A barren rock near the sea, beneath the stars. A place for regret, for drastic decisions about penance and for making amends, a humble capitulation before all this grandeur.
But he hadn’t shown any regret or acknowledged any guilt. He never went back to appeal for understanding, to beg forgiveness, nor had he come up with some explanation so he would be restored to favour, like so often before. If only to allow the world to continue on its way, to maintain the fragile balance.
No, no matter how it had come about, he had found something else out there; he saw that there was no going back, that all the boats and bridges had been burned. All he could do was go forward, keep going, proceed along the path already marked out.
He could have walked straight out into the sea, a few steps forward on the rocky beach until the bottom sloped steeply down towards the deep, until he was surrounded by water and drowned, gone, vanished, until his remains turned up somewhere, a pale, leached corpse that no one could identify.
But he had remained standing there. Maybe he heard the voice of a beloved woman calling his name into the wind. He refused to answer and heard her sob in despair, in the belief that he really had walked out into the sea, in the belief that she knew who he was and ascribed feelings to him that he reasonably ought to possess.
Which was a serious mistake. Loki could not be understood in that way. Even the consistency he would show that evening was inconsistent – he had never shown it before.
No one would ever know what his thoughts were out there on the rocks, whether he made a conscious choice or was merely struck by a whim of the moment, whether he regarded himself as an individual responsible for his actions or merely as a small piece in a larger puzzle. It was a foregone conclusion, and he would emerge as the one who had hastened the downfall.
That was how Hanck had heard it described. He had been given the facts, the circumstances surrounding his son’s death. But it was still just as meaningless, the result of an inexplicable assault, committed by an equally inexplicable assailant.
It was unacceptable. He could soberly and clearly talk about the possibility that his son was dead, but that this death should be so meaningless, that was what he couldn’t bear. It created a void in a chain of events, a cause and effect, that he couldn’t abide. There had to be some meaning.
Maybe it was this feeling that was largely responsible for the fact that the shock of widespread killing by human hands, and the even more widespread death by anonymous plagues, had not made him more amenable to such a fate. With his inclination towards objectivity, and his extensive experience of human tragedies, perhaps he ought to have been capable of accepting what had happened.
But that was impossible. He couldn’t even imagine that shadowy figure of the past, that coldly observant functionary at the insurance company. He couldn’t understand him. Just as he couldn’t understand the person he was now. This convulsive notion about seeing some sort of meaning. Was it another example of his lack of imagination? The fixed idea of an obstinate person who had been robbed of the only thing he had ever loved?
In the midst of all these confused and desperate questions a coherence emerged that he had never seen or even suspected before. Clear, irrefutable. At times inconceivable. Alternately ruthless and beautiful.
As if there might be a meaning in allowing the death to be displayed against a backdrop of inexpressible beauty.
‘Happy and satisfied?’
That was Kolga, the cold one, who stood there writing out a receipt behind the front desk in the lobby. She was professional again. Hanck thought he caught an insinuating smile, as if she doubted her sister’s ability to make a guest happy and satisfied. ‘With the evening, I mean . . .’
Hanck should have said: I’m sure you know better than I. Or: What the hell do you think? I’ve been around the block a few times. But he said: ‘Very, thank you.’
She was wearing the long fingernails again. No matter how fake they might be, they still could have kept him there another day.
‘I’m glad to hear it,’ she said.
‘I’ll tell all my friends.’
Kolga gave a start, raised her eyes from the desk and looked at him with more suspicion than ever. As if she actually knew that he didn’t have any friends to speak of, much less any to tell about this place. No matter how she acted, she had an ability to make him feel worthless. That sort of ability and those sort of red nails could have convinced him to stay out there for all eternity.
But he had decided to go home. After he had paid and obtained his receipt, he thanked her and went down to the dock in plenty of time for the boat’s departure.
He was allowed to stand there in peace until the boat was visible across the bay. Then Bora came down. She was wearing her sealskin cap. She was pale and without make-up, as if unprepared, as if she hadn’t planned to say goodbye to him but had changed her mind at the last minute when she saw the boat approaching in the distance.
‘Thank you for yesterday,’ he said.
‘My pleasure,’ she said.
‘I conveyed – ’
‘I know,’ she interrupted him. ‘What are you planning to do?’
He looked out across the bay, at the grey water with wide strips of red and brown algae. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. Honestly. ‘I’m feeling a little dazed.’ He ran his thumb over the three fingers that had had traces of blood in the morning. He was thinking of asking her about that.
But she seemed a bit embarrassed. She kicked her boot at a stone lying on the dock. It flew over the side and landed in the water.
‘I did the best I could,’ she said.
‘It was more than enough,’ he said. ‘I hope she realised that. Your sister . . .’
‘To hell with her.’
‘It was for your sake.’
‘To hell with me too. If only you . . . if only you understood something.’
‘Not all of it,’ he said. ‘But I’m sure it will become clear. I want . . . I want to see my son.’
‘Good luck.’
‘Thanks.’
‘If you happen to come ashore here one day with Loki’s head in your hands . . .’
‘Yes?’ said Hanck. ‘What would happen then?’
‘Then I’d marry you.’
‘Is that a promise?’
‘Not much chance,’ she said. There was another stone lying on the dock. It flew in the same direction as the first one. The boat was getting closer. They could hear the hiss of the bow wave.
‘That depends,’ said Hanck. ‘Maybe that’s what he wants himself.’
‘He’s gone underground,’ she said. ‘Try the Colonial.
That’s where he used to meet my sister.’
‘The Colonial?’ It meant nothing to him.
‘The Colonial Club. He usually ends his evenings there.
At least he used to, when he collected the cash from casinos. It’s a dreary joint.’
‘Unbeknownst to me,’ he said.
Bora smiled, a bit sadly, and repeated, ‘Unbeknownst to me . . .’
He could hear how stiff and formal that sounded.
‘That’s not how you sounded yesterday . . .’
‘No, well.’ He had no idea how he had sounded.
The boat arrived and put into dock. The gangway was set out. Two locals stepped ashore. Hanck was the only passenger who was going back to the city.
He gave her his hand. Bora did the same, but she didn’t let go of his. She pulled him towards her and gave him a kiss, in the middle of the forehead.
The skipper was watching them and sounded the horn. She laughed. He had undoubtedly watched her grow up.
New squalls of rain had drifted in from the west and met the ferry halfway to the city. Hanck had seen nothing out of the window because of the lowering clouds and the vapour on the inside. It was like travelling in an old submarine. He had washed down an ‘Autobahn’ with a couple of beers at the bar to keep himself calm.
The flat was cold and damp when he
got home. As soon as he stepped inside, he stood still in the hall while water poured off his clothes, and he listened for the sound of the person who should have been home, waiting for him. It was as if the rain had flushed straight through his consciousness and washed away the most urgent, insistent of thoughts. Even though it was dim and cold and silent in there, he stood and listened for sounds, a little boy’s quiet chatter with an imaginary figure, the melody of a tune with incomprehensible lyrics, or a clattering from the kitchen.
But everything was absolutely quiet.
Hanck hung up his soaked outer garments, carried his suitcase into the bedroom, quickly unpacked, and hung up some of the clothes, while he piled up others to be washed.
He went out to the kitchen and poured himself a glass of vodka.
He opened wide the door to his workshop, in spite of the humidity. There were only a few machines left on the shelves. That no longer mattered. They were part of a life that had come to an end.
He set his glass on the workbench, placed the revolver and the piece of brick next to each other, and sat down on the high stool.
An hour passed. Maybe two.
Then he shuffled out to the kitchen to open another bottle of vodka. He took it with him into the living room and sat there for a while until he turned on the receiver and listened to the broadcast from the Cathedral. The organ boomed through the flat for a while. He wept, tried to surrender, to give in to the event, but he couldn’t do it. Something held him back, kept him in his own world.
His coat was still damp when he put it on and went out. With the piece of brick in his hand and the revolver in the inside pocket of his coat, a piece of precision-made steel that was heavy and affected his balance, his whole posture. It gave him no feeling of security whatsoever, no illusion of safety. On the contrary. The possibilities that opened before him with a firearm in his hand were so numerous that he felt even more confused. In a matter of seconds he could change the lives of a great number of people, set in motion a reaction with unfathomable consequences. An explosion inside a little steel tube aimed at the most vulnerable point of a living organism, a lead bullet which, after a short path through the air, would penetrate a vital part, tear through tissues, blood vessels, a muscle or a nerve centre, and disrupt its function, causing the entire organism to collapse. Behind the seemingly insignificant movement of his index finger on the trigger there should be a chain of logical deductions from which this movement emerged as the only crystal-clear consequence.
His motive was clear, but the target was vague. A moving object, evasive, changeable. Someone who was easy to confuse with someone else, described in the most variable of terms, sometimes gentle and humorous, sometimes harsh and ruthless, sometimes greedy and selfish, sometimes cowardly and compliant. A generous family man and a charming seducer.
Who would he be shooting if he fired at such a person? Did he have enough ammunition to fell all of these creatures?
He had a vague notion of wanting to see remorse in the eyes of the guilty party, that he would see real and genuine remorse, and that he could then decide. If he didn’t see it, that might make things easier.
But he would wait until then, until he could see more clearly, get a more definite picture; or, on the contrary, become even more confused, go completely mad. Like the woman with the bloody hair. She was prepared to throw herself into the arms of anyone at all, willing to accept her beloved in any guise that he chose to assume.
Hanck had felt that great madness swirling when his loss sank its claws into him, leaning over a filthy certificate from the lavender-clad men on which Toby’s name and personal information had been entered. It passed like a shooting pain through his body, a wave of something cold and stinging. The outside world was blocked out, a dead silence descended, he was breathing but felt no air in his lungs, smelled nothing, tasted nothing. He could slam his hand against the wall without feeling any pain.
Many times he had sat with the barrel of the revolver in his mouth, and with utter indifference he had tensed his index finger and pressed the trigger partway into the mechanism, sitting there until he finally felt a cramp in his other hand, which was clasped around the piece of brick.
That was what he had left of his son: a cramp, a painful contraction.
He never fired the gun. He stopped himself, because first he wanted to see his son, see him with his own eyes.
He had no right to make such a demand, there were no rules or rediscovered laws to invoke, only the crude practices that had been worked out by the lavender-clad forces. They cleaned away sad remains, informed the next of kin, and occasionally granted citizens who were worth remembering an announcement on the monitors. After that the ashes had to be claimed, to be dumped in areas designated for that purpose.
If you wanted anything else, all you could do was ask for some sort of dispensation, special privileges.
There were institutions whose purpose it was to arouse and maintain an ancient sense of justice in the citizens, especially when it came to their obligations, and occasionally they would set an example through publicly administered punishments. But these entities were seriously understaffed, and every action took an endless amount of time. The entire apparatus had become the object of justified suspicion. Hanck knew all about it.
But he had a right to make an appeal. He could do so just about anywhere; there were queues all over.
Hanck wanted to present his case to the Old Man.
The Old Man’s residence was a nineteenth-century address, located in one of the finer districts of the City Under the Roof. The lower two floors were walled up with concrete, like a sarcophagus, forming the foundation for the skyscraper that towered over the neighbourhood.
The queue was at least a thousand metres long. There were old people and young people, men and women of all types. Some were mute, almost listless, while others chatted, laughed, sang or ate. Many seemed filled with something indefinable, neither sorrow nor joy. They muttered their litanies quietly to themselves, or spoke the words out loud into the air, without embarrassment. As if the queue itself were a forum and the wait was so long and drawn-out that it had to be filled with something. As if they were forced to talk about themselves in order to remember who they really were.
Hanck walked along the queue from the entrance and around the whole block to its end. He had the impression that it hadn’t moved a metre since he last walked past. He recognised a number of faces, perhaps the most noteworthy, the most confused and desperate. There were a number of weepers who emitted loud bellows with a credibility worthy of great actors.
Nothing had happened, not one person had taken a single step closer to the entrance. Some had even perished from old age or disease and been carted away, and the gap was then instantly filled by the next person in line.
There were mobile kitchens that moved back and forth along the queue; deals were struck, and all sorts of trades took place. When someone died, an auction was held for whatever they had left behind. The remaining funds were then managed by a council responsible for general security and keeping things clean.
Sometimes a woman would let loose a heart-rending scream, a commotion would ensue in the queue all around her, people would form a wall. The woman would give birth under open sky. The child would grow up and perhaps live his whole life in that queue. If it ever happened to shrink, and that child passed through the doors and was granted an audience, a peculiar situation might arise, since the case to be presented was a matter concerning relatives who were long since deceased. Perhaps it might even be completely forgotten, and the person granted an audience had no purpose at all, other than perhaps to see if there really existed someone to whom he might appeal.
Though this was a truth never doubted in the queue. If someone occasionally grew weary and expressed scepticism, the person was immediately driven off, frozen out and excluded. It was even said that someone who had been zealously critical was actually killed. It was considered unforgivable to express any doubts in p
ublic.
Hanck of course went to the end of the queue, giving as friendly a nod as he could to those standing in front of him. He was inspected, from head to toe. An old woman who sat on a stool knitting something that looked like a long scarf gave him a particularly long look of appraisal. She sold knitted goods and probably assumed that he would soon start to feel cold.
‘And?’ said a man wearing fingerless mitts and a thermal vest. He looked expectant, as if the new arrival would have something interesting to add. But Hanck didn’t.
‘A personal matter,’ he said curtly.
That was the wrong answer. The man drew himself up, exchanged meaningful glances with several others.
‘I see . . .’ he said. ‘A personal matter.’ There were a few laughs, several grunts. ‘That’s what she said too.’ He nodded at a young woman who stood leaning against the wall of the building with her eyes closed. She seemed to be asleep. ‘After a couple of months the whole queue knew what she’d been involved in.’
The man with the fingerless mitts seemed convinced of his own pleasant and even winning manner; he turned to face Hanck and said calmly, his voice carefully modulated: ‘We’re one big family here, you see. It’s a matter of give and take. You can’t just take without giving something back. It’s a way of life.’
That sounded like a threat. At least Hanck took it to be a threat, veiled as pleasant and well-intentioned information. And he was genuinely frightened. The man in the fingerless mitts raised one hand and placed it on his shoulder. ‘Easy, easy . . . It’ll all work out. You don’t have to share with me right now. We can go into that later.’
It was a misunderstanding, one in a series of misunderstandings that Hanck would encounter. As soon as he realised this he knew at once that it would never be worked out. He was absolutely unwilling to discuss his case with this crowd, and he wasn’t afraid to disappoint the expectations that were clearly aimed at a newcomer. On the other hand, he was afraid of himself. He was aware of the man’s pretentious and self-satisfied manner, and he felt an impulse to pull out the revolver and shoot the man in the head.
The Hurricane Party Page 20