brought a small transistor radio, and they are playing a little too much electronica, a little too much canned music.

  – You owe me a key, Emanuel Palabras says behind two girls. He sounds almost like Raúl when he’s drunk.

  Erhard grins. He doesn’t know what to say.

  – It’s my property, Piano Tuner.

  – Then move into the flat below me.

  – I’d hoped you’d be inclined to be a little friendlier.

  – I’m inclined to have a little peace and quiet. Thanks for the party, but I prefer my home being mine, not a nightclub.

  – So you won’t give me a key? Charles, say something to him.

  But Charles does nothing. One of the girls is sitting on his lap like a ventriloquist’s dummy, drinking red wine.

  – It’s my flat.

  – But I need to know that this is my home. I don’t like you coming and going. It’s not about you, it’s about… Hmm, what is it about? It’s about feeling secure, safe, somewhere.

  Palabras continues: – I can request the locksmith make an extra key. He does what I tell him.

  – I wish there were others besides me to keep you in check.

  Emmanuel Palabras throws his hands up as if it’s all poppycock. Erhard wonders if he’ll ever feel at home in this flat, or whether it’ll always be in a kind of no-man’s land. Maybe a home is defined as a place where one can be alone, by oneself, in the singular. And the elder Palabras feels that he can come and go whenever it pleases him. He raises his glass to Palabras and chugs the expensive – no doubt several hundred euros – champagne in one gulp, which he knows irritates Palabras. The night is full of shooting stars, or at least he read that it would be in the newspaper. He hasn’t seen any himself, but maybe that’s because his eyes are mostly closed.

  By two in the morning, Palabras resembles one of his wooden masks. His face appears softened from exhaustion. It occurs to Erhard that he himself must look just as tired. The Maasai girls have shuffled over to the bar and are drinking champagne, talking softly, incomprehensibly, in their own language, while the young men sit on the balcony stairs smoking. Charles helps Palabras out of his chair and brushes crisps from his jacket. Erhard almost feels tenderness for him. Charles thanks Erhard, then commands the Maasai girls and the men to clean up and carry the glasses down to the kitchen. As they leave, Palabras just raises his arm in farewell before he follows the others.

  It’s as if they were never even there. It wouldn’t surprise him if he went down to the kitchen and found everything in its right place. But the atmosphere has shifted. It’s a Monday night, and all is quiet. Not good in Corralejo. It’s the sound of unemployment. Of a dearth of tourists. He gets to his feet to trundle off to bed. There’s a large wet stain on his trousers. Right on his crotch. As if someone poured a drink on him.

  The next day he decides to go to work. On the street, he pauses at Silón’s shop to admire a black briefcase. It’s one of those with a simple code-lock mechanism, which opens with a click. He lays his book, pillbox, and a long baguette into the case and snaps it shut. Silón asks for thirty euros, but Erhard gets it for twelve. Leaving his things inside the case, he walks to the Mercedes. He beeps the car open, climbs in, and drops the briefcase on the passenger seat. If Annette could see him now. She wouldn’t believe it. She would think he was heading to a costume party. She would think he was someone else.

  Taxinaria’s offices are modern and colourful and resemble those built in the new part of Puerto. He has to punch in a code to enter, but luckily one of the girls from the service – which is what they call their dispatch – is on her way into the office at t
he same time. He walks down a long corridor next to a travelator, past a few quiet offices and the break-room, which is dark. He tries to buy a cup of coffee from the vending machine in the hall, but can’t get it to work. He pulls a bottled water from the refrigerator and sits down to read the previous day’s newspaper, which lies on his desk.

  Shortly after eight o’clock, someone begins to putter in reception. He stares through the slit in the door, watching Ana organize her things on the table and touch the soil on the plant in the windowsill. A somewhat sad-looking girl – probably Lene’s age, mid thirties – dressed in oversized trainers. Erhard doesn’t like to see women in trainers, and he can’t imagine Lene wearing them. Last time he saw her, she was wearing huge winter boots from Bilka, the Danish big-box chain where Annette bought most of the things for the children. She is a girl who’s used to being abandoned, used to cleaning up after others, used to people around her exploding, breaking down, talking to her meanly, talking badly about her, groping her – without ever complaining. She’s a girl who can survive anything, but will never be happy. He hopes he’s wrong.

  – Buenas, he says softly.

  – Buenas, she says, her back to him as if she already knew he was there.

  – Do you know anything about cars?

  She turns to face him. – Should I?

  She thinks it’s a trick question.

  – I don’t know anything about them, he says. – I just drive them.

  She smiles apprehensively. – I don’t know much, either.

  – The papers you printed for me yesterday. Marcelis says I should evaluate some cars for us to purchase. But I’d like to see some old contracts and do a comparison.

  – They’re on the drive. On the computer, she adds when he stares at her dumbly. – Would you like me to print them out for you?

  – That would be very helpful.

  In that moment he sees all the years of irritation and frustration, not pronounced in her eyes but more in a wrinkle forming between them, a wrinkle that has registered all the inept, idiotic, incompetent, and irresponsible men who have made her life miserable. Then the wrinkle smoothes out, and she bends over her desk and looks at her computer. – I’ll bring it in, she says. Her helpfulness is practised, and apparently not just reserved for the boss she’s shagging.