Alphabet House (28 page)

The moment they left the room, the man in the armchair continued where he’d left off. He began, as usual, by moving his feet up and down at the ankle. Then he spread out his toes until they hurt, took a deep breath and relaxed. Next he flexed his calves until they also began to hurt, followed by his shin- and thigh muscles. Having flexed and relaxed each set of muscles in his body in turn, he started from the beginning again.

The grainy television screen kept changing colour. It seemed the bodies on the screen had been sweating and displaying their exasperation for an eternity. Now it was the third time the same sprinters had lined up for the same race. They slapped their arms and flung their legs about. Some of the track shoes had three stripes and others just one. At the sound of the shot they all took off, pumping their arms forward and back, then upwards as they passed the finish line. They were all muscular, especially the black men. Muscular all over, from top to toe.

The man rose carefully from his chair and stretched his hands towards the ceiling. None of the other patients took their eyes off the screen. They ignored him. Then he began flexing his muscles again, group by group. His body was in harmony, top to toe, like the black men.

Some runners collapsed on the green turf. None of these were black and they were all wearing light-coloured shorts. The light-coloured shorts were in the majority. As he stretched his hand towards the ceiling for the tenth time he counted the officials who were lined up at the barrier facing the spectators. For every shift of the camera he counted them again. There were twenty-two.

Then he sat down and began his series of exercises once more.

The runners moved around, arms to their sides, as they loosened up. He had seen this race before as well. None of the athletes looked at each other. Most of them had shoes with three stripes. Only one had settled for a single horizontal stripe. Then
he counted the number of officials at the barrier. There were only a few this time. Eight. He re-counted them.

In the middle of a break between events he got up again. Bending forwards, he took hold of his ankles and pulled his body in towards his thighs. He closed his eyes and listened to the sounds in the room. The buzzing of the spectators was replaced by the silence that boded the appearance of new runners. It was still the same as what he had seen the day before.

He tugged hard at his legs, so his forehead struck his knees, and began counting backwards. One hundred, ninety-nine, ninety-eight, ninety-seven… Once again a shot rang out. He looked to one side and let the picture of the room whirl past him upside down, still counting backwards. The features of a face in the chair next to him dissolved as a result of his intense movements. Colours ran together on the screen and again he heard the crowd shouting in broad, deep, inarticulate harmony. He straightened up, fixing in his mind a glimpse of the massive array of arms and colours on the screen. Then he closed his eyes again and began counting the heads from memory. Sounds in the background were fading. He always began to get dizzy at this point in his routine. The last thirty toe-touches were performed reflexively. He took a couple of quick, deep breaths and straightened up. After a few spasms in his neck subsided, he again stretched towards the ceiling and didn’t sit down until the dots on the screen had again assembled themselves into one picture.

Then he took several deep breaths, holding the last one. This was the reward that followed every round. Total concentration and serenity. All his pores open. At moments like this he became aware of his surroundings.

Afterwards he closed his eyes and went through the whole routine backwards, movement by movement. When he got back to the start he heard clearly how the steps of the visitors behind him had sounded. He recalled all the movements in the room.

The stranger’s shoes had had hard soles. The taps on the floor had been short, the steps many and light. The person had stood
still while the director was on the intercom. And then they had exchanged words again.

The man in the big armchair quickly struck his knees together and let his eyes glide out of focus. He exhaled slowly between his teeth, then suddenly took another deep breath. They’d been talking together. Both of them had uttered sounds that felt obtrusive and jarring, now that he recalled them. He focused his eyes again and saw a new set of runners psyching themselves up for the next race. Five of them had shoes with three stripes, two with only one stripe. Next he counted the officials at the barrier. This time there were only four. After the third re-count he began breathing more rapidly and looked upwards.

Some of the words refused to let go of him.

He looked at the screen again and began from the beginning by wriggling his feet. This time he left out half his routine, got off the chair and took hold of his ankles. When he heard the steps in the corridor he let go again and straightened up with a jerk. No one had ever caught him carrying out these rituals.

Not until the pock-faced man sat down beside him did he move his head. He allowed his visitor to stroke the back of his hand and counted how many times he did so, as he’d done so often before. This time his visitor was more subdued than usual. ‘Come, my friend,’ was all he said. ‘We’re going to see Hermann Müller.’ Then he gave the hand a squeeze. ‘Come along, Gerhart, we’re going to have our Saturday coffee.’

It was the first time in many years that the name seemed wrong to James.

Not until he set foot on the path in Stadtgarten did it dawn on Bryan that the flowers he’d intended for James’ grave were now standing in
Frau
Rehmann’s office. After her conversation on the intercom she’d become remarkably more reserved as she showed Bryan around.

A few minutes afterwards they’d bidden each other farewell.

The entire venture had been in vain. His wish to learn more about Kröner, or Hans Schmidt, as he now called himself, had not been fulfilled. There had been no opportunity to ask the right questions. Any attempt to couple EEC subsidies with questions of a semi-private nature would have been running a risk.
Frau
Rehmann would instantly have been puzzled and known something was wrong. Soon it would reach Kröner’s ears. Bryan had no need of such a confrontation.

He would seek out Pock-Face when the time was ripe.

All in all, the visit had been a shot in the dark. A waste of time.

As soon as he entered the park Bryan bent down and picked his flower – a crummy, half-withered, nettle-like purple object he’d been able to pull up by its roots without incurring the park attendant’s disapproval. He straightened the petals a little. This insignificant growth symbolized his feelings and loneliness better than any store-bought bouquet.

The trip up in the aerial tram seemed endless. The swaying of the gondola made him feel nauseous. A queasiness that still hadn’t passed when, according to Petra’s instructions, he began following the moss-covered, cobbled path leading up to the colonnade. The artificial Greek columns hugged the slope like some kind of anachronism. They were ringed by low walls topped by iron railings.

War memorials in Germany are not normally distinguishable by their anonymity. The gigantic angular column at the bottom of Schlossberg was excellent proof of this.

Memorials like this were to be found all over the country, and common to them all was a clear indication as to why they had been erected. Therefore, after having examined every surface of the edifice several times, Bryan wondered why he hadn’t found so much as a small brass plate or the tiniest other sign to indicate the purpose for which the structure had been built, or indeed that it was even a burial ground.

He squatted down, resting his arms on his thighs. Then he tipped over onto his knees and scooped up a handful of earth.

It was damp and dark.

Precisely forty-five minutes before, a broad and heavy figure had trodden the same path up the slope.

The last steps through the thicket had made him breathe more heavily. It was at least five years since Horst Lankau had been there, and before that, much longer. These columns had witnessed many stolen moments of love. Had Lankau grown up in the town he would doubtlessly have had a different attitude towards the place.

At the moment he hated it.

Throughout three summers his eldest daughter, Patricia, had been crazy about a kid whose family unfortunately had the habit of spending a couple of weeks of their impoverished vacation at a campground south of Schlossberg. From these fluttering tents it was all too easy for the infatuated couple to run up the steps at Schwabentor and along the path to the Grecian-like monument where Lankau now found himself.

The youngster’s third summer with his daughter was to be his last summer in Freiburg and Patricia had never mentioned him since.

Lankau had caught the lovers in the act – with their trousers down, as it were – and ever since then the boy hadn’t been capable of similar activities. Lankau had been forced to pay dearly, but the kid’s parents had been satisfied with the compensation.

Then the fool could at least get himself an education.

Now Patricia was well married and the other two daughters were too smart to try the same stunt.

His son could do what he liked.

Climbing to the platform that constituted the roof of the colonnade, Lankau could clearly see that others still sought out their little adventures here, judging by all the limp, elongated condoms lying vulgarly up against the walls.

A strong contrast to their orgiastic purpose.

It would soon be half-past three. Horst Lankau didn’t mind waiting. He’d been thirsting for revenge for years.

Arno von der Leyen had suddenly been swallowed up by nothingness that fateful night on the Rhine. Despite Lankau’s persistent attempts and excellent connections, his efforts to find the merest trace of the man’s subsequent fate had proven futile.

Day in and day out he’d had to live with the physical scars he’d acquired in that crucial clash. He was no longer a handsome man. His closed-up eye made his face look crooked. Women didn’t care for him and looked away when he tried to allure them. Every single month his compressed neck vertebrae gave him headaches that made life miserable for both himself and his family. The shot in his chest had ripped away muscles, making it difficult for him to raise his left arm higher than his waist and upsetting his stroke up the fairway.

Finally, and worst of all, he was plagued by the wound in his soul, known as hatred. It was a source of eternal demoralization and torment.

For the sake of finally avenging all these atrocities, he could easily wait a bit longer.

Lankau had already localized his victim as he’d bent down to pick the flower at the foot of the pedestrian bridge. He sat down heavily on the roof of the colonnade and laid his binoculars beside his pistol.

The weapon before him was one of the worst ever put into mass production. It was said to have the lives of more friends than foes on its conscience. The 94-Type, or the 94 Shiki Kenju as it correctly was called, was a rare example of how even the Japanese could err when it came to precision mechanics.

The pistol was unreliable. When fully loaded, the weapon was liable to go off with a slight nudge to the safety catch, which was placed in a handy but extremely exposed position, just above the stock.

On the other hand, this was the only pistol in Lankau’s collection that was equipped with a silencer.

The first time he had seen it was at the home of one of his oldest business connections, a Japanese man for whom time stood still in order to perpetually honour traditional rituals. One summer day in Toyohashi, Lankau’s host had proudly unwrapped it from an old rag and told him how well it had protected him throughout his life, despite its bad reputation.

As the result of Lankau’s obvious envy, he had received it as a gift only a month later in a shipment of mixed cargo.

Japanese hospitality had dictated that his host make this gesture to maintain his honour.

But afterwards they never did business together again.

Perhaps the Japanese businessman had expected Lankau to return it with a polite protest.

But he hadn’t done so.

The weapon had been oiled and tested regularly. The sound of the silenced shots bore no resemblance to the plops usually heard in films. They simply sounded like shots, short and very quiet, but shots nevertheless. Lankau looked around. There was nothing to be seen within a fifty foot radius. The activity over at Dattler’s – the town’s proud landmark and one of the best restaurants in the region – was quite normal. It was seldom that anyone felt the urge to wander about the rough outskirts of Schlossberg at this time of year.

Lankau had to grant Peter Stich that.

The broad-faced man looked down the incline and adjusted his defective eye socket. The aerial cableway seemed incredibly slow that day.

Once the gondola finally moved out of view behind the trees, he seized the pistol and lay down flat on the roof. In his experience, the target had to be very close in order to ensure that the Shiki Kenju fired both accurately and lethally. He had tried it out on animals. Since he’d grown overweight through the years, he could no longer run after his prey.

The prey had to come to him, and now it was getting close.

The man was visible for a second before disappearing beneath the treetops. Arno von der Leyen still had the suppleness of youth about him. Naturally he was different from how Lankau remembered, but it was him. Lankau sensed the sweetness on his breath, as though his bloodlust had already found its release. He’d long wanted to meet this man again under circumstances like these.

Unsuspecting, and within firing range.

The footsteps in the building beneath Lankau were slow and hesitant. Apparently Arno von der Leyen was looking for Gerhart Peuckert’s grave. Lankau breathed quietly. You could never tell with a man like Leyen. This would be their final confrontation, one way or another, and Lankau was taking no chances. If he could simply get this demon into close range, the matter would be settled. He would shoot without hesitation.

The shouts from the paths above him came from different directions. The voices were young, but not those of children. Lankau cursed inwardly. Young people were good at creating sudden disturbances. They had no respect for natural obstacles and could come crashing out of the undergrowth before you knew it.

The crunching steps below him came to a halt.