But why would he have been playing this game?
Because he wanted to hold on to a means of putting pressure on me. I was to “owe him” something, and the debt was still unpaid. Matassi’s reaction when asked what she had been doing in his hotel room invited all kinds of suspicions, could be interpreted as an admission of the most brazen infidelity. The claims of the law on adultery might be satisfied by disowning the dissolute woman involved. But I too was subject to them, and there satisfaction still had to be and would be required.
He wanted to keep an option open for payment of what I owed him, so as to get compensation, for instance in cash, maybe in food and lodging too, and payment of enough pocket money to last until his application for asylum was decided. And if I should refuse, then he can always bring out his flick knife to avenge the insult to his honour with my blood.
That’s enough. I’ve lost myself yet again in the hysterical fantasies that I thought I’d overcome. But hard as I try, I can’t be easy in my mind.
Just now I got up, listened for a while to see whether, now that Ralf has taken his moped out of the garage and ridden away, roaring the engine, I was alone in the house. I climbed the stairs to the top floor and stole into the bedroom, opened the drawer of the bedside table. My hopes were not disappointed; he still keeps the photo there. Matassi, standing by the balustrade of the lookout point, smiled at me.
Her round cheeks, her dark, thick brows, the shadows around her eyes. Her full lips. Her pale-brown forefinger, the fragrance of her skin, the Orient and myrrh when we kissed on my hotel bed. I don’t want to think that the present wasn’t from her and that it wasn’t a trace of her perfume that I detected on the pink card.
I wonder what has become of her. The actor in Otar Chiladze’s novel moved from Tbilisi to Batumi when he no longer felt comfortable in the capital. But the railway no longer runs from Tbilisi to Batumi, the locomotives have fallen silent. Some sort of heavily armed band, probably of Abkhazian freedom fighters, has made incursions into the tracks and is occupying them.
In a report from Tbilisi, I read that the city presents a dismal picture. Refugees hang their washing on the hotel balconies. The smashed glass in the bus windows has been replaced by sheets of plywood. Shady security men lurk at every street junction in their blotched combat outfits, Kalashnikovs in front of them. Even during the hours of curfew at night, hungry people lay siege to the empty bakeries. They are not deterred by the bursts of fire from sub-machine guns that keep echoing through the streets.
Matassi and her coffee. The crisp croissants from the confectioner’s, her white teeth biting into them. What has become of her?
After Julia and I spoke to him about his lecture in Herr Schumann’s summer house, Ninoshvili apologized to me. He most genuinely asked my pardon, he said, but the fee that Herr Schumann had offered him had seemed like a small fortune, and he was afraid he couldn’t resist the temptation. However, in his lecture he had confined himself to an outline of Georgian history, and where the civil war was concerned he gave an objective analysis of the present military situation; he had said nothing at all that could have been mistaken by the young people. He was well aware, he added, that a guest ought not to engage in political discussion with his hosts, and he had strictly observed that principle—“You must believe me there, my friend, I beg you in heartfelt terms!”
Julia is going to take him with her on a visit to Frankfurt. She has to see a client there, and as Ninoshvili was able to arrange personal interviews with the two publishing houses on the same day, she offered him a lift in her car.
Chapter 30
A man! The strange potency of manhood upon her! Her hands strayed over him, still a little afraid… Such utter stillness of potency and delicate flesh! How beautiful! How beautiful! Her hands came timorously down his back, to the soft smallish globes of the buttocks… The life within
life, the sheer warm, potent loveliness. And the strange weight of the balls between his legs! What a mystery! What a strange, heavy weight of mystery, that could lie soft and heavy in one’s hand… the primeval root of all full beauty!
Perhaps we men ought to go around with our backsides bare, letting the balls dangle to give an idea of their weight. And we could get many a pleasant surprise if all women secretly felt like the well-brought-up Connie Chatterley. Yet I can’t rid myself of the suspicion that Lady Chatterley could just as well be presented as a psychiatric case study illustrating masculine derangement, rather than as a fictional character of literary merit. However, of course I can’t rule out the possibility that the strange potency of manhood, manifested in ways that I myself find repellent, may be irresistibly attractive to certain women. Yes, well, how beautiful, how beautiful!
The gamekeeper who brings Connie to such ecstasy doesn’t even have to seduce her; he behaves badly throughout the novel, he’s an arrogant brute, but she runs after him until he does as she wants. He spreads an old brown army blanket on the floor of his hut and lays Lady Constance—Her Ladyship, if you please—down on her back. A moment of remorseful horror—”Stranger! Stranger! “—does not last long, for the good reason that she “felt again the slow momentous, surging rise of the phallus, that other power. And her heart melted out with a kind of awe.”
To be sure, we must take into consideration that Lady Constance’s husband, the unfortunate baronet Sir Clifford Chatterley, who comes home from the front in Flanders “more or less in bits” and has nothing left to offer her below his waist, even expressly suggests that she should look for a lover, perhaps get pregnant by him, and thus provide the house of Chatterley with the heir it needs. Poor Sir Clifford, to crown all his bad luck, must have been an idiot. No wonder he later regretted his magnanimity.
I sympathize more with Shah Moabad, who dyed himself yellow when he found out that Princess Vis, who shone like the moon and was betrothed to him, was sharing her bed with another man. Moabad did not just speak bitter words, his warriors did not just grind their teeth, they set off instantly to avenge such infidelity.
Not that it did Moabad much good. He did succeed in bringing the lovely Vis home, but a little later the princess began a liaison with his younger brother. She let her lover into the palace by night while Moabad was out hunting, and the adulterer, mowing down the guards with his sword, seized the throne.
The outcome of this old Georgian version of a tale of the joys and sorrows of love was not at all satisfactory for the cuckolded husband: he sat over his wine through the night, planning a campaign of revenge, and a mighty wild boar broke out of the dark forest at first light of dawn. Moabad mounted his horse to enjoy the pleasures of the chase for a while before setting out. However, the javelin that he threw at the boar missed its mark, or perhaps the eye of the man who cast it was still clouded with drink, but at any rate the boar charged the Shah and knocked him and his horse down. Before Moabad could remount, the boar charged again, thrust its tusks into his chest and tore him apart.
“A prince as mighty as Moabad died that pitiful death,” says the poet. But I won’t blame the unreasoning animal. It seems to me that we can draw good lessons from the fate of both Shah Moabad and Sir Clifford Chatterley. A man who trusts women shouldn’t be surprised if there are unpleasant consequences.
Chapter 31
I‘ve had a shock. As far as I can see it’s going to take me some time to recover from it.
This morning Julia and Ninoshvili set off for Frankfurt at seven. Ralf was still asleep, so I ate breakfast on my own, but I didn’t feel like reading the papers, I just glanced at the front pages and then put them aside. At midday today, when I had eaten my curd cheese and sat down at the desk, I picked up the local paper; I had found it difficult to get down to work, and thought I would pass a little time reading first.
On an inside page I found the report of a murder, illustrated by the picture of a blonde woman. I stared incredulously at the photograph. I felt a wave of heat running through me, and the sweat broke out on my forehead. The murder victim
looked like the identical twin of the blonde whose picture I had found in Ninoshvili’s suitcase, although a couple of years older.
Yesterday afternoon, the woman was found stabbed in a small hotel in the city centre. She had been dead for about six hours. The name she gave at the reception desk when she checked in a day before is presumably false; at least, the police have no record of her at the address in Hamburg that she gave as her place of residence. No ID papers or other personal documents were found in the hotel room.
The woman, according to her naturally doubtful account at the hotel reception, was thirty-seven years old and had been born in Dresden. She had also had one phone call from a man, but none of the hotel staff noticed her having a visitor. Only in the evening, when the card saying Please Do Not Disturb was still hanging over the door handle, did the chambermaid feel suspicious. She discovered the woman lying on the floor in her blood. No clues to a sexual motive for the murder were found.
I remembered that on the evening of the day before yesterday, a woman phoned asking for Ninoshvili. He’d told me later, volunteering the information, that she was an editor in a publishing house.
After sitting staring at the newspaper for a while, as if paralysed, I climbed the stairs and went into the spare room. The leather suitcase was locked. I searched the whole room, although I knew nothing would come of it, looking for the books in Georgian and the four photos, but I found neither them nor any other piece of evidence, and of course I didn’t come across the flick knife. I couldn’t find Matassi’s photograph either.
I spent a good ten or fifteen minutes wondering if and how I could force the locks of the case without leaving any trace behind. I even bent a paperclip straight and cautiously poked about with it in the locks of the clasps. Then, realizing that my efforts were getting nowhere, I came to a sudden decision.
I took out the card that Herr Hochgeschurz had given me at our first meeting, and phoned the agent. He didn’t seem surprised when I told him that if possible I would like a little more precise information about the talk given by my Georgian guest at Herr Schumann’s summer house. That was perfectly possible, replied the agent, and when could we meet? I asked him if he might have time to fit me in this very afternoon. He’d be happy to see me, said Herr Hochgeschurz; he would just have to ask me to visit him at his office, because he was expecting several phone calls.
I set off at once, feeling as if I had been promised a miraculous cure for some painful illness. The agent has a small room on the sixth floor of an office building; apparently the local branch of his outfit contents itself with just this floor. The nameplate outside the door does not indicate that he works for Internal Security; the authority functions here under the name of a communications company, as Hochgeschurz had told me so that I would not go wrong. I rang the bell. A man in a leather jacket opened the door and, when I gave my name, asked me to come in.
Herr Hochgeschurz has a desk in his room, a swivel chair and a chair for visitors, two telephones, a computer terminal, a fling cabinet, beige curtains, a pot plant on the window sill, woodchip wallpaper, a fire extinguisher, and on the wall there is a framed, signed photograph of the former head of Internal Security, Günther Nollau. The window of the office has a view of higgledy-piggledy fat rooftops, two church towers and a jumbled forest of chimneys. The air shimmered slightly above them.
As soon as I was inside this office I wanted to leave it again. I had once sat in an oppressively sterile room like this on an autumn day on some other occasion, maybe it was in a doctor’s waiting room. I took a deep breath and smelled the sweetish cleaner with which presumably the cleaning lady had mopped the plastic flooring.
Herr Hochgeschurz asked if I would like a coffee. I said yes, and he opened the door of the next room and spoke to someone inside. “Could you make us two coffees, please, Gabi?” Then he sat down in his swivel chair, smiled and nodded, and I heard him draw two heavy breaths. He immediately picked up a file folder, said, “Yes, well, let’s see about this,” opened the file and leafed through it.
Ninoshvili had not by any means confined himself, at least according to the agent’s account, to giving his audience a crash course in Georgian history and telling them who was firing at whom just now, and where and why. Instead, he spoke at length on the question of race, drawing parallels between the Republic of Georgia and the Federal Republic of Germany, both of which had to defend themselves against domination by foreign powers.
The extensive nature of his information suggested that Herr Hochgeschurz had successfully infiltrated a useful informer into the circles in which Gero Schumann moved. Herr Hochgeschurz had only just broached the topic of the Abkhazians when a red-haired young woman came in from the next room with a tray and, without a word, put two cups of coffee in front of us. The agent fell silent until the young woman had closed the door behind her. He interrupted himself a second time, when there was a knock at his door, and a grey-haired man in a suit of a muted hue with a waistcoat came in. “Oh, sorry,” said this gentleman. “I only wanted to bring you these files. We can discuss them later.”
He nodded to me with a smile, and handed Herr Hochgeschurz a folder. The agent half-rose and said, “May I introduce you to our departmental head, Dr Schmidt?” And indicating me, he added, “This is Herr Kestner, senior teacher.” Dr Schmidt gave me his hand, and held mine firmly for a moment, nodding as if it were a long time since he had been so pleased to see someone. The agent sat back, smiling. “Herr Kestner is married to Dr Kestner the lawyer.”
Herr Schmidt raised his eyebrows. “Indeed, indeed? My congratulations! A very able woman, one has to say, even if she does make a little trouble for us now and then.” Then, as neither I nor Dr Schmidt could think of any way to continue this conversation other than with a friendly smile, he took his leave and went out. Herr Hochgeschurz continued his peroration.
I’d heard enough of it. I had certainly known already that Ninoshvili was a cunning liar, and the fact that Ralf was mixing with some very disreputable characters was no news to me either. I waited impatiently for Hochgeschurz to conclude his account, and as soon as he closed the file I made an attempt to come closer to the real subject of my interest. It was clear to me that I was treading on thin ice here, but I was bent on knowing more.
I rubbed my forehead as if I were thinking hard. “What do you think of Herr Ninoshvili?”
Hochgeschurz shrugged. “He comes across as an ardent nationalist. At least, that’s what one would conclude from his lecture at Herr Schumann’s place.”
I nodded. Then I asked, “Do you know any more about him?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well… you did at least have him observed in that summer house, if I interpret your information correctly.” Hochgeschurz nodded. I asked, “Are you keeping tabs on him for any other reason?”
The agent smiled. “Even if we were… well, I couldn’t say anything to you about it, as I am sure you will understand.” He immediately leaned forwards. “Would you care for a shot of spirits?”
I accepted. Herr Hochgeschurz leaned over to one side, took a bottle of gin and two small glasses out of his desk, and filled the glasses to the brim. After he had raised his glass to me and then tipped the gin down his throat, he leaned back.
He massaged his nose for a while, and then said, “Of course we are always on our guard. We have to be, considering the large numbers of people who come here from the former communist countries.” He smiled. “The KGB hasn’t gone into retirement yet. Even the Stasi hasn’t, as you’ve presumably heard before now.”
I don’t know if what I felt was triumph or horror. After a pause, during which Hochgeschurz looked at me in silence, I said, “Do you think it possible that Herr Ninoshvili has some kind of connection… well, a connection with the KGB seems to me downright absurd. After all, he’s obviously a staunch Georgian nationalist, and that would hardly go down well with the KGB. I mean… Tbilisi and Moscow, they’ve always been poles apart.”
He
rr Hochgeschurz laughed. “Ah, there you underestimate the Soviet secret service! They don’t just stick false beards on. The comrades of the KGB can act like nationalists if need be. And the Georgians, moreover, haven’t exactly been the Soviet Union’s poor relations. Not only was Stalin himself a Georgian, his secret service chief Beria came from the same country. And so did Ordzhonikidze. As a historian, I’m sure you know more than I do about the methods that arch-Bolshevik used to bring his native land back home to the empire.”
He paused briefly, and then added, “Not that I’d like you to think I said Herr Ninoshvili works for the KGB.”
I nodded. “No.” After a while, I said, “But you do give me plenty to think about.”
“Why?”
I realized that my present venture could easily run out of control, but I couldn’t bring myself to beat a retreat. I said, “I’m thinking of what you said about the KGB and the Stasi. And that those people haven’t gone into retirement yet. Of course that’s not entirely news to me, but… that murder just occurred to me, the one in today’s paper. The woman found stabbed in her hotel. Did you read about it yourself ?”
“Yes.”
Apparently Hochgeschurz was going to confine himself to that answer. Perhaps he intended to provoke me, but in any case I went on. “Do you think it possible that there’s something of the kind behind that story? How shall I put it? A background to do with the intelligence services? I mean… it obviously wasn’t done by a sex murderer. And all the circumstances are rather mysterious, no ID, a false address…”
Herr Hochgeschurz did not say: you’ve been reading too many spy thrillers. He said, “At present the matter’s in the hands of our colleagues of the police force. That’s what the murder squad is for.”
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