There was no trace of emotion on his face. Just a hint of curiosity, as usual when confronted with tears. Tears were a mystery to him.
In any case, Herr Wegener’s screaming and begging had had no effect on him.
“Irreversible” was a word with one meaning, and one meaning only.
41
Ensconced on a chair, with his tobacco and his pipe, one pillow behind his back and one under his knee, ready to listen.
“Moneymoneymoney,” Marlene began.
Keller raised his eyebrows.
Marlene gave an apologetic smile. “There were mice in the walls of the maso where I was born. I could hear them squeaking all night long. They said, ‘Moneymoneymoney.’”
She brushed a lock of hair from her forehead. That morning, she had carefully removed the bandage and looked at her reflection in the bottom of a steel pan. The scar was red and swollen but not inflamed. She had decided to let it breathe. Besides, it wasn’t that ugly. She might as well start getting used to it.
Klaus . . .
She bit her lip.
The time had come to tell the truth: the story of Marlene and the Thieving Magpie, the mice in the wall, Wegener, Klaus, the kobolds.
She had spent the night hours searching for the right words to tell her story in a way that would make sense to the Bau’r.
Now, though, as he sat smoking his pipe and listening to her, events, dates and voices started getting in a hopeless jumble. She apologised.
“I don’t know where else to start. The mice were my mother and father. Onkel Fritz, my mother’s brother, was the Cat. As for me” – she paused briefly – “I was the Thieving Magpie.”
She sighed. It was hard.
She put the book of Grimm’s fairy tales on the table. “This was a gift from my mother. She would read me a story every night. My favourite was the one about Old Mother Frost. Do you know it?”
Keller nodded. “The old woman who makes it snow. Of course.”
“The Taufer family had debts, the fields weren’t yielding any crops, the cows weren’t producing enough milk. Papa asked the banks for money, but the banks wouldn’t give him any, so he was forced to beg Onkel Fritz for it. Onkel Fritz would come up to the maso almost every day and insist that Mamma and Papa sell the maso. To him, obviously. It was a small debt, but even something small can be too big when your pockets are empty. Onkel Fritz was a greedy . . .”
She broke off.
Keller completed her sentence for her. “Son of a bitch.”
It was as if he had not spoken. Marlene was not there anymore. She had gone back to another time, another maso.
“Mamma and Papa did their best to repay the debts, but there was never enough money. At night, I would hear them whisper . . . Moneymoneymoney.”
“The mice in the walls.”
Marlene turned her gaze to the cover of the book. “It was the only way I could stop myself from going mad. I was scared of those voices. Whereas the mice . . .”
“Like the ones in Cinderella?”
“I was no Cinderella. My parents loved me. Although gradually . . .” Searching for the right words, Marlene ran her tongue over her lips; they were hard and dry. “Although gradually I disappeared. I became a ghost to them. Mamma and Papa would make lunch and dinner, ask about school, Mamma would tell me stories while Papa would try and make me laugh with his jokes, but . . .”
“They weren’t themselves anymore.”
Marlene looked into Keller’s face. He understood. Yes, he understood everything.
At this point, her confession turned into an avalanche. She could not have stopped herself even if she had wanted to.
“I began stealing. I don’t know why. I became the Thieving Magpie. It was perfectly clear in my mind. Almost fair. Marlene became the Thieving Magpie the same way Mamma and Papa had become the mice in the walls. I had no use for the things I stole. They were small things. I took them from school and also from the village shops on my way home. The most valuable object I stole was a little chain. I stole it from my teacher. It was strange. I liked the teacher, she was fond of me, she said I was intelligent and good at my work. But I stole it from her anyway. Naturally, she noticed.”
“Did she tell your parents?”
Worse: she told Onkel Fritz, who was better known in the village than Marlene’s parents. Onkel Fritz, with his beer gut, his powerful wrists and his chipped teeth. He apologised profusely and told her about his sister (who really wasn’t well at all) and his brother-in-law (who was no good).
Onkel Fritz came up to the maso and confronted Marlene as she was raking out the cowshed, her hair gathered in a scarf. She did not hear him coming.
She just felt his hands lifting her.
And the taste of excrement after Onkel Fritz hurled her against a heap of manure.
“That’s what you deserve, you stupid little bitch! Where is it?”
Onkel Fritz was shaking. And not just with anger. He seemed pleased with himself.
“Where have you hidden it?”
Marlene wiped her face in disgust. “What?”
“The necklace. Where is it?”
Marlene blushed. “Don’t tell Mamma or she’ll be angry. Please don’t tell her, Onkel Fritz, she’ll get so angry, please, Onkel Fritz, don’t tell Mamma and Papa, they . . . Please, don’t—”
Her head hit the manure again.
Onkel Fritz towered over her. He was tall, he was fat. And he had that glint in his eyes that terrified her to the point of madness. He was dirty, incomprehensible. Horrible.
Marlene took the little necklace from her apron pocket. Onkel Fritz snatched it from her hand.
“What were you planning to do with this? Sell it? Wear it on Sundays? Is that what you were thinking? To make yourself pretty?”
“I didn’t—”
Onkel Fritz grabbed her by the back of her neck and rammed her face into the manure. “You’re just a shit shoveller. A dirty shit shoveller. You were born a shit shoveller and you’ll die a shit shoveller.”
Marlene was sobbing. Why wasn’t Papa coming to help her? Where was Mamma?
“And now say thank you.”
“Onkel Fritz—”
He grabbed her roughly by the shoulder. “Say, ‘Thank you.’ I’ve taught you your place in the world. Say, ‘Thank you, Onkel Fritz.’”
She lay motionless in the manure, like a broken doll, legs spread, skirt raised.
Onkel Fritz panting, huge, above her. With that look in his eyes.
“Thank you, Onkel Fritz,” she muttered.
Onkel Fritz did not keep the secret. He told Mamma and Papa while she sat in a corner by the fireplace, her head down, listening to all her parents’ exclamations of “Oh, my God!” and “That’s impossible!” and “Shame on her!”
They didn’t tell her off. They did not utter so much as a word of reproach. She simply became even more invisible.
Mamma got ill. She would spend half the day in bed, barely breathing, one arm over her eyes. The other half of the day she would spend cleaning the house. She would dust, sweep, scrub and scour, thousands and thousands of times.
Everything’s dirty. Dirty. Dirty. That was what she said.
Mamma was taken to hospital. Marlene remembered her eyes staring into space as Papa and Onkel Fritz carried her to the ambulance. Where were they taking her?
“The asylum,” Onkel Fritz said. “And it’s all your fault. Remember that, you stupid shit shoveller.”
Then he resumed whispering in her father’s ear. Always the same tune. Moneymoneymoney . . .
Papa gave in. The maso was sold. Onkel Fritz got him a job in a sawmill in Lana. Marlene moved. At the age of sixteen, she began working as a waitress in a hotel.
Papa never took her to visit Mamma. It was not appropriate. He said Mamma was feeling better. She was recovering and would soon be back with them. But he always said it with that squeaking sound that still tormented Marlene in her dreams. “Moneymoneymoney” had become �
��crazycrazycrazy.”
In the hotel, Marlene realised men liked her. It was not a pleasant discovery. It reminded her of the way Onkel Fritz had looked at her. The glances. The furtive touches. The half-uttered words. The men, drunk, offering her money to talk to her in private. She had never considered her body as something desirable. And yet the attention was undeniable.
It opened her eyes.
She realised why some of the girls who worked in the hotel could afford particular clothes, particular jewellery, particular “treats,” as they called them.
One of the waitresses, Brigitte, taught her how to wear make-up, how to accentuate her face – a face like a nineteenth-century lady’s – and turn it into a trap for shitheads, as she called the hotel’s guests. Shitheads with money.
Moneymoneymoney.
The mice had gone. Papa would fall asleep, exhausted, straight after dinner, and Mamma never returned home. Yet their squeaking haunted Marlene night and day, night and day.
Brigitte told her: you’ve got to be clever.
The Thieving Magpie was clever, but . . .
She resisted.
Naturally, in order to scrape together a few more tips, she would put into practice what Brigitte had taught her. A smile and a slightly shorter skirt than permitted, but nothing else. That was how they all started, Brigitte said one night, showing her a little diamond ring, a gift from one of her “admirers.”
A smile and a short skirt, and the rest followed naturally.
“But if you want my advice, Marlene my dear, you should make up your mind. One of these days, your skin won’t be as smooth as it is now, and your breasts will start to sag. Not to mention this . . .” Brigitte patted herself on the behind. “Men like a bit of flesh, otherwise they wouldn’t know where to put their paws, but when it gets too big they start complaining. If you want to make money, now’s the time.”
No, Marlene told herself, not her. She would never do that. Not for moneymoneymoney. To do that would mean going crazycrazycrazy. Never, she swore.
The very next day, she met Herr Wegener.
He was twenty years older than her, self-confident and handsome. He dressed impeccably. And he had done nothing but stare at her all through his dinner.
The courtship. The invitations declined, not out of calculation, but rather through disbelief: how could such a rich man be interested in a shit shoveller like her? His good manners. His fine words. The flowers. The first kiss.
“It won’t last,” Brigitte said. “Take as much money from him as you can before he tires of you. And trust me, he will.”
But Herr Wegener did not tire of her. He asked her to marry him.
“I went to the hospital. Mamma had become as small and shrivelled as a prune. I told her about the wedding. I told her I was happy. And do you know what she said?”
Keller shook his head.
“She looked at my new dress, my polished nails, my hairdo and spat on the floor. She called me a whore. ‘You filthy whore,’ she said. I burst into tears.”
Keller reached out his hand to stroke hers, but Marlene pulled it away.
The truth. The whole truth.
“I even cried at my wedding. Don’t all brides do that? They’re happy, they’re overcome with emotion. Do you know why I was crying? Because my father was there to walk me to the altar. In that suit of his.” Marlene blinked, and her face grew hard. “The shit-shoveller suit. I was ashamed of him, his hands, his fingernails. I was ashamed of the stench of poverty he carried around with him. I invited Onkel Fritz to the wedding, too. I didn’t have to. He’d stolen my parents’ maso, driven my mother crazy, and . . .” Marlene shrugged. “I wanted him to suffer. I wanted him to see the champagne, the clothes, my husband’s money, which was my money, too, now that I was his wife. I was rich. He was nothing but a shit shoveller. And he always would be, whereas I . . .”
She was rich.
A new life, with new rules. And new whispers.
Marlene was bright, she always had been. Even during the courtship, she had realised that Wegener was not the simple businessman he liked people to believe he was. Brigitte’s glances told her. The men her future husband met with told her. The deference with which people approached him. Wegener was a criminal.
He himself confided in her one evening over dinner, a few weeks after the wedding. He told her about the war. About his childhood amid the paths. He told her about his empire. He outlined his plans for the future. He spoke of his ascent into the Consortium.
He said there was nothing to fear, that he loved her and would protect her.
He took her hands and asked if she could forgive him for having kept her in the dark. She loved him, so of course (moneymoneymoney) she could.
And so she had become his (crazycrazycrazy) accomplice. Until . . .
Marlene put her hands in her lap.
“Until I found out about Klaus. Our son.”
Keller’s eyes opened wide in astonishment. “You’re pregnant?”
“When I found out, I realised that . . . that I had to get out of there. I didn’t want Klaus to become another Herr Wegener. It was wrong.” Marlene took the velvet pouch from her pocket. “I stole these. I ran away. But then . . .”
“You had the accident. And here you are.”
Marlene nodded. She had run out of tears and out of words. Her head was spinning. “The truth, Simon Keller, is that you saved the life of a thief and a liar.”
Keller put his pipe on the table and took her hands in his. “It’s you who’ve just given me a gift. A great gift.”
Gently, he touched the beauty spot on her cheek.
He allowed himself to think of a word he had been toying with for a long time.
Redemption.
Marlene emptied the contents of the velvet pouch onto the damaged boards of the table.
The sapphires.
Keller looked at them in silence.
“Shiny stones are worth a lot. They drive men mad.” He counted five, then put them aside. “These are enough to give you a future. The others,” he said, putting them back into the velvet pouch, “we’ll return to their rightful owner.”
“My husband is a dangerous man, a killer, a—”
“Leave it to me to persuade him. No man is too cruel to grant a second chance.”
“No, you mustn’t. You—”
“But first, you must do something for me. Voter Luis always said that you become a man when you put on your father’s clothes. What you see are his clothes. His trousers, his shirt. I need you to make me a new suit. You said you’re a seamstress. I have some fabric. It’s old but strong. Can you do it?”
“I . . .”
“Can you?”
Marlene nodded. “I don’t know about the hat, though . . .”
Keller smiled. “In that case, it’ll still be Voter Luis’. It’s fine. I like it. It’s a good, sturdy hat. And it’s right that I should remember.”
“Your father?”
Keller stared at her for a long time before answering. “The man I killed.”
42
In despair – beyond despair – Herr Wegener was yelling orders. Making telephone calls. Yelling more orders. Two, three, a hundred times. But nobody had seen the Trusted Man.
Warren Beatty? Who? The actor?
Had the boss had too much to drink?
He had lost his mind. Because of a woman. His wife.
Isn’t that what always happens?
Herr Wegener promised a reward of millions for the head of the Trusted Man. Millions to anyone who could put him in touch with him.
Nobody came forward.
Captain Carbone was trying to soften him up. The lawyer would not answer his calls. Wegener had reached the point where he got down on his knees and prayed. Take my life, God. Mine and not my son’s. Not Klaus’s. My son, Lord. I beg you.
The crucifix remained silent to his requests.
So Wegener grabbed the telephone. He was furious. No more requests, no more pr
omises. Orders. Orders his men understood immediately.
Revenge. Reprisals.
Death.
43
There was not much light in the Stube, but Marlene was a skilled seamstress. An artist, Gabriel liked to say. Marlene had never believed it, but she was flattered a man of such refinement and such undeniable talent should call her that.
She had spent the happiest hours of her marriage to Herr Wegener in the workshop of the boutique: chatting with the other seamstresses and learning the tricks of the trade from Gabriel, caressing the fabrics brought by the wholesalers and choosing the best, transforming the fruits of her imagination and the new brides’ requests into fine garments.
Wegener had never understood it, but, bent over the work benches, her brow furrowed, her eyes sometimes watering with fatigue, Marlene had felt free.
The Stube of a maso, though, was not a workshop for wealthy snobs. A Bau’r’s clothes did not have to be artistic, she reminded herself. They had to be sturdy. The seams had to hold, the cloth cut in such a way as not to impair movement, the buttons sewn on with a double thread.
Even so, the result was not without elegance.
Marlene pricked a finger and raised it to her lips.
Keller’s fabric was old, but it was of excellent quality. He had brought it up from the cellar – he had not allowed Marlene to go down with him and help him carry it up to the Stube. She wondered where he had got it. She wondered when.
Maybe it had been his Mutti’s? A Bäuerin was also a seamstress. That and a million other things.
Keller had told her how his mother had died giving birth to his sister. He had also told her about Voter Luis’ madness, how he had turned from a man of faith into a monster, how afraid he, Simon, had been of his father’s silence and his father’s rages. A monster who had killed his own daughter.
Elisabeth. Little Lissy.
He told her how he had sat up with her until dawn, rocking her dead body in his arms.
Little Lissy . . . Sweet Lissy.
He told her, with the extinguished pipe between his lips and a vacant stare in his eyes, how one day he had gone into his father’s bedroom to find his dark, severe clothes.
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