by Anne Emery
A group of people arrived then and recognized Habler, and they stopped by the table to chat. Betty came over with the bill and Brennan took it. Patrick grabbed it from him and paid for the meals. Brennan signalled to Habler that they would wait for him outside.
While they waited, Brennan’s mind went back to the concert. The German composers, the pieces that had been selected. His mental wandering had an unanticipated benefit. Seeing all the German names written on the program triggered his memory of the name that had eluded him when he saw the scribbled-out line in the Book of the Names of the Dead. He had it now. The name Meika Keller had written in was Rolf Antonio Baumann. Why had she reacted to Brennan’s acknowledgement of the name? Why had he acknowledged it in the first place? Then he remembered. It was just that the middle name was Italian, and it had brought to mind the composer Antonio Vivaldi, and he had made some kind of comment about that. But who had gone to the book and obliterated Rolf Antonio Baumann from the Names of the Dead? And why? Was it Meika herself who had erased him from the record?
A Baumann in her life, now dead, and a person who had sent a postcard just over a month ago, someone with the initial L.
Habler extricated himself from his admirers in the restaurant and joined Patrick and Brennan outside on Montague Street. They all pronounced themselves sated with food and drink and were about to part ways.
“Just before you go, Fried, I have another question for you about Meika.”
“Oh, yes?”
“A name came up one time when she was at my church. Rolf Antonio Baumann. Does that mean anything to you?”
Habler thought for a moment, then said, “No, I’m sorry. I should tell you that I lost contact with Edelgard, with Meika, once we finished our secondary school, because I was given permission to go to Prague and study music there. Czechoslovakia was an East Bloc country of course. Even so, I had to agree to return home and teach when my studies were completed. But during my student years, I did not go home to Leipzig very often. So, she and I were not in touch with each other. By the time I returned to teach, she was no longer in the city. I never saw her again until we met here in Canada. Whoever she knew in Berlin is unknown to me.”
“I understand. I guess the postcard is not going to open any doors for us.”
“No.” Someone pulled up beside them in a car, rolled down the window, and said to the singer, “Wunderschön gesungen!” Wonderfully sung! Habler waved and said, “Danke schön.” He turned back to Brennan and said, “I wonder, though, whether the police found the postcard after she died. And if they saw it, did they recognize the building that was shown on the front of the card?”
“I doubt it, unless it was the Brandenburg Gate or the Reichstag building.”
“It was not either of those, Brennan. It was a gigantic building made of concrete with rows of windows and no pleasant architectural features. Nothing pretty for a postcard. It was in fact the headquarters of the Stasi. You know who I mean by the Stasi.”
Brennan stared at him. “A postcard of the Stasi headquarters?!”
Brennan knew perfectly well who the Stasi were. The East German secret police. He tried to process what he had just heard. How likely was it that the police in Halifax would have recognized the building or even given it much thought? But wait, though, didn’t postcards always have a description or an identification on the reverse side? Of course, they did. Citadel Hill, Halifax, Nova Scotia. “Fried, what was the full name of the secret police?”
“Ministerium für Staatssicherheit.”
Hard to imagine that on a tourist card. But then again perhaps a point was being made in the aftermath of German reunification.
“Was the building identified on the reverse of the card?”
Habler laughed. “No. Old habits die hard, I suppose. They were the secret police, remember. But no, I remember very well that there was not anything printed on the back of the card to identify the building. Not even a street address, or the word Berlin.”
“So, this may have been a do-it-yourself postcard,” Brennan said. “Here, people can have family pictures or other personal images made into postcards. Or put on key rings and coffee mugs for that matter. I assume the same technology exists in Germany.”
“Oh yes, it was probably first in Germany! Or Japan.”
“You’re probably right. This person may have had the card specially made up.”
Habler did not reply.
“Fried? Does this ring any chimes for you? Do you know of any role the Stasi might have played in the life of Meika Keller, when she was Edelgard Vogt-Becker, or in the lives of her friends or family?”
“As I say, I did not know any of her acquaintances after she left Leipzig. But I do know this: Meika would have made herself very unpopular with the state security apparatus by escaping to West Berlin. Other than that, I can offer no explanation.” He said his goodbyes and started to walk away, then turned back. “You must remember, Brennan, that the Stasi played a role in the life of every person in the German Democratic Republic.”
Chapter XIII
Brennan
Patrick, as a brother and a psychiatrist, was concerned about Brennan’s drinking. But he was also a Burke. So, simply put, he wanted to enjoy a drink with his brother. In moderation. And he expressed an interest in revisiting one of Brennan’s regular drinking spots, the Midtown Tavern — he had been there on a previous occasion — so they hiked over to Grafton Street after returning from Lunenburg. Brennan knew it was almost a certainty that Monty Collins would be there on a Saturday night. And he knew he couldn’t avoid Monty, couldn’t indefinitely restrict himself to casual greetings or short conversations, regardless of the hangover of bad feeling from the Belfast catastrophe. And sure enough, there was Monty with a group of people Brennan recognized as lawyers. Monty raised his glass in greeting, and the Burkes greeted him in turn. There was no room at the table for the newcomers, so Brennan and his brother found another place to sit. Dave the waiter came over with a Keith’s draft for Brennan and recognized Patrick, though not by name, and welcomed him back to the beloved Halifax establishment. Patrick thanked him and said he’d have the same, so another Keith’s arrived at the table. As always, the talk turned to the family in New York, his parents Teresa and Declan, Patrick’s children, and Brennan’s other nieces and nephews. After an hour or so, the cartel of lawyers got up and left, and Monty looked over at Brennan, who motioned him to his table.
“Good to see you again, Monty,” Patrick said, “and good to be in the Midtown again. Grand old spot, this is.”
“Exactly,” Monty agreed. “You get a drink, you get a steak. You don’t get braised tofu drizzled with raspberry-infused anything.”
“I can understand the attraction. Will you join us?”
“I will. But, just so you know, the coal miner’s daughter is due to arrive here any minute now. She kindly offered to be my designated driver this evening.”
“Does the verb ‘offer’ have an included meaning close to ‘insist’ by any chance?” Patrick asked.
“You are a scholar of the subtle shades of meaning in the English language, Doctor Burke. I commend you. And if your skills are as keen in the realm of human behaviour, which I believe they are, you may recall a formidable quality behind the mild, gentle demeanour of the lady of the house. In fact . . .”
“Well, if it isn’t the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” The speaker was none other than the gentle lady herself, coming in the door and bearing down on their table. “I’m not sure I’m fit for such sanctified company.”
“Sure, aren’t you a saint yourself, though?” Brennan replied. “Saint Oda of the Magpies, I’m thinking.”
“Who?!”
“Do you not know the saints of your ancestral home?”
“Apparently not.”
“Well, your lesson today is Saint Oda of Scotland who, it happens, was forever bei
ng annoyed by flocks of magpies, until the birds herded her into a lovely space in the woods, perfect for prayer and contemplation, and she realized the magpies had been sent to her by God.”
“How in the hell did you come up with that?”
“I sure as hell couldn’t make it up.”
“You made up an Irish saint who turned water into beer!”
“O ye of little faith. Saint Brigid of Kildare did indeed perform that miracle. There is even a blessing for beer in the Rituale Romanum. Would yez like to hear it? Benedic, Domine, creaturam istam cerevisae, quam ex adipe frumenti producere dignatus es: ut sit remedium salutare humano generi. Shall I translate for those who have not had my advantages? Bless, O Lord, this creature beer, which thou hast deigned to produce from the fat of grain: that it may be a salutary remedy to the human race.”
“Brennan, you never fail to amaze me,” his brother said. “And I’d say you are now the man to beat if our Terry is to retain his preeminence as the barroom raconteur of the Burke clan. How can he compete with that?”
Brennan signalled to Dave to bring another round, including one for the blessed lady who had just joined the party. Patrick’s mild blue eyes caught Brennan’s own, and Brennan caught the meaning, and it wasn’t a shared veneration of the patron saint or her product. It was more Aristotle than Brigid: Moderation in the bodily pleasures.
The conversation continued in a cordial vein, with no references to Irish history more recent than the sixth century. But eventually the Keller case crashed the party. Patrick was telling Monty and Maura how much he enjoyed seeing Lunenburg, which led to the Fried Habler concert. Monty said, tongue in cheek, “Herr Habler, where were you on the night of sixth February, 1996?”
“Wherever he was,” Brennan said, “he was probably resting his voice in preparation for five long, taxing hours of Wagner.”
“Now there’s another first for me in my career, first time I’ve heard that alibi.”
“From what I hear, Monty, your client MacNair wasn’t resting his voice the night Meika died. He was seen having a row with her not too far from the seashore late that night.”
“Brennan, if he had pushed her into the water of the Northwest Arm, she would have floated back onto the shore there, not onto the southern tip of the peninsula at Point Pleasant Park. Somehow, she ended up in the ocean. Went into the ocean of her own accord is my take on it.”
“Hard to imagine, though, isn’t it? Someone wading out into the frigid waters of the Atlantic and then putting her head under and waiting to drown. I know people do desperate things to take their lives, but would she be able to maintain her resolve long enough to stay out there, or would a basic survival instinct kick in and drive her back to the beach? People tend to use quicker methods like jumping into very deep water from a great height. They often die of a broken back before they can drown.”
“So, what do you think happened, Brennan? You think my client got her out there. How? He shanghaied somebody’s boat, she went along with it, they went out to sea, and he tossed her overboard? We know there was no boat found floating in the water that morning with nobody left aboard. And nobody has reported seeing my client hauling a boat back onto the shore or wrestling it onto the roof of his car for the journey home. The Rendell family has two kayaks, but they were still in their boat shed the next day, and there was no sign that they had been moved at all over the winter, so Alban MacNair didn’t avail himself of one of those.”
“If she did it all by herself, counsellor, how did she get out there? Did she take a boat out and then set fire to it, a Viking funeral kind of thing? That may not have happened even in Viking times. And it didn’t happen here. Nobody saw a fiery ghost ship out there, no burnt wreckage came ashore, and she had no burn marks on her.”
“I’m not suggesting a flaming ghost ship, Brennan. She got herself out there somehow.”
“Maybe she took a ship out of dock and scuttled ’er.” Brennan made a ritual out of lighting up a cigarette and avoided the eyes of his psychiatrist after this latest flip remark. But, he knew, the eyes of the Man Above could not be so easily evaded. And his own conscience would come back to haunt him at bedtime yet again, he knew, in the form of Meika Keller’s lifeless face.
“Right, Brennan,” Monty replied. “Or a German U-boat came up and sank her. There’s one out there, we know, U-190. It sank one of our ships during the war, surrendered when the war was over, and our Navy made quite a ceremony of bombarding it from the air, sinking it, in 1947. But maybe clever German engineers got down there and patched it up.”
“Tell it to the judge, Monty,” his wife counselled.
“I think I’d be sailing a little too close to the wind with that story, my dear. So, I say we stick to reality, if possible.”
“Humour me for a minute here, Monty,” said Brennan, “and consider the argument that it was not a suicide. If it wasn’t that and it wasn’t MacNair, do you think her history in East Germany might account for what happened?”
“What? Ve haff vays of dealing with people who escaped across the Berlin Vall tventy-two years ago? You’re seeing a commie plot in this after all these years?”
“Maybe you should be, since you are searching for fanciful ways of explaining away your client’s aggressive behaviour hours before she died.”
“Boys, boys, boys!” Maura cried out. “Why can’t we all get along? Why don’t we all just discuss things in a courteous manner and come to a consensus? How many times have I said it? If only women ruled the world, fighting and warmongering would be a thing of the past.”
“I’ve a two-word answer to that, MacNeil, if you’d care to hear it.”
“Not an obscenity, I hope, Father?”
“Two words: Margaret Thatcher.”
But in fact Brennan was thinking of a commie plot. Well, maybe not that exactly. But . . . “I take it you know about the postcard from Germany?”
Brennan had oft been told he had a poker face. So did Monty Collins, Q.C., barrister and solicitor, who had become all too accustomed to surprises going off like bombshells in the courtroom. But Brennan had come to know him well, and he knew that the postcard had just arrived as another unwelcome surprise. And Monty was man enough not to pretend otherwise. “Tell me,” is all he said.
“A postcard arrived for her at Dal.”
“Dal, not Saint Mary’s.”
“Right. I knew that the story of the Meika Keller–Fried Habler reunion had made the news back in Germany. Habler’s is the big name and he’s teaching part-time in the music department at Dal.”
“So, you figured someone might contact her through him.”
“And someone did.”
“What did it say, do you know?”
“I have the German written down, but I can tell you what it said. ‘Congratulations, Frau Keller! I always wished I had your talents for sport and for science. Alas, I am talented only at reading and researching. But good for you! I must go; the scoundrel is here. Yours, L.’ Initial L.”
“Do we know who L is?”
“Not yet.”
“What about the scoundrel?”
Brennan shook his head.
“A scoundrel doesn’t sound like someone threatening. More like a humorous reference. So, I’d say there’s nothing sinister about it. A simple note of congratulations.”
Brennan leaned forward and said in a mock-conspiratorial voice, “That’s what they want you to think.”
“Who would ‘they’ be in this context, I wonder?”
“I don’t know, but the picture on the card might raise a few eyebrows.”
“Oh?”
“The building depicted on the card was the headquarters of —” Brennan pronounced it in the German way “— the Shtasi.”
“What?” Monty had abandoned his courtroom sangfroid as had Professor MacNeil. Patrick Burke’s eyes went from on
e to the other, but he maintained a professional silence.
A few seconds went by and then Monty said, “Maybe ve haff vays after all.”
“Who did you talk to about the card, Brennan?” Maura asked. “Fried Habler?”
Brennan nodded yes.
“Did he have any idea what it meant, the mild wording and the ominous photograph?”
“He didn’t.”
“And no idea who sent it?”
“No.”
Monty asked, “When was it sent?” He picked up his glass of draft and took a sip.
“I don’t know the date but the postmark was Berlin, and Habler passed it on to Meika on January twenty-second.”
Monty put his glass on the table and stared at Brennan.
Maura looked at her husband. “Wasn’t that around the time she took off on an unplanned trip to Europe?”
Monty answered, with obvious reluctance, “Yeah. She left four days after that, on the twenty-sixth.” To Brennan, “You’re sure of the date?”
“I’m sure.”
Monty
Monty blamed it on the beer. He’d gone way over his usual limit at the Midtown. He’d poured almost as many glasses of draft down his neck as Brennan had, and that could hardly be a good thing. Monty was no stranger to the hops or to the places where the final product was served, but it was rare that it brought him down like this, rare that Monty fell prey to alcohol’s properties as a depressant. There was no question that Brennan’s presence had worked on him, bringing with it unwelcome memories of the shambles in Belfast. But Brennan’s experience there could hardly be laid entirely at the feet of Monty. And now this fixation Brennan had with the Keller case and some dastardly deeds he imagined had occurred in Germany. All to assuage his own guilt about standing her up when he was out boozing at O’Carroll’s.