Brenner and God

by Wolf Haas

  And then you see—forward this time and at the right speed—how Herr Simon comes back out of the shop and how he recoils as though the earth were opening up before him. It was almost worse for him to be experiencing this moment a second time now on-screen—or should I say for the first time.

  “I’m sorry,” Milan said. “You can’t see anything. Was it valuable?”

  “What?”

  “What got stolen from your car?”

  Herr Simon gave no answer. These forgotten minutes were such a nightmare that, if the screen had revealed him to be the kidnapper himself, he wouldn’t have been surprised.

  “Should I call the police?”

  “It’s too late now. They’re already over the mountains.”

  He felt so numb that he had no idea what he should do. The pills weren’t helping him, the coffee wasn’t helping him, and the panic wasn’t helping him. Instead, complete power outage.

  “Give me another espresso,” he said to Milan.

  Because he was like a little kid now who’s gotten into some trouble and thinks that nobody will find out about it if he just closes his eyes or hides behind the house. That the newspapers criticized him so much for it, though, I don’t think is right, either. Somehow he expected two-year-old Helena to come strolling in through the door, and off they’d drive together. And believe it or not, he even bought a medium-sized chocolate bar for her. He told himself a medium-sized bar without any filling is a compromise that all parties could live with, chocolate proponents and chocolate opponents alike.

  He ignored his cell phone’s ringing. Or what’s called ringing. Jimi Hendrix played “Castles Made of Sand” because that was what the son of the clinic’s psychologist had conjured up for him his first week on the job. For the first time in his life, Jimi annoyed him because he was playing the same thing over and over. Herr Simon didn’t even look at who was calling because the risk was too great that it might be the Frau Doctor. You should know, when he was on the road she would often check in during an abortion break to make sure everything was okay, and Herr Simon always made a point of asking Helena something so that her mama could hear her voice over the phone, and then she’d be pacified.

  The two gas station drunks at the counter weren’t bothered any by the unrelenting ringtone either. Sure, they glanced over a little, but otherwise, no commentary. Fortunately, the gas station TV drowned out the cell phone a bit, too, because a blond newscaster was saying empathetic things to people with problems, but her voice was so aggressive that it sounded like the plastic surgeon had mistakenly nailed her vocal cords to her ears on her last visit.

  Interesting customers came in now and then, which also distracted nicely. Because they didn’t just come in and pay, but would make the rounds, too, a bottle of water, chips and a sleeve of cookies, sausage on a bun, a newspaper, there was a lot to look at, and meanwhile his cell phone would go off, maybe twice per customer. Jimi sang again and again, but Herr Simon didn’t pick up.

  From the way the gas station customers ignored him, he realized that they simply took him for a gas station drunk himself. Because one thing you can’t forget. Herr Simon looked like he’d just been to hell and back.

  “Your phone’s ringing,” a customer said on her way out, on account of the way he was staring at her. But she couldn’t have known that it was only because of the chocolate bar she’d bought. He ordered himself another espresso, and when Helena still didn’t turn up, he left. Maybe she’d climbed back into the car, maybe she’d just gone on a little outing, and now she was back in her car seat again. Or another possibility. Maybe Herr Simon had just hallucinated the whole thing, possibly due to the pills? Because he did have a nonalcoholic beer yesterday, and even in nonalcoholic beer there’s still a little bit of alcohol, which means, if you drink thirty-six: drunken stupor. He’d only had one, but still, hope is hope. Or another possibility altogether: the kidnappers had changed their minds. They had returned the child, acting as if it had been nothing. Or, anti-abortionist Knoll had only wanted to make a slight threat, taking the child away briefly, like he’d threatened the Frau Doctor before, and then giving her right back—a rapping at the window, as it were.

  Herr Simon retraced his steps exactly as he had taken them before, maybe out of a certain superstition that repeating the previous experience would make it un-happen. But when it comes to superstition, the good lord is merciless, he hates it like a CEO does a labor union. And still no Helena through the back window, still no Helena through the side window, still no Helena when he pressed the button on the key fob, and from the driver’s seat, still no Helena in the rearview mirror. At that moment, as he looked in the rearview mirror, his cell phone went off again. It made Herr Simon so furious that he pounded his fist on the steering wheel. Because he imagined the ringtone scaring Helena away, as though if it weren’t for Jimi Hendrix maybe she’d be sitting there in the rearview mirror. Jimi sang like he was mocking him.

  Because of the fist-pounding and the third espresso, his heart was throwing another tantrum. But he forced himself to search the car. You’re going to say, where’s she supposed to be, Helena, she’s not hiding beneath the hood. But you see how the shock was slowly driving him mad. The panic was enough to drive him crazy, and where the panic left off, the pills picked up and drove him even crazier. Because now he was clinging to the thought that children like to hide. That it’s fun for kids, you get the idea. And even though the little girl wouldn’t have been in a position to hide anywhere but her car seat, he searched the whole car. Maybe she was curled up comfortably behind the backseat, waiting for that dumb driver to finally find her. But no Helena behind the seats, no Helena under the seats, no Helena in the glove compartment, no Helena beneath the floor mats, not even a Helena in the trunk.

  There was a moment when Herr Simon thought he might start crying. But it didn’t come from within, not from his inner desperation, no, it came more from his face, from outside. And even then he didn’t cry. Instead, whether you believe it or not: he sneezed five times in a row. By the fifth time he was already walking back through the gas station’s automatic doors and ordering himself another espresso. And then finally he called Kressdorf. The Frau Doctor, impossible, he’d rather die, because to tell a mother I lost your child. In a situation like that you fear the mightiest Lion of Construction less than you do the mother.

  At first he just stared a while at Kressdorf’s number and wondered, should I or shouldn’t I? But then, finally, he dialed. And immediately hung up again before it even started ringing. And then, finally, he dialed and actually waited for it to ring, too.

  CHAPTER 4

  Kressdorf always had to laugh when people referred to him as a Lion of Construction. Even his wife sometimes said to him, “Good thing I didn’t know at the time what a Lion of Construction you were.” Otherwise, he wouldn’t have had a chance with her, because when they were first starting out, she had someone more along the lines of an architect in mind for herself.

  Kressdorf was amused by this, and in fact he’d been thinking just the opposite, good thing she didn’t realize that I was still a nobody back then. Because he was paying off those bouquets of roses on his credit card for years. Most people think a Lion of Construction gets his start with the larger contractors. These days if you plunk your first single-family house down on a field and it doesn’t collapse by the end of the day, instant Construction Lion. And Kressdorf, unfortunately, had been spinning his wheels, trying to get somewhere for years. He was nearly forty when he met the med student, and even by then, he still couldn’t really afford the expensive hotels.

  His rise to the top only really began with the cabin in the Kitzbühel mountains. You should know, without cabins you don’t come into contracts. Mountain houses, ski lodges, today they teach you that in business school, but Kressdorf had to figure it all out on his own, and it took him the first half of his career. But once he did, he took all the money he’d earned in those first twenty years and put it into a real Kit
zbühel throat-slitter—all for a cabin that was completely rotted out, only thing holding it together were the woodworms. And then, of course, bank directors, politicians, journalists, bishops, investors—suddenly they were all eating out of his hand. But I should add: a cabin isn’t a cabin isn’t a cabin. Because a tasteful mountain palace like the one Kressdorf had magically whipped up out of the woodworm dump—that had the small-town mayors lining up for years, and just to nab an appointment to throw back a quick schnapps with him.

  But no mayors these days, of course, because only the innermost circle, i.e., high-level power meetings. Today there were only three of them sitting in the hunter’s den. Well, purely from their perspective. The girls were still upstairs sleeping, since it had gone on a bit late the night before, so they said, we’ll let them sleep in a little today.

  The mood was terribly peaceful, and as Bank Director Reinhard remarked, “A day like this without a cell phone is like two weeks’ vacation with a cell phone.” Congressman Stachl nodded in such emphatic agreement that the flakes from his black beard went scattering, on account of neurodermatitis. But don’t go thinking that Congressman Stachl was just a generally emphatic nodder. Quite the opposite: Bank Director Reinhard’s cell phone ban annoyed him, but so that Reinhard wouldn’t pick up on this, he nodded emphatically—camouflage, if you will. But the neurodermatitis, of course, wasn’t about to let itself be mistaken for something it wasn’t, and so the congressman couldn’t stop scratching his beard. A night at the cabin always had him itching four times as much, and then the itching would just annoy him all the more, i.e., catch-22. Just so you don’t get the wrong idea about where the fine layer of dust covering Aurelius Stachl’s side of the wooden table came from.

  Bank Director Reinhard, on the other hand. For him, one would have to invent the word “relaxed,” if it didn’t already exist. And I don’t just mean his paunch, which is often a point of confusion, and maybe his pleasant stoutness only got to be that stout because it’s got so many people in the deep freezer that it can’t keep up with the leftovers. But the strange thing about Reinhard was that he didn’t look fat, even though he was definitely hiding fifty, sixty kilos too many under his black turtleneck sweater. It wasn’t accredited against him, though. For a man of sixty, he looked more like a portly high school student who’s way ahead of everyone in school, except in gym class. He’s always so comfortably enthroned upon his chair, looking out from the thick lenses of the glasses perched on his plump face, but managing somehow to look imposing. And believe it or not, when the girls were brought in last night, you could tell right away that they preferred Reinhard over Stachl, even though Stachl is half as old, athletic, tall, and slim, a real gladiator compared to Reinhard. And it definitely wasn’t because of the flaking skin on his face, either, because his beard covered it very well. But with Reinhard maybe instinctually the girls sensed something more benevolent, paternal.

  And I can honestly say, in the mountains he truly was. He transformed into a benevolent person there. I don’t know if it was because of the altitude, the quietude, or simply the hunting. Reinhard himself marveled at how relaxed he always was in the mountains. That’s why he liked coming up here so much. Day to day he had to forcibly suppress his benevolent side. What do you think would become of the bank if he were to direct it with his hunting benevolence?

  But Reinhard, of course, was a far too responsible person for that. He’d directed the bank very successfully for twenty years—hundreds, if not thousands, of young bank girls would have lost their jobs if Reinhard hadn’t done his so well. Then there was his own family in Klosterneuburg, always present at every birthday, all four kids. He even volunteered at the church when time permitted; above all, when his wife permitted, of course. Many people have wondered how Reinhard does it all. But it’s precisely because he’s so good at relaxing. And he hadn’t been as relaxed as he was today in a long time.

  “That was a grand idea you had, banning cell phones here in the mountains,” he said to Kressdorf, and he smiled so contentedly that his beady eyes nearly disappeared completely behind the thick lenses of his glasses.

  In truth, of course, it had been Bank Director Reinhard’s own idea. His express wish: no cell phones, not just out hunting but in the cabin, too. Because they still always called it a “cabin,” even though Kressdorf had built it into a full-fledged mountain lodge. No cell phones in the cabin, Reinhard said, because that’s why we go: to be in nature. My god, a bank manager like him has an enormous amount of responsibility, he’s allowed to indulge in a little extra amusement now and then, a little humiliation on the side, by praising someone for an idea that had been forced on him. It’s a behavior related on many levels to this thing where you have to thank the person who slaps you in the face, but much friendlier, because no slap in the face, only praise. If he wanted something, all Reinhard had to do was whisper and everyone would immediately jump, and afterward he’d say, that was a grand idea you had.

  Kressdorf wasn’t bothered by this. But Congressman Stachl was. He turned red every time Reinhard praised him like a little boy for something he hadn’t done. But Kressdorf only saw the big picture, i.e., the big contract. Because for a project like MegaLand, even a Lion of Construction can let a good-natured sadist have his fun and accept his praise for a cell phone ban that he himself imposed. And one thing you can’t forget: it was a project he would’ve jumped at all over again, just like he had back when he bought the cabin with his last few bucks.

  “I could watch that rabbit for hours,” Bank Director Reinhard said smiling, his stout minister’s mouth beaming with satisfaction. And for my part: I could watch that Reinhard smile for hours. There was something about watching the animals feeding that was so peaceful to him that it had almost meant more to him than the hunt itself these past few years. And sometimes Stachl would even whisper blasphemously from behind a cupped hand: Reinhard doesn’t even like to shoot anymore, the animals behind the glass are enough for him.

  You should know, a glass panel separated the hunters’ den from the rabbit pen. It’s all the rage these days with cabins, and it was Kressdorf who originally invented it. He’d had the glass wall installed with his last bit of cash at the time. But when Hunting Review did a multipage photo spread of his innovative idea, everyone copied it immediately, of course. Basically, this glass panel between the hunters’ den and the stables formed the basis of the whole Kressdorf empire, because people liked it, you wouldn’t believe. He hadn’t even demonstrated the one-way-mirror-at-the-press-of-a-button for them. No, just the plain glass function got people excited. So you’d be eating your bacon in the hunters’ den, drinking your schnapps, counting your millions, fondling your ill-gotten gains, and through the glass panel, you could watch the animals in their innocent animal existence. Interesting, though. Reinhard wasn’t amused one bit when Congressman Stachl made a joke about the bunnies behind the glass. Because that was too vulgar for Reinhard. He expected a certain niveau from a congressman, even at the cabin.

  Now that it was morning, the girls weren’t in the rabbit pen anymore, anyway. They slept till noon, which was a foreign world to Reinhard. He’d never understood sleeping in, because the morning was the most beautiful time of day for him, and every morning at six sharp: the five Tibetans.

  “You’ll have to excuse me, I’ll just be a moment …” Reinhard said to Kressdorf and pulled out his cell phone. Because that was the most important part of the deal, of course, that Reinhard should get to make at least one brief call, lifting the very ban, as it were, that Kressdorf supposedly had enacted. But always with contrite apology. Congressman Stachl had never dared, he just pretended he had diarrhea and made his important phone calls from the bathroom every five minutes.

  And so, while Reinhard was on the phone in the hunters’ den, Stachl went to the bathroom again and turned his phone back on. Beneath his thick black hair his head was riddled with scars, one for every time it had bumped into the low ceiling in the cabin’s bathroom. At
his height he couldn’t stand fully upright in there, and the congressman was a nervous telephoner as it was, fidgeting and gesticulating. Maybe his pent-up resentment toward Reinhard played a part, too, in him regularly hitting his head in the bathroom. If not on the window latch or the light fixture then on the deer rack or the cabinet that stored the toilet paper. Especially when a call startled him, he was at risk. Typical example: just now he forgot to stoop down on his way out the door. The text message had something to do with it, guaranteed. Because: emergency. Kressdorf’s wife couldn’t get hold of her husband and it was urgent for him to call her.

  CHAPTER 5

  “Now she’s given up,” one of the two gas station drunks said. The thin one, because the fat one was standing with his back to Herr Simon, but he had such a belly that his back brushed up against the neighboring table. And so you can see just how badly things were going for the chauffeur. That he hadn’t even noticed that his cell phone had been completely silent for ten minutes. You should know, when he still couldn’t get hold of Kressdorf after three tries, he gave up. And I suspect he only tried in the first place because he knew about the cell phone ban, and so it would have been a huge coincidence if Kressdorf had picked up. But Herr Simon didn’t turn off his cell phone after his pointless attempts, either. Instead he remained snug in that painful middle ground, without a solution and without any refuge, ergo triggering “Castles Made of Sand.” But when it suddenly stopped, it didn’t strike him as suspicious. It pains me when I think how slow his brain was compared to the gas station drunks, who noticed it before he did.