How long was it since I had last heard Annelise laugh? Too long.
Lost in these gloomy thoughts, I didn’t notice the passing of time. Around eight, there was a knock at the door. It was Clara. She was wearing an elegant flame-red dress with a headband holding in her hair. I noticed that she had make-up around her eyes. A charming mixture of the ridiculous and the lovable.
“Hello, sweetheart.”
“Signor Salinger,” she said, all prim and proper. “Dinner is ready.”
I opened my eyes wide. “I beg your pardon?”
“Dinner,” she repeated impatiently, “is served, Signor Salinger.”
“Dinner . . .” I said, as if stunned.
“And ties are to be worn.”
“I don’t have a tie, sweetheart. And I don’t understand what . . .”
In a few steps, Clara was ten centimeters from me. Since I was sitting, her eyes and mine were at the same height. I saw in hers a determination that could have come from only one person. Annelise. By her sides, her fists were clenched. I found her incredibly pretty.
“You do have a tie, Papà. You have five minutes. Get on with it.”
She walked out, imperiously.
And I found a tie.
Going downstairs, I realized that Werner had done things in style. There in the middle of the living room, my favorite armchair had been replaced by the dining table, set for two. Shining white tablecloth, wine in a cooler (I looked at the label, a 2008 Krafuss, it must have cost a fortune), even a candle that flashed glimmers into the semi-darkness in which the room was shrouded.
Sitting at the table, Annelise.
She took my breath away. She was simply stunning.
She had put on a black sheath dress that reminded me of the first showing of Road Crew 2, the evening that she had dubbed “our debut in society” (when we had made our entrance into the cinema on Broadway, everyone, even Mr. Smith, had stood there openmouthed and Annelise, terrified, had whispered to me “Don’t leave me alone, don’t leave me alone, don’t you dare leave me alone”), and a string of pearls that brought out the beauty of her sinuous neck. Her hair was gathered at the back of her neck in a flawless bun.
She stood up and lightly kissed my cheek. “Is this a surprise for you, too?”
“Yes,” I replied, unable to take my eyes off her.
I was dazzled.
God, how I had missed her.
“Ladies and gentlemen . . .”
It was Werner. He was wearing a cook’s hat, he had shaved, and in his white apron he looked like a cross between a French chef and a polar bear. We burst out laughing.
Werner didn’t lose his composure. “Dinner . . .”
Lamb cutlets, potatoes with sour cream and chives, an assortment of cheeses and salami to turn your head, canederli with butter, and dozens of other little culinary masterpieces. The wine lived up to its reputation.
It was hard to break the ice. It was as if Annelise and I were on our first date, a blind date to boot. All it needed was for me to ask, “What about you, what you do for a living?”
But then, gradually, we loosened up. We talked about Clara, because she was what still kept us together. We talked about the weather, because that’s what grown-ups do in the Western world. We talked about Werner. We praised the excellence of the dishes that Clara, in that delightful red dress, with a serviette over her arm, served us (and every time I felt a cold sweat: “Please don’t spill it, please don’t spill it”).
I was on my third glass when I realized the reason for this evening. “Today’s . . .”
“Hadn’t you realized?”
I shook my head. “I’d forgotten.”
February 14.
For dessert, Werner had prepared chestnut hearts with whipped cream.
It was the chef in person who served it to us.
“Papà?” Annelise said.
“Madame? Is the food to your taste?”
“It’s delicious. But I didn’t know you such were a skilled cook. Where did you learn?”
“A chef never reveals his secrets.”
“You’re not a chef, Papà.”
“Let’s say that when an old mountain man meets that horrible monster you city people call ‘free time,’ either he finds something to do or he ends up in the loony bin.”
It was an unforgettable evening.
The chef also acted as makeshift babysitter and, while Annelise and I savored an amaro and I allowed myself a cigarette, Werner put Clara to bed.
Then he said goodbye.
We were alone. As I gazed at the soft curve of Annelise’s bare shoulders, the silence didn’t weigh on me. On the contrary.
For a moment, I was very close to happiness.
Annelise stood up and blew me a kiss. “Good night.”
She climbed the stairs. I heard her go into her room and close the door behind her.
I hadn’t expected anything different, but all the same I felt a pang.
And yet there was no sarcasm in my words when, raising a glass to the ceiling, I said, “Happy Valentine’s Day, darling.”
* * *
Day by day, I saw Clara get better. To understand that, I didn’t need the opinion of doctors, even though we were always punctual when we had to take her for check-ups. The bags under her eyes disappeared and she also put back on a little of the weight she’d lost after the accident.
We resumed our walks. The mountains were impassable, but Werner taught us to use snowshoes and it was nice to spend time like that, in the middle of the woods around Siebenhoch. Walking in the snow, talking, watching the birds flit from one branch to another, and trying to discover some squirrels’ dens (we didn’t find any, but Clara confided in me that she had seen a gnome’s house). I tried not to exhaust her because I had suddenly discovered the anxious parent in me. I was afraid she would slip, that she would sweat, that she would get tired. Clara liked all this attention, but after a while, when I became too stifling, she would give me one of her glances and I would realize that I’d become worse than my Mutti with her obsession with draughts. So I tried to make amends.
My relationship with Annelise didn’t improve. We were civil with each other, so there were no scenes, no smashed plates, but there were too many silences and tense smiles. Every now and again, I would catch her staring at me and my world would sink into anguish. I knew what she was thinking.
What do I feel for this man?
Can I forgive him?
Do I still love him?
I would have liked to put my arms around her and yell, “This is me! This is me! You can’t abandon me, because this is me and if we leave each other we’ll never be happy again in our lives!” But I didn’t. That wasn’t the way a Salinger behaved, or a Mair. So, either I would pretend I hadn’t noticed those looks, or else I would raise my hand and wave at her. She’d usually shake all over, blush in embarrassment, and return the wave.
Better than nothing, I thought. Better than nothing.
I put all my commitment into it, but every evening, when I went to bed, alone, I remembered so many little gestures performed during the day and couldn’t help but reproach myself. Maybe I should have bought her a bunch of flowers; not roses, daisies. Maybe I should have taken her out for dinner somewhere. Maybe I would have gotten even that gesture wrong.
I would fall into an agitated sleep after hours spent tossing and turning between the sheets. Did I have nightmares? Yes. Lots. The Beast, though, wasn’t part of them. I dreamed that I was wandering, blind and incapable of expressing a sound, around the house in Siebenhoch, a house empty and devoid of furniture. I dreamed about silence.
* * *
“Papà!”
Clara was in the garden. Her cheeks were red and her jacket was open. She was smiling.
“Come on, Papà! It’s warm! The wind is warm!”
I smiled, joining her.
“It’s the Föhn, sweetheart.” The wind had the same name as the German word for hair dryer.
“Like the thing for the hair?”
The warm air caressed my face. It was pleasant.
“In some ways, yes. Except that this was there long before they invented hair dryers.”
“It’s strong.”
“But you have to be careful.”
“Why?”
“You know what the old inhabitants of the Alps called it?”
“What?”
“The devil’s wind.”
Clara leaned toward me. “Why?”
“Because it gives you flu,” I said, buttoning up her jacket.
Never were words more prophetic. Within half a day, I noticed that Clara had turned sluggish and taciturn. You didn’t need a medical degree to understand what was happening.
“Fever,” I pronounced, after taking her temperature. “A hundred and one.”
The flu lasted five days. Then the fever passed and gradually Clara regained her normal color. I didn’t dare take her outside, though, in spite of her complaints.
February came to an end.
On March 1, I decided that the time had come. Some say you become an adult when you bury your parents; others, when you become a parent yourself. I didn’t agree with either of these two philosophies.
You become an adult when you learn to apologize.
* * *
The Kagol house still looked magnificent, but I wasn’t in a state of mind to appreciate it. I stood stock still outside the front door, summoning up the courage required to utter the five most difficult letters in the world: “Sorry.”
I wanted to do it, I even needed to do it. Above all, I needed to regain my self-respect. I hadn’t forgotten what had happened.
There was Brigitte.
There was Max saying, “She killed herself, Salinger.”
There was Hermann throwing the banknotes at me.
Me accusing him of being Brigitte’s murderer.
I had to apologize to Hermann. Without that apology, I felt that I would never get Annelise back. Because in order to save my marriage, which was as shaky as one of Clara’s snowmen, I first had to find myself again. Not the Salinger who had taken advantage of Brigitte’s demon to make her talk, but the Salinger who was making an effort to be the best husband in the world.
I took a deep breath.
I rang the bell.
Instead of the usual housekeeper, it was Verena, Max’s wife, who opened. As soon as she recognized me, she made to close the door, but I stopped her.
“What are you doing here, Salinger?” she asked.
“I’d like to see Hermann.”
She shook her head. “Impossible. He’s ill.”
“I think I owe him an apology,” I said.
“You certainly do, but now’s not the time.”
“When do you think I can come back?”
Verena looked at me for a long time with those big girlish eyes of hers. “Never, Salinger.”
She tried again to close the door. Once again I stopped her.
“Salinger!” she cried, astonished at my stubbornness.
“What’s the matter?”
“This isn’t something that concerns you.”
“I just want to apologize for my behavior.”
“That’s rich,” she said, looking at me angrily. “Just an apology, is it? You’re a liar, Salinger.”
“I—”
“Nothing to do with the Bletterbach killings, is it? You promised me you wouldn’t talk about it with Max, but you did. He took you to the Krün family home, didn’t he?”
“Yes,” I admitted. “He was the one who took me there, I—”
“I suppose he had to handcuff you.”
“I—”
“That’s all you can say, Salinger. I. I. I. What about us? Don’t you ever think of us? You know how I discovered that Max took you to that godforsaken hole? Because his mood changed. He started being grumpy and silent again.”
A pause. A sigh.
Her anger was tangible.
“Some evenings, he comes back late, stinking of alcohol. That hadn’t happened in ages. Are you pleased, Salinger?”
I stood there with my head bowed, silent.
Verena’s fury showed me how pathetic and pointless my attempt to make amends with Hermann was. Some things can’t be cancelled out. And if they are forgiven, that only happens after several years. Not after a couple of weeks.
Idiot.
“Drop this business, Salinger. The Bletterbach is just a graveyard for monsters.”
“That’s what I’m doing.”
“And get out of here.” Verena’s eyes glittered like those of an inquisitor. “Get out of Siebenhoch and never show your face here again. Never,” she said emphatically, “again.”
She was about to say something else. Another drop of poison, for sure, but just then Hermann’s baritone voice reached us from inside the house.
“It’s all right, Signora Krün.”
Verena turned, confused and embarrassed.
I was no less so.
“Signor Kagol, why are you out of bed?”
“It’s all right, Verena. You can go.”
“You have to rest, you know.”
“I will. But first I have to have a few words with Salinger.”
“No,” Verena cried. “I forbid it.”
Hermann smiled. “I appreciate your concern, Signora Krün, but you’re my nurse, not my doctor.”
“Just be careful,” Verena hissed, giving me a filthy look.
She said goodbye to Hermann, walked past me, and disappeared ’round the corner.
Hermann motioned to me to come in. I followed him. His two Dobermans watched me attentively. He didn’t offer me a drink. Just a seat.
I noticed that he had shaved off his moustache. His face seemed naked and emaciated.
“How are you, Salinger?”
“I’m here to—”
“I know.”
I cleared my throat. “How are you, Hermann?”
“Being the devil’s tailor, sooner or later you prick yourself,” the Krampusmeister said. “I have a little heart problem. Nothing serious. Rest and a few injections should get me back in shape. Signora Krün is a highly professional nurse. Thanks to her, I’m already much better. It’s been a stressful time for everyone.”
“I said some horrible things, Hermann. I’m sorry.”
He made no reply. He bent down to stroke the heads of the two big dogs.
I handed him Evi’s report.
He studied it, gravely.
“She would have had a splendid future. She was right, you know? The consortium from Trento had to capitulate. They were old school. They thought bricks and reinforced concrete would never go out of fashion. But bricks and reinforced concrete are heavy. And not only in a literal sense, I mean also in a figurative sense. Glass, steel, aluminum, wood . . . those were the materials of the future. I knew that.”
I thought of the Visitors’ Center, with its slender modern lines.
“When I found out that others had had the idea of exploiting the Bletterbach, I thought I’d die. I didn’t have enough liquidity, you see. Too many ongoing projects and not enough cash. There’d be cash in my pocket eventually, but when? If I’d started selling roast chestnuts on the highway, I’d have earned more money in a day than there was in my bank account. I was desperate, the thing I’d struggled so much for looked like it might collapse.”
He shook his head.
“Then I remembered Evi. She was brilliant, intelligent. And ambitious. Plus, she was respected in Siebenhoch. Everyone knew about her mother, and how Evi had basically brought up Markus on her own. I didn’t contact her in person. If I had, she would have felt duty bound to refuse. I dropped a few hints around. The rumor that someone would be building a Visitors’ Center on the Bletterbach, and that they would do it using the old invasive methods, soon reached her ears.”
Hermann clicked his fingers.
“She drew up the report in a very short time. She knew ev
ery single rock in that place by heart. The Trento consortium was hit hard. They went to court, and court cases last forever. Long enough to restructure the debts of Kagol Construction and present my own project.”
“Glass, aluminum, and wood.”
“Exactly.”
“But . . .”
“I also thought of that at the time. I wondered if the consortium members were so angry they’d want to kill Evi. All you did, Salinger, was retrace my steps.”
“Not yours, Hermann. Günther’s.”
Hermann half closed his eyes and sighed. “I discovered that when it was too late. Günther never spoke to me about it. He discovered the report and got it into his head that I was the murderer. His own brother, can you imagine? If he’d spoken to me . . . if he’d confided in me, maybe . . .” Hermann shook his head. “Let’s leave the dead where they are. They’re happier than us.”
“Sometimes I think that, too.”
We were silent for a while, listening to the breathing of the two Dobermans and the Föhn making the shutters creak.
“I called you a murderer, Hermann. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.”
“The past is the past. And anyway I did the same to you.”
“You were right, I am the murderer.”
“You haven’t murdered anyone, Salinger.”
“I talked to Brigitte about the report. I told her that Günther knew about you and that . . .”
I couldn’t hold back a sob. I could still see Brigitte’s expression when she threw me out. It was the expression of someone who has lost everything.
“Brigitte told me what you two talked about, Salinger. I won’t hide from you the fact that I’d been keeping my eye on you for a while. I’d realized that you were actually investigating the Bletterbach killings. I knew you’d talk to Brigitte sooner or later. I knew the business of Evi’s report would come out sooner or later. For me, she was dead and buried. I think you saw me coming out of Brigitte’s house that morning. I certainly saw you. It was written on your face. You’d found the report and were going in the wrong direction. So I thought I’d straighten things out.”
I remembered seeing the black Mercedes.
“You had years to get rid of that damned report,” I said, incredulously. “Why did you leave it in that music box all that time?”
Hermann raised his eyes to the ceiling, in the direction of Günther’s room. “Because I thought it was safe there. And because it would have been wrong.”
Beneath the Mountain Page 27