Elefant

by Martin Suter

  ‘What does Kaung think?’

  ‘He thinks she’s okay. But Kaung’s been wrong in the past too. That time with Sadaf, for example. He didn’t anticipate that she’d be capable of killing her baby.’

  Kaung returned with a bucketful of carrots and apples. If he’d heard Pellegrini’s last comment he wasn’t letting on.

  ‘At any rate I’d be most grateful if you could take the time to give her a thorough examination. I’ll be in the office if you need anything.’

  Reber followed him to the exit.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Pellegrini asked, slightly shocked.

  ‘I can’t perform a thorough examination without an ultrasound scan. I need to fetch the kit from my car.’

  The director looked as if he was going to demur, but all he said was, ‘In that case we’re heading in the same direction,’ and went in front. Particularly slowly, Reber thought, as if he were carrying a heavy load.

  At the door to the office he remarked again that he may have been wrong about Trisha, but he just wanted to make sure that he hadn’t missed something. Only then did he enter his caravan.

  Reber continued on his way to the car park. From a distance he saw a tall man with long hair, who looked briefly in his direction before getting into the passenger seat of a black car.

  Reber couldn’t be sure, but the man may well have had East Asian features.

  Everything was fine with Trisha; Reber could tell this even without an hour-long examination. Now he drove a little faster than normal to make sure that he was back in time for Barisha’s next feed.

  Kaung was right: Pellegrini, not Trisha, was behaving strangely. Everything the director claimed to have observed about the elephant actually applied to himself: unsettled, nervous, jumpy.

  Was Kaung also right in his suspicion that this might be connected to the Chinese man? And was this the person he’d seen in the car park? He was certainly tall, possibly Chinese too.

  In any event, his fear that Pellegrini might have suspected the truth had proved unfounded. He’d surely have confronted Reber otherwise. Despite everything else you could say about Pellegrini, he was pretty straightforward.

  But why had he made Reber come to the circus?

  Whatever the truth, it couldn’t hurt to be a little wary.

  Once home he went straight to the stables. When he unlocked the door and was greeted by Barisha he felt relief. Even more than usual.

  21

  Berner Oberland

  12 June 2016

  ‘We’d have had enough time to drive to his house and just take it.’

  ‘Better play it safe,’ the man from Beijing replied as expected.

  Roux had picked up Tseng early that morning from his hotel, a faceless new construction near Gentecsa. The Chinese man had insisted on this choice because of its location. Since his arrival he’d spent hours replacing the locks in the laboratories with hi-tech locking devices he’d brought with him, and installing all manner of surveillance and alarm gimmickry. The plan was to bring the dwarf elephant directly to the laboratory, take tissue samples and keep it there until Beijing reported success that could be built on. Only then would the sensation be introduced to the public.

  Tseng’s fussiness and nit-picking was royally getting on Roux’s nerves. If it had been down to Roux, the man could have already been on the plane back home with the cell material.

  But no. For Tseng everything had to be meticulously prepared and made failsafe twice, three times. No room for improvisation.

  Roux had thought it a great idea for Pellegrini to summon Reber to the circus. Until he learned that Tseng was going to exploit the opportunity merely to attach a gizmo to Reber’s car, allowing him to pinpoint his location at any time.

  And then Reber had almost caught him red-handed! It had been Roux’s turn to say, ‘Play it safe,’ but the Chinese man had dismissed his concerns, saying, ‘No problem.’ Another of his stock phrases.

  Now they were sitting in an ordinary-looking Renault hire car with forged Chinese papers – as a precaution – beside a toolshed somewhere in the Oberland, staring at the display on Tseng’s large smartphone. The flashing red dot near Graufeld, not ten minutes from where they were, hadn’t moved for hours. Eventually even Tseng was satisfied that they would be ready to make their move as soon as Reber was far away enough from his house.

  Roux was freezing, but Tseng wouldn’t allow him to start the car to warm it up a little. ‘Too conspicuous,’ he said.

  He found the Chinese man’s taciturnity especially wearing. Roux was too on edge to keep quiet; it would be a welcome distraction if he could chat to someone. Like Pellegrini, who was also a bundle of nerves, but didn’t express it in silence. Pellegrini and Roux had talked in a state of high excitement together and for the duration of their conversation had been able to forget how tense they were about the miraculous creature.

  The dot moved. Roux’s heart missed a beat.

  22

  Graufeld

  The same day

  Reber was at home alone with Barisha. He put on his baggy tracksuit – why on earth he possessed a tracksuit was a mystery to him – and carried Barisha downstairs into the kitchen. He lit the stove and realised that he was out of bread. A Sunday morning without bread was unimaginable.

  Reber put the elephant in the sitting room and gave her a few pieces of apple as a first breakfast. Then he locked the door and drove to the village bakery.

  At the entrance he bumped into Rita, the waitress at Löwen, carrying a bagful of rolls. ‘Did the circus director find you?’ she asked.

  ‘Which circus director?’

  ‘From Circus Pellegrini. How many circus directors do you get coming to visit you?’

  ‘Oh, him. When was that?’

  She thought about it. ‘Thursday, I think. He didn’t find you then. And I did him such a lovely map. Sepp says he’s a friend of Dorothy.’

  Reber didn’t understand.

  ‘Gay. Sepp says he’s gay.’

  ‘Could be.’

  ‘Shame.’

  Reber bought two rolls and drove back home.

  Pellegrini had come looking for him? So why hadn’t he found him?

  The snow on the path to the front door had melted, all that remained was the trampled wet snow from the first flurry, which was now a layer of ice. Reber saw his own footprints coming and going.

  Close to the front door a trail broke off from the path and led to his bench. Although he couldn’t make out the pattern on the sole, it was a different shape. He followed the prints to the bench and saw that the person who’d left them had climbed up.

  Reber got up himself. He only reached as far as the window sill and wasn’t able to look inside. But it wouldn’t have been a problem for a taller man.

  Pellegrini was taller.

  Reber leaped down from the bench and ran into the house.

  23

  The same day

  If the pulsating red dot passed Graufeld they would get moving too. Roux started his motor when the dot reached the centre of the village. But it stopped. Roux turned off the engine.

  A few minutes later the dot started moving again quickly in the opposite direction, then stopped at Reber’s house.

  ‘Shit!’ Roux exclaimed.

  Tseng showed no emotion; he just sat there and waited.

  He didn’t need to wait long. The digital clock on the display showed eight minutes before the red dot got moving once more.

  This time it drove past Graufeld. And fast.

  Roux started the engine and was about to pull away. But Tseng laid a hand on his forearm. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘Two more minutes.’

  These two minutes seemed to Roux like an eternity.

  When the Chinese man finally said, ‘Go!’ he put his foot down so hard that he left two black tyre marks outside the shed.

  ‘Too conspicuous,’ Tseng muttered, before falling silent until they reached Brudermatte Farm. ‘Wait here!’ he ordered.

>   This was too much for Roux. Pointing to his chest, he said, ‘My elephant!’ and followed Tseng.

  They rang the bell like bona fide visitors, hoping that nobody would answer.

  After a while they rang again, and then Tseng took a bunch of skeleton keys from his bag and opened the door as if he were holding the genuine key.

  The front door led straight into the warm kitchen. In the sink was a small pot full of milky water. The door to a sitting room stood ajar. The heat from a green tiled stove filled the room.

  On the floor Roux discovered a slice of apple and a colourful rubber ring. And something else: tiny balls, perhaps a little larger than goat poo. He lifted one up; it was crumbly like elephant dung.

  ‘Tseng!’ he called out.

  No reply.

  He went into the kitchen. The third door, which had been shut when they came in, was now open to the barn. There Tseng stood by another door, picking its lock.

  They entered an empty stall, which was set up like a miniature elephant pen. There were small logs, stones and hollows, some filled with water, and bare branches fixed vertically into the ground like small trees, with balls hanging from them.

  And everywhere the tiny droppings, one of which Roux was still holding and now tossed to the ground with the others.

  No pink mini elephant anywhere to be seen.

  Roux was certain that Reber had smelled a rat and done a runner with the animal. But Tseng searched the entire house before he gave in to Roux’s urging and followed him to the car.

  On the screen the red dot was already near the city.

  ‘Shit!’ Roux shouted again.

  24

  Zürich

  The same day

  Reber didn’t have a plan. He’d often worried that something might go wrong and he’d have his cover blown, and each time he’d concluded that he’d have to flee with Barisha and hide somewhere. But where? It was a question he’d never been able to answer.

  To begin with he’d thought that the only ethical way out of the situation was to put the result of the experiment to sleep and ensure that not a single cell remained. But that was a theoretical scenario, a scientific one, so to speak. At the time he hadn’t been quite so fond of Barisha as he was now.

  He realised that by running away he was putting everything on the line – his existence and his future. But Reber didn’t care. Some things were more important.

  There was hardly any traffic on that dismal Sunday morning and he made good progress. Or at least as good progress as you could make if you had no destination in mind. But he didn’t need a destination. Instinctively he drove towards the city. Where else? He knew his way around Zürich better than anywhere else. And if you had to hide, you’d be best off doing it somewhere familiar. Zürich was where he’d been born, gone to school, studied, fallen in love and got divorced. The city was so full of memories that once upon a time he’d had to escape it. Now he was on the run again, however, he couldn’t think of anywhere else to go.

  He drove through the woods of the recreation area. In the car parks on the fringe of the woods stood vehicles belonging to a few indefatigable joggers and hikers. Soon he was passing the first properties on the Villenhügel; in better visibility he would have had a view of the city and the lake from here.

  Barisha was standing in an open shoulder bag in the footwell of the passenger seat. She’d stood the entire way, as if frozen. She froze each time something unusual happened. When she heard unfamiliar voices. Or when he left her alone in an unfamiliar place. The first time she’d had to wait for him in the sitting room, he found her three hours later in the same position as when he’d left. Judging by the heaps of dung behind her she hadn’t moved from the spot.

  Now, too, she only moved to maintain her balance, when Reber braked or took a bend. This was the second car journey of her life, the first having been the taxi ride with Kaung on the day she was born.

  Kaung! He’d forgotten Kaung!

  He stopped so abruptly by the side of the road that he was only just able to prevent Barisha from falling over. Reber took his mobile from the pocket of his tracksuit bottoms and typed, ‘Call!’ Reber waited for a while, but there was no response.

  He kept driving through the 30 kph zone, where the properties now became smaller and the villas were more densely built.

  At the junction where the road led down steeply into the city centre, he paused briefly, then turned right to the north, heading for the suburbs and the river.

  It started to rain.

  25

  The same day

  ‘Big mistake!’ Roux said again furiously.

  Tseng didn’t respond. The first time he’d pointed out that if he hadn’t taken the precaution of attaching the tracker to Reber’s car they wouldn’t now have a clue where Reber and the tiny elephant were. After that he ignored Roux.

  Roux knew that Tseng was right. He just needed someone to blame. And he was too nervous to say nothing.

  Reber was heading straight for the city. They were roughly twenty minutes behind him and, as Reber seemed to be observing the speed limit, Roux could make up some ground. Not as much as he would have liked, because Tseng kept slowing him down with his ‘too conspicuous’.

  It was asking a little much of Roux to stay patient, so close to their goal. But of course Tseng was right. It was crucial they kept their nerve and avoided doing anything rash. And now it had started raining too. Shit!

  For a while it looked as if Reber was going to drive right into the city centre. Or perhaps straight through and then onto the motorway heading south. Italy!

  ‘I hope he’s not aiming for Italy!’ Roux couldn’t help but say it out loud. ‘If we have to follow a pink elephant through Italy then it’s game over!’ He burst into hysterical laughter. Tseng looked at him in astonishment and pointed at the display.

  The red dot had turned off and was now heading north. Was he making for Basel? France? Germany?

  Tseng gave him another tap on the forearm; in his fervour Roux had been driving too quickly again. He took his foot slightly off the accelerator.

  They were approaching the industrial district by the river when Tseng pointed to the display. ‘Slow,’ he ordered.

  Reber had turned off the main road and was driving slowly through the district by the river.

  Now he stopped.

  Tseng switched the map to satellite view.

  On the screen was an aerial shot of the area where Reber had stopped.

  Tseng zoomed in on the spot. ‘Recognise?’

  Of course Roux recognised it. Those were the allotments beside the river path. Did Reber have an allotment? Was he planning on hiding there?

  Ten minutes later they found Reber’s SUV in a parking space for the allotments at the end of a cul-de-sac. ‘Stop!’ Tseng ordered.

  Roux stopped at the side of the narrow street. Another car wouldn’t be able to pass coming the other way.

  Tseng took out his small binoculars from the bag and gazed at the vehicle for what seemed like an eternity.

  ‘Well?’ Roux asked for the third time, when the Chinese man put down his binoculars and stated, ‘Car empty.’

  ‘Shit!’

  ‘Go!’ Tseng ordered, pointing at Reber’s car.

  Roux drove the Renault up to the SUV and stopped three parking spaces away. Apart from them there were two estate cars. A sign said, ‘Plot-holders only!!’ Beneath that was a clumsy drawing of a tow truck.

  They got out and strolled up to the SUV. In the boot they could see the pilot bag that Roux could remember Reber using for his veterinary equipment, and the black cloth bags he transported his ultrasound gear in.

  On the back seat lay a wheelie suitcase.

  While Roux was still peering through the windows, Tseng had already opened the driver’s door and unlocked the rear doors. He opened the suitcase, which consisted of hastily packed clothes, washing, some fruit and vegetables, a Thermos flask and an empty baby bottle.

  Tseng c
losed the car door and pointed to the narrow footpath that led between the allotments to the river.

  26

  The same day

  The allotments had been an inspiration.

  As a student Reber had had a girlfriend whose parents were allotmenteers. Allotmenteers, that’s what they’d called themselves. They’d leased a plot here by the river and grown their vegetables. Record-breaking specimens, not biodynamic or organic, but cultivated with highly potent artificial fertilisers they secretly mixed into their home-made compost, and with fungicides and pesticides that they stirred discreetly into the infusions of nettle and horsetail.

  Nora had hated them for this. Not because it was dishonest, but because they used the only smidgen of deviousness in their bones for something as petty as screwing other petty individuals in a competition for the largest pumpkin or the most abundant head of lettuce.

  But the allotment had its good side too. Outside the growing season the garden hut was an ideal love nest for a student couple who still lived with prudish parents and didn’t have the money for a hotel room.

  This hut was a perfect hideaway for a few days. Although they were in the middle of the growing season there wasn’t much gardening to be done in this washout June.

  Reber felt confident he’d find the plot again even after all these years. He certainly hadn’t forgotten the name of the hut: Blue Bayou. Nora hadn’t stopped apologising for this either.

  All of a sudden there he was, outside it. It was now called дома, rather than Blue Bayou, and the Macedonian flag flew from the roof, whipped in the wind that was building up to a storm. The vegetable beds were a little smaller than he remembered, but now there was a built-in barbecue, its chimney inset with painted ceramic plates.

  The plot-holders must have changed, so Reber didn’t even bother to check whether the key was still in its old place, resting on the diagonal beam that supported the right-hand side of the gable over the door.