by Martin Suter
‘Has something happened?’ he asked.
‘Bolle saw you.’
Ever since his reckless excursion Schoch had been afraid of something like this. He was just surprised it had taken so long for word to get around. ‘How do you know?’
‘Everyone knows. I mean, you know Bolle,’ she said indignantly.
‘It was silly, but it’s not a disaster.’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure. He didn’t see you wandering down the street with your bag, but in your cave!’
Now Schoch was horrified.
‘Did you let Sabu out of the bag?’
He didn’t need to answer.
‘You imbecile!’
‘She needed some fresh air.’ He paused for a moment, then jutted his chin at Sabu and asked, ‘Did he see her?’
‘Those who’ve spoken to me about it didn’t mention a pink elephant. But maybe only because that would have made the story sound unbelievable. “I saw Schoch with a little pink elephant.” Maybe Bolle kept this quiet too, for the same reason.’
‘I hope so.’
‘At some point he’s bound to start chit-chatting.’
‘And nobody will believe him.’
‘Apart from those who know that the pink elephant actually exists.’
‘I’ve already apologised. Do you want me to do it again?’
‘It wouldn’t hurt.’
‘Sorry.’
‘Forget it.’
But he couldn’t. The idea that Bolle – Bolle of all people! – had seen Sabu worried him. The feeling of security he’d had in this strange house had dissipated. He started cocking an ear to the sounds outside: voices, lawnmowers, car doors. He peered through the Venetian blinds for no reason. He kept checking whether the doors were locked and the curtains drawn. And he made preparations for a speedy exit.
It was true that Valerie’s father had clothes in three different sizes. The smallest were still a little too baggy for him, but not so baggy that he looked like a clown. More like someone who couldn’t afford a better tailor.
The suits were all bespoke, as he could tell by the workmanship, the buttonholes, the buttons on the sleeves that could be unfastened. And by the label on the inside pocket with the customer’s name and the date it was finished. Schoch had an eye for this sort of stuff as there was a time when he’d worn tailor-made suits too.
They were all three-piece suits and the trousers had buttons for braces, of which there was an entire collection in one of the drawers.
The shirts were a problem, but it was solvable. Although the collars were all a couple of sizes too large, he wasn’t intending on wearing a tie. If he left the top button undone it didn’t show.
There was a solution for the double cuffs too. Even though he couldn’t find any cufflinks he just rolled up the sleeves and it didn’t look odd.
The only thing he couldn’t find were appropriate shoes, as they were three sizes too small. If necessary he’d have to make do with his tatty trainers.
Schoch presented himself to Sabu dressed like this. ‘Do you still recognise me?’
She came up to him and stuck out her trunk. Schoch bent down and tickled her behind her pink ears.
In front of the mirror in the dressing room he had to admit that he didn’t look right. With his shaggy beard and matted hair he looked like a homeless person in disguise. From previous attempts he knew that the problem couldn’t be solved with brush and comb, so he reached for the scissors. He trimmed his beard, a little at first, then a bit more, then some more again. But no matter how much Schoch trimmed, it remained a shaggy beard, just shorter.
The same was true of his hair. In front of the mirror he still looked like a down-and-out in a suit.
Schoch could have saved himself a lot of time if he’d started off by doing what he decided to do now. On Valerie’s father’s side of the parents’ bedroom he found a razor and a dispenser with fresh blades. He lathered his beard and head and shaved himself smooth. A little blood was drawn, but once he was finished, there stood before him a slightly gaunt, middle-aged man, who looked just like the ones who got out of the tram in the morning or drank alcohol-free beer outside Sausalito.
When he returned to the bedroom he sensed that Sabu was staring at him in some astonishment.
8
21 June 2016
No trace of Kaung.
Roux and Tseng had done their research at the allotments, which wasn’t an easy task as they had to avoid the old man who’d showed them the whirlpool. Another woman on the allotments did recognise Kaung, however, from the photo that Pellegrini had given them. She remembered that he’d been looking for a cave.
‘Well? Is there a cave around here?’ Roux asked.
‘More than one, so long as the city keeps neglecting the river path,’ the woman replied reproachfully.
‘What could he have been looking for in a cave?’ Roux pressed her.
‘A place to sleep maybe. He wouldn’t be the first.’
‘Really? People sleep here?’
‘Drunks, junkies, lowlifes.’
‘Where are these caves?’
The woman pointed towards the river. ‘Underneath the path. But watch out, one of them’s got dogs.’
Tseng and Roux found both the caves, and both were empty. But when they returned the following morning a man with one eye was snoring in one of them. They woke him.
He hadn’t seen anybody who looked like the man on the photo with the elephant. ‘Maybe Giorgio has – he’s in the other cave,’ he suggested.
‘There’s nobody there.’
‘He’s normally with the other dog lovers around this time.’ He told them where the place was and described Giorgio’s twirly moustache.
Although finding Giorgio wasn’t hard, getting anything out of him definitely was. Who was saying that he slept in a cave by the river? he asked.
‘Your one-eyed neighbour,’ Roux replied.
‘Bolle?’ Giorgio laughed. ‘He’s seeing pink elephants again.’
9
The same day
To begin with Kaung spent the night in the homeless shelter. In the evenings you had to get there between nine and half past midnight, while in the mornings you had to be out by ten.
He’d spend the day in places where the people who lived on the streets hung out. In the Morning Sun, Presto, Sixty-Eight, Meeting Point, AlcOven, the street kitchen and the Salvation Army hostel.
He’d stopped shaving and a patchy little beard had grown on his face. He acquired a new wardrobe at the Clothing Store, where each month the destitute could take five items for free.
Kaung’s expertise with animals soon earned him the respect of the dog lovers, though this was slightly tarnished by the fact that he didn’t drink.
Over the course of his many years in Switzerland, Kaung had built up some savings – a tidy 43,000 francs – because his board, lodging and work clothes were provided by the circus. He was planning to use the money to realise his dream of one day returning to Myanmar and setting up an elephant sanctuary for tourists. The severe government restrictions on forestry meant that there were now thousands of unemployed worker elephants.
He’d withdrawn this money from his account the day he went underground and now kept it in a military rucksack he’d picked up from the flea market. The money meant he didn’t have to register for welfare benefits and so was able to vanish like someone without any documents.
He only dipped into his savings when it was absolutely unavoidable. But he’d sacrifice it all for Barisha if necessary.
Kaung was a spy working for himself. He said little and listened a lot. This is how he first heard about Schoch, the man who’d lived in the cave and then disappeared.
Now Kaung was sitting with the dog lovers in the tram shelter. The wind blew fine mizzle beneath the umbrellas of passers-by and overnight the temperature had fallen to below 15 degrees.
The weather dampened the dog lovers’ spirits. They weren’t as noisy as normal a
t this time.
‘Do you know who I think about sometimes?’ asked someone sitting next to Giorgio on a bench.
‘Who?’
‘Schoch.’
‘I can’t help thinking about him either. I wonder what he’s up to?’
‘Maybe he’s not on the streets any more.’
‘Where else would he be?’
‘Back in the rat race.’
‘After nine years?’ Giorgio shook his head.
‘Maybe he’s met a woman.’
‘Women land you on the streets, not the other way round.’
‘I knew someone once who fell in love, dried out and became a hard worker.’
‘Who do you imagine Schoch would fall in love with?’ Giorgio asked. ‘And, more importantly, who would fall in love with him?’
Both of them laughed.
‘Who is Schoch?’ Kaung asked.
‘Was,’ Giorgio corrected him. ‘A neighbour. He disappeared.’
‘Long time ago?’ Kaung said.
‘Not particularly,’ the man beside Giorgio said.
‘Fourteenth of June,’ Giorgio asserted.
The man who sometimes thought about Schoch looked at him with raised eyebrows.
‘By chance I happen to know the precise date,’ Giorgio explained. ‘Five days before I had Valerie give the dogs their jabs. Schoch was seen with her that evening. Fourteenth of June.’
10
The same day
He waited until Tseng’s large frame had reached the counter and the passport formalities were concluded. Then Roux trudged back to the car park, got into his car and drove off in a huff.
A few days ago his partners in Beijing had started giving him deadlines for Tseng’s return. They no longer believed that the result of his experiment could be found and were saying he’d be better off investing his time in trying to repeat it.
Roux had tried to secure an extension after Giorgio’s comment, ‘He’s seeing pink elephants again.’ But the one-eyed man dismissed the expression as nothing more than the English version of ‘seeing white mice’, and the Chinese experts were of the same opinion. Tseng was ordered back to Beijing immediately. All Roux got in recompense was that Tseng left him one of his tiny magnetic trackers, the locating software and his hi-tech mini binoculars, as well as an assurance to return if there were any promising developments.
But there hadn’t been anything even vaguely promising, so once more Roux focused on finding a suitable surrogate mother for his final cryoconserved blastocyst.
11
The same day
Valerie got a fright when she saw the shaven-headed man crouching beside Sabu in the kitchen staff area.
Then she laughed and said, ‘I thought you were someone else.’
‘That’s how I feel too.’
Once he’d helped her with the shopping bags she scrutinised him. ‘Once the wounds have healed it’ll look just about passable.’
‘Wounds’ was a slight exaggeration. But two cuts from a double blade were visible on his skull: one above the right ear and the other right on the little bump on the back of his head. The razor had left its mark on Schoch’s face and neck too: a cut beside his Adam’s apple and one beneath his ear lobe.
But the change was staggering. Now Schoch had a distinct profile and a shapely head. He must have been a handsome man in his younger years and even today he could be described as nice-looking, if you ignored the burst blood vessels in his cheeks and his slightly stooped gait.
‘And despite the suit you bear no resemblance to my father,’ she stated.
‘Unfortunately his feet were too small.’
‘What size are you?’
‘Forty-three, forty-four.’
‘Where would you buy shoes?’
‘I haven’t bought a pair for going on ten years. The ones I wear are freebies from the Clothing Store.’
‘I can’t risk popping into the Clothing Store to look for a pair of men’s shoes.’
Schoch saw her point.
‘Where did you buy them in the past?’ she asked.
‘They cost a fortune there.’
She looked at him thoughtfully. ‘Some time you’ll have to tell me about your past.’
‘Some time.’
Schoch started mixing Sabu’s milk and cutting up the pieces of apple and carrot. He gave her a few beech twigs to keep her occupied till feeding time.
Valerie put a pot of water onto the hob and started grating some Parmesan.
It was strange how the change in Schoch’s external appearance had turned him into a different person for her. She thought that she’d shed all her prejudices, that after so many years of working with those on the margins of society, appearances no longer had any effect on how she judged people. Now she had to admit, however, that just some washing, shaving and different clothes had taken their relationship to another level. Valerie didn’t feel ashamed that she now viewed Schoch as her equal, but that she quite clearly hadn’t done so beforehand.
Did she secretly look down on people she did social work for?
Valerie washed the salad and made a simple dressing with three parts olive oil and one part balsamic vinegar, which she’d throw on the leaves just before serving.
Schoch crouched next to Sabu and gave her the bottle. ‘It’s not every day you bottle-feed a mini elephant that glows pink,’ he remarked. ‘In fact, I find it harder and harder to believe.’
Valerie nodded. ‘Somebody wanted to design a luxury toy and the result was a sentient creature.’
The water was boiling. It fizzed briefly when she added the salt and she turned down the heat. She felt a new sense of intimacy with her two guests. ‘We’re crazy! The day you arrived with Sabu we ought to have taken her straight to the police. We’ve got mixed up in something that’s way out of our league.’
The bottle was empty, so Schoch started feeding Sabu the chopped pieces of fruit and vegetables. ‘We still could.’
‘I know,’ Valerie replied. She turned the hob up again and opened a packet of fresh ravioli filled with spinach and ricotta.
‘Why don’t we then?’ Schoch asked.
‘I can’t speak for you, but for me it’s quite simple: I’m repulsed by genetic engineering. I’d do all I can to damage the industry.’
Valerie quickly placed ten of the flour-dusted ravioli on a slotted spoon and lowered them carefully into the water.
‘There could well be dozens of these mini elephants around, in which case the genetic engineering industry could easily cope with the loss of one of them.’
Sabu’s appetite had waned and now she started to play with a piece of carrot.
Valerie tossed the salad. ‘If that’s the case then we’re merely making a small contribution to protecting humanity from genetic modification. Just like not eating meat is a tiny contribution to protecting humanity from the destruction of the ozone layer.’
When the pasta parcels rose to the surface Valerie fished them out, let them drain, arranged them on two plates, seasoned them with pepper from the mill, sprinkled them with Parmesan and drizzled olive oil on top.
When they were eating, Schoch asked, ‘Wouldn’t it be easier for you to sleep here?’
Valerie gave him an amused look. ‘I don’t think so.’
12
The same day
The large drawing room was done out with 1960s period furniture: oval coffee tables, bulbous chests of drawers with inlays and velour and machine-tapestry upholstery. Heavy damask curtains hung in front of the French windows that led to the terrace and garden. Valerie had pushed two of these to the side and opened the windows to refresh the stale, dusty air with some oxygen. The shutters remained closed. On the walls hung landscapes and engravings from unknown contemporary artists. Among these Schoch could again see light, shield-shaped patches where trophies had been removed.
‘Was that you?’ he asked. ‘Did you get rid of all those hunting trophies?’
Valerie poured them both
some tea. ‘Yes.’
‘Because of your love of animals?’
‘Because of my love of animals, but also because they reminded me of my father.’
‘You didn’t like him.’
‘You wouldn’t have liked him either.’
‘I don’t suppose he would have liked me much.’
‘You might be right there. He didn’t like anyone. Apart from himself, but he adored himself.’
‘And your mother?’
‘He didn’t like her either. But she didn’t like him. She was also someone who didn’t like anybody.’
‘Only herself.’
‘No. Not even herself. My mother only liked Sally, her chihuahua. Not liked, worshipped. They even died together.’
‘How?’
‘In a Learjet.’
‘Plane crash?’
‘Over the French Alps on the way to the Côte d’Azur. Father, mother, chihuahua, pilot and co-pilot. Human, rather than mechanical failure.’ She couldn’t help laughing. ‘Human failure! The leitmotif of my father’s life!’
‘Judging by this house he was pretty successful.’
‘Human failure, not commercial. He was a good businessman and a good hunter, but a bad husband, a bad father and a bad person.’
Schoch took a sip of tea. ‘What sort of business was your father in?’
‘He ran a subsidiary in Johannesburg. Until 1994, the end of apartheid. You understand what I’m saying?’
‘Totally.’
‘He was often down there afterwards too. He said “down there”. Hunting.’
‘What did you do with the trophies?’
Valerie took her time and drank some tea. Eventually she said, ‘I buried them.’
‘You buried those trophies? Where?’
On a piece of land I bought for that very purpose.’ She put her teacup back onto the tray. ‘You think I’m mad, don’t you?’
‘Not mad, perhaps just a bit eccentric. Why did you do it?’