The Lie

by Petra Hammesfahr

  What was that all about? Why had Nadia switched off her mobile? And why hadn’t she rung yet? She’d promised to do so as soon as she arrived and she’d been gone for three hours now. An accident? Given the way Nadia drove it wouldn’t be surprising. She would be sure to have put her foot down to catch up with her lover. A terrible picture appeared in her mind’s eye: the silver Mercedes a tangle of metal somewhere on the side of the autobahn; the police, fire brigade and a doctor freeing the woman stuck in the car, only to establish that she was dead. One picking up the handbag, taking out the papers and saying, “She’s called Susanne Lasko.”

  She straightened up, her back stiffening. Her scalp tightened until it was painful and her old wound started to throb. She began to work her way through the consequences of her nightmare vision: a patrol car going to the old folks’ home, a uniform policeman giving her mother the sad news, tears welling up in blind eyes.

  Finally she remembered the taps were still running. She rushed to the bathroom and was just in time to prevent a flood. The bath had lost its attraction, as had the escalope, mushrooms, beans and asparagus. She looked for an explanation - any explanation - to reassure herself. A very long journey during which Nadia had her mobile switched off for reasons of safety? Using a phone while driving was forbidden. But hadn’t the Mercedes had a hands-free kit? A short journey and straight into bed on arrival where they wouldn’t want to be disturbed? Followed by a substantial meal, during which they left their mobiles switched off out of consideration for other customers in the restaurant? Who would remember the stand-in at home when they were finally free to do all the things they’d so far been prevented from doing?

  She kept trying to get through to Nadia every ten or fifteen minutes, but by half past two she still hadn’t got a reply. Anyway, no policeman would think of informing Nadia Trenkler of the death of Susanne Lasko. What now? Ring up her mother to ask whether the police had been to see her? It was too early for that, the police would have to go to Kettlerstrasse first before they could find out whom they needed to inform of her death.

  Towards half-past three, by which time she had tried so often she’d lost count, the continuing uncertainty was making her feel sick. She went into the living room and opened the upper doors of the rustic-style dresser. Just a tiny drop to calm her down! She examined the level of each bottle and, after some hesitation, mixed herself a drink with a few drops from eight different ones. The fist sip burned her throat. The second she retained in her mouth for a few seconds so she could feel the effect. Minutes later she imagined the alcohol had already gone to her head. She felt slightly dizzy and finally did something about getting lunch. It took her mind off things. The mobile was at hand beside the sink.

  As the water was just beginning to simmer in the pans, she noticed movement on the little monitor over the fridge. The next moment a large dog started to bark in the hall. It sounded dangerous and the growls which followed sent shivers down her spine. These turned into a hot flush as she remembered she hadn’t closed the door from the dining room onto the terrace. Eleanor Ravetzky’s hound must have got into the house through it. Fortunately she’d closed the kitchen door.

  Instead of looking at the monitor, she went to the window to see if there was anyone across the road looking for the dog. There wasn’t. But there was a man at the front door. He saw her and waved a large bouquet. She recognized Joachim Kogler and finally looked at the monitor. Not surprisingly, it was filled with Joachim Kogler’s face. More barking and growls came from the hall. She opened the kitchen door a crack. No sign of a dog. Nadia had instructed her not to go to the door, but since Joachim Kogler had seen her, she picked up the useless mobile and opened the door, saying, “Just a moment, Helga.”

  Joachim Kogler was beaming all over his face. He pressed the bouquet into her free hand and took a piece of paper out of his pocket, at the same time pulling her to him, patting her on the back, despite the telephone clamped to her ear, and giving whoops of delight. “I couldn’t believe it when you told us yesterday. But now I’ve got it in writing; it came this morning. I still haven’t taken it in.”

  Clasped to his chest like a dressmaker’s dummy, she let her hand with the mobile drop to her side and prayed he would say something, anything, that would give a hint as to the reason for his euphoria. Finally he stopped pawing her, placed his hands on her shoulders, pushed her back a little and stuck the piece of paper under her nose. Alfo Investment, she read, but before she could see any more, he said, unable to contain his joy, “Thirty points! Now, of course, I’m annoyed I didn’t borrow more. Should I wait a bit? Do you think they’ll go even higher?”

  It could only be shares he was talking about. Nadia must have given him a tip. And he’d taken out a loan on the strength of it? How reckless of him. She puffed up her cheeks then let the air out slowly, shaking her head thoughtfully. “Hard to say. I wouldn’t take the risk.”

  Joachim Kogler sniffed, frowned and immediately came back to earth. “Have you been drinking?”

  She imitated Nadia’s casual shrug of the shoulders. She was about to say, “Just a drop,” but he immediately went on, “Don’t be stupid, Nadia. What’s up? Has Michael been moaning again?” He waved the Alfo Investment letter at her. “I’ll talk to him,” he promised. “After all, this is a good argument.”

  “There’s no need,” she hurried to assure him. “Everything’s OK. Really. I was just making myself something to eat.”

  “Then use plenty of onions and garlic,” he advised her, still deadly serious. “And come over if there’s a problem.”

  “Yes,” she said. “But there’s no problem, really there isn’t.” She held up the bouquet. “Thanks for the flowers, they’re lovely.”

  Joachim Kogler laughed, a brief laugh, but a laugh nevertheless. “If anyone has to say thank you, then it’s me. It saves me having to go on my bended knees to Brenner. He’s going to be sorry he cut the subvention for my new programme. Now I can develop it from my own resources. If you ever have another tip like that—”

  “I’ll think of you,” she broke in to get rid of him.

  He laughed again. “I should hope so too. But remember the onions - and put the flowers in some water.” Giving her one last pat on the shoulder, he left.

  She closed the door and looked at the flowers. A magnificent bouquet and, to be honest, the first she’d ever had. Her bridal bouquet didn’t count, that was part of the outfit. And if she remembered rightly, Dieter had neither ordered it nor paid for it, her father had seen to that. She already knew her way around so well that she found the right vase straight away, put the flowers in the water and saw to her meal. There were onions in the larder in the basement but she couldn’t find any garlic.

  Twenty minutes later she was sitting at the kitchen table. She couldn’t stand the thought of the elegant dining room and she’d just gone in briefly to shut the door onto the terrace. On the worktop behind her was the mobile surrounded by a pile of pots and pans. The glass was still there too. The room was filled with an aromatic fragrance and the arrangement on her plate looked delicious. It would probably have tasted like that, too, if she’d been in the mood to enjoy it. As it was, she just picked at it. She couldn’t get the bloodstained image of the crash out of her mind, she dreaded the next futile telephone call and she didn’t know what to do. She recalled the nightmare about Heller, how he’d grinned and said, “It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.”

  It wasn’t an opportunity, that was ridiculous. She laughed, though it was only a short laugh and slightly hysterical: Susanne Lasko in the snow-white villa, with a husband who earned a huge amount, but she didn’t know exactly how, with unknown parents in Geneva, Chopin in G minor in the living room, a swimming pool in the basement and a Beckmann somewhere or other. And the only thing she did know about, more or less, was the blasted alarm system.

  She remembered the hired car and was temporarily reassured at the thought of the helpful assistant who’d arranged for her to have the
Mercedes and who would certainly be informed of any accident. But only for a few moments. Even while she was wondering whether to ring the car-hire firm, or even go to the airport, she realized that Susanne Lasko having an accident in a luxury car was bound to lead to countless questions.

  Where had a woman who lived a wretched life in a grotty flat suddenly found the money to afford a car like that? What did she need it for? Where was she going in it? And if she explained everything? The car-hire firm certainly wouldn’t be happy that she’d passed the car on to someone else. They’d probably demand compensation. How much did a silver Mercedes cost? The conclusion of all this was the dismal realization that if Nadia actually did have an accident in the hired car it would leave her facing a mountain of problems.

  One of the sensors registered a car door being closed outside. The monitor over the fridge lighted up and showed movement. She didn’t even notice. The escalope lay there between the asparagus and green beans, almost untouched. As she speared a couple of slices of fried mushroom and some onion rings with her fork, she wondered whether she could risk driving to Kettlerstrasse and asking Heller if the police had been there.

  Voices could be heard above the fridge. Now she did look. Her hands started to tremble when she recognized Michael Trenkler. He must be standing right outside the front door. And he wasn’t alone. Whoever was with him was hidden from the camera by his body, but he asked them, “Why don’t you come in for a moment?”

  The next minute she heard steps in the hall and then he was in the kitchen, smiling at her. “Hi, darling.”

  She quickly stuffed three runner beans in her mouth, mumbled, “Hi,” and peered past him, expecting to see some stranger, whom she would have no idea whether Nadia would have been pleased or displeased to see.

  His eye ran over the dirty dishes on the worktop and his smile vanished. He’d seen the glass. He took a couple of steps, picked it up and sniffed at it. His eyes narrowed. Joachim Kogler appeared in the doorway, a look of concern on his face. He seemed relieved at the sight of the onions on her plate. With a conspiratorial wink to her, he told Michael he’d already been there to thank her. And he’d had a celebratory tot of the hard stuff. Michael relaxed.

  Joachim Kogler stayed long enough for the food on her plate to get cold. He went on at Michael almost without interruption, praised her nose for a good investment and said that Lilo intended to throw a party on Saturday to celebrate their victory over Brenner and his lack of vision.

  Several times he tried to draw her into the conversation, throwing out half a dozen names. Lilo was certain to invite Henseler and young Maiwald, of course - provided she could lure him out of his retreat. He reminded her how amusing she’d found Barlinkow at the last private view and he was sure to come. Discouraged by her monosyllabic replies, he turned back to Michael. “You’re free on Saturday?”

  “Of course,” said Michael, with a suspicious glance at her.

  She could already see herself confronted with a faceless Henseler, a shadowy young Maiwald, a similar Barlinkow and a dozen other strangers.

  Joachim Kogler gave her a somewhat perplexed smile. “Right then, I’ll be off. Things to do.”

  He left. Michael surveyed the chaos on the worktop again. “Are you OK?”

  “Yes,” she mumbled.

  “That’s not what it looks like,” he insisted. “Something troubling you?”

  “No.”

  “So why the clenched teeth? Is there something wrong with the notification Jo’s been sent?”

  “No, it’s all right.”

  “I’m not blind, Nadia. I can see something’s not all right. Can Jo not cash those shares in?”

  He kept on at her for minutes on end. Only when she assured him everything was fine, it was just that she had this terrible headache, did he grin and finally change the topic. He sniffed the aroma in the kitchen and said, “That smells delicious. What gave you the idea?”

  What gave people the idea of cooking something for themselves?

  “I was hungry,” she said. “But now it’s cold.”

  “Shall I warm it up for you?”

  A friendly offer, under other circumstances she’d have deduced things from it about his character and the way he approached his marriage. As it was, she just said, “No. I don’t feel like it any more.”

  “Any objections if I have it?”

  She shook her head. She didn’t know where to look, whether to get up and go out of the kitchen or to tidy up, using the opportunity to get the mobile out from among the pots and pans so she could try Nadia again.

  Michael took her plate and put it in the microwave. Two minutes later he was sitting opposite her, tucking into the pork escalope. He even used her cutlery. Watching him eat made her go rigid. She couldn’t stop following every movement of his hands. He noticed and came to the wrong conclusion. “But you were going to eat something.”

  “No,” she quickly assured him.

  He clearly wasn’t convinced. He cut off a piece of meat, stuck it on his fork and held it out to her. “Open you mouth,” he ordered, “we’ll share.”

  She opened her mouth, though with some reluctance, and let him shove the fork in. With a satisfied nod, Nadia’s husband took the next mouthful himself. She chewed at the meat, which tasted like cardboard, feeling she ought to say something harmless to stop him getting suspicious again. “You’re back early today.” she said. She had to force the words out.

  He raised his shoulders with an audible sigh and let them drop again resignedly. “Olaf’s got a virus. It sounds as if it may be terminal.”

  She looked up, shocked. The name echoed in her ear. Olaf and Kemmerling, his colleagues at the lab. “That’s terrible,” she said. “Is there nothing that can be done?”

  Her concern clearly irritated him. He didn’t seem particularly bothered about Olaf’s approaching death. He held out another forkful and said, “Kemmerling says the virus is pretty bad. The technician’s coming tomorrow morning.”

  She accepted the mouthful, relieved that chewing saved her from having to continue the conversation. For the moment the wrecked Mercedes by the side of the autobahn faded into the background. Her thoughts revolved round Olaf’s imminent demise, a virus and what a technician had to do with it. As he was loading the fork for himself, Michael said, “I suspect Kemmerling’s been tinkering again and hasn’t got the guts to admit it. You can’t leave him alone with a thing like that, even just for half an hour. If we’ve got a virus in the system…”

  He went on. It just went in one ear and out the other, but it did start to make some kind of sense and she felt herself flush. Thing. System. He was talking about a computer! No wonder he’d seemed unfeeling. With any luck he’d have forgotten her shocked response.

  It was strange but not unpleasant to be fed by him. After she’d overcome her inhibitions about sharing a spoon, it created a certain intimacy. Despite that, she felt wretched. Incapable of sticking to her role for much longer, incapable of avoiding the little snares of everyday life. How often would he have talked to Nadia about Olaf and Kemmerling? In precisely the same tone as he was using now. He was chatting away about things going wrong in the lab. She listened in silence and only with half an ear, pondering what she could do.

  At some point he started talking about a set of data that had to be processed by the next evening. They couldn’t rely on Olaf. There was no guarantee the technician would turn up, and even if he did, there was still no guarantee the fault would have been identified and eradicated by the evening. But the processed data had to be ready for Monday.

  She registered a change in his tone of voice. He was probably going to have to work at the weekend and was trying to break it to her gently.

  “Does that mean…” She cleared her throat to gain time and to assess whether it was advisable to say more. He was watching her with an expression of tense expectation. Hesitantly she went on, “So that’s another Sunday…” That wasn’t saying too much, nor too little, and it couldn
’t be completely wrong.

  He gave an embarrassed, possibly apologetic grin. “Not necessarily. If it’s all right with you, I could ring Kemmerling. He took the streamer from yesterday home with him. He thinks he can manage if he segments it. Which I very much doubt.”

  The technical terms buzzed in her ears like angry wasps. What, for Christ’s sake, was a streamer? Michael lowered his head and said, in pleading tones, “Go on. You’ve got enough capacity. We can take down the Sec temporarily.” She hadn’t the faintest idea what he was talking about. Only when he said, “I’ll be there keeping an eye on Kemmerling. He won’t touch your files,” did it dawn on her that he was still talking about a computer and that he wanted to borrow hers. Only she couldn’t understand why. There was one in his study. If that wouldn’t do, he must mean Nadia’s P4 with three gigahertz. “He’s not interested in my laptop.” Oh, yes? That was what he wanted and it might well be lying, shattered, in a crashed car.

  “Sorry,” she said, “I left it in the office.”

  Michael didn’t say, “Pity.” He just frowned again and said, “What?”

  “The P4,” she said, indicating something the size of a portable computer with a sorry-I-can’t-help-you gesture, “I mean the laptop, it isn’t here.”

  Now he was more than just puzzled. “What’s this laptop you’re talking about?” When he went on he sounded angry. “Enough of this nonsense. I don’t like having to remind you who’s been bringing in the money these last two years, Nadia.” He jerked his thumb at the ceiling. “Can we work up there, yes or no?”

  After all the thoughts going round and round in her head, after all the lightning deductions, it took only a fraction of a second to take in what this implied. “Enter password,” she thought. But she suspected he wouldn’t know it. And for him to ask her for it was a risk she couldn’t take. She was in Nadia’s house, sitting at Nadia’s table, facing Nadia’s husband, right in the middle of Nadia’s life. There was nothing for it but to behave like Nadia. “No,” she said.