“. . . Little Lissy.”
The stench of pig became unbearable. Marlene felt trapped. She had to get out of there. She needed air.
“Sweet . . .”
She needed Keller to stop saying those words and ringing that little bell.
“. . . Lissy.”
Feeling dizzy, Marlene leaned all her weight against the pen. If she hadn’t, she would have fallen to the ground.
Keller noticed. He stopped ringing the little bell and looked at her, alarmed.
The walls stopped undulating. The darkness withdrew.
“Are you alright, city girl?”
Marlene swallowed a couple of times. “I’m afraid . . . I’m not feeling well.”
Keller stood up. “I’d have liked you to meet Lissy, but it’ll have to be another time. My princess is shy. She doesn’t like strangers. Let’s go. She won’t eat if we stay.”
Marlene did not need to be asked twice. She clambered up the stairs to the door and threw it open.
The Wehen. The cold. Air.
She turned and saw Keller with the buckets in his right hand.
That was when Marlene’s imagination ran wild.
Once again, the fairy tale overwhelmed reality.
She heard the soft, gentle jingling from the darkness at the far end of the sty. From behind the metal grille.
Keller extinguished the oil lamp. The sizzling of the flame as it went out became a white space between a tick and a tock and Marlene’s imagination transformed reality into something else. It lasted for a second, maybe two. At that moment, she saw something stirring.
In the darkness.
Tick . . .
A fleeting vision out of the corner of her eye, with her mind all over the place from the heat and the stench, as the darkness guillotined the pigsty. It was like during the accident. Marlene’s eyesight grew sharper and she saw (or imagined) every detail.
Lissy.
Black on black. Muzzle more than a metre from the ground. A four-hundred-kilo mass. Powerful loins quivering like bellows. A small tuft of white bristles between the ears. Two blades of pale skin that joined the eyes and the twisted tusks glistening with saliva. A rough grunt through sharp teeth.
And eyes.
Intelligent eyes.
As if Lissy knew. As if she could see through Marlene, all her lies, all her memories, her soul stripped bare.
. . . Tock.
The darkness. The cold. The blizzard.
Reality.
Running while lashed by the Wehen, the staircase with the rickety banister, the warmth of the Stube, Keller talking cheerfully as he warmed one large pot of water on the stove after another until he’d filled the bathtub.
A little leftover coffee to warm her bones.
Keller saying goodbye.
Carnation-scented soap.
25
On Golgotha, the cross. On Sinai, the Law. On Moriah, not one drop of Isaac’s blood.
Mount Greylock showed Herman the Leviathan. Mount Ararat stopped the Ark. The Himalayas gave birth to the Buddha.
Mount Meru is the centre of the world, and the North Star watches over it. On the summit of Mount Kailash, as dark and icy as the surface of Pluto, Shiva the Destroyer dances.
Beneath a mountain with no name, Marlene met Lissy.
26
It was only later that she worked it out. A couple of hours after Keller had put his rucksack and a ten-bore rifle over his shoulder, a handful of cartridges in his pockets, his hunting knife at his belt, and vanished into the blizzard.
Marlene worked it out as she lay in the warm, fragrant water, trying to relax her aching muscles and not think about Herr Wegener. Or about Klaus.
Or about Lissy.
The only result was that all she could imagine was her husband’s anger, all she could think about was Klaus and all she could wonder was why a black sow behind a grille had scared her so much.
Little Lissy. Sweet Lissy.
Little?
The animal Simon Keller kept behind that disquieting iron grille was the largest pig Marlene had ever seen.
Not to mention the fangs.
Every so often, a piglet would be born with unusual teeth. Her father had explained that there was nothing to worry about, it was just a whim of nature. As if those pigs remembered what they were before man had domesticated them. Usually, though, it was just one or two slightly crooked, slightly sharp teeth. Nothing in comparison with sweet Lissy’s fangs.
Those were a boar’s fangs, fangs that could rip open the most formidable hunter.
Only then did she work it out.
Lissy.
Sissi.
Both short forms of Elisabeth.
Marlene lifted a hand to her face, opened her eyes wide and stared into space. Simon Keller had named the sow after his dead sister.
Her immediate impulse was to laugh.
But she didn’t.
It was the saddest thing she had ever heard.
27
He had followed the lawyer’s instructions to the letter. He had called the voicemail and left a message arranging the location of the meeting: his wife’s boutique, the following day.
“You’ll find me there from eight in the morning.”
He had not slept a wink all night and had set off bright and early, getting Georg to drive him there in the Lancia H.F. Then he had sent Georg away and prepared to wait. Old Mother Frost was empty. He had given Gabriel and the seamstresses instructions: the boutique was to close for a day. When Gabriel had protested, Wegener had slammed the receiver down on him.
Once there, he lit the stove in the back room, sat down on a chair, folded his arms and looked out through the front window.
The streets were deserted, and the snow showed no sign of easing off. How long had this damn blizzard been going on for? Three days? Four? Four. The first flakes had fallen on the night of the theft.
Four days. An eternity. Marlene could be anywhere.
That thought made him feel like a caged animal. None of his men had found a trace of her. Her or the Mercedes. The telephone records that would allow him to establish Klaus’s identity were late in arriving. Carbone wasn’t answering his calls.
Worse still, his men were starting to champ at the bit. The economic crisis had increased business tenfold, but without him it was hard for them to handle it all. They needed orders and instructions. Every hour wasted chasing after Marlene amounted to heaps of money being thrown away. They could not understand. They . . .
He clenched his fists.
Powerlessness. A feeling that reminded Herr Wegener of endless walks along the mountain paths, clutching the Iron Cross.
Somehow, the morning went by. Herr Wegener did not stir from the workshop. He sat by the stove, which was turned up to the maximum. He was cold, his feet especially. They were frozen and he could not warm them.
Midday went by, too.
Herr Wegener stood up just once, in order to empty his bladder and drink water from the bathroom tap. He was not hungry. He could not shake off the feeling of cold.
The afternoon drew to a close. Merano was shrouded in a fog of silence. The only sounds were those of the snow ploughs trying to stem the white madness endlessly falling from the sky.
He had been told to wait patiently, and so he waited patiently. As it got dark, the feeling of cold disappeared and at last he felt his head clear. His thoughts became specific, precise. Thoughts of death. For Marlene. For Klaus. For all the men who had betrayed him, who had mocked him for having been screwed by a woman. Carbone would be top of the list. He had been the one to inform the Consortium, Wegener was ready to swear to it. What about Georg? Was he loyal? He did not know, but he hadn’t liked the look he had given him that morning before leaving. A look of pity. Or perhaps defiance? Either way, he would pay for it.
Everybody would pay. His revenge would be terrible. He would kill them and their families. He imagined a pile of corpses, a pyramid of arms and legs, with himself s
tanding on top, laughing at the mangled bodies, as merciless as only he could be.
What about the lawyer? He, too, would die. He would have to devise something that would arouse no suspicion. An accident. A little cyanide, like the pills that S.S. officers carried in their pockets to avoid the humiliation of defeat.
Thinking about revenge dispelled his frustration. Time passed, and the number of corpses grew before his eyes.
He noticed that the fire in the stove was petering out, and he stood up to add fuel. He washed his hands and drank a little more water, then went back to sitting and staring at the door.
He dozed off.
He dreamed he was in the woods of Val d’Ultimo. The Standartenführer was kneeling in front of him, his father’s Iron Cross pinned to his chest, his fingers intertwined behind his head.
It was a dream, not a memory, because in actual fact, the Standartenführer had begged him to spare his life. But in the dream, the S.S. officer was teasing him.
“Are you sure you know what you’re about to do, Kobold?”
Wegener had pulled the trigger. Three times.
The shots almost made him fall off his chair.
Three more shots.
A form in the darkness beyond the shop window.
The form knocked again.
28
He had pictured him differently.
The hitmen he had met all looked contemptuous. They were predators who bore the marks of their murders. They knew it and were proud of it.
The Trusted Man was handsome. As handsome as a Hollywood actor. Warren Beatty in Bonnie and Clyde, Herr Wegener thought, that was who he looked like. The Trusted Man’s eyes reminded him of the crucifix in the little church where his mother would take him to pray. Pure eyes with a hint of suffering, an underlying pain.
No, not suffering. Compassion. There was compassion in the Trusted Man’s eyes.
They settled in the back room without a word. The Trusted Man was elegantly dressed. Jacket and tie under a knee-length woollen coat. A hat and a leather bag like the ones that doctors carry. He removed his gloves, reached his hands out towards the stove and rubbed them together.
Herr Wegener cleared his throat. “I called you because—”
The Trusted Man gestured to him to wait. He took off his coat, folded it carefully and put it on one of the tables in the back room. Then he undid the buckle of the doctor’s bag, opened it wide, pulled out a spoon wrapped in a crisp white napkin and handed it to Herr Wegener.
Very carefully, he also took from the doctor’s bag a tureen, the lid secured with adhesive tape. He removed the tape by slicing it with his fingernails and placed the tureen on Herr Wegener’s lap.
It was still hot.
The Trusted Man removed the lid and put it on top of the stove. Then he sat down. “You’ve been waiting all day,” he said, smiling. “Please, eat.”
Wegener looked first at him, then at the contents of the tureen.
Soup. It had an inviting smell.
“What about you?” Wegener said, taken aback. “Won’t you keep me company?”
“I’m the one who asks the questions. First of all, let me know what you think.”
Wegener dipped the spoon in the soup.
It was delicious.
“It’s good. Really good.”
“Does it need more salt?”
“No, it’s fine as it is.”
“Are you sure? Don’t be polite.”
“It’s excellent. No salt, thank you.”
Wegener put another spoonful into his mouth.
The Trusted Man sat back in his chair and crossed his legs. “Before anything else,” he said, “I need to clarify a few details. Do you mind?”
He paused, waiting for a sign. Wegener shook his head.
“The number you called doesn’t exist. The people I work for don’t exist. I don’t exist, either. Even you don’t exist. Would you like some water? Do you have a glass?”
“Through there.”
The Trusted Man got up, filled a glass in the bathroom sink and came back.
“You want to negotiate a contract with me. We’ll discuss my fee once the job is done. The payment will come from you, not my employers. I assume you can imagine the reason for that. There’ll be no expenses or advance required. The job could last hours or years, but that wouldn’t alter the price.”
“What if you don’t succeed?” Wegener said, wiping his lips with the napkin. He had almost emptied the tureen.
“That’s never happened.”
Wegener nodded.
“Naturally,” the Trusted Man went on, “discretion is a given. On my part as well as yours. In order to achieve my goal, I’ll need to ask you a few questions, some of an intimate nature, but just as you’ve never seen my face, I’ve never seen yours.”
“Right now, I’m talking to myself.”
The Trusted Man smiled graciously. “They told me you had a great sense of humour. That’s a trait I like. Especially in these circumstances. It shows mettle and nerve. Good, very good.”
“What else did they tell you about me?”
“That you need to make a decision,” the Trusted Man said, suddenly looking serious.
“I already—”
The Trusted Man silenced him with a sigh. “Let me make things even clearer. Have you ever shot anyone?”
“Of course I have.”
“Then you’ll know that once the trigger has been pulled, the bullet has started on its trajectory and is irreversible. Do you know what that word means? I am that trajectory. The decision you need to make is irreversible. I want you to fully understand the gravity of what you’re about to do. Forgive my bluntness, but have you ever killed anyone?”
“Yes.”
“How many people?”
“One or two.”
“Tell me about the first one.”
Wegener stared at him.
The Trusted Man smiled. “Must I remind you that I promised discretion?”
“I killed an S.S. Standartenführer.”
The Trusted Man studied him with those Christ-on-the-cross eyes of his. The smile vanished. He shook his head, seemingly sad. “We’re not there yet. No. We’re not there yet. You’re not paying attention to what I’m saying.”
He took the tureen from Wegener’s lap and put it on top of the stove. He did the same with the spoon and the napkin. He moved his chair closer, leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, and reached his hands out to Wegener, palms upwards.
“Please.”
Wegener obeyed. They sat there, faces half a metre apart, eyes locked, hands joined.
“Tell me the truth.”
“That is the truth,” Wegener said. “I killed him in ’45, in the woods in Val d’Ultimo. I made him kneel and shot him in the back of the head. An execution.”
The Trusted Man squeezed Wegener’s hands in a fraternal gesture. “What I’m trying to make you understand, Herr Wegener, is that here and now we’re forming a bond. A bond that’s stronger than a marriage or a friendship. Do you understand? You and I are talking about killing a person. That creates a bond. The kind of bond that goes beyond the concept of Good and Evil. And do you know what’s beyond Good and Evil? Truth, plain and simple. Are you with me?”
“Yes,” Wegener whispered. He felt a lump in his throat. The workshop had vanished. The world had vanished. There were only the Trusted Man’s words, the touch of their interlaced fingers, almost as if they were praying, and their low voices.
“Then I would like you to think about this. It’s important. When was the first time you killed someone?”
Their eyes still locked. Breathing in unison.
Wegener swallowed. “The thirteenth of February, 1944.”
“Who was it?”
Wegener felt a pang in his heart and a salty taste in his mouth. “A man . . .”
The seconds passed. Slowly. The salt invaded his mouth.
“A man who, instead of shooting me, gave me chocolate.�
�
At this point, unable to stop himself, Wegener burst into tears. Bitter tears. The Trusted Man put his arms around him and held him tight. Like a friend, a brother, a saint forgiving a sinner.
“He was a good man, a . . .”
“It’s alright,” the Trusted Man said, cajoling him. “It’s alright. It’s in the past. It’s alright. I’m here with you. And we’ve gone past it. We’ve gone beyond.”
“He could have . . .” Wegener sobbed. “He should have . . .”
“It doesn’t matter. Can you feel the force of the truth? Can you feel it now?”
“He . . . I killed him. I killed a good man, a . . .”
The Trusted Man shifted. Once more, he took him by the hands and looked at him with infinite gentleness. “Now,” he whispered, “now you’re ready to tell me the name. The name at the end of the trajectory. If you still want to. Do you want to?”
Wegener thought about Marlene. Marlene in a waitress’s uniform, the first time he had seen her. Marlene in a wedding dress, bathed in light.
He thought about Marlene stroking his face. He thought about Marlene arching her back as he thrust into her, her lips moist and half open, filled with desire, so beautiful.
Marlene nibbling at her thumb as she turned the pages of the book of Grimm’s fairy tales.
He thought about her and almost said that he had changed his mind. He almost admitted he could not go through with it, could not pull the trigger. That it wasn’t fair that he should be asked to give up the one creature he had ever been able to love. That there had to be another way, a way to turn back time and make amends. But just as his lips were about to utter the word “no,” he thought about Marlene opening the safe.
Marlene smiling, whispering a name that wasn’t his.
Marlene betraying him.
The Consortium.
His bare feet.
His father’s Iron Cross.
And he made up his mind.
“I want to.”
29
Voter Luis was a highly respected man.
Like his father and his father’s father, Voter Luis knew the Scriptures and the wisdom of the ancients. That was why people listened to him.
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