• • •
Dunya seemed surprised to find that the villa and garden belonged to an undertaker’s business. Hesitantly, she shook hands with Reza and Karl, and did not move from Blum’s side. She was shaken, overwhelmed by so much hospitality, by the fact these people she didn’t know were smiling at her. As Karl opened the wine he didn’t hear Dunya asking in a whisper why Blum had done it, why she had brought her home, why she hadn’t simply looked away like all the others.
• • •
Blum was burning inside, but she tried to smile and said nothing. All she wanted was the truth. She wanted to know exactly what had happened to Mark, and she wanted to persuade Dunya to stay. In silence, she tipped spaghetti into boiling water. Dunya couldn’t hear any of what was going on inside Blum. Doubt, fury, hatred. Soundlessly, Blum was screaming for the truth. If you’re lying, then stop. If you’re telling the truth then get out, leave us in peace, don’t put us in harm’s way. I wish you’d just say something, Dunya. Say something? I want to see what’s there. After that I’ll throw you back into the sea, I just want to know if what you say can be true. Or if you’re out of your mind. Because surely it can’t be true. No one would ever do such things to you. Dunya, tell me you were just using Mark because you were lonely, because you needed someone to listen to you and take you in his arms. Tell me that. Anything else is madness. No human being could endure it. Tell me it isn’t all true. Please.
• • •
Blum was staring at Dunya with a forced smile. She wore that smile while the pasta cooked, minutes passing without words, only the meeting of glances and the chopping of onions. She wanted to weep, scream, fly off the handle; she wanted to switch everything off—Dunya, this day, life. Simply turn off a switch as she was dicing the tomatoes. But for the moment she needed to act as if everything were all right, as if none of it had happened. Smile, lift the corners of your mouth, and press your lips together. How she was burning, how her ideas were tumbling over one another. Because the mere idea of what the woman had been through was so inhuman.
• • •
And now they sit eating the pasta and it feels almost as though Dunya has always been there, at the large kitchen table. They don’t talk about Mark, although there is nothing Blum would have liked more, nor do they talk about the undertaker’s business. There is no talk of their dead. They just talk about the weather, the approaching autumn, about the backyard that Karl and Reza will be preparing for winter. And about the children. Uma and Nela are curious, and want to know more about this stranger in their home. They have shown her everything, and willingly let her have their bedroom. Taking her hands in theirs, they have shown Dunya round the house; she is their mother’s new friend and an old acquaintance of their father. It doesn’t seem to bother them, or anyone else round the table, that she says so little. They eat and drink, an extended family at the dining table with spaghetti, salad, and wine. Plenty of wine. After Blum has put the little rascals to bed, they open another bottle, and it is almost an enjoyable evening, the first time since Mark’s death that they have all come together. Wine washes the darkness away for a little while, and Karl even tells jokes. Then his eyes begin to close, and he falls asleep in his chair. Reza says good night and takes the old man upstairs.
• • •
Blum and Dunya are at the kitchen table, their glasses freshly filled. In another life this is where the day would be ending. But for these two it goes on, for hours if required. Blum has so many questions. Everything that Dunya said this afternoon fills the room. Now that they are alone again Blum is afraid of what Dunya was suggesting. That Mark’s death wasn’t an accident, but murder.
• • •
At the kitchen table, in the middle of the night, Dunya says so again. She believes that someone was lying in wait for Mark. Waiting for him to come out of the gates. One of those five men stepped on the accelerator and drove straight into Mark. Dunya knows it, senses it, does not believe in coincidences. It was murder, she says. Blum contemplates the possibility. There is so much which is hidden.
• • •
“Please, Dunya. How can you be so sure?”
“Because I know those men. They’d do anything to avoid being caught. They’d spend the rest of their lives in prison for what they did.”
“You’re talking about murder.”
“Yes.”
“Mark never harmed anyone.”
“He stirred up a hornets’ nest. The last time we met, he told me that he might have found one of the men. The photographer.”
“What did he find?”
“I don’t know. He just said I wasn’t to worry.”
“Nonsense, that wasn’t on the tape. It can’t be true.”
“He’d already switched off his phone, he didn’t want anyone to hear. No one, you understand. It was the last thing he said to me. Then he left. And didn’t come back. I hated him for that.”
“But they wore masks, didn’t they? All the time? You said you never saw their faces all those years.”
“No, only the masks.”
“Then how could he have found the man? How, tell me?”
“I don’t know.”
“There are hundreds of photographers in the Tyrol. And no one says he has to come from the Tyrol anyway. No one knows where that cellar is. You could have been in Bavaria, or in Italy. You were found just by the Italian border.”
“I’m so sorry. I can only tell you what I told him myself.”
“Now you must tell me everything, one last time.”
“I can’t go through it all again.”
“Please. Do it for Mark.”
“My story killed him. And it will kill you too.”
Blum twists the throttle again. She is wearing a helmet, she has bought herself leathers. She keeps reminding herself that she has children, that she doesn’t want to die. Hence the helmet, hence the leathers. But still she rides fast. Along the highway, over the bridge into the Ötz Valley. There are many bends in the road, but it’s only twenty minutes before she reaches the village where she may find answers. Everything that Dunya has told her began there. In the staff hostel five years ago. Someone must know something, someone must have noticed that Dunya was missing.
• • •
Blum is riding twice as fast as she should. She races through Ötz, a little Tyrolean village. Ignoring the disapproving looks of people by the road, she swiftly leaves the village behind her, she must go on, she must get to Sölden quickly. Mark found something, Blum knows it. She now knows that Dunya is right and there can be no doubt about that, none at all. She speeds past roadside shrines as the road winds upwards. Everything that has happened lies ahead of her. Blum spent almost all night trying to soothe Dunya’s fears, stroking her hair and listening to her story. Dunya told her things she hadn’t told Mark, terrible things that made her weep, that brought her to seek protection in Blum’s arms. An evil fairy tale in which Dunya plays the starring role. A horror film about five men, including this photographer.
• • •
Five men. The photographer, the priest, the huntsman, the cook, and the clown. Dunya has described each of them. She tried to remember everything they did, she wanted to help Blum. She told her all about the pictures the photographer took. How enthusiastic he was, how passionately he spoke of his work. His photographs would make him famous, they were unique. Compositions on the subject of pain. How he talked to the others about his projects, his achievements, taking photos like a man possessed. Youn’s face while the priest smashed into him from behind. Youn’s screams, his gaping mouth, his desperation. And Ilena, her eyes vacant because nothing could hurt her anymore. There was only a void, never mind how hard they struck, how often they thrust into her, how often the clown hit her, pummelling her belly. Only those dazed, empty eyes. The photographer enthused about that effect for minutes on end, saying how unique they were, these moments recorded in pictures. How authentic and true to life, how extraordinarily honest. He tied Duny
a down to the table and raped her, taking photographs all the time. If she turned her head away he hit her.
• • •
“He photographed you while he was doing that to you?”
“Yes.”
“Were you naked?”
“He only took pictures of our faces.”
“Only your faces?”
“He thought it was art. He thought he’d be very successful with it.”
“Only faces?”
“Yes, whether or not we were naked.”
“So not pornography?”
“No, only pain.”
“What a sick bastard. And the others went along with that? They didn’t object?”
“No, they all liked keeping a record of what they did to us.”
“How old is this man?”
“Under forty, barely.”
“His voice?”
“Gentle. Pleasant. Only his voice, though.”
“What else did he say?”
“Thousands of things.”
“Such as?”
“That he’d photograph me as I lay dying.”
“What did he mean?”
“Exactly what he said.”
“He was going to kill you?”
“He said he’d fuck me up the ass till I died. Then he was going to take a photo of my lips. He thought my lips were very beautiful. He wanted to take pictures of them when I was dead. After he’d fucked me to death, when my lips weren’t touching any longer.”
“You’re safe here, Dunya.”
“There’s nothing left of me.”
“I’m so sorry about it all. But I’m so glad that you got away, that you’re here.”
“It’s because of me that you’re on your own now.”
“They killed him, you didn’t.”
“Do you believe me now?”
“Yes. I’ll look after you, Dunya.”
• • •
Blum took Dunya in her arms. No one in the world needed her more than Dunya; no one was more helpless, more wounded, had more tears. Suddenly there was no room left for Blum’s own grief, only this woman, ragged and wounded. Dunya was trembling all over, fear dripped from every word she said. Blum held her firmly. Dunya whimpered. Then, still trembling, she fell asleep.
• • •
Blum is on the motorcycle; she has to find the photographer. He is one of the five men who are guilty of Mark’s death. And he is the key that will open the door to the truth. Mark had started a stone rolling and the stone had rolled over him. It was no coincidence, Dunya said. The Rover was no coincidence. Mark had to die, he had tracked down the man with the camera, the man who had pressed the shutter thousands of times. This man had recorded the horror for five years, recorded their despair in print, and that was evidence. Evidence that Dunya didn’t have. The horror urges Blum on. Never mind how fast she rides, she can’t escape it.
• • •
Along the mountain road at 160 kilometers per hour. She feels no fear, only rage. No fear of death, no fear of those men, only hatred and the road beneath her, the tires and all that lies ahead. What lies behind her is Mark, and everything they did to Dunya. Blum will find them. Blum will find out who was driving that Rover. She won’t stop asking questions, she will dig her teeth into her quarry and refuse to let go.
• • •
Blum rides into Sölden. The hotels are closed for the summer. Where crowds will be thronging the sidewalks in winter, all is quiet now. Like many other resorts in the Tyrol, this village only comes alive in the ski season. However hard they try to attract summer tourists, the streets stay empty. Many hoteliers would rather close than cook for a handful of people. Sölden is a mecca for skiing, and for some years now a destination for rich Russians. But there’s no trace of them today, no golden ski suits, no three-figure tips, no après-ski bars with music and people getting drunk. Only grass on the slopes, only empty eyesores as far as the eye can see, hiding the mountains. Closed bars, signs pointing to hotels with names suggesting mountain views and Alpine flowers: the Alpenblick, Edelweiss, Bergblick, Alpenrose, Felseneck, Zirbenhof, Lerchenhof, Rosenhof. And then the Annenhof, behind the parking lot for the ski lift. How abandoned it all is, how dismal. She tries to imagine living here, waiting for winter, living only half a life. The two hikers coming towards Blum look lost but then she sees them go up steps—to the Annenhof, one of the few hotels now open. The hotel where it all began. Blum parks the bike. She goes through the lobby to the bar. First she’ll try the waiter. She’ll talk to him casually over a beer, maybe flirt with him. Whatever it takes. Blum isn’t going to leave this hotel until she knows more. Blum wants gossip, rumor, she wants a look behind the scenes. That’s where you find things out, Mark always said. She sits down with a smile at the empty bar and orders. She feels almost as though she’s alone in the hotel. The waiter is polishing glasses; there’s nothing for him to do but talk to Blum about the past.
• • •
“A beer, please.”
“A large one?”
“Absolutely.”
“Come far, have you?”
“Just a little round-trip.”
“Pretty, isn’t it?”
“You think so?”
“Don’t you?”
“No.”
“What are you doing here, then?”
“What are you doing here? You sound as if you come from the east of Germany. That’s not exactly round the corner.”
“There’s work here. And I get to serve pretty ladies like you.”
“Why, thank you.”
“You’re welcome. And by the way, the beer’s from there too.”
“Why’s that?”
“The boss is from the east.”
“In the olden days the Germans were guests here.”
“They still are.”
“Ah, but now they get served by Germans.”
“So?”
“Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad you have work and I’m glad you’re here. I’m just surprised there aren’t any Tyroleans wanting the jobs these days.”
“It was the same before.”
“Was it now?”
“Eastern Europeans used to work here. There weren’t many Tyroleans around the place, even before.”
“Eastern Europeans?”
“That’s right.”
“Working legally?”
“No.”
“Illegals?”
“Among other things, that’s why this place was closed down.”
“Is that right?”
“No idea. I mean, what does a guy from the east of Germany know? I wasn’t even here at the time.”
“I like guys from the east of Germany.”
“Hey, you’re pretty funny.”
“Am I?”
“And you look damn good.”
“And you’re chatting up a guest.”
“What else is there for me to do?”
“How long have you been here, then?”
“Three years.”
“Then you didn’t work for the old boss?”
“No, none of us here now did. They changed the whole staff. I suppose they wanted a fresh start.”
“That’s a pity. I need to talk to someone who worked here five years ago.”
“Why?”
“I was in love with a waiter at the time. Only I didn’t realize it until too late, and now I don’t know where to find him.”
“Very romantic.”
“Yes, isn’t it? I wonder if you can help me. Who might know him? Did any locals work here? There must be someone who knows the waiters from back then.”
“Seems like the hotel was swept clean overnight. Three-quarters of the staff weren’t properly registered back then. The old boss didn’t take that stuff so seriously.”
“I heard he’s in local government now.”
“So I heard. Sounds like he got out just at the right time. An investor from the east made him an offer, and it was all signed and se
aled in no time. I reckon this man Schönborn had so many skeletons in his closet he couldn’t stay here. They might even have locked him up. So he bolted.”
“That’s what they say about him in the village, do they?”
“Exactly.”
“And what else?”
“Nothing I’d bet a single cent on, it’s probably all nonsense, spread by the former doorman here, who hasn’t a good word to say about Schönborn. What’s more, the old doorman drinks a fair bit, so no one really believes him. All nonsense, like I said. So I prefer to keep my mouth shut and stick to the facts.”
“What was he saying?”
“No idea, you’ll have to ask him yourself. But watch out. The man’s not quite right in the head. He used to drink here a lot, so I knew what he was like. Always shooting his mouth off, thought Schönborn was responsible for the mess he’d made of his life. If he’d had things his own way he’d have been managing the hotel by now. Had ideas above his station, poor guy.”
“I’d like to talk to him.”
“Maybe you’d better not. If he ever knew where your boyfriend went, you can bet he’ll have forgotten it by now.”
“But it’s worth a try, don’t you think?”
“Not if you’re going to leave me here all alone.”
“Sorry, darling.”
• • •
Blum smiles and gets to her feet. She goes out round the back to the staff hostel, where she pictures three people being loaded into a car unseen, in the middle of the night. A robbery of humans in paradise, a plunge from heaven to hell. Blum plans to find out where that hell is. She gets on her motorcycle and rides away.
He lives in a room on the first floor. The building is so shabby, she struggles to find the entrance among the trash. She goes up a crumbling flight of outside steps and knocks. There’s a light on, he’s there, she can hear him, but all the same it is some time before he comes to the door. Blum has nothing to lose; she feels curious, she wants to know what the man has to say. Anything is better than turning round and going home, even this gnarled man and his schnapps, the devilish faces everywhere.
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