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Authors: Martin Suter

The Last Weynfeldt (21 page)

BOOK: The Last Weynfeldt
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On Sunday morning at eight she tried all three numbers. With the same result. Now she was sure it was deliberate. Dr. Weynfeldt had changed his mind. She had misjudged him: he was just like all the other signet ring men.

She got into the shower, which was so narrow the stained shower curtain kept clinging to you. The clogged shower head shot thin jets of water in all directions. She looked down at her body and wondered if things had gotten so bad the men wanted to shake her off before they'd even had sex with her.

Sunday late morning she tried to get hold of Weynfeldt one last time. Again without success. Then she finally gave up. She would stick with Pedroni. He was the kind of man she was used to.

On Monday morning she met Barbara at the check-in. Barbara's outfit was a shade summery for Lorena's tastes. Although the predicted cold spell hadn't come yet, the temperature at the airport didn't justify a sleeveless, low-cut, belly-free top. She was accompanied by her husband, the advertising manager, already chubbier. He greeted her like a pal, helped with the luggage and accompanied Barbara to passport control; it seemed like the couple could hardly bear to part.

Yet as soon as they were inside the charter plane, Barbara asked her to swap places with a young man she introduced as Mischa. Now Lorena realized what her role was.

After a choppy flight over an ever denser blanket of clouds, they landed on the island. Lorena first caught a glimpse of the sea just before they landed. They were taken in a half-empty bus down a three-lane highway to a six-floor hotel surrounded by other six-floor hotels—the only one open.

So this is Mallorca, Lorena thought.

She barely saw Barbara, who was sharing a double room with Mischa; Lorena was given a single. It was on the lowest floor, with a view of the single rooms in the neighboring hotel. Damp and so badly heated she had to stay in bed the whole time. There she hid under the synthetic duvet drinking a lukewarm Cuba Libre—at least one Caribbean thing—and watched depressing talk shows on the fuzzy TV via the hotel's German channel.

A few times she pulled herself together and walked down the flotsam- and trash-strewn beach along the restless, grubby, gray sea.

For trips she was reliant on the hotel's shuttles. She couldn't afford taxis; Pedroni's loan wouldn't stretch that far.

Her birthday fell during the second week of the vacation. Her thirty-seventh. Only three more till forty. Thirteen till fifty. Twenty-three till sixty.

Twenty three years; that was nothing, when she thought about how quickly the time from zero to twenty three had gone: a bit of childhood, bit of youth and—all of a sudden—twenty three!

She got up at nine that morning and entered the chilly dining room. At a couple of the uncleared tables sat pensioner couples in tracksuits saying nothing to each other. Two younger couples were discussing their children, who were the same age, now staring aggressively at each other. Lorena ordered an espresso and orange juice from a carton—no matter that the orange trees all over the island were groaning under the weight of their ripe fruit—and sat at a window table.

The wind blew a gust of rain against the glass. A few gulls were showing off their moves in the storm.

Lorena ordered a bottle of
cava
. Brut, and cold, for fuck's sake.

“Happy birthday,” she said half to herself, as she began the first glass. The wind tousled the dry palm fronds of the sun shelters and made plastic bottles and chunks of white Styrofoam dance on the one distant bit of beach visible between the better situated hotels.

By the time she had finished the bottle, the staff were setting the tables for lunch. Lorena went to bed and woke up three hours later with a foggy head and a rage against Barbara. She got dressed, stomped up to her room and knocked fiercely.

“Si?”
Barbara asked, after the second knock.

“It's me. The friend you took on vacation.”

“Not a good time,” Barbara said, and Lorena heard them both giggling.

“I just wanted to say that today is my fucking birthday!” Lorena yelled, crying now. “Filthy whore!” she added, and ran off.

In the elevator Lorena pressed the top button. On the sixth floor she ran down the corridor to the door with the red sign:
“Salida.”
A stairway took her one floor higher to a door which opened onto the roof. She walked through it.

It was still, as if the storm had never happened. It smelled of cement and tar. A wheelbarrow full of building tools stood in one corner, along with a transistor radio thick with dirt.

Lorena walked to the balustrade. A long way below was a patch of asphalt holding a couple of overflowing dumpsters, adjoining a playground. She had passed it on the way to the beach: a metal frame with two child's swings, both attached on one side only, a rusty, dented slide and a sandbox serving as a dog toilet. Farther away was a patch of beach, where a couple of stiff-legged gulls were strutting around. Beyond the two neighboring hotels, the same height as this, the sea was still churned up from the storm. It was the same leaden gray as the sky, now letting the late afternoon light glimmer through a threadbare slit.

Lorena swung a leg over the balustrade and looked down. There, between the dumpsters and the broken swings, was where she would split apart. The thought brought tears to her eyes. She stood, crying, one foot on each side of the balustrade. With no one to stop her from jumping.

Weynfeldt came to her now. The way he had stood, helpless, at a safe distance, in white pajamas with a ruffled Kennedy haircut. How he suddenly started crying.

As they had parted, he'd said, “There's always something worth staying alive for.”

“Can you guarantee me that?” she had asked.

“Guaranteed,” he had replied.

Lorena took her leg off the balustrade. Perhaps it was time to claim something. While the guarantee was still valid.

On the day they left, a summery sky stretched big and blue over the island, as if it wanted to give the departing guests an idea of how things could have been different.

Lorena had spoken to Barbara only once more the entire time. It was not a reconciliation. Barbara wanted Lorena to walk into the arrivals hall with her and act out the rest of the comedy. Lorena refused. She was being picked up herself, she claimed.

And it was true. She had thrown a coin. Heads meant she would call Weynfeldt and ask him; tails meant Pedroni.

She threw the coin three times. Each time tails.

24

T
HE CALL CAME LATE
. W
EYNFELDT HAD STAYED ON IN
the office to work. The auction catalogue had been sent out, and reactions from collectors and curators kept pouring in each day. He found time for the regular work only in the evenings.

He ate alone, in a restaurant with the ridiculous name Esserei—eatery. The proprietor was an ambitious young man who had set out to create a new style of food, which he named
la cuisine simple
.

According to the introduction in the menu, Esserei was derived from the Spanish
comedor
, a word for which, to his great regret, there had been no equivalent in the German language till now.

The restaurant was furnished on the same principle. Simple 1950s-style kitchen tables covered with linoleum, similar chairs and white stoneware crockery; the walls decorated with large blow-up photos of salt and peppercorns, garlic cloves, onion rings, potato peelings, rice grains or slices of bacon.

The food, however, was excellent. Decent, simple dishes made from top quality ingredients. Aside from salt and pepper, never more than three herbs or spices per dish. And aside from onion and garlic, never more than five main ingredients.

You went to the eatery to eat. The eaters were required to lower their voices; the main sound heard was the cautious clinking of cutlery on crockery. Adrian doubted whether the owner would succeed in enforcing this strict interpretation of his concept for long. It affected the atmosphere and thus the number of guests. But when he was on his own he liked to eat there. You didn't have to chat with the staff, there was no smoking and no one minded if you asked for the check as soon as you'd taken your last mouthful.

Weynfeldt went straight home once he'd eaten. There were building materials piled in the hallway outside his apartment. The floor leading to the future fitness room was protected with floor liner. Early that morning the contractors had begun ripping out the old parquet. Adrian had sat in his breakfast room trying to ignore the brutal banging, crashing, rasping and splitting.

Frau Hauser, who had been strangely quiet and thoughtful since he had confessed his decision to revamp, came into the room and said, “I've given it some thought: I think it's good what you're doing with the room.”

Adrian couldn't believe his ears. “You think it's good that I'm turning my mother's bedroom into a fitness studio?” Frau Hauser was the last person he had expected to support his delayed attempt to achieve distance.

“Yes, because it's for your health. It's what your mother would have wanted.”

The dust had a particular smell, generated as the parquet was torn out to reveal the space beneath the floor. The ancient stuffiness was mixed with the aroma of freshly sawn wood. During the big renovation four years ago they had found newspaper pages from 1893 between the joists, and half a tin of snuff.

But now Adrian went straight to his study. He was not curious about the secret recesses of his mother's parquet.

He switched on the light and pressed play on the stereo. J. J. Cale was still in the CD tray. The last time he had listened to the music was when he discovered Baier's Vallotton was forged. Now the two easels, on which the genuine painting and the forgery had stood side by side, indistinguishable, were empty.

He thought about Lorena and her comment, lodged in his memory: “Just the fact that someone will pay so much for it makes the painting genuine.”

Weynfeldt put his coat on and went out again. Recently he had begun challenging the passivity of his waiting state with a particular activity: visiting La Rivière, where he had first met Lorena. Less in the hope of meeting her there; more in the knowledge that the barman would tell him if she had shown up. Without Weynfeldt asking; he would never ask.

He walked through the deserted streets, where the
föhn
was clearing away the last dirty vestiges of snow. A streetcar passed. The passengers sitting in the garish light looked tired and serious.

As he approached La Rivière a figure emerged from the shadows of a wall. Weynfeldt jumped, but then he recognized the man. A drug addict who had been begging for a few francs from passersby in the area for years. Adrian had never seen him out so late. He must have had a bad day. Weynfeldt gave him ten francs as always, and they wished each other good night.

La Rivière was not busy. It was Wednesday: no live music. He nodded to the barman, sat at his usual seat and waited for his martini. Recently he hadn't been confining himself to the olive.

He had planned to drink just one tonight, then leave. But he ordered another after all.

Just as the barman was bringing it, his cell phone rang.

Weynfeldt reached into the phone pocket in the lining of his jacket, which Diaco was slowly adding to all his suits. He read “number unknown” on the display, pressed the right button, as he'd been practicing, and answered.

He wasn't surprised that it was Lorena. She asked that cell phone question he'd always made fun of: “Where are you?”

“In La Rivière.”

“Can we meet?”

“Sure. Where?” He heard her talking to someone. A man's voice. Then: “I'll just pass you to someone else.”

“Is it true, you'll lend her five thousand francs if she asks you?” the man asked.

“Who am I talking to, please?”

“Tell me. Is it true?”

“Please tell me who I'm talking to.”

Weynfeldt heard the man say, “He won't say. Forget it.”

Then Lorena's voice came on again. She sounded pretty desperate: “Tell him it's true please.” Then quietly: “Otherwise he'll freak out.”

The man's voice returned, rough: “What's it to be?”

“I'll lend her five thousand francs. But it's not so easy right now; it's nearly midnight.”

“I'm sure you have cards you can use to take five thousand out of an ATM.”

Adrian hadn't thought of that. Of course he had such cards. “Yes, I do.”

“Corner of Poststeg and City-Strasse there's a cash point, you know it?”

“Yes.”

“When can you be there?”

“In ten minutes.”

“See you in ten minutes then.”

Weynfeldt paid, took his coat from the coat stand and put it on as he walked down the street.

The
föhn
was beating the ropes against the empty flagpoles along the riverbank. The moored excursion boats bashed against the jetties at irregular intervals. Weynfeldt kept his hands deep in his coat pocket and marched on, bowed against the wind. He was concerned and delighted at the same time. What kind of trouble was she in this time? Whatever. At least she had chosen him to get her out of it.

It took him less than five minutes to reach the meeting point. There was no one to be seen. The cash point was brightly lit inside. He slid the magnetic strip on his bank card through the reader slot and walked in.

It smelled of stale cigarette smoke; on the floor stood a Starbucks cup. But the four machines were all working. Using his bank card and his credit card, he took out five thousand francs. In big notes: around here no one dealt in small bills.

He put the money in his coat pocket, left the stuffy room and waited.

A car approached and stopped at the curb. Weynfeldt walked towards it. A middle-aged man stepped out, regarded Adrian distrustfully, took his card from his wallet and opened the cash center door. Before he had reemerged an aging Audi pulled up. It stopped and blinked its headlights twice. Adrian walked over to the car.

BOOK: The Last Weynfeldt
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