Eternal Life (5 page)

“I’ll be damned!” Johnny’s saying now, as the weatherman reports on the radio that it’s going to be even hotter today than yesterday.

Otherwise, Brenner didn’t get anything out of him. When he’s drunk, Johnny talks nonstop, so when he’s quiet, it’s nonstop too. He’s rarely drunk, though, because, as a cabbie, he can’t afford it, of course, not one bit.

But there was something else bothering Brenner even more. Not the Virginia stench, though, because today his headache was completely gone, and so it wasn’t anything like that bothering him. He himself used to smoke up till about seven months ago. No, it was the fact that Johnny took the two-lane county road where every normal person drives 100 because, highway, you know—and you could even drive a nice leisurely 150, if they allowed it. And Johnny’s taking it at a steady 50!

Because Johnny—the Zellers know this, of course, but the outsiders get annoyed about it time and again—he’s never driven faster than fifty. But it was bothering Brenner, and that’s why he says, middle of the ride:

“I’ll get out here.”

“Here?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be damned.”

Johnny was surprised because there wasn’t anything around where Brenner got out. All of two kilometers outside
Zell. But, go a couple hundred meters up toward Kaprun, there’s this barn that you probably know, the one that’s got those old ads hanging up. “The good old brandy,” it says. You can barely read it anymore. But remove it, of course, nobody does that either, because the ad’s painted right onto the wall.

Brenner hadn’t seen this ad-painting before, though. He was still watching the pink Chevrolet as it made a big show of turning around and peeling back off toward Zell again, practically at a walk. His miscalculation about Johnny wasn’t bothering him at all anymore. He could tell as soon as he woke up that morning that it was going to be another beautiful, sunny fall day. And then, right away he realized that he wasn’t any happier about having to write that report today, either. So, the ride with the cabbie was also a bit of an excuse. Because Brenner just wanted to get out a little, instead of just sitting in his hotel room and writing his report. He’s walking across the mowed field now and around to the barn, and he’s just seen the ad. “The good old brandy,” it says, but completely weathered, and Brenner’s wondering how many years or decades it’s been here.

One thing was certain, though. That the ad was at least twenty-five years old. For that you don’t need a laboratory or nothing, because the ad was facing the wrong direction. Not facing out to the street, but away from the street.

Because twenty-five years ago the highway got put in here, I mean, the one that Johnny still only drives fifty on. But the ad’s on the other side of the barn, the side that, from the street, you can’t see at all. Because that’s where the
old road went by, and today it’s all broken up and got grass growing out of it.

Only, right here where the barn is, the road’s still intact. Okay, what am I saying—she’s got even better asphalt than the new highway, and the new one’s already been asphalted over three times in the meantime. But those 200 meters of old road, that was the Zellers’ summer curling strip, which Brenner also didn’t know about until now.

He watched the curling for a little while—it was about twelve-thirty now, not a cloud in the sky, I mean, beautiful days like this, there just aren’t that many of them in Zell. And Brenner just couldn’t imagine anymore who would kill somebody here, because, nothing’s more peaceful than summer Alpine curling.

Aside from Brenner, there was only one other spectator standing on the side of the road, but up at the other end, and Brenner couldn’t really recognize him from where he was. The other players were up at the other end now, too, and were sending their stocks sliding one after another. I mean, you’ve got to picture it like how they sometimes show it on TV, in France, with the silver pucks. And shuffleboard’s more of a sport for retirees anyway, but you don’t do Alpine curling with shuffle pucks, no, with ice stocks. And so that the stocks will glide over an asphalt court in the summer, you screw these little white plastic tacks into their undersides.

But Brenner was just thinking that there’s nothing more peaceful than this little crew of retirees, when, all of the sudden, things got out of hand. He didn’t understand what the fight was about at first.

Now, pay attention. With curling, it’s about the money, not much, but because it wouldn’t be any fun otherwise. There are always two teams, okay. And each shooter trades off with one from the other team. So, how much money they’re playing for—even though they’re playing on teams—basically comes down to two players. Let’s say, a pair’s playing for ten schillings, okay. That doesn’t need to be exact—you only ever need to find a pair that can take turns back and forth. And if your team wins, then you get the money, and otherwise you pay.

But not what you’re thinking, that they were fighting on account of the money. That doesn’t happen, because, I mean—done is done. It was more on account of, let’s say, because there are better shooters and worser ones, and the retirees are just like little kids when it comes to this. Everybody believes he’s one of the better ones. Which wouldn’t settle a thing if everybody believed what they wanted to. But, see, there’s this problem, the “Haggl,” and believe it or not, a fight every time.

Every team’s got a leader, though, like soccer’s got a captain. Theirs was a “Moar”—don’t ask me where it comes from, that’s just its name—and he gets to shoot twice. Everybody else is only allowed to shoot once, but after everybody’s gone, the team’s still got one last chance, because that’s when the Moar goes up one more time. Now, who’s the Moar. That’s very highly regulated, because it’s always the best shooter from the previous game—automatically the Moar. There’s never a fight over that, but with the Haggl, there’s gladly a fight.

Now, what’s a Haggl? Nowadays when you’ve got a few retirees, and a few others who’ve maybe just got the time on their hands, playing curling on an afternoon, then it’s not like at a tournament—I mean, officially regulated, and on each side, such-and-such number of players. It can turn out, just happenstance, not to be an even number, and so, one team’s got one man more than the other, let’s say, eight on the one side, nine on the other. So, on the one team where there’s less, somebody’s the Haggl. He’s allowed to shoot twice, then, just like the Moar.

And so, of course, there’s always a fight, because nothing on the books about who the Haggl is—the best, obviously. It’s better for the whole team when a good player gets to shoot twice. But what’s the point of that when everybody believes he’s the best.

“You, the Haggl?” yelled a small, gaunt man that Brenner didn’t know. He had dirty rubber boots on and an old felt hat on his head. That was Gschwentner the farmer. And the one who he meant, that was Andi the Fox, he was just eighteen or nineteen but already completely bald.

“You bet. If you want to win your fiver back.”

The others had a good laugh over that one from Andi the Fox, who was getting cocky about defending his post as Haggl. Now, you should know, Gschwentner the farmer only looked like some poor farmer. But he’s the biggest farmer for miles around—and stingy, you wouldn’t believe. And it was his stinginess that Andi meant. That he was playing for a fiver, even though the ante usually starts at ten.

Brenner laughed, too. He was just happy that his
patience had frayed here of all places and that he’d gotten out of Johnny’s pink Chevrolet. Of course he had no idea at the time that this would be the place where he’d find what he’d been looking for from Johnny, the cabbie. That here, in the middle of this petty quarreling of all things, he’d discover a lead. Just so you know, he wasn’t counting on this at all right now.

Now, pay attention to how it all unfolds. The players are all standing at the top of the court and Brenner’s down on the other end, waiting for them to begin their curling. And then, one after another, the players make their way down to the other end, because every one of them, of course, goes down there after his shot. And it’s only just now that Brenner recognizes Vergolder Antretter. He was the Moar on the other team, i.e., not Gschwentner and Andi’s team but the opposite team, and he’d just taken his first shot and was making his way down to where Brenner’s standing now.

Brenner was surprised that Vergolder shot stock with the common folk. Because normally he went with very different people. The German Bundespräsident had a house in the vicinity, or the head of the regional government would come for a visit, and those were Vergolder’s people. The mayor didn’t exactly go shooting stock, either—at most once a year, or when there was an election.

Then, turns out that Vergolder’s first shot was so good—the whole opposing team, one shot, practically annihilated. Because he caught the pigeon with his stock—right, so, that’s the goal of curling, the pigeon, that’s just this little
wooden box—and with so much force that his stock took its target with it and left it lodged right between the stock and the bumper.

Now, the other team was up, one after another giving it a go, but jinxed. The stocks got tossed into the air, either too hard and just went whistling right by, or too soft and just became obstacles blocking the way. So it was impossible for anybody to shoot away Vergolder’s stock.

What can I say, all eight of them shot, and Vergolder’s stock, still stuck on the pigeon—you’d have thought it was frozen right onto it. Now the Haggl was up, he had a second chance to give it a go. Andi the Fox grabbed his stock, went back up and positioned himself for his second shot. At that moment, though, as he was sizing things up for the longest time and swinging his stock back and forth for the longest time, Vergolder yells out:

“C’mon Andi, full-service, unleaded!”

Now, you can imagine the kind of laughter that got. Because Andi, he’s a gas jockey, and then Vergolder goes and breaks his concentration, shouting out:

“C’mon Andi, full-service, unleaded!”

Brenner didn’t understand at first why everybody was laughing like that, because he couldn’t have knew that Andi was a gas jockey. Because Brenner didn’t have a car in Zell—he was more of a walker.

But the other onlooker, who’d at first been standing way up on the other end of the asphalt court, had, by now, come over. But that was no spectator, rather a spectatress. An old woman with thick bifocals. But there was something else
about her that was way more conspicuous. On account of her not having any hands.

She was standing next to Brenner, and he asked her if she understood why the people were laughing like that.

“The boy is a gas station attendant,” the woman said, and in High German.

At first Brenner was surprised that a German would be out here watching Alpine curling. Because it’s more of a local matter. But he quickly got distracted because things were really throwing down now on the asphalt court.

Because, meanwhile, the gas jockey had took his shot, but, way off. And now he’d stormed over, head completely red, and was threatening to give Vergolder the business. And you’ve just got to picture this: Vergolder, a snow-white, seventy-year-old millionaire, and Andi, who seemed more or less, well, not especially smart. He had his dirty gasstation pants on, he had his bald head, and he was running right at Vergolder now, asking him if perchance he’d like a piece of him.

For the next game, new teams, and they didn’t need a Haggl anymore. They were an even number now, because Andi wasn’t playing anymore. He sulked over to the kiosk: “Beer,” he says to Gruntner Schorsch, who used to work for the train, and now, in his retirement, he runs this kiosk. But today just wasn’t Andi’s day, because Gruntner just says:

“Hold on a sec.”

This was on account of him having two other customers to serve. In front of Andi at the sausage stand were Brenner and the handless old Frau. And Brenner was in shock now,
because from a distance, he’d guessed Andi to be forty, if not fifty, and he was just now seeing that he was at most seventeen or eighteen years old.

Andi the Fox had on his red overalls from the gas station like he always did. On the bib Brenner recognized the outline of a Shell seashell that must’ve once been sewed on there, but now the fabric was just a shade darker in that spot, not as washed-out as it was all around it. Like an old man standing there, Brenner thought, but then it was the exact opposite once Andi started talking.

“Hold on a sec, hold on a sec, so I should just, a second, huh, that’s what I should do, huh, hold on?” the Haggl was so giddy talking to the kiosk owner with his high-pitched croak of a voice that you’d have thought his voice hadn’t changed yet—practically a eunuch. And at the same time, he was looking at Brenner anxiously, like, Is he maybe on my side, will he laugh at my jokes? But Andi didn’t give him any time for all that, because practically in the same breath he was already saying something else again:

“You sure got it figured out, Detective.”

Brenner had never tried to somehow make a secret out of it or anything. It’s always been an old rift, undercover detective or more of an official—well, dis- and advantages, there’s always been people from both camps. Trade rags for cops, trade rags for detectives, whatever else there is, it’s been discussed again and again.

It always reminded Brenner of his first two years on the force. Because he was still on the traffic patrol back then. And it was constantly getting discussed, what’s better:
secret radar surveillance, or blatant warning: Caution, Radar. Taken together, what scared the speedsters off more.

In his case, though, it’d been clear from the start, I mean, undercover or not undercover. The Zellers already knew him from the police, so, undercover, that wouldn’t have worked anyway. And oftentimes, it’s no disadvantage at all when people start making themselves important like Andi the Fox was doing right now.

“I said, you sure got it figured out, Detective. Because everybody’s a crook. Don’t have to go looking for very long down here, crooks, all of ’em. Gschwentner. Vergolder. Millionaire, but never tips a penny. Clean the windshield, sure, tip, no. Check the coolant, yes please, tip, no thanks, have a look at the air pressure, Andi, tip, sorry no, Herr Crook. No time, Herr Millionaire. Gotta work the nightshift, lifting the Ameri-can’ts.”