The Lie

by Petra Hammesfahr

  “Where’s Herr Lasko?” she asked again.

  “We sent him to have a coffee,” said Wolfgang. “If he’d heard all that, we’d have had a long article about it in some newspaper next week.”

  “I’d like a coffee too,” she said.

  “You get that husband of yours over here.” Wolfgang was peering out of the window in the rear door. The Jaguar was parked a long way away, among other cars. “What the hell’s he doing over there?”

  She didn’t want to go, but did anyway. Even from a distance she could see that Michael was resting his head on the steering wheel. As she approached, she saw that his shoulders were twitching. It was several minutes before he realized someone was there. He looked up, stared at her in bewilderment and shook his head, refusing to acknowledge her. But then he did lower the window.

  “Do you remember,” she said, taking out the ear studs and tossing them into his lap, “what Nadia said when you came back so early from the lab on September the twelfth because Olaf had a virus which might be terminal? ‘That’s terrible,’ she said, ‘is there nothing that can be done?’ I thought Olaf was one of your colleagues. Do you remember where you sat when you came back late that evening from seeing Kemmerling? You had a piece of toast and a pickled gherkin. First of all you sat on the side of the bath, then on my legs. You were determined to give the tense muscles in the back of Nadia’s neck a massage. I didn’t want you to. And I certainly didn’t want to sleep with you. But she’d made it very clear that I wasn’t to do anything to arouse your suspicions. And I’d forgotten to take the tampons out of the cupboard. I’d no idea what having a headache meant to you two.”

  He lowered his head again and looked down at the rings she dropped, one after the other, to join the ear studs in his lap. First the one with the striking blue stone, then the wedding ring and finally the one he’d put on her finger in Paris.

  “And do you remember what you said?” she went on. “‘Come on, don’t be a prick-tease.’ On the Friday afternoon, when Kemmerling stayed in the lab to keep an eye on the technician, then I did want to. By then I’d already fallen in love with you, I think. When she called for me to pick her up here at the airport, I wondered what would happen if I didn’t go. I thought if I didn’t I’d never see you again.”

  He raised his head. His shoulders were no longer twitching. He dried his cheeks with the back of his hand. His lips moved, as if he was going to say something. But he put his hand over his mouth, rubbed his face with both hands and shook his head again.

  “I did hire the silver Mercedes, that’s true, but I only drove it as far as the car park here. She took the Mercedes and I had the Alfa. The first time I was with you, you said you didn’t need money to burn. That was the Sunday in August when I had to dismantle the garage door, because I didn’t know how the alarm system worked, and when Dettmer then found me in your car with cuts on my fingers. If you don’t need her life insurance, then let me keep her name. I don’t know if she really wanted me to die, but I do know she’s sent me so far up shit creek no one can get me out again. There’s another fourteen million lying around somewhere. The other eight men were duped as well. My ex is trying to see to it that they get their money back. I don’t want it. But I don’t want to have my child in prison. I won’t bother you ever again, I promise you that.”

  Then she went back to the Ford Transit and walked on past it. Wolfgang called after her, “Nadia, wait. Where are you going?” She ignored him. Let Michael give him whatever answer he thought was best.

  She quickly found the Alfa. It was in the short-term car park next to Dieter’s estate car. Schneider and Dieter were standing there talking. After Schneider had said goodbye, Dieter insisted on escorting her home. It wasn’t necessary. Michael didn’t arrive at the house while she was there.

  She packed some clothes and the things for the baby. The handbag with her ID, driving licence and all the rest she found among the pullovers in the cupboard drawers. She took out the house key and left it in the dressing room. Lilo’s key she put in the clothes closet. The Alfa she was going to keep.

  For the time being she took a room in a hotel. It was relatively expensive, but that was no problem with Nadia’s credit cards. There were no other problems either. No one turned up to arrest her. In the first few days she expected them to. But Michael did nothing to expose her - and nothing to see her again.

  It was all quite unreal, waking up in the morning in the hotel bed with a mountain of memories of two lives - and not knowing which counted for more, thirty-seven years as Susanne Lasko or a few weeks as Nadia Trenkler. She had breakfast brought to her room. She couldn’t face a large breakfast room with unknown faces.

  Dieter came several times to report to her. She heard him speaking but what he was saying went straight past her. The part of her that could have paid attention to him was still standing beside the Jaguar waiting for Michael to say, “I’m sorry.” Until she’d heard that, she didn’t want to hear anything else, she just wanted to be left in peace.

  But she wasn’t left in peace. Lilo took just a week trace her whereabouts. And Lilo couldn’t understand what had happened. No one could. The whole neighbourhood had followed the drama two, now almost three years ago, when Nadia had lost her job with the private bank in Düsseldorf and had started to drink. Then everyone had assumed Michael would pack his bags. That it should come to a final separation now, without anything serious having happened - it just didn’t make sense.

  The first thing Lilo did was to get her an appointment with her own gynaecologist. She didn’t just hear her child’s heart beat for the first time, she saw it as well, the tiny creature for whose sake she’d agreed to stand in for Nadia one more time.

  Shortly after that, Jo appeared. He had a theory of his own. Since he didn’t know which of his next-door neighbours was against children and which for, he presumed Michael was against them and offered to have a serious word with him about his responsibilities. After all, Christmas was coming, the family festival.

  “Leave him be,” she said. “I think that’s for the best.”

  “Are you going to spend the holiday all alone in the hotel?” Jo asked.

  “No, I’m flying to Geneva.”

  Wolfgang also came once - with a guilty conscience that was the result of his own theory: Michael had been against her playing a part in the attempt to trap Zurkeulen, she had been all for it. Michael thought she wanted to do him a favour, Wolfgang suspected, because of their brief affair.

  “But it’ll all sort itself out,” Wolfgang declared confidently. “I can’t understand why he’s making such a fuss. He’s worse than that time at the swimming pool. D’you remember?”

  She didn’t, couldn’t remember. He grinned. “Christ, I thought he was going to break my neck.” Serious once more, he went on, “Well, anyway, everything went smoothly. He’ll come to see it was the best solution. Chin up.”

  It was unsettling. Every day someone could turn up who’d heard from Lilo where she was. Some stranger who wanted give her a few words of comfort. Dieter was trying to find a flat for her, somewhere far away, in Bavaria or Lower Saxony perhaps, since she insisted she didn’t want to go to Romania. Lilo also thought staying in a hotel was untenable as a long-term solution. And she was quicker.

  Shortly after Christmas Lilo turned up with a big surprise: a large, airy apartment with a roof garden in a quiet neighbourhood on the outskirts of the town. It was more or less the apartment Nadia had promised her. It was impossible to refuse and, anyway, she didn’t really want to leave the area. She wanted to be close to Michael, accessible for the moment when he came to see that she wasn’t to blame for Nadia’s death. Surely he must realize that eventually.

  Furnishing the apartment made a pretty deep hole in Nadia Trenkler’s accounts. But it filled up again, as if by magic. At some point she intended to get to the bottom of this constantly replenished supply, to make sure she wasn’t spending the money of duped investors. Also she was sure Nadia must
have invested her own money somewhere, but she didn’t get round to looking into it.

  Lilo was tireless in her efforts to pull her out of the black hole of depression. She made regular reports on Michael’s activities and passed on messages, the meaning of which remained a mystery to Lilo. She was to tell her he’d been to Geneva after the New Year. Her parents had been informed, she didn’t need to worry, everything was OK. Nothing was OK! Never again could everything be OK.

  “Why did he speak to your parents, darling?” Lilo asked. “You were there yourself over Christmas, weren’t you? Could you not bring yourself to tell them? You have hopes that he’ll think it over and change his mind, haven’t you?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “Won’t you tell me what happened?” Lilo asked. A shake of the head was all that was necessary. Lilo understood that there were things one couldn’t talk about and declared, “You’ve changed a lot.” With a hesitant smile, she went on, “Don’t get me wrong. I think you’ve changed for the better. Before I often didn’t know where I was with you.” Lilo sighed. “Now I don’t know where I am with Michael. It’s eating away at him. I think he’s just waiting for you to take the first step.” Then, all eagerness, she said, “I could arrange a chance meeting. What d’you think? He goes to Demetros’s almost every evening. Or the two of us could go out for a nice meal together?”

  “I don’t want to meet him by chance,” she said, “and certainly not at Demetros’s.”

  “But you can’t shut yourself away for ever,” Lilo insisted.

  So they went to museums, to the theatre and to a concert - not one by Jacques Niedenhoff, he spent most of the time out of the country. Frederick had told Ilona that Jacques was thinking of giving up residence in Germany - because of the high taxes. Lilo was an inexhaustible source of information and easily fobbed off with an “I’m sorry, but I’d rather not talk about that”, on topics where there was nothing she could say.

  One Sunday afternoon in March she went with Lilo to a private view in the course of which an embarrassing incident occurred. Professor Danny Kemmerling and his laboratory mouse were there. And Danny Kemmerling felt it incumbent upon himself to give her a sermon about forgiving and forgetting. As he saw it, she had left Michael because of his affair with Beatrice Palewi and that was bringing him close to a breakdown. “I can assure you,” he said, “that your husband hasn’t seen Frau Palewi for months. She’s not with us any more.”

  He looked at her. She was in the seventh month, highly pregnant. And Danny Kemmerling said, “A true marriage should be able to get over a little affair. Particularly in this situation.”

  His companion was a few yards away with Lilo and Edgar Henseler, looking at Maiwald’s latest picture, which was not at all as severe as Edgar had feared. With a meaningful glance at the young woman, she asked in cool tones, “Does your wife share your opinion on that?”

  Following her look, Danny Kemmerling said, “I assume so. It’s not something she’s had to think about so far.”

  “That’s what I thought,” she said. “And I’m convinced you’ll get a big surprise if you talk to her openly about it. No wife likes her husband being unfaithful, whatever the situation.”

  Danny Kemmerling took this as the insinuation it was intended as. His expression hardened as he declared that he wasn’t unfaithful to his wife.

  Pointing to the little group viewing the new Maiwald, she asked, “So what do you call that?”

  For a moment he was speechless. His face flushed. “I’m sorry, Frau Trenkler,” he said, “but that is going too far.” And with that he turned on his heel and left.

  Later on Lilo told her that Danny Kemmerling didn’t like being reminded of his first marriage. He had filed for divorce when the doctors told him there was no hope of his first wife’s condition ever improving. She’d been in a coma for a long time following a road accident and was now in an expensive nursing home in a state of advanced dementia. Shortly after the divorce came through, Danny Kemmerling had married one of his colleagues. Dr Jutta Kemmerling might look like a teenager, but she was actually in her late thirties.

  That was the moment when she was afraid Lilo had realized. But Lilo had never bothered much about Susanne Lasko and was convinced anyway that pregnant women had other things on their mind, especially when their marriage had broken down. Apart from that, she thought Michael had perhaps only told Jo about Kemmerling’s first wife and the circumstances of his divorce.

  It was the last embarrassing incident. Nor were there any more threatening situations. She had no more contact with Hardenberg. And Wolfgang didn’t manage to nail Hardenberg, officially no customers of Alfo Investment had been defrauded out of their money. As Dieter had promised, he made every effort, with Hardenberg’s help, to return the money to the other eight investors. And in seven cases he was successful. That in return Heller’s murder went unpunished was hardly just, but Dieter saw no way of handing Hardenberg over to the authorities while at the same time protecting Nadia Trenkler.

  At the end of April there was €1,600,000 left in a bank in Zurich. 1,300,000 of that had once belonged to a Josef Maringer, the rest was interest. And Josef Maringer no longer needed his money. In the meantime he had died and there were no heirs in sight, though Philip Hardenberg wasn’t told that when he transferred the amount to Luxembourg, where Nadia Trenkler had arranged a safe deposit for herself.

  Dieter said, “If you don’t want the money, then Hardenberg’ll get it. We mustn’t let that happen. I think you’ve earned it. At least it would mean you won’t have to be worrying about the future.”

  She wasn’t anyway. It was a relatively pleasant life, amusing, varied and yet empty. She learned a lot about art, music, current events. She improved her English talking to Pamela on the phone. On Mondays she had French lessons with a high-school teacher, although she had no idea what the point was. She had no more conversations with Jacques Niedenhoff, nor with the young man with whom Alina passed the time after her separation from Nadia’s father.

  On Tuesdays and Thursdays she had private piano lessons. Wednesdays was aqua aerobics for pregnant women. Her diary was full. Sometimes she called these activities occupational therapy to stop herself going mad thinking of a man for whom and by whom she’d almost been killed.

  She met her mother regularly every second Friday in a café near the old folks’ home. Agnes Runge came in a taxi so that Nadia Trenkler didn’t have to show herself in a place where people had known Susanne Lasko. These afternoons were times when she allowed herself a few tears. Just tears, no sobs, so her mother wouldn’t notice.

  For her mother, everything had ended in a straightforward way. Susanne had told Michael the truth and he’d sent her away. But he provided for her generously. And by this time she’d come to see that it was essential Johannes Herzog didn’t find out. And, anyway, it wasn’t that important for Johannes.

  Lilo knew about these afternoon meetings and found it touching that she spent a little time with the old lady and didn’t hold the things her daughter had done against her. And the continued contact with Susanne Lasko’s ex-husband - in Lilo’s eyes Dieter was an interesting person to talk to and Nadia had always had time for people like that.

  At the beginning of May Laura Trenkler was born. Everything happened at breakneck speed. She hardly had time for the pain, she just managed to get a taxi and when it was over she didn’t know what to do with all the flowers. Even Dieter sent a bouquet. He didn’t come himself but rang up to congratulate her and to say that his daughter had a cold and he didn’t want to spread the germs.

  Lilo and Jo were her first visitors. Jo completed the formalities for her and took a few photos, tears in his eyes. Then Wolfgang came, at first alone, then with Ilona. Ilona told her not to use disposable nappies. She should think of the mountains of rubbish.

  She couldn’t think of anything any more, only remember - seven years of marriage which for her consisted of a few days and nights in Paris. The rest had just bee
n one long fit of trembling.

  Edgar Henseler brought her a bouquet for which there was no vase big enough. Old Barlinkow came specially from Berlin to offer his warmest congratulations and his best wishes for her daughter. Instead of flowers Hannah - she still didn’t know her surname, but intended to find out as soon as she could - brought her an amulet, supposedly an Indian good-luck charm.

  And then Jutta Kemmerling came. By that time she was back in her apartment. The news of the birth had reached Danny Kemmerling’s second wife by a roundabout route: Jo had given Michael one of his photos and Michael had shown it round the lab. “It would be nice,” Jutta Kemmerling said, “if you’d let him see his daughter now and then. He won’t ask you himself. But it is usual.”

  “We’re not usual,” she said. “And I don’t think he wants to see me.”

  She was wrong.

  Lilo had found her a home help so that she could take things easy. Lilo was also looking for a babysitter, so she could get out again. And when the bell rang on a Wednesday evening at the end of May, she assumed it would be the art student Lilo had told her to expect. She pressed the buzzer for the outside door then went and waited in the corridor. The light above the lift went on, the lift arrived, the door slid open.

  Michael looked almost the same as on the Sunday of her dress rehearsal, wearing jeans and a casual white polo shirt. All she could feel was the thud of her heartbeat. And he didn’t know where to look. He looked her in the eye very briefly then approached, head bowed. “May I…” He broke off and gestured helplessly with both hands. “… come in?”

  Leaving the door open, she preceded him into the living room and stood in the middle of the floor. He sat down in an armchair, kneading his hands, and asked hesitantly, “Is it really my child?”

  “There’s been no one else in the last few years.”

  He bit his lip, nodded thoughtfully and cleared his throat. “I talked to Lasko a few days ago.” What he’d talked to Dieter about, he didn’t say. Nor had Dieter mentioned the conversation. Abruptly he asked, “May I see her?”