When he turned into the Kurfürstenallee, he saw the square vehicle standing outside her house. A compact, armour-plated van painted shiny black, of the sort used to transport the money from supermarkets and banks. Markus drove slowly up to it. Before he reached it, he stopped the car, reached back, picked up the attaché case from the rear seat and left his car. He walked up to the vehicle, peered through the small windows into the empty driver’s cabin, and with the palm of his hand touched the metal of the side walls that, in spite of the heat, still felt cold. In small letters under the firm’s insignia were written the words: security transport. When Markus turned from the vehicle and walked up to the gate, a man came down the front garden towards him, dressed in a blue outfit like a uniform, the trousers held up by a broad leather belt from which a pistol holster hung. Markus could see the robust handle of the weapon that was not concealed by its case.
“Who are you?” the man had asked him when he opened the gate and they were facing each other. Markus, who did not reply to the question, walked past the man into the front garden, but the man followed him and held him firmly by the upper arm. Markus did not try to free his arm. He stood there and turned round towards him. He looked into the face that was smooth and inconspicuous, with a friendly expression that surprised Markus.
“I work for Selma Bruhns,” he said.
“Sorry if I was a bit rude,” said the man and dropped his arm, “but we’re responsible for the transport.”
Markus asked no questions. He continued on his way to the house, hoping that she would step out and come to meet him as if she had been waiting for him. But she did not come out. As he stepped through the open front door into the hall, he came across a second man wearing the same uniform as the first, he too was carrying a weapon and was busy packing away the portrait that he had taken down from the wall, wrapping it in transparent foil.
“Where is Selma Bruhns?” said Markus trying to recognize the picture through the foil, but the glassy wrapping allowed the old man’s features to shimmer through only vaguely. The man, who had now begun to wrap the foil with brown sticking tape, merely looked up briefly, nodded towards the door behind which lay the room in which Selma Bruhns lived, and carried on with his work. Markus walked over to the door and knocked. When Selma Bruhns opened the door and they stood facing each other, he silently held the attaché case out to her, and with his other hand pulled the change out of his jacket pocket. She looked at him. Then she stepped aside so that Markus could look into the room, indicated the table in front of a sofa covered with a red drape, and said: “Place it on the table.”
Markus hesitated to walk into the room in which, thanks to the draped windows, the same twilight reigned as in the other rooms, somewhat brightened up only by the furniture. When Markus finally did enter the room, walking over to the table and placing the money and the attaché case on top of it, he could smell, through the stench of the animals that had penetrated here as well, a sweet odour clinging to the objects.
“The picture is valuable,” said Selma Bruhns, although Markus had not asked any questions. She was still standing in the open door as if she could not expect Markus to leave the room.
THE FIFTH DAY
Dear Almut,
Herbert has been in the interior for some time, I have stayed here, I walk through the rooms of a house like a stranger, not like a visitor, nor like a supplicant, but like someone who has not yet arrived, who is still travelling, and has been travelling for so long that he has not only forgotten the place he has left, but also lost sight of the goal of his journey. Only the movement remains, the pounding of the ship, the footsteps on the parquet floor. From the terrace I can look down onto the water whose colour changes every day and sometimes even every hour; when it is green, the black sea floor shimmers through the green up to the surface, and it can be as wild and gentle as memory. When we were still so young that we considered animals as living creatures with the same rights as us, able to send us messages, each in its different way, we used to ride into the woods around town on our children’s bikes, you were always quicker than I was, to the lake that lay at the foot of the hill, the hill on which the temple stood with its columns, the temple whose secret we could never guess. We had taken fishing nets with us, but squatted down on the bank and observed the surface of the water through which we could see right down to the bottom of the lake, where the weeds grew in profusion and swayed with the secret movement of the water. We waited. Until one of the strange creatures loosened itself from the slime and came up to the surface for air. Again you were quicker than I was, you dipped the net under the creature and caught it. You held it in your hand, do you remember how amazed we were when we discovered the four tiny little feet on the slender amphibious body ending in a pointed tail, we carefully touched the brown wrinkled skin that protected its body, and observed its movements as the frightened creature tried to escape from your hand curved in the shape of a mussel? We caught slender fish as they darted through the water as quick as arrows, they had a red patch on the underside of their bodies, and we dropped them into the jars we had brought with us so as to observe them in peace and quiet before we let them go again. The salamander would pause for a moment on the riverbank, as if it did not want to leave you.
Once a week I drive down into town, walk through the district where the immigrants live, the ones who have been lucky enough to find accommodation in this town and have managed to sink into the anonymity of the nameless who have escaped. I remain standing in front of a four-storey house on whose balconies the washing dries in the wind that is always warm. I go inside, two steps up, and ring the doorbell. She opens it. We go into her kitchen that is so narrow that there is hardly enough room for two people. When I leave her, I feel like a thief who has stolen part of the strength that keeps her alive. She managed to get on board the last ship to leave M with a valid transit pass, she arrived here unable to speak the language, in order to survive she started going out with different men and rented the apartment with the money that the men gave her. When she could just about get by in the language, she found a job at the university, a junior post, but one that allowed her to handle books again. When she had saved up a bit of money, she took on a child that had run after her in the street, she gave him a name and started to hang her washing on the balcony to dry.
Herbert phones every day from the interior and when I speak to him I can picture the herds of animals wandering across the wide plains. The woman I’ve just told you about, since I feel ashamed, bears your name, Almut.
“Are you hungry,” says Berger. He has remained sitting in the armchair in front of Glowna’s desk, sunk deep into himself, his head leaning back, blinking through half-closed eyes up at the ceiling. He has crossed his legs and every now and then he jiggles his foot. Markus has not left his place by the window. Although he feels that his legs cannot go on bearing the weight of his body, he continues to stand there, without leaning against the window frame. As he observes Berger, and the serenity streaming out from this figure appears unjustified, he has to ward off the desire to go back in time and restore the relation between himself and Berger as it was before they stepped into Glowna’s room.
“Yes, I’m hungry,” says Markus.
As if Berger had merely been waiting for Markus to answer, he sits up in his armchair, wriggles forward on the leather chair until his feet rest firmly on the ground, and stands up. He picks up Glowna’s report that he had laid back on the desk, and holds it out to Markus.
“Do you want to keep it,” he says.
As Markus merely makes a negative gesture with his head, Berger tears up the report and throws the pieces into the wastepaper basket.
“Do you regret it?” says Berger simultaneously turning away and walking to the door. Although Markus thinks he knows what Berger means, he does not reply. Berger opens the door and steps into the corridor. Markus follows him. They meet neither Glowna nor the woman who had let them in.
It has been raining while they
were in Glowna’s house. The light is reflected in the puddles. As Markus breathes in the damp air, he thinks he can feel it penetrating into the furthest little passages of his lungs. Berger starts to walk down the steps, holding tight to the railing and placing one foot carefully in front of the other. Halfway down, he stops and looks up at Markus who is still standing on the railed area outside the front door.
“Why did she do that?” says Berger, wiping his hands on his jacket—they had got wet running along the top of the railing—“Why did she have enquiries made about you?”
He turns back to the street, walks down the steps, down the footpath to his car, opens the driver’s door and gets in without turning to see whether Markus is following him. As if Berger’s question had first alerted him to the possibility, Markus realises for the first time that Selma Bruhns must have read the report, secretly, just as he had read the letters, sitting in a room or in the kitchen, on the wooden chair, smoking a cigarette. Although he knows that she is dead, or rather precisely because he knows this, he feels the desire not to take her to task about it but to ask when she had received the report and how long she had known more about him than he had guessed. As he follows Berger, walking down the steps and along the footpath, his unrest gives way to a feeling of happiness that seems strange to him at first until he realises that the thought of them both having a secret from each other—he had stolen and read her letters, while she had requested that a report be made on him—fills him with satisfaction. Markus opens the passenger door and climbs into the car next to Berger.
“I know Glowna,” says Berger, “you need have no worries.”
He starts up the engine, manoeuvres the car out of the parking space and drives down the street leading to the Market Square; before he reaches it, he turns off down a side street.
“You say that Selma Bruhns gave you the money,” says Berger, “what did she expect in return?”
He steers the car into the car park of a Chinese restaurant in an empty site between the houses. On the firewall of one of the houses, graffiti artists have sprayed a picture that reaches up to the first storey. Berger switches off the engine but does not get out. Markus has not answered his question. He looks through the windscreen onto the picture on the wall without really seeing it.
“Did she give you anything else,” says Berger.
Markus does not answer this question either. Berger turns round and slaps him in the face. The palm of his hand strikes his temple and the cheekbone right under his eye. As Berger withdraws his hand, Markus remembers the words of Berger’s colleague who told him and Selma Bruhns’s neighbour that Berger had been on leave for a long time and had only recently come back to work.
“This isn’t a game,” says Berger, opening the door and getting out of the car. Markus gets out too. Now they are standing next to the car and staring at each other over the car roof.
“Was it your wife that you looked after until she died,” says Markus, then turns away and walks across the car park to the street.
“Don’t go back to her,” said Christine as they sat facing each other at the kitchen table, “you can find another job.”
Markus had woken up in the night, thrown back the blanket, and carefully climbed out of bed so as not to wake up Christine, who was lying with her face to the wall; in her sleep she had clenched both her hands. He had gone barefoot into the kitchen, drunk a glass of water and sat on the floor, his back against the refrigerator, that began to vibrate gently when its motor kicked in. He lit a cigarette and stared at the dark rectangle of the window. Then he got up; now he could feel the chill on his bare feet. He was just about to put the glass back on the table when it slipped from his hand and shattered on the floor. He had listened to see whether Christine had woken up and stood for a long while in the middle of the kitchen until he was sure Christine would sleep on, then he had gone into his workroom that had once been the storeroom, no windows, just big enough for a table and chair to fit in. He had switched on the desk lamp, sat on a chair and opened a drawer where he kept the letters that he had brought with him from her house. He had not read them again, but he had touched them, stroked the paper with the palm of his hand, finally putting them back in the drawer, switching off the light and leaving the room.
“She’s paying me thirty marks per hour,” said Markus, lifting the cup of coffee to his mouth, drinking and placing it back on the table, “that’s a lot of money.”
Christine gazed at him over the table, and for several moments Markus thought she must have noticed him getting up in the night, which made him feel guilty, as if he had done something forbidden.
“It isn’t the money,” said Christine.
“I can’t leave her in the lurch,” replied Markus, and only when he uttered the sentence did he realise it was true even though he could not justify it.
“Who wrote the letters?” said Christine, “they are addressed to a certain Almut. The first name of the woman you work for is Selma.”
Markus poured what was left of the coffee into his cup, but said nothing, since could give no reply to Christine’s question.
“Why do you have to put the letters in order before she burns them,” said Christine.
Markus wished she would shut up.
“Why does she never leave her house? Why does she keep all the windows draped? Why does she let the cats run wild?”
Christine paused, but when eventually Markus said quietly: “That’s none of our business,” she replied: “Oh, really?” stood up, picked up her briefcase from the kitchen rack and went to the door.
“What does she want from you?” she said, pausing at the door. “Sorting out the letters is merely a pretext. Don’t go back to her.”
Markus stared at her, trying to work out from the expression on her face how seriously she meant her words, then he also stood up, took two steps towards her as if he wanted to stop her leaving the kitchen, but then stopped before reaching her. Christine stepped out into the corridor. Markus waited until he heard the flat door swing shut.
As always when he left the flat he had taken his briefcase with him. He threw it onto the rear seat of his car, closed the door and started up the engine. Before he drove away he leant back in his seat, shut his eyes and held in his breath.
He drove along the ring road, but did not turn off into the villa district, following instead the main road to where it turned off to the river. He stopped the car outside a tobacconist’s, got out and went into the shop with its smell of newspapers and tobacco. As he waited for two customers in front of him to be served, he saw the pipes displayed in a glass window. He bought a packet of cigarettes. When he stepped back out into the street, he thought he could still smell the paper and tobacco as if it had clung to his jacket and his skin. For a moment he envied the man standing behind the shop counter in the cramped, cave-like room that he would not leave until the evening, between the shelves piled with boxes of cigarettes and the newsstands with the daily newspapers and weekly magazines. He drove down the street that led to the dyke, found a parking spot, got out, crossed the road, and gazed at the river between its reinforced banks. He quickly made his way down across the grass of the dyke to the water and squatted on the stones whose joins were filled with tar. He did not know why he had driven here, perhaps it was because when he was a child he had thought that rivers could answer questions. On the deck of the riverboat sailing by, a car stood next to the cabin, in the open holds were great heaps of sand, there was washing on the line, hanging out to dry in the breeze, nobody could be seen on board. Markus threw a stone into the water. He gazed after the boat as it neared the bridges, and stood up. He felt anger mounting in him, an anger he could not understand and that he wanted to shake off as if it were an insect.
When he had parked his car in the Kurfürstenallee and was walking up to her house, she opened the front door, as if she had been observing him through a gap between the drapes over the window, and stared at him. In her arms she was holding one of the animals,
a young cat that was only reluctantly allowing itself to be held. As she spoke to him, she stroked the animal’s head as it tried in vain to escape from her caress.
“When will you have finished your job?” she said.
Markus was still standing on the bottom step. He looked at her, but avoided her gaze. Today, instead of a red dress, she was wearing a housecoat that was so washed out it had lost almost all colour. Her hair was unkempt, she was wearing sandals. But Markus thought he could sense an impatience in her words, an impatience that up until now she had kept concealed from him. He hesitated to reply as if he wanted to work out what she wanted to hear before speaking.
“I don’t know,” he said.
With a sudden move that took Markus by surprise, she threw the animal towards him, it crashed into his chest, and only because Markus reacted quickly and caught the animal could he prevent it from falling onto the ground.
“You are working slowly and without much concentration,” said Selma Bruhns, turning round and stepping into the house. Markus bent down and let the animal free. For a moment it stood there motionless as if it needed time to find its bearings, then it ran down the steps. Markus picked up his briefcase, straightened up, and followed her into the house.
The Game of Cards Page 9