by John R Burns
‘Yeh, why not, drunk and loud, what the hell’s wrong with that?’
Victor would be smiling and frowning at the same time. It had been his idea when Franz had been working at the company for a few years to secretly organise a high class prostitute for his birthday.
She had knocked on the door of his apartment one night. Franz found out later that Hochner the janitor had been in on the surprise, Victor having talked to him the week before to have it all arranged.
The prostitute had certainly been good looking, tall, dark haired, dressed sophisticatedly with a soft, endearing voice. Franz’s immediate response had been to show her to the door, furious that his line manager could think this was something he would appreciate. Franz for a start detested surprises as well as the idea of somebody at his door late at night. From this time on he had never wholeheartedly trusted Hochner. He did not like the idea of the janitor knowing things about him that he did not.
‘It was supposed to be a birthday surprise Herr Brucker,’ the janitor had explained the next day, ‘Herr Marx said it would be ok. ‘
‘Well it wasn’t,’ Franz told him, ‘I thought we agreed that whatever was happening around here I would be the first to know.’
‘But this was different. This was about you Herr Brucker.’
Bronia the woman called herself in a voice that he found hard to ignore. It was when she had asked him what he wanted her to do and he was about to tell her that he realised how his response had come from other such moments in the past. He had watched her take off her coat and place it carefully over the chair. For the first time in years Chantelle crossed his mind. He had looked at the prostitute then and had wanted to hurt her, to somehow obliterate her. In seconds he had grabbed her arm and pushed her back out of the door to see her eyes moistening with tears as she had staggered down the first steps before turning to him.
‘You are not a gentleman Herr Brucker. I am not to be treated this way.’
Franz had thrown her coat down at her before slamming the door shut trying to control himself, hating more than ever what Victor had tried to do.
In the office the next day he could tell they were all waiting for him to say something about the night before. His deliberate silence confused them. Even the genial Michael had seemed unsure when he had met Franz in the company’s executive canteen.
‘So your birthday yesterday Franz,’ he had tried as they had sat at the same table.
‘Where’s Victor?’ had been his response.
‘Out meeting a client, he should be back this afternoon.’
And then Franz had said nothing else, not a word as Michael had attempted conversation, obviously wondering what had gone wrong.
That afternoon he had found Victor in his office. He looked up at Franz’s entry, forced a smile and said,
‘So Franz, how was last night?’
‘Why? Was something supposed to have happened?’
Victor had waited then, trying to work out his chief logistics manager’s mood.
‘Your birthday.’
‘What about it?’
‘Didn’t...didn’t....’
‘No Victor. No I didn’t. And I would remind you that this company’s policy is for work to have nothing to do with the personal. We’re supposed to be professionals here, not college students. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Steady on Franz, there’s no call for that tone of voice.’
‘Professional Victor, that’s all I ask.’
At that he had turned and left the office, carefully closing the door behind him.
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His apartment block was on a quiet, residential street that he knew in great detail. There were lines of trees down each side of the road. Franz recognised every car that was parked on the street. Most of them were owned by residents of his apartment block. The rest of the house owners had their own garages.
Franz watched the street’s daily routine from his large apartment window that stretched from floor to ceiling listening to music or reading the financial sections in the daily papers. After his early morning run he would shower, have a light breakfast and then settle down in his armchair. The first activity of each weekday would be a few delivery vans coming to some of the larger houses near the end of the street. This would be followed by the au pairs or parents who believed in taking their small children themselves to the local playgroup. BMWs and Mercedes would be next coming through the security gates taking their occupants into the centre of the city as well as few keen on their health like himself who would cycle to work. Then the street would settle into a period when little happened. The small children would be returned to their homes. Plumbers or builders vans might appear. It was the same through most of the afternoon until the time when Hamburg released its businessmen to return to their homes ready for guests that night or a journey into town.
The weekends had a different rhythm that still included the same people and the same cars that Franz recognised. The residents of his apartment block were the ones who created the most variety. Some of them were retired or worked part time. One even worked through the night, coming home in his VW at seven in the morning.
Franz watched all of them from his window. Ever since he had moved there he had needed to know everything that was going on around him in as much detail as possible. He got more information from Hochner who knew many of the trade people who visited the street. Some of the larger houses were worth millions. The emphasis was on quiet discretion, something that only a lot of money could obtain, creating a street that was as private as it could be without having security gates, which had happened in other rich areas of Hamburg. Franz was glad it had not come to that. It meant that if anybody was monitoring what was happening in the street it was him.
His watching was both a hobby and a necessity. He had been conditioned to always check his near environment. To begin with he felt his safety had depended on it. Now it had become a habit, one that still gave him satisfaction.
So it was a week later that he first noticed the red Audi parked further down the street across from the Hoffner residence. He had never seen this car before. The first time it was just noted. The second day it appeared he studied it more carefully. It was parked on the other side of the road, one hundred metres from his apartment block. Its two occupants were of the most interest. The early winter sun glazed across the Audi’s windscreen so it was difficult to make out what they looked like. Only when the one from the passenger side got out and started walking down the street that Franz got a better look. This man was in his late sixties, early seventies, dressed in a smart overcoat and trilby, carrying a folded umbrella in his gloved hand and had a walk that was both slow and stiff as though he was suffering from some sort of leg or lower back injury. It was half an hour later when he returned to the car that Franz got a clearer view of this old man’s face. Immediately he recognised the Jew. It was an instinct. Franz knew the look of the Jew better than anybody, that dark shadow over their features, the walk of someone in submission. There was no doubt that was who he was watching as the old man got back in the car. As it drove off he managed to get the number plate
After a few minutes he phoned Angela to ask her to use her police contacts to trace the Audi’s number.
‘Sounds mysterious Franz,’ was her response to his request.
‘Not really. Just being a good neighbour. That’s all. How long will it take?’
‘I’ll let you know by the end of the day.’
‘That’s fine Angela. Thanks for this.’
‘You’re welcome Franz. We should do lunch more often.’
‘Is this your plan, to get me to eat more?’
‘Of course it is. See you soon Franz.’
He returned to his window. The sky was darkening as a few flakes of snow spiralled down, the first of the winter. The trees on either side of the road had twisted branches that were black lines against the grey light. Something was w
rong. His mind was alert to the two occupants of the car. Momentarily he felt a wave of deep irritation followed by an anxiety he had not experienced for a long time. He told himself he was overreacting, but still the concern persisted, especially when Angela told him that the Audi was a hire car.
He almost expected its arrival back in the street that night. This time it parked near the entrance to the Hoffner house. He could just make it out under the street light as more flurries of snow crossed through the semi darkness. It was then he decided to go an extra run, quickly changing into his tracksuit and trainers.
As he jogged slowly on the other side of the road from where the Audi was parked he could see there were the same two occupants. This time he got a clearer view of the driver, much younger than the one beside him, well built, tall and definitely Jewish.
When he returned from going round the park the Audi was gone. Back in his apartment he showered and changed before having a light supper followed by his meditation. But on this occasion he could not clear his mind. The sight of the two Jews persisted in a car he had now seen on three different occasions parked near to the apartment block. The problem seemed to be getting closer. This was no coincidence. Somebody was being watched but in an obvious, amateurish way. He was not sure whether the occupants of the Audi wanted to be noticed, as if their presence was some kind of threat. When he had asked Hochner about it that morning the janitor said he had also seen this car on several occasions but had no idea about the reason for it being there.
‘I don’t mind going up and asking them if they needed any help, play ignorant and make out I thought they were lost or something,’ was the janitor’s suggestion, ‘I don’t mind doing that.’
‘No, leave it for a while,’ was Franz’s response.
He did not want them frightened off. He wanted to find out for definite who they were and what they wanted. He would wait and see if they turned up the next morning.
CHAPTER 15
‘I’m glad you like it. I think it works on all levels, works very well.’
‘I’m listening Leon. I’m never sure it’s what I want to hear but that makes no difference.’
He smiled and knew she would buy the painting. Geraldine Dunlop had been one of his first serious customers and he understood how she only gradually came to an appreciation of a certain work. He had to give her time. This was the third occasion he had arranged for just the two of them to be in the gallery.
‘I appreciate your staying late so I could have another look. We’re going away this weekend and I would like to have this settled otherwise it will become a worry.’
‘And we don’t want that,’ he said, trying to control his own nervousness.
‘It was a Wright,’ Geraldine suddenly mentioned, ‘the first painting I ever bought here. It must be over twenty years ago now.’
‘It was his beach abstract.’
‘We have it in the front room of our house in Cornwall.’
‘The right place for it,’ Leon concurred.
‘Wright is right,’ she joked.
‘And see how successful he has become.’
‘A good investment.’
‘That, but a lovely painting.’
‘Yes,’ she agreed.
Later he shut the gallery’s glass doors behind her. Rain was bouncing off the pavement outside and the usually busy London street was deserted. He sat at his assistant’s Sonya’s desk, watching the few cars and taxis swishing along the road. He was tired. Selling had become difficult. There was more competition. London had become a centre of the art world and he hated the idea of having to keep up. Leon accepted art was a business, but for him it was always more, an investment in the human world. It was his purest enjoyment, to walk around the gallery looking at some of the new talent on display.
‘It’s you who gives it the ideas, the emotions Leon,’ Christine Harley, one of his discoveries, had told him, ‘I just paint.’ He envied her as he envied all his other artists. They produced something different. All he had as a talent was the ability to point these differences to anyone interested. His artistic ambitions had been destroyed in the war. He knew that all he would want to express would be the horror and that he could not do.
‘There are other things than just culture,’ his wife Rachel had often said. It had been another argument about how much he was spending on his collections, books, records, paintings, small ceramic pieces, anything that brought him repeated moments of thankfulness.
The inheritance from her father’s textile business had had no effect on his wife’s concerns about money. Even though some of it had been used to set up the gallery they would always have been financially secure, something that he had struggled to make her believe. Rachel had always been troubled about the future and Leon had never managed to change that.
‘You never know what might happen. You understand that more than most people and yet you try and make me think nothing will change. How can you of all people have that kind of confidence?’ had been her cruel question.
Rachel’s family had always been well off and yet money for her had always been a threat. It was as if how you lived had to be accounted for in every detail. Leon often wondered if such pressures had been part of the reason for her early death.
‘I believe cancer can come from stress, not directly but as part of the difficulties,’ one of the specialists had told them when they had been searching for some kind of hope.
Leon felt how he had failed their marriage, how his own personality had suffocated what had been possible. Their relationship had solidified into totally different approaches to almost everything, leaving their son David lost between the two.
Now he was tired and the headache and the pains in his chest were the usual symptoms. What his body had been put through in the war years had left him completely weakened with a long medical list of constant complaints that meant regular visits to his doctor and the hospital.
‘You should take more time away Leon. You know I can manage,’ Sonya had said a few weeks before.
He often wondered why he had been so fortunate to come across Sonya, his support, his expert. Never once had he questioned her choice. She was the one who asked him to take the risks that thankfully often succeeded.
‘I love it when I see something and immediately know. It’s just there and you can’t leave it,’ Sonya had often told him, ‘I used to think we created the market, created the interest and demand for a certain artist, but not any more, not when we’re competing against the big galleries and sale houses.’
He appreciated her sharpness, the way she articulated art, the approach she had to the gallery that always seemed fresh and different to anywhere else.
‘You could set up your own gallery,’ he had repeatedly mentioned.
‘Even if I could I wouldn’t want to. It’s rare to do something you love and be paid for it without any of the risks. Don’t say you want rid of me Leon?’ she had teased.
She came every day to work in a dark jacket and matching skirt, white blouse, long black hair and high heel shoes that clipped over the gallery’s cement floor. He sometimes wondered how she and David might get on. His son had met her once at a gallery launch.
‘They just like the idea of being here,’ he had complained to his father on one of those previews.
‘That doesn’t matter so long as they’re here,’ he had answered.
‘But they won’t buy anything.’
‘Not this evening, no they won’t. But you see, in the next weeks a few of them will return in their own time. I know they will have seen something they like or something they think might make them money.’
‘And what’s worse, art as investment or art as decoration stuck up on the wall of some pretentious Knightsbridge flat?’
‘Paintings need to be seen, even by at least one person. That will do.’
‘Show me the person. Go on then, pick out the one,’ had been David’s silly challenge.
Ever since his mother’s death t
hese challenges had increased. There was hardly now an occasion when the tension between them was not obvious.
‘You can’t leave it father,’ he had repeatedly told him, ‘It’s you for God’s sake, you. Just because you have a life here doesn’t mean that absolves everything else. Why am I telling you this when you understand it as much as anybody, certainly more than me. Why do I have to bully you into it?’
It was their struggle for Leon’s past. David wanted to take it over, to make it more defiant, more lethal.
Thankfully Rachel had avoided as much as she could.
‘I’ve not married your past. I don’t want it. You started on the first day we met as far as I’m concerned. Just because we have a son who seems obsessed with the past. Where did he get that from I wonder? He’s your surrogate. If he goes on like this we won’t be able to get into his room because of the books he has on the war. You give him the money to buy them. Why? Why do you do that?’
‘It’s his weekly allowance,’ had been his feeble answer.
‘No it isn’t. It’s his guilt. He thinks he shouldn’t have been born or that he should suffer as much as you. It’s a perversion and you’re doing nothing to stop it.’
‘Rachel, he’s eighteen. He’s about to go to university. I can’t tell him what he’s supposed to read for God’s sake.’
‘Yes you can. He’s only going to study law because he thinks that’s what you want him to do. Somehow he has this idea in his mind that you were going to do the same. You never talk to him about what you really wanted to do. But of course the war stopped that.’
‘He asks.’
‘But you don’t have to answer in so much detail. It’s twisting him all over the place. He wants to suffer. Because you suffered he feels he has to do the same.’
‘If he doesn’t hear it from me, where does he get it, from academics or from his own imagination? You tell me which is worse.’
It had been a repeated argument. Rachel had seen the past as a power over their son from which she could not extract him. Leon thought how much she must have envied his effect on David. He was her child. She wanted her love to be the source of his life when all she understood was that death and suffering appeared to have been taking its place. So much she had needed her family to be one that lived in the present. Books to her were always words from the dead. She had begun to hate them. It had grown so extreme he often wondered if he might not one night return from the gallery to have found her in the back garden in front of a huge fire.