by Martin Suter
“I hated Mikado. I was all fingers and thumbs. Still am.” To illustrate this claim he took a pastry from one of the plates. But the rest of the artistic pile remained intact.
“See,” she said, “you’re not anymore.” She took one too. The tiny pastry pyramid on her plate collapsed. She laughed. “But now I am.”
It was left to him to steer the conversation back to the topic in question. He did it fairly crudely: “I certainly have seen a million in one pile a few times. It’s nothing.” He demonstrated a small quantity with his hands.
“In thousands?”
“Well not in tens, obviously.”
She laughed, held out her glass and grabbed another pastry.
“Do you want to see one?”
“One what?”
“Million.”
With an incredulous smile, she asked, “Why? Have you got one lying around?”
“Not lying around. But in the safe, yes. By chance. Do you want to see it?”
“Other men want to show girls their stamp collection. With you it’s your million.”
“It’s not mine.” He pointed to the Cuno Amiet: “In there.”
Lorena walked over. “You’ve got a safe behind a painting? In the first place burglars would look?” She sounded amused, but excited too. Now she was standing directly in front of the painting, holding it by its frame and pulling at it gently. It opened like a casement window, with a barely audible click. Behind it was the gray safe door with its numerical keypad.
“Zero nine zero eight zero seven.”
“You’re telling me the combination?” she said in amazement.
“Indeed.”
“One more time. Zero seven—then what?”
He dictated the combination again. “Now the green button.”
There was a short beep then the safe door unlocked. Lorena’s hand disappeared inside and emerged with a packet of notes. “No shit. You’re crazy.”
“You see. That’s just a tenth,” he replied, unperturbed. “Carry on.”
She took another packet out, and another. When she had five she walked to his desk, deposited them there, then fetched the rest from the safe. “But there are twelve here,” she realized, and put two back.
Weynfeldt filled her glass again and offered her another buttery pastry.
She helped herself, and started arranging the packets in various ways, till she had found the constellation that looked smallest. “That’s nothing. A million, sounds so crazy. But then this. Nothing.” Lorena sounded genuinely disappointed. “Who does it belong to?”
“A client. We do sometimes handle cash in our business,” he lied. He offered her more of the aperitif snacks, which she took, absently.
“Pretty crazy, the way something loses its value once you’ve got piles of it sitting in front of you. Never knew that happened with money too.” She took a packet, waved it about in the air and said, “Hundred thousand? Huh!” She dropped it on the table and took another. She took a note and tugged it out of the currency bundle. It took some effort, but eventually she had a brand-new thousand-franc note between her thumb and forefinger. “A thousand! That’s a load of money! But a million? That’s like having too much ice cream as a child. You get sick. Talking of ice cream, when’s supper?”
She piled the ten packets of notes on her bent left forearm and pressed them against her body. Carrying the money like this, she walked to the safe, waving her right hand with the loose thousand-franc note above her head, and said, “A million. One-handed. It’s a joke!”
She replaced the money in the safe, locked it, hid it behind the hinged picture again, stood in front of Adrian and asked, “Is it far to wherever we’re eating?”
Frau Hauser had staged the dîner tête-à-tête using candlelight and a fire. She was serving oysters for the hors d’oeuvre, followed by a selection of seafood—lobster, shrimps and mussels. For dessert she brought in a selection of homemade sorbets and petit fours, also her own work. She withdrew discreetly before ten.
Once they were alone, an embarrassed silence descended. Like a couple in an arranged marriage meeting for the first time. Till this moment they had both been playing their roles: Lorena—a society gentleman’s simple but cute mésalliance; Adrian—a benevolent, amused man-about-town having an affair beneath his social stratum.
But now the official part was over, and they were sitting together in private.
Lorena, quite drunk now, spoke first. “I got you wrong.”
He didn’t say: I sure got you wrong. He said, “How?”
“I never would have thought you’d do it. Never!”
Adrian twitched his shoulders and filled her glass.
“Can I ask you a megalomaniac question?”
He nodded, and handed her the glass.
“Did you do it because of me? Because I said you were too straight?”
“Maybe.”
“And how do you feel now? Now you’ve done it?”
“Totally okay.” Adrian realized he was already imagining how he would open her zipper. Without any buildup. Just take hold of the chrome eyelet and pull it, dividing the two halves of the top to reveal whatever they had to offer.
“A pity really,” she said.
“What’s a pity?”
“I’d rather you hadn’t done it.”
“It has no significance.” He was excited by the thought of sleeping with her like a stranger. He would use her, the way she had used him, the way she thought she was still using him. And then he would throw her aside. He would abandon her to her own undoing without wasting another thought on her.
She nibbled at her glass and looked up at him. “Pity. I think I’d prefer it if you were still straight.”
Weynfeldt reached out his hand and tugged at the zipper.
35
PUT IT ALL AWAY OR GET IT ALL OUT? HER STUDIO reminded her of a story she had once read. About an old woman who died at home. When they opened the door to her apartment they entered a system of tunnels made from trash and accumulated objects going back decades. Not only had the woman never thrown anything away, she had collected and retained things other people had discarded.
Lorena didn’t collect strangers’ trash, but she didn’t take her own out as often as she should have. Bottles, for instance. The Veuve Clicquot that Theo Pedroni had brought around that time was still standing there. Pizza boxes too. Various empty boxes, from various delivery services, were piled in various places around the tiny studio.
She wasn’t really an untidy person. But to maintain order, you first needed underlying order. A system new things could fit into. And in this room there was simply a varying number of things, useful and useless; there was no system for differentiating them from each other. There was no difference between them at first glance at all. You could only tell the difference between the pizza boxes and the Prada handbag, the soggy dish towel and the Donna Karan blouse, on the second or third glance.
That meant that tidying up was pointless. She needed to get down to the basis, the underlying order. Which is why she was wondering whether to put everything away or get it all out.
She’d had a bewildering, wonderful, strange, erotic night. She wasn’t sure what had happened, but Adrian—Adrian, how it sounded suddenly—had changed somehow. She couldn’t see him anymore as just her signet-ring-man with his Kennedy haircut; he had gotten to her. Yes, that was it: the distance which till now she’d maintained, carefully, deliberately, but effortlessly, was gone.
Two things he’d done: He’d sacrificed his integrity for her. No one had ever done that. And not just because she’d not known anyone who’d ever had any. And: he had fucked her like no one had in years.
Take out? Put away?
To put anything away, she first had had to empty something. The things in her boxes and cases were all churned up, she couldn’t pack things on top of them. She would have to remove everything, increase the chaos and establish order from this basis.
She began emptying a
cardboard box.
He had thrown her out of bed at quarter past seven. He had whipped off the quilt, standing scrubbed and groomed in one of his tailored suits by the bed and inspected her with a look which now, two hours later, she felt could best be described as professional. As if he were writing an expert’s report on some nude of his. Then he said, “I’ve got a terrible day ahead. I’ll wait till you’re ready and order you a taxi.”
And he really had just waited in the breakfast room for her to appear, had sat with barely concealed impatience till she had drunk her orange juice and espresso, eaten her croissant, then packed her off in a taxi.
Lorena had tried to give him her cell phone number. He had said, “You call us; we don’t call you.”
The morning with Adrian had been like a morning with any other man. Had she destroyed everything that was special about him?
And fallen for him at the same time?
Could she only fall in love with men who treated her badly?
Bullshit.
Lorena tackled the next box. And the next. And the next. Soon she was standing, hot and bothered, red-eyed and tearstained, surrounded by clothes and books and CDs and kitchen things and the clutter of her entire worldly goods.
And then, knee-deep in the chaos from which her new order was meant to arise, she knew how to go on. She would travel. Get all this crap picked up and put in storage. And go traveling. After she’d paid rent and other expenses, she’d still have over ninety thousand. There were places where that was a lot of money. Asia, Africa, South America. There you could start a new life. Brazil. She knew a Brazilian woman, Iracema or something. She had her address somewhere.
There was nothing to keep her here. She’d ruined Adrian. And Pedroni? She didn’t need any more Pedronis in her life. Yes: Pedroni should also be included in the tidying up operation.
She looked for her phone, found it under the clothes on the bed, dialed his number and arranged to meet in the piadini bar where he spent his breaks.
The bar was virtually empty. There were just a few salesgirls dotted around at the little tables; like Pedroni, they couldn’t take their lunch breaks at lunchtime. Pedroni was eating a piadino with cheese and Parma ham, and apologized that he’d already ordered; he had to go back to the boutique in a minute.
“It won’t take long. I just wanted to say good-bye,” Lorena said casually.
Pedroni swallowed a mouthful. “Where are you going?”
“Brazil.”
“And Weynfeldt?”
“I expect he’s staying here.”
“I thought you wanted to do a bit more …” He rubbed his thumb and forefinger together.
“That’s dried up,” she imitated the gesture.
“Why?” Pedroni put the piadino he had just raised to his mouth back down.
“It’s over. We’ve split up. He’s got no reason to get me out of trouble anymore.”
Pedroni grinned. “He’s still going to need to get himself out of trouble.”
“What kind of trouble is that?”
“The thing with the forged painting.”
“Oh that. Forget it. They were kidding me, Weynfeldt and the painter. The picture was genuine.”
“I see,” Pedroni said, raising an eyebrow. “Strange sense of humor. For a senior employee of a renowned auction house, I mean.”
“That’s what I thought,” Lorena said.
“And I was hoping we could make some serious money there.”
“Me too. Bad luck, huh?”
“Shame.”
“A crying shame.”
A few moments later they said good-bye—a parting of the ways which clearly came easily to both of them. Pedroni returned to Spotlight; Lorena returned home, to continue establishing order in her life.
But when she got back to her half-tidied studio, she had an uncertain feeling. Something wasn’t right. Pedroni had swallowed the story too quickly. Hadn’t asked questions, hadn’t doubted her at all. It had all gone far too easily.
36
A BUS WITH A CZECH LICENSE PLATE WAS WAITING OUTSIDE the Belotel. The tour group, mostly middle-aged couples, was standing at the side of the bus, by the open door to the luggage hold, trying to retrieve their bags. No one was helping them; the Belotel was only a three-star hotel, and the driver was exhausted from the journey.
The weather had taken a turn for the better around midday. It had stopped drizzling, and the sooty blanket of cloud had developed holes. Stretches of streets and buildings were singled out by blinding sunshine, then submerged again in the afternoon’s egalitarian gray.
Weynfeldt pushed his way through the tour group to the reception desk, murmuring apologies. He was wearing a raglan coat and carried a cheap attaché case he had bought that morning in a discount store near his office.
In front of him, surrounded by several Czechs, the tour guide was arguing in broken German with the only receptionist on duty. It seemed not all the rooms were ready, although it was already half an hour after check-in time.
Adrian waited.
This morning he had had his first serious quarrel with Véronique. He had to admit he had left her in the lurch a lot recently, arriving late and leaving early without warning her. But that had happened before, with no consequences other than a few pointed remarks—even in phases like this, when she was starving herself.
But this time, not in the best of moods himself, he had become so spiteful he immediately regretted it. Responding to her embittered, “Nice of you to come by,” he had said, “Why don’t you just start eating again!”
At this she had raised the mouse she held in her hand as high as the cable allowed and smashed it down on the desk with all the strength she possessed. Its components split in all directions, leaving something small and metallic dangling from the arm of her chair for a few seconds, swinging, till it became inert.
“Well, that was that,” she said drily, and Adrian wasn’t sure if she was referring to the mouse or their working relationship.
He parried it with a dry, “Quite,” likewise leaving her to interpret his comment.
The argument about the rooms hadn’t been resolved. Weynfeldt butted in front, ignoring the Czech protests. “Please tell Room 412 I’ve arrived.” Pedroni had given him only the room number, and officially Weynfeldt didn’t know his name.
The receptionist gave him an angry sideways glance. “Just a moment.” She turned back to the tour guide.
“No, now,” Adrian said, with his new resolve.
The receptionist refused to look at him. But she did pick up the receiver, dial a number and say, “Your visitor is here.”
She put the receiver down, looked briefly toward him and muttered, “Fourth floor,” turning straight back to the new arrivals.
In the elevator it smelled of sweat and aftershave. Adrian regarded himself in the mirror. Like a contract killer, he thought. The weapon in his case might not be deadly, but it would certainly cost its victim a few years of his life.
In the corridor was a musty smell of floor surfaces and vacuum cleaner bags. The thin veneer beneath the lock on door number 412 had been worn in a semicircle by the clunky key tag.
Weynfeldt knocked.
Pedroni opened and invited him in with an ironic bow. Perfumed Marlboro smoke hung in the air, the butts filling half the ashtray. Pedroni was nervous—Weynfeldt was pleased to see.
“Do you want to take your coat off?”
Weynfeldt shook his head.
“Is it in there?” He pointed to the attaché case.
Weynfeldt handed it to him.
Pedroni took it and placed it on the table which served as a desk. He flipped open the catches and opened the lid.
There it was, one million, two hundred thousand francs. Slightly askew from the transport, as they nowhere near filled the case. But there they lay.
Weynfeldt observed Pedroni from the corner of his eye: he looked disappointed, like a small boy who hadn’t got what he wanted for Christmas. He sa
id nothing for a long while. Then he looked over at Weynfeldt and surprised him with an embarrassed, almost apologetic smile.
“You have to count it now,” Adrian told him, almost patronizing.
“I’m sure it’s correct.”
“I insist.”
Pedroni counted the packets, then took one and counted the notes it contained. He checked the others simply with his thumbs, like a cardplayer.
Then Pedroni offered Adrian his hand. “It’s a pleasure doing business with you, Dr. Weynfeldt.”
Adrian actually condescended to shake hands. “The feeling is not mutual,” he said, and headed for the door. They parted like conspirators.
The Czech tour group was still being checked in as Weynfeldt walked back through the lobby, so swift was the handover.
He made a brief attempt to get the stressed-out receptionist to book him a taxi, gave up and made for the exit.
The sky was now virtually cloudless, a false blue, as if painted by Lugardon. Adrian decided to set out on foot. He had time; Pedroni could be given a head start; he wouldn’t get away.
He was unfamiliar with the area where the Belotel was situated, and walked now through unknown residential districts, saw bus routes he never knew existed, hit four-lane streets he was unable to cross and passed restaurants, noting their names, then forgetting them a few streets later.
He felt unfamiliar to himself too. Like a man with orders. An automaton executing a task rehearsed a thousand times with practiced ease. Someone who, once dispatched, nothing could halt.
Even as he approached the city center, beginning to recognize his surroundings, finally feeling at home, his distance from himself remained; he observed himself with polite indifference: the way he turned onto his street, mechanically fished the keys from his pants pocket, opened the heavy front door and, slipping the keys back into his pocket with his left hand, took his wallet out with his right, took his magnetic card out with the freed left hand, then slid the card through the reader on the security door and replaced it as he walked through the opening glass doors toward the elevator.
The apartment had also become an unfamiliar, impersonal place. His steps on the parquet sounded like someone else’s. The furniture seemed exhibited, just like the paintings, and the smell of newness from the renovated room had spread throughout the space.