Would I really have acted any differently if I’d been in Werner’s shoes? If Annelise had been handed over to social services or an alcoholic grandmother, would she be the same Annelise I loved? Would she have had the same dreams that drove her into my arms? Or would she have been condemned to a lifetime of humiliation?
What distinguished the woman I loved from Brigitte, for instance?
Little or nothing.
I heaved a deep sigh.
It wasn’t over yet.
I started the engine and put my foot down on the accelerator.
* * *
This time I was neither kind nor understanding. I pushed Verena aside, almost knocking her down. I had eyes only for Max, who was standing there. It was the first time I’d seen him in civilian clothes.
“We have to talk,” I said emphatically. “Come with me.”
“You two have nothing to talk about,” Verena screamed, beside herself, “and I want you out of my house.”
She would have gouged my eyes out if Max hadn’t intervened and held her back. Putting his arms around her, he said to me, “Wait for me outside, Salinger.”
I went out and closed the door.
I heard Verena yelling and Max’s voice trying to reassure her. Then silence. At last the door opened. A chink of light that immediately disappeared. Then Max, his hands in his pockets, an extinguished cigarette between his lips, waiting for my words.
“You know all about it, don’t you?”
He looked at me for a long time. “All about what?”
“Annelise.”
Max turned pale, or so it seemed. The light was dim, and I couldn’t swear to it. What’s true is that he gave a start, grabbed my arm, and pushed me away from the door.
“Let’s walk.”
“Werner told me everything.”
“Everything?”
“Grünwald. The caves. Evi and Kurt’s daughter. And Günther.”
Max stopped by a lamppost. He lit a cigarette. “What else do you want to know?”
“How did you and Hermann manage to wipe out all trace of the child?”
Max smiled. “In those days, computers were useless. And who had them anyway? Not us. The bureaucracy worked with paper. It was a big, blind, stupid pachyderm. And don’t forget the Iron Curtain.”
“Austria was a friendly country.”
“True. In fact, if Annelise had been born in East Germany or Poland I’d have saved myself a lot of hassle. But that’s politics, and you’re interested in the practical details, aren’t you?”
“I’m interested in everything.”
“Why?”
I went closer and looked him in the eyes. “Because I want to know if you’re all feeding me bullshit. Because I want to know whether or not I have to ruin the life of the woman I love.”
Max looked around. “You’re making a spectacle of yourself.”
I brushed him aside and lit myself a cigarette. The flame from the lighter blinded me.
“Carry on.”
“Think of the world we were living in. Cold War. Spies. Here, there was terrorism. It was said that the terrorists had bases across the border, then it turned out to be true, in fact some of them are still living there, in Austria. To get to Innsbruck, you had to go through customs. You didn’t need a passport, there were already international agreements, but there were a lot of police.” With his left hand, Max mimed a barrier going up and down. “On one side, the Italian police, and on the other, the Austrian police. Getting through the Brenner Pass took time. But both countries had one thing in common: bureaucracy. When we decided that the child would be brought up by Werner and Herta, I realized that Hermann and I might be able to pull off a conjuring trick. Günther was never the brightest spark, and Werner was too scared and too well-known to try anything so . . .”
“Illegal?”
“Delicate. It was like open-heart surgery. Have you seen Werner’s hands?”
He smiled.
I remained impassive. I was registering every one of his words. As soon as he stumbled, as soon as he contradicted himself . . .
“Go on.”
“We had to get hold of a death certificate for a child Annelise’s age. An Italian death certificate for an Austrian child. I dealt with that. It was easy, I remembered a little girl who had died beneath the Marmolada. I amended it with Annelise’s details. I dirtied it, as if the fax machine wasn’t working properly. I sent it to the Austrian embassy and waited for it to be recorded and sent back to the home country. I had to gain time. Time to answer the questions of that idiot Captain Alfieri.”
“You were never interested in his discovering the culprit, were you? You just wanted to throw him off the scent.”
“That’s right. I became a joke, but jokes don’t kill, they make people laugh. I’d already killed the culprit, what I was doing was protecting the innocent. Werner, Günther, Herta, and Annelise.”
The archive in the Krün family home took on quite another significance in light of these revelations.
“That’s why you got rid of the files as soon as you could.”
“At first, I thought of burning them. Then I told myself it would be better to keep them. In case . . .”
“In case someone stuck his nose in?”
“Someone like you, yes.”
I didn’t reply. I took a deep breath and waited for Max to continue.
“I went to Austria, I went there in uniform. In a Carabinieri uniform. I’d bought it specially and I threw it in the garbage before crossing the border on the way back. I asked for Annelise Schaltzmann’s death certificate. I said I needed it for an official investigation. I lied, of course, but nobody noticed. They gave it to me and this time it was a genuine death certificate. Annelise Schaltzmann had died of kidney failure at the hospital in Belluno.”
“It’s like a cat chasing its own tail.”
“It’s bureaucracy. Then came the most dangerous part.”
“Annelise had to be reborn. She had to become Annelise Mair.”
“Yes. The only moment when they could have discovered us. Hermann had contacts, he knew his way around. That’s why, apart from the fact that he was Günther’s brother, we turned to him. So, on September 9, 1985, a clerk at the register office in Merano close to retirement pocketed a decent amount of money, turned a blind eye, and inserted Annelise in the register of births. The child of the Bletterbach was born a second time. Nobody noticed a thing. If it hadn’t been so tragic, you’d have split your sides laughing. We’d led the entire bureaucratic apparatus of two countries by the nose. And we’d got away with it.”
“Until today.”
Max half closed his eyes. “What are you planning to do?”
“I’m wondering that, too, Max.”
* * *
It was Clara who told me what to do. Her desperate voice, that night, in a dream.
* * *
The house lights were off. To light my way, there was a spectral aura, a phosphorescent glow. I groped my way around, trying to orient myself.
The walls, although I sensed their presence, were so far away that I could have walked the rest of my days without touching them. And yet I knew it was the house in Siebenhoch.
In the logic of the dream, that’s how it was.
I felt an indescribable anxiety. I didn’t know why, I knew only that if I stopped, everything would be lost. I wasn’t running away. It wasn’t one of those dreams in which faceless figures lie in wait, ready to clutch at you. No, I was searching.
But I didn’t know what for.
I only realized when I began hearing Clara’s voice calling me desperately. I tried to respond to her call, but in vain. My lips were sealed. So I started running to get to where the voice was loudest. It was a circular room, with rock for walls. White rock oozing blood. In the middle of the room, a shaft.
I leaned over.
Clara was there.
So, as my daughter continued calling my name, I threw myself into that vas
t dark eye.
The Thing from Another World
The next day was a beautiful sunny day. At ten o’clock, I presented myself at Welshboden, ready to face the last chapter in the story of the Bletterbach killings.
Ready to question the dead in order to answer the living.
The Werner who opened the door to me looked like someone who hadn’t slept a wink all night. His breath smelled of grappa. I didn’t want to go in. I didn’t have time.
He just had to glance at my outfit to realize what I was thinking of doing. “You’re crazy,” he said.
I hadn’t expected him to say anything different.
I held out my hand. “Give me the map.”
“You’ll die.”
“Give me the map.”
It was my determination that made him give in. He handed it over to me and as I drove away, I saw him in the rear-view mirror, standing there in the doorway. An old man bent beneath the weight of too many secrets.
* * *
The Visitors’ Center was deserted, mine was the only car in the parking lot. I took my rucksack out of the trunk and checked my equipment. I hadn’t touched it since September 15. I didn’t think about that. September 15 was a date like any other.
My movements were slow and precise, as I had learned they had to be at times like this. Everything was there. I unfolded the map and checked that I had memorized it as best I could. Then I climbed the fence and began my walk toward the caves.
While engaged in the shooting of Mountain Angels I had learned a few rudiments of mountaineering, but it was mostly a matter of theory, apart from a few climbs in my free time, just to experience the exhilaration, and always under the expert eyes of a guide. I’d enjoyed myself and had become skilful enough not to get into trouble when I was on my own.
Now, though, in the Bletterbach, the game was a lot harder. And more dangerous. I remembered from my excursion with Clara the notices along the marked trail warning about the lack of a signal. In other words, phones were useless down here. And no phones meant no rescue. If what Werner had told me was true, I couldn’t even trust my compass.
Did these considerations stop me?
Not for a second.
I didn’t follow the route taken by Werner, Hannes, Günther, and Max’s rescue party. If I had, I would have wasted a great deal of time and energy. With its tracks made by woodcutters and animals, 1985 was archaeology; today there were well-kept paths, even though they were covered in snow right now, and I would exploit every possible advantage for as long as I could. At least until the point where the present met the past.
Before saying goodbye to the tourist trails and going into the deep, I granted myself a brief halt. I drank some water and ate a little chocolate. My muscles were hurting, but I could feel in my legs the strength necessary to complete my journey back through time.
Refreshed, I set off down a slope, taking great care not to get caught in the branches of the fir trees.
The slope grew steep, and a couple of times I almost fell. Given how sharp the rocks were, falling could have had serious consequences.
But then, if I’d really thought about the possible consequences of my descent into the Bletterbach, I would have stayed home.
At the bottom of the gorge, the rock was covered with a layer of ice. Beneath it, I could hear the flow of the stream.
I didn’t wait even an instant. I climbed up the opposite side.
A rustle of branches: some animal alerted by my presence, or else a little snow yielding to the warmth and the force of gravity. Ice-cold air. Sweat.
And nothing else.
Following Werner’s directions, I reached the track along which the men of the rescue team had dragged Grünwald’s body and followed it. Not without effort. The snow was deep and I had to lift my knees as I walked.
I cursed the fact that I hadn’t thought of snow shoes.
At last, exhausted, I arrived.
Around me, there were red firs, larches, and a few pines. All covered in snow. But no caves. Maybe, in my eagerness to get here as quickly as possible, I’d lost my way. So I took off my rucksack to check the map.
Which proved I was right. There was no mistake.
This was the place.
Had I made a pointless journey? Had Werner lied to me? The answer was much simpler, and it took me a moment or two to get there. I was a stupid city boy. If as a mountaineer I was a beginner and as a caver not even that, as an explorer I was rubbish. I couldn’t even read the terrain.
The Bletterbach caves weren’t a cross between Tolkien and a National Geographic documentary, spectacular chasms you could enter easily. They were little holes in the rock that were obstructed by snow from October until the thaw: that was the reason there was nothing waiting for me at the infamous point x marked on the map.
Cursing loudly, I started digging with my hands, panting and sweating.
I found it.
An opening no more than eighty centimeters in diameter, from which emerged a smell that made you turn up your nose. I lit the torch on the top of my helmet.
Then I took a deep breath and went in.
* * *
I proceeded on all fours, breathing in the damp air, which was warmer than the air outside and imbued with an oppressive graveyard smell. The cave wound its way down between the crumbly rocks of the Bletterbach. I tried to imagine how Werner and Max had managed to drag Grünwald. It must have taken incredible determination.
The same determination that I had now.
A couple of bends, then a small flight of steps in the rock. Beyond it, the tunnel rose again, opening into an enormous space. I stood there, staring at that vastness, hypnotised by the spectacle of stalactites and stalagmites interwoven in bizarre shapes.
I walked, keeping to the right-hand side of the perimeter. In some of the cracks in the wall, there were tufts silky to the touch. Mold, or maybe moss. It seemed incredible to me that even down here, where the sun hadn’t shone for 300 million years, there was life. Incredible and terrifying.
I looked at my watch and realized to my surprise that I had lost all sense of time. I knew it was a natural phenomenon, one that professional cavers take for granted, but the speed with which it had happened knocked me back.
I continued, and at last I saw it: the dark eye.
I bent to lean over and look down. It wasn’t the way I’d imagined it. More than anything else, it looked like a chute, very steep and very viscous, but I had no doubts that this was the shaft into which Max and Werner had dropped Grünwald. The vaguely circular opening really was like a dark eye.
It was as if there existed various shades of black, and this shaft had decided to show me the darkest shade possible. I was scared, of course. But I didn’t turn back. I wanted to see, I wanted to know. Only then would I be able to figure out what to do.
Whether to tell everything to Annelise or let the whole story fall into oblivion.
I planted a couple of pitons and secured the rope that I had brought with me. I passed it through the rappelling device that I had attached to the harness and began my descent.
I immediately understood why Werner and Max had chosen this spot to carry out their death sentence. Without the requisite equipment, it would have been impossible to climb back up.
The rock was slippery and almost completely devoid of footholds.
I suppressed my claustrophobia and went faster.
When, after several meters, I felt the ground flattening out again, I unhooked myself and looked around, trying to orient myself. The torch on my helmet didn’t help much.
The darkness down here was almost solid.
I risked a step, supporting myself on the damp wall. The first step was followed by a second and so on, until I found myself a long way from the point at which I had descended.
From time to time, an insect would crawl over my hand, provoking a shudder of disgust. They were spiders, white and spectral, with very long legs and a body the size of a one-euro coin.
>
Revolting.
Just as I was shaking one of them off, I felt something brush against my calves and I stopped to point the torch. Water, I discovered to my surprise. I was walking alongside an underground lake. I dipped my fingers in it to test the temperature. It was cold, but not as cold as I’d expected. My surprise didn’t last long, because a sudden crash caused me to let out a scream that the echo divided into infinite reverberations.
Something big had fallen in the water. My heart missed a beat.
Everything’s fine, I told myself. The mountains are in a state of constant metamorphosis: why shouldn’t it be the same for their internal organs, too? Collapses in a cave of this kind must be quite common. So everything’s fine. Everything’s fine.
Above all: no panic.
Caving, like mountaineering, isn’t just a question of skill and muscles.
During the shooting of Mountain Angels, I’d seen people who spent their days in climbing gyms, people who were technically well trained and physically in much better shape than I could ever be, break down halfway up a not especially difficult wall. How could that be? They couldn’t answer the question. In front of the television cameras, they stood there bewildered, empty-eyed, muttering about contractions or cramps.
Bullshit.
The truth is that technique and being in good physical shape are important, but they’re only fifty percent of what’s required. The rest is a matter of nerves: it’s fear that fucks you up. Suddenly, your fingers feel the texture of a crumbly rock, an insect buzzes around your head, and there it is: the wall you’re dealing with becomes the concrete embodiment of all your fears.
The mind gives way.
I knew that perfectly well. It had happened to me, too, in that damned crevasse.
So: no panic.
I had brought a big halogen flashlight with me, a much more powerful flashlight than the one on my helmet. Light helps to chase away fear. Or at least, that’s what I hoped deep down.
Cautiously, I took it out of the backpack and lit it. At last I could get an idea of exactly how big the space I was in really was. The underground lake was enormous. I turned the beam of light to the ceiling to calculate how high the vault of the cave was.
Beneath the Mountain Page 31