Out of the Line of Fire (29 page)

But instead I spent the entire next day lying on my bed in my room, the curtains drawn, the overhead light on, my feet crossed, my hands behind my head, staring at the wood-panelled ceiling, inventing faces, weird animals and whole scenarios from its irregularly patterned grain. I watched a fly struggling in a small piece of cobweb beside the light fitting, half-expecting a spider to emerge at any moment to bundle it up for safekeeping. But none did. I worked out that the apparently randomly patterned wallpaper really consisted of regularly repeated motifs about forty centimetres square. In the end I could no longer look at it without instantly seeing how rigidly fixed this randomness was.

Two days before my departure I was again sitting in my room after the evening meal when there was a knock at the door. I opened it and to my surprise Elena was standing in the corridor.

Elena! I said.

May I come in?

Yes, please, I said gesturing to the only chair beside a small desk against the wall.

It’s not very comfortable I’m afraid. Would you like me to have some coffee sent up?

No, no thanks.

Something else?

No. Nothing, really.

She sat down.

I went and sat on the side of the bed.

You said Wolfi had sent you a lot of material?

Yes. Quite a bundle.

Do you have it with you?

Yes. Well, not all of it. I’ve had most of it typed up, apart from 200 or so pages of philosophy notes, most of which I can’t make head nor tail of. I don’t know what I’ll do with those. Wolfi’s handwriting is not the easiest to read. And I don’t have most of the photographs. There were a lot of photographs.

Could I see it?

Sure.

I went to my suitcase and retrieved a thick well-thumbed, paperbound volume and handed it to her.

God, he really had been busy, hadn’t he.

Yes, from what I can gather, this is what he must have been working on in Berlin.

Could I borrow it?

I must have looked a bit taken aback.

I’ll return it, she said immediately. I promise.

The only thing is, I leave Klagenfurt the day after tomorrow…

Please. Even if I don’t finish it I’ll return it tomorrow evening.

I suddenly felt quite mean. After all, it was her brother’s. What right did I have to it at all?

No, look, I said. You keep it as long as you like. I had intended to use it to write a story about Wolfi, but if you’d like to hang on to it, you hang on to it.

She got up to go.

Will you be in tomorrow evening?

Yes, I should be. If not, you can leave it at the reception desk.

I knew already that I would be. I was delighted I would be seeing her again.

Till tomorrow then.

She took my hand and shook it.

Early the next morning the phone rang. It was Elena. She asked me if I would like to accompany her on a visit to her father, on the condition that I didn’t try to interrogate him.

Why?

I thought you might like to meet him. I think you might change your mind about him.

Have you started reading Wolfi’s stuff? I asked.

Yes, I’ve finished.

Finished?

Yes, I was up virtually all night. I need to see you. There are some things you should know.

What sort of things?

I can’t explain over the phone. Can you be ready in half an hour?

Sure.

Okay, I’ll pick you up outside the hotel.

She hung up.

Twenty-five minutes later she pulled up beside the kerb where I was standing, leant across and unlocked the door. I got in. She looked in the rear-view mirror and pulled away.

She was wearing sunglasses and her face was lightly made up. She had on a light blouse and a brightly coloured cotton skirt. I looked across at her and was reminded of Wolfi’s description of Andrea. I wondered if for some reason Elena had deliberately dressed that way.

Where’s Anya? I asked.

At my O…mi’s, my grandmother’s. But I guess you already know about her.

Yes, it’s strange, I said. I feel like I’ve known her all my life and yet I’ve never even met her.

She smiled and shook her head. I looked through the windscreen.

She’s still alive then?

She nodded.

She’s eighty-five. Still bright as a pin. If Wolfi
did
get something right it was my grandmother.

She seemed relaxed now, calmer, as if finally something had been put in place.

I really am sorry about the other day, I said. It must have been awful for you to have someone suddenly resurrect the past.

Yes, yes it was, she said softly to herself.

We stopped at an intersection. She looked each way before swinging the car left and into the traffic.

You said there were some things that you wanted to tell me?

There are. But I want you to meet my father first.

We drove on in silence.

Half an hour later we pulled into a circular drive in front of a large red-brick building flanked by rows of ornamental conifers which had been trimmed to look like perfect green spheres balancing on short dark pedestals. Below the steps of the building was a large fountain, the centrepiece of which consisted of a writhing column of gleefully obscene potbellied putti pissing out into the water. It was wholly incongruous.

Elena parked the car and we made our way without comment past the fountain, up the stairs, through the doors and into a large open foyer.

As we approached the desk the nurse on duty looked up and said without being asked: He’s in the garden. I watched as her eyes passed from Elena’s to mine and behind the not unfriendly smile I could see a number of questions formulating themselves in her head, questions about who I might be and what the nature of my relationship with Elena was.

We turned and headed towards a pair of large plate-glass doors. Out in the garden we stood for a moment while Elena quickly scanned the other patients, most of whom were wandering about on their own or were being pushed along in wheelchairs by the hospital’s orderlies.

Other visitors were sitting hopelessly by vacant-looking elderly relatives, forlorn, empty husks of people. At the far end of the garden a couple of children were playing badminton, either bored by or oblivious to the destiny which might one day be their own. Their laughter rose and fell in time with the pathetic trajectory of the shuttlecock. I watched it shoot into the air, watched it catch the sunlight momentarily against the sombre backdrop of the firs and then saw it fall lazily to ground like a tiny toppled ballerina. A small boy scrambled after it.

There he is.

Her hand came away from her forehead and she started to walk across a narrow gravel path towards the shape of a man sitting with his back towards us on a bench about fifteen metres away. He was wearing one of the hospital gowns and as we approached I thought that except for his slightly unshaven face he looked more like one of the doctors than one of the patients. His legs were crossed and one arm rested along the back of the bench.

Even when we walked around in front of him and he looked up at both of us for an instant I thought that he was completely sane. But his expression quickly changed to one of slightly anxious confusion. Elena took off her glasses.

Papa, it’s me, Elena.

Elena?

She kissed him on the forehead.

Elena, he said smiling. He appeared to recognize her.

Elena, he repeated.

She looked at me.

Papa, I want you to meet a friend of Wolfi’s.

Her hand reached out and touched my coat sleeve. Her father looked at the ground and frowned.

Wolfi, he said to himself and looked up. He got stiffly to his feet. He took a step closer to me and took my hand without shaking it. He stared into my eyes as though searching for something, some memory which would not quite come into focus. I began to feel slightly uncomfortable.

You knew my son? he said clearly.

Yes, I said. We were students together at Heidelberg.

Heidegger? he said. You knew Heidegger? He released his grip, gave a dismissive wave of his arm and sat back down.

Elena crouched before him and took both his hands in hers.

Papa. Papa, are you listening?

He looked at her.

Papa, I want you to concentrate for a minute. Will you do that for me, just for a minute?

Concentrate, he said. Yes, concentrate.

What’s my name, Papa?

Elena.

Do you remember Berlin, Papa?

Berlin? Yes, I remember Berlin.

Do you remember going to get Wolfi that night in Berlin?

Yes, I remember. Wolfi is in trouble. I have to go.

He looked around.

What happened, Papa? What happened that night?

He stared off into the distance. Then he looked back at her. His eyes had begun to water. He looked tired, defeated. He went to say something.

What happened Papa?

He looked away from her again. In the distance I could hear the children laughing. A small dark circle appeared on the cement beneath his feet as if magically it had floated up through the cement’s solid mass to its surface. Then another. Elena ran her hand across his shoulders.

It’s okay Papa. It’s okay.

She stood up. She too had tears in her eyes.

You see. It’s no use, it’s no use.

She turned back to her father.

Papa, I’ve got to go now. I’ll come back again tomorrow, okay?

She bent and kissed him on the forehead again.

Back at the reception desk she asked the nurse who had smiled at us if she would keep an eye on him. As we turned to go I caught one last glimpse of his slumped form through the window.

Out in the car park as we walked back to the car I turned to her.

You didn’t have to do that you know.

I know. But I wanted you to see my father. The picture Wolfi painted of him wasn’t very flattering. My father could be pompous and arrogant but that was only one side of him. I’m not saying as a father he was sweet and doting. He wasn’t. But he wasn’t all bad either. Besides, I wasn’t sure you wouldn’t have come here yourself. You can see what he’s like. If you had started questioning him…This way it was easier.

She paused for a moment.

There’s something else I want to show you. Hop in.

We got into the car.

Where are we going? I asked.

You’ll see.

We headed back across town in silence. Now that my curiosity had been re-aroused I kept thinking of questions I wanted to ask Elena. I could see, however, that she still seemed troubled by our visit to her father. She frowned as we drove. We sat isolated by our own thoughts, watching the city streets pass by. We were soon driving through the outskirts of town.

Have you ever been to Yugoslavia? Elena suddenly asked.

No. Is that where we’re going?

She burst out laughing.

No, God no, she said.

Her mood began to change.

So you’ve never been to Dubrovnik, or the little town just to the south that Wolfi described?

No.

And, in that case, the Hotel Belvedere wouldn’t mean anything to you either.

Obviously.

She paused for a moment, as if confirming something to herself.

Why do you ask?

Well, if you’ve never been there, how do you know they exist? How do you know that Wolfi didn’t invent the lot?

I thought for a minute. Of course, what she was saying was a possibility. I already had proof that Wolfi had invented or, at least, falsified certain things, Bessermann for example.

What you’re going to say is that Wolfi invented the whole scenario of the argument with your father and that none of what he said was true.

It’s a possibility, isn’t it?

It’s a possibility, but hardly likely.

Hardly likely, I thought to myself. Why? Simply because there was too much external corroborating evidence. In the first place, I had
known
Wolfi, I hadn’t invented him. And I certainly hadn’t invented Elena, and if Wolfi had, he had had a pretty powerful imagination. Then there was Marianne’s phone call. Wolfi
had
been in trouble with the police and Elena’s father
had
gone to Berlin to find him. And, ultimately, there was Anya.

But you see, neither have I.

Neither have you what?

Been to Yugoslavia. I’m not even sure Wolfi had.

I looked at her, scrutinizing her face. She glanced at me.

You don’t believe me, do you?

I shrugged my shoulders.

How do I know that you’re not doing to me what you claim Wolfi did to us both? Why would he have invented having a holiday in Yugoslavia? What’s the point?

That’s what I’d like to know.

We drove on in silence again. The houses became fewer and further between. A couple of minutes later Elena stopped the car and we sat looking out over the township of Klagenfurt a couple of kilometres away.

This is a beautiful place, don’t you think?

I looked out over the view below us and nodded.

Do you mind if we stretch our legs for a bit? she said.

Out of the car the air was crisp and still. We headed further up the hill.

You’re a writer, aren’t you?

Yes, I said.

And while you were in Heidelberg, you and Wolfi were good friends? You knew him pretty well?

Yes. At least, I thought I did. I’m beginning to wonder now.

Doesn’t it strike you as odd then that in all that Wolfi wrote he didn’t mention you once, and said virtually nothing about his time in Heidelberg.

Odd in what way?

Well simply because of the fact that you and he were friends.

I suppose. I don’t know. I still don’t get what you’re driving at.

And, in Heidelberg, Wolfi knew you were a writer then, didn’t he?

Yes, of course. We often talked about writing and what it meant to be a writer. He used to get quite excited about the parallels between the creation of a fictional world and how we perceive what we see as the real world. From what I understand he saw imagination as central to both.

Yes, but don’t you get the impression that Wolfi was writing to you
as
a writer. That the reason he didn’t include anything about Heidelberg was because he deliberately wanted to exclude your point of view. If he’d written about Heidelberg then you could always have said: No, that’s not true, that’s not the way it happened at all.