by Håkan Nesser
It was only in exceptional cases that I raised my eyes far enough to see out. Purposefully, sometimes almost with a feeling of possession, I made my way through the last forty pages of Rein’s text. I took pains never to fail in precision and concentration, and my average output was somewhere between four and five pages per day. I never left my seat once I had started. Received my teacup and my biscuits at four thirty and did not finish work until Frau Moewenroedhe or one of the other two women came in and called for my attention at closing time. I could see that at least the red-haired one would like to have asked a question or two, but I skilfully avoided meeting her gaze and thus she never had an opportunity.
On the way home I would have dinner at one of the restaurants along Van Baerlestraat – Keyser or La Falote mainly – and then spend a couple of hours at Vlissingen, where I had two beers and two shots of whisky while I browsed in the newspapers or simply sat and observed people. The majority were regulars and I had already started nodding in recognition at several of them.
Naturally, I also devoted some thought to the future. Even if I still had the canvas-wrapped package lying untouched on the bookshelf, I was relentlessly approaching the point where I would have to open it, and if it turned out to contain what I thought, it would of course mean that positions were changed rather radically.
A new page. Not to say chapter. Obviously this was also what was behind my intention to be done with the translation before I took that step; true, it would not be a polished text that Kerr and Amundsen got in their hands – simply my handwritten first draft – but I had worked conscientiously from the very first page, and if it turned out that they really wanted to wait another month or so for revisions, I could of course offer them that alternative too. However, given the position that I thought things would be in at that point, I was quite convinced that they would not hesitate to publish. On the contrary, they would drop everything they were doing, rush straight to typesetting and the printers, and make sure to get the book out on the shelves as fast as humanly possible.
It was also the case – if my speculations were correct – that it was all starting to get an unmistakable element of sensation. A literary scoop, to put it simply; to a much higher degree than my employers could dream of.
These were, of course, only assessments. But while I sat there in my smoky corner at Vlissingen those evenings, I knew that was exactly how things would look.
There were simply no signs to the contrary.
A question that popped up now and then, of course, was how Rein himself actually related to all this. He was the one, after all, who was the instigator and director, it was hardly possible to escape that.
So was it the case that he was twisting and turning in his roomy grave?
Or was he laughing?
If memory serves me right, it was a Wednesday that I was finally done with the translation. It was right after teatime in any event. I gathered up my papers, books and notepad. Stuffed it all into the briefcase and left my table for the last time. When I was out on the street, I went over to the florist who is always outside the entrance to Vondel Park and bought a big bouquet. Returned to the library and handed the bouquet to Frau Moewenroedhe as I thanked her warmly for the great accommodation she had shown. My work was finished, I explained, but perhaps I would still stop by another time, because I planned to stay in A. another couple of months. I saw that Frau Moewenroedhe was moved, but words did not come easily to her, and after a few ever-so-banal goodbyes we parted ways.
The same evening I went through the whole translation. It took a little more than six hours; I made an occasional correction, of course, but on the whole the final result seemed more satisfactory to me than I felt it would be while I sat and worked on it. Despite the weight and degree of complication of the text, I seemed to have found the right tone and levels by and large, and I could not find any sections that I felt immediately dissatisfied with.
When I was done it was quarter past two in the morning. I went through to the kitchen and poured a couple of centimetres of whisky into an ordinary drinking glass. Then I returned to the room and fished the package out from the bookshelf.
Sat down in the armchair and carefully unfolded it. Just as Rein had indicated, it contained some additional packaging in the form of a yellow plastic bag.
Inside it were four white, double-folded sheets of paper. No envelope.
Before I started reading, I noticed that these seemed to comprise two originals and two copies. Typewritten. As far as I could judge, on the same machine.
I took a sip of whisky and read.
It took less than five minutes. I downed the rest of the glass and read one more time.
Leant back in the chair and thought for a while. Tried to find new approaches and solutions, but that was unsuccessful. Tried to doubt the testimony of my senses. That was not successful either.
The case was clear. Rein had been murdered.
Murdered.
I had known it for some time; only lacked this final confirmation. But now when I had it in front of me, I could not shake a rather strong sense of unreality.
Germund Rein had been murdered.
By M. Mariam Kadhar. And G.
I still did not know who G was. All four letters were signed with O, which seemed a trifle strange to me. For a good while I also let this letter bewilder me, then I picked up the phone – which was not blocked for local calls within A. – and dialled the number of Janis Hoorne.
‘Who is G?’ I asked when he sleepily answered after a dozen rings.
It took a moment before he found the right wavelength, but when he did, no doubt whatsoever prevailed.
‘Gerlach, of course.’
The name sounded familiar, but I was forced to ask him to be a little more specific.
‘Otto Gerlach. His publisher, naturally. Haven’t you met him?’
I recall that I almost laughed out loud. Suddenly all the pieces had fallen into place. O and G. The hidden game. The question about the translation. The demand for secrecy. Everything.
I thanked Hoorne and hung up. Picked up Beatrice and set her on my lap. Turned off the lamp and sat there for several minutes and stared out into the darkness.
I’ll be damned, I thought.
Shouldn’t I have understood this earlier? I also thought.
Gradually I decided that I hardly had anything to reproach myself for. Could not see either that it would have made any significant difference, if I had been a bit more clear-sighted.
No, none at all, actually.
Ten minutes later I had put the letters back behind the books. Before I fell asleep, I tried to remember what Otto Gerlach looked like – I had never met him, but he was quite a big name in the publishing world and I was certain that I had seen a picture of him at least once or twice. The only thing I managed to summon was a rather roughly hewn face with close set dark eyes and a fleshy mouth. Why a woman like Mariam Kadhar would fall for something like that seemed rather incomprehensible to me. But then I remembered what Hoorne had said about the nature of woman, and besides there was nothing to say that my memory was particularly reliable.
When I fell asleep it was with a feeling that I actually did not have time to sleep.
Sure enough, a few hours later I was on my feet again. I took a quick walk over to the PTT station on Magdeburger Laan and called Kerr. He was not available, it turned out, but I soon got Amundsen on the line instead.
I explained the situation. Could almost hear how he had heart palpitations while I talked, and how his desk chair creaked while he twisted back and forth from excitement. When I was finished I had to tell almost all of it one more time, and then I presented my suggestions.
Without hesitating very long he went along with them, and naturally I had never imagined anything else. The publisher would continue to pay for my stay in A. up to the middle of June. I would immediately send them my translation – after having first made a security copy, which I then had to store in a safe way.
After that I would go to the police.
I performed my tasks in that order. The copying took an hour at a Xerox office a little further down Magdeburger Laan. Then I sent off the original translation from the same PTT station that I called from. Went home and placed the copy on the bookshelf.
On the way to the police station on Utrecht Straat I stopped first and had a whisky at a cafe in the same block. True, there had been quite a bit of that recently, but I understood that I needed something. I had my drink standing at the bar, and while I was standing there, the whole time I remembered Mariam Kadhar’s strong sensuality. Her slender shoulders and the thought of her nakedness under her clothes. I recall that it was very quiet in the place, so quiet that, when I closed my eyes, I had no difficulty imagining her figure on the empty chair beside me.
A few minutes later I stepped through the semi-transparent glass doors of the police station, explained my business to a female constable at reception, and after some ado I then got to present the whole story to a gruff but imposing detective inspector. I recall that his name was deBries and that he had an Ajax pin fastened to the lapel of his jacket.
To this seasoned policeman I also turned over – with a receipt, the importance of which Amundsen had been careful to emphasize – Rein’s original manuscript and the four letters, and when I stepped out on Utrecht Straat again considerably later, it was with a hope that my one reason to travel to A. would now be settled, and that in the future I could devote even more time and energy to the other.
I must also admit that this hope would be realized to a very high degree.
TWO
For the third day in a row I wake up early. Stand in the light of dawn on my balcony and watch Mr Kazantsakis’s two sturdy sons set out on the completely glassy water to fish.
It is hardly more than a ritual, like so much other work in these parts. They usually stay out for three or four hours, return in the late forenoon and with complaints and shoulder shrugs display the day’s meagre catch for the tourists. Normally a dozen small, reddish mullets, which – if you assert yourself and are lucky – you can then have for lunch at the restaurant. Fried as they are, with scales and fins and without either salt, spices or very much imagination.
Thalatta, I think and go back into the darkness of the room. Get out notebook and pens, cigarettes and water bottle. Go out again. Settle down on the rope chairs to start writing. The time is still no later than twenty past six. The coolness of the night hangs on and will do so for another hour and a half. The balcony is in shadow; this is actually the only usable time of the daylight hours.
The island is so damned beautiful. Not least for that reason I hope that I can rely on Henderson, and that I really have come to the right place. In any event I intend to stay the rest of the month and not leave anything to chance.
I think about Henderson and his blurry photographs for a while this morning too. And about the sea and the mountains and the olive groves. Then I light a cigarette and start writing.
It was on 3 April that Mariam Kadhar and Otto Gerlach were arrested. I heard the news on the radio; I had just turned it on while I stood in the cramped kitchen and made my morning coffee.
I had known about it of course, but hearing it like this from the news announcer’s mouth still startled me. As if it had only now become reality; in a way it was like that too, naturally. Until this morning nothing had leaked out in the media – for more than two weeks the police had worked in the greatest secrecy; I don’t know if it was simply a coincidence, or if they truly made an effort to keep things quiet.
Now, however, it was suddenly an open affair. When, an hour later, I found myself at the central station to take the local train out to Wassingen, it felt already as if everything was pulsating with the news. Pictures of all three – Rein, Mariam Kadhar and Otto Gerlach – were on the placards and front pages of the morning papers, and I remember that I thought the mood gave the impression of a movie, where the director without warning has decided to put the very knife thrust into the audience; the decisive scene when the whole thing suddenly shifts into higher gear, when all the old, murky implications become clear and you are thrown into a new tempo.
Just those moments, that is, when you often decide if you are going to leave the theatre or if perhaps it might be worth staying and watching the story to the end.
Sure enough, once I had boarded the train and we began to move, it also felt like a relief to get out of the city.
So this was my first return visit to Wassingen, that day when M and G were pilloried before the public, and it had been over a month since my last. After I had removed my hand from Rein’s manuscript I had spent some rather listless evenings in Nieuwe Halle and at Concertgebouw, but naturally I had not seen so much as a glimpse of Ewa. I had not succeeded in sorting out any particularly attractive plans afterwards either, while I sat and consumed beer and cigarettes at Vlissingen and a number of other bars. Had perhaps toyed a little with the thought of simply putting out a search for her, but in the sober light of morning I had of course dismissed all such ideas.
Gradually, I thus decided on a new attempt with Wassingen. Whether I actually imagined that it would produce anything is hard to say in retrospect. To be honest, I probably did not think for many seconds that it really was Ewa that one of Maertens’ emissaries had seen out here that day at the end of February. The thought had presumably occurred to me that there hadn’t even been any observer, that Maertens had simply constructed the whole thing to at least give the appearance of having accomplished something. In any event, I was well aware that the Wassingen lead offered a rather thin straw to clutch at, but for lack of anything else it would have to do.
In a way, as March turned to April, I had also come to a point where I started to perceive the very search for Ewa as a goal in itself. In certain clear moments I probably sensed that I would never get hold of her again, but to continue living without having done everything in my power to find her would hardly have been possible.
At least it did not seem possible to me right then.
Besides, I had time. Until the middle of June my livelihood was secured. I had no work and no tasks that were required of me. Every day was a blank page.
So why shouldn’t I search?
The same short, stubby bodybuilder was still at the bar and served me whisky with the same indomitable Eastern Bloc charm. I emptied the glass in one gulp and went out onto the square. The wind force was approximately like the last time, but it was considerably warmer. Outside the quasi-Italianesque ice cream parlour they had even set out white plastic chairs and a few tables, even though you would presumably have to wait at least a month before anyone could even think of sitting down there.
In general there were very few people; it was still early afternoon, and even if there was surely a rather large cadre of unemployed and people on disability in an environment like this, I understood that it would take a few hours before the real rush between the shops set in.
I passed through the short arcade and came up to number 36. Ewa’s building.
Ewa’s building? I lit a cigarette and stood and stared at it for a while. Sixteen storeys high. A greyish-brown, slightly damp-stained facade. An infinity of cold windows and built-in, diminutive balconies.
I heaved a sigh and took two puffs. A feeling of hopeless meaninglessness – perhaps spiced with a few grains of absurdity – started coming over me, but then the sun suddenly broke through a cloud and blinded me so that for a moment I just about lost my balance. I closed my eyes and recovered. Started thinking back to Beethoven’s Violin Concerto and about the cough and about the series of events that made me end up in front of this apartment building in a suburb of A., and I soon noticed that it was just those types of thoughts that it was crucial to stay away from, if I was going to get anywhere at all.
Consequently I put out the cigarette and stepped in through the entryway. Stood in front of the directory of tenants and wrote down all seventy-two name
s in my notebook. That took a few minutes, of course, and two women – both immigrants and both with muddy kids in tow – gave me suspicious glances as they passed by.
I returned to the centre and guided my steps towards the cafe where I had sat the last time. Showed a couple of the photographs to the girl at the register; she was truly accommodating and studied them both long and well, but at last she could only shake her head apologetically.
I thanked her and bought a cup of coffee. During the next few hours I showed my photographs to another two dozen persons – both in the centre and outside the entry to Ewa’s building, but the result was exactly as discouraging as I should have had reason to fear.
Zero and nothing.
I had decided on a combined ten work days in Wassingen, neither more nor less, and so as not to exhaust all possibilities already this first day, I let myself be content and took a train that departed at 4.28 p.m. back into A.
At the central station I bought three newspapers, and armed with these I sat down a little later at Planner’s to have dinner and read about the murder of Germund Rein.
The news was a bombshell, without a doubt, and evidently no one really knew how to handle it. True, the police had put out a short press release, but it was ever so vacuous, and no further statements had been made. What was known in journalist circles was that Mariam Kadhar and Otto Gerlach had been arrested, suspected of having taken the life of Germund Rein. That was all.
The rest was speculation.
About the love story. The triangle drama, as someone called it. About what happened in the Cherry Orchard during that fateful day in November. About the suicide note.
About what could have put the police on the trail.
The latter was a blank slate. The police had not let out so much as a hint, and the theories that were presented in the newspapers I glanced at had few points of contact with reality.
That they – M and G – had a relationship was generally assumed, as well as that this of course was the crux of the matter. The photos of both of them were legion, but I could not find a single picture where they appeared together. Just this struck me as a trifle peculiar, and I realized that they truly must have done their best to keep the affair concealed from the eyes of the world.