Eternal Life (12 page)

“Maybe the border patrol, maybe they’ve got binoculars
there. But I don’t think you could sell them on binoculars very easy. Because the police—you’d grow old trying in a bureaucracy like that.”

“Now I’ve gone and said the wrong thing,” Perterer Jr. says, because this was a polite young man, they taught him in the way of manners in Paris, he never would’ve said: No, you’ve misunderstood me.

“I mean, the Americans’ binoculars. What the police did with them, if they found the binoculars when they found the murder victims. Because they were brand new.”

Needless to say, Brenner had completely forgot by now that the Americans had binoculars with them on the lift. They weren’t regular binoculars, though, more like your finer opera glasses. And that’s the kind of thing a tourist is bound to keep on him.

“Did you sell them the binoculars?”

“The American came in here himself.”

“I don’t know, either, then, what the police did with the binoculars exactly. Probably went to the next of kin. On the other hand, evidence. Might still be with the police.”

“Pity, because they were still brand new. ‘A surprise for my wife,’ the American said, when he came in to pick the binoculars up. But, to be honest, if I were a millionaire today, I would’ve have come up with a better gift for my sixtieth wedding anniversary.”

“And he came in here himself and bought them.”

“He ordered them from my father. Then, picked them up from me. Maybe a week before Alois found them on the lift. Because it took months for the glasses to arrive from
America. Special order, of course. He knew exactly what he wanted, the old American.”

“Unlike me,” Brenner says, and explains to Perterer Jr. that he’s going to have to think it all over again, the Walther. Because he’s thinking, Maybe it wouldn’t hurt if I talked with Perterer Jr. just one more time.

Then, Brenner walked halfway around the lake. But it wasn’t until he was tired, sitting on a bench and looking out at Zell that he truly noticed it. The promenade along the lake was completely empty of people. When there aren’t people here, it’s so nice here, suddenly you realize why everybody wants to be here, he thought. Then he picked up the
Pinzgauer Post
and on the first page:

“Resurrection of the Dead!”

Mandl must’ve been the scribe behind that piece of poetry. Easter was still months off, and besides: directly beneath the headline was a photo of the American lift passengers.

And beneath the photo it said that several of the Parsons’ checks had been signed, dated, and cashed. Over a hundred thousand schillings the Parsons had withdrawn from their account. And, this, half a year after their deaths.

Now, you should know, a professional fire department you’re only apt to find in the big cities. Everywhere else, a volunteer fire department, because, the young men go and volunteer, the fire department does a festival, a ball, let’s say, and things just aren’t on fire all that much in the country.

More likely’s a car accident, you know, Saturday night, gotta cut somebody out. Because, for the young people, a car’s important out in the country, there’s a disco, it’s in the next town over, now you’re going to need a car, of course.

Then, it gets to be two in the morning, or even three, four, too. Alcohol now, and then they drive home, everybody having a good time, girls, too, in the car—of course, now you’ve got to cut them out, too, more often than not.

But a fire, per se, rarely ever. Maybe a farm, if the hay’s not completely dry and a farmer puts damp hay on a fire, needless to say, burns the whole farm down.

Rare, though. Some young buck could be in the fire department a long time, let’s say, already worn his Class A’s to two fireman’s balls, but never been in a fire. Already cut
ten people out, or a retiree locks herself out of her apartment, stuff like that, or for my part, a kitchen fire, but he gives it a quick spritz and it’s out.

Now, unfortunately. It happens time and again that one of these young firemen who’s never been in a fire before gets ideas. Poor devil lights something on fire just so he can put it out. We’ve all done it. Weissbach once, one time at Bruck, and Eschenau, I know, once before.

But this has nothing to do with our story, with the Americans in the lift. No, just so you understand why it was Alois the Lift that night, the fourteenth of September, why he’s so alarmed now. Even though he’d been fire chief ten years already, more than ten years, because he got the medal last summer. But in Zell there hadn’t been a fire in almost three years.

And now, at a gas station of all places. Twelve minutes to ten the siren goes off, fourteenth of September, it was a Thursday, Alois the Lift already in his pajamas.

Into the parka he goes now, and there he’s sitting in his Renault Twingo, nothing but pajamas and a parka on, but no matter, he’s going to have to slip into his uniform anyway.

Two minutes later he’s already down at the firehouse, three, four others already there ahead of him, gas station’s on fire now, and the firemen are racing from all over, four minutes later they’re all there, five minutes the first truck’s off.

Needless to say, if the captain’s nervous, the whole squad gets infected. Seidl was the driver, fifteen years he’d been the driver for the fire department, a driver elsewise, too, professionally, I mean, chauffeur to Frächter Hasenauer. Took the
first curve right out of the gate too fast. You’d like to think he knows it like the back of his hand and has driven it a thousand times in the fire truck, and every time as fast as it’ll go, but this time: too fast.

Not that anything happened, nothing happened at all, had to put it in reverse is all, power steering, no problem, and loses maybe ten seconds that he makes right back up again. Only—the nervousness was there. No wonder, because, a gas station, needless to say, this was the first time, first time for everybody, not just the boys, but for everybody, for the chief, too.

And then the training video. It was in France some—I don’t know, fifty or sixty years ago. The old guys had all seen it a few times already, and the young guys, at least once, because just this past July—so, just a couple months ago—Alois the Lift played the old training video for them again. Because there was a gas station in Cannes that caught fire, and so you could see exactly what the French firefighters did wrong.

Needless to say, what the Zell firemen had to be thinking right about now, how in Cannes, their colleagues as it were, how they all got blown to pieces together. Because nobody came out of it. That much you could see on the video, real nice, that’s why it was always used for training purposes, because you could see exactly what the French firefighters did wrong.

Goes without saying, though. Not much you need to do wrong, and you’re already in the air. And naturally that’s what was going through the heads of the Zell firemen now
on the drive over there. Because the French, just a few meters too close, and you’d have thought: atomic bomb.

And so you noticed it right away, every single one of the firemen was more nervous than usual, not just the young ones, but the old guys, every bit as nervous. Because everything’s got to move awfully fast, of course, and it’s only on the drive over that they’re getting their uniforms in order, I’m talking buttoning-up, lacing up their boots, helmet, gloves. It’s in the details that you’d notice it now—if his laces aren’t tight, or let’s say, misses a button, he’s nervous.

Three minutes later Seidl’s already up at the furniture store. Drove so fast he made up those ten seconds twice over. At least. Because behind the furniture store is the Aral gas station. And as he pulls in behind the furniture store, a couple of the young firemen jump clear off. Before they’d been sitting completely stiff, and all of the sudden, they’re leaping up, and Niederwieser even let out a cry.

Because the gas station wasn’t on fire at all. Now, how does a thing like this happen, that an experienced fire chief like Alois the Lift mixes up the gas stations. And to make matters worse, the Shell station’s all the way over on the other side of Zell. But, you could see it all the way across the lake, even from here, from the Aral station, you could see that the Shell station was on fire over there, because the flames were reflected by half the lake.

But this only happened to Alois the Lift, because, thirty years he’d been gassing up and always at the Aral station, because he bought his first car in sixty-six, an old Beetle, and at the time, there was only Aral. So he commands Seidl to the
Aral gas station, autopilot, even though he’d understood for a fact “Shell station” when the fire got reported.

At that moment, where he sees the Aral gas station there in front of him and it’s not on fire, it hits him immediately, of course. Besides, you only had to glance over. The Shell station was on fire. Or better put, the way it looked, you’d have thought the entire north exit was in flames. Because when a gas station like that’s on fire, well, I don’t need to tell you.

“Correction to the address of the fire! Shell gas station, north exit!” Alois the Lift barked into his walkie-talkie. Because there were two more fire trucks following after them, and they needed to know, too. Needless to say, though, all his barking was useless. You can’t get from the Aral gas station to the Shell gas station in under five minutes, doesn’t matter if Seidl’s driving or somebody else.

When they finally got there, everybody else was already there, of course: police, ambulance, newspaper, all there. Only thing not there, fire department.

As Alois the Lift leaps out of the truck, he lands right at the feet of Postmaster Kollarik. And Kollarik, there’s an irascible dog for you, the Zellers always call him “Choleric,” only when he wasn’t around, of course. And he’s shouting at Alois the Lift now, stroke of luck that Alois doesn’t understand him. Because when a gas station like this is really burning, the noise, of course, enough to make you think: Judgment Day.

But Alois the Lift doesn’t even see Postmaster Kollarik now. People would later say that Alois the Lift led like a
commando, not nervous one bit, like a robot, and so hyper-calm, like on TV when you see a UN general. Walkie-talkie and totally calm, people would say time and again.

Now, can the fire department really do anything at all when a gas station like this is on fire. True, insofar as the gas station itself goes, you can forget it. An extinguishing agent, of course, foam, but that burns out, just hopeless. The surrounding area, though, all the more important. Start by securing the fire. Because the onlookers, needless to say, there’s more deaths for you than from the fire itself if you don’t secure everything right away. You’ve really got to crack down, because, people, if there’s something to look at, they’ll go running right into that burning gas station.

Now, the
gendarmerie
took a hard look at the clock when the fire department didn’t show up right away, but when it comes to securing the fire, never heard of it. Those people were standing way too close, and if something had exploded, there wouldn’t have been a single ambulance for them, because, the ambulances, also parked way too close. So Alois the Lift dives right in, so fast he kicks up a cloud of soot. Two minutes later everybody’s standing 250 meters back.

Meanwhile the team’s schlepped the pump down to the lake. No fire lane there, no, on account of the train tracks in between and a narrow pedestrian underpass that’s too tight for the pump. So they have to schlep the pump over the train tracks.

After, they tear down the fencing. Because there’s wire fencing a meter high between the street and the tracks, just like there is between the tracks and the lake. You couldn’t
have looked fast enough, fire department already had that fencing torn down. Then, guided the hoses right over the tracks, because nobody could bring a train through anyway. Imagine, gas station explodes—that whole train would’ve blew right with it.

That’s always the big question when a gas station’s on fire. As a fireman, you’ve always got this feeling right there in the crook of your neck. Is it going to blow up, or is it not going to blow up. Objective one: secure the fire. Objective two: secure the adjacent structures. Objective three: now, will it blow up, or will it not blow up.

Later, on the video, you could see quite clearly how Alois the Lift took command. So calm, nobody ever would’ve got the idea that it was his first gas station. Because one of the firemen always has to be there with a video camera, used to be a camera-camera, on account of the insurance and that kind of thing, you’ve just got to do it, but these days, only video anymore, and for that they’ve got two people that get trained extra. And so you could clearly see how, first, Alois secured the fire, all the onlookers 250 meters back, no one allowed down at the lake, either, because the shore’s way too close. And, then, immediately secured the neighboring buildings.

First, evacuate the people, second, secure the buildings. But you can’t just spritz the buildings down with water so that they don’t start burning, too, because the building, maybe water damage—just as expensive as if it’d just burned down.

But, at least the bordering buildings weren’t apartment buildings. No, warehouse and Lengauer’s used Mercedes
dealership. And the warehouse roof truss was already glowing a bit on the one side, now, so of course you’ve got to spritz. Water damage or no water damage, you can’t let the whole warehouse burn down.

Needless to say, all of this in a matter of seconds. Warehouse cleared out so that the water doesn’t ruin the whole harvest. September’s, no less. And all the while: Is it going to blow or is it not going to blow. Because a gas station like this has got tanks underground. Even though it’s all so well-secured that you might ask yourself how it could catch fire at all. Once it’s burning, though, all the more dangerous.

You simply don’t know what’s going on underground with the tanks. Are they burning already or are they not burning already, you can’t exactly look under the ground. Now, as long as they’re only burning, it’s not so bad. But, exploding, of course, that’s what the gasses are doing. At a certain temperature. Which is why you’ve got to spray down the asphalt above the tanks the whole time, cooling it, I mean, so that the tanks don’t reach that temperature.