The Zurich Conspiracy (16 page)

Josefa tears herself loose with all her might and runs out of the ward. She runs down the corridor, past the nurses, down another corridor, and another. Where’s the exit? I want out of here!

Josefa suddenly had the feeling she was suffocating. “It’s far too warm in here. I can hardly breathe.” She turned to Sauter, who was standing behind her; she could tell from his look that he saw something troubling in her expression. But what?

He quickly cleared a path through the mob, escorting her through the door and outside. They walked past the compounds and rocky parks without saying a word. Josefa felt a lump in her throat.

She was only fourteen years old when her mother died. A confused and angry girl left to her own devices. She hadn’t even cried, not at her mother’s burial, not afterward. She had been rock solid, steadfast, reliable, reasonable. Her father had told their relatives, “If it weren’t for Josefa, our family would fall apart.”

The tantrums came later. Her only safety valve. Kept under wraps with great effort, time and again. She kept the lid on her pain with incredible strength. And for what?

Ultimately everything was turning sour,
that
she realized very clearly. Her relationships. Her career. All sorts of bad people were making her life difficult. Josefa suddenly felt overwhelmed by it all. Maybe she should just give up. Be weak. Not fight it anymore.

But
then
what would become of her?

A silent Sebastian Sauter was walking beside her.
What was he thinking?
Josefa wondered, taking a deep breath. “It was so hot in there I was practically sick to my stomach.”

Sauter cleared his throat. “We should walk some more in the fresh air, maybe you’ll feel better.”

He said nothing for a while and then, “The last time I was here with my son he felt sick too because he’d eaten too many roasted almonds. It was my fault. I let him get away with so much because I don’t see him very often. When we’re at the zoo, he always bombards me with questions: Why do snakes molt? Why are penguins black and white? I ought to have been a zoologist.”

Josefa listened to him chatter on with his stories—smoke signals of hope from a normal world where kids cry because their ice cream cone isn’t as big as last time and because they’ve just missed feeding time at the lion cage.

They were walking toward the exit when Josefa stopped and looked at Sauter. She knew he was able to guess more than he let on.

“I can imagine you’re not accustomed to this change of roles, I mean, when your boy asks all those questions. Usually you’re the one who asks all the questions, right?”

Sauter exchanged glances with her and then looked off into the distance. Or maybe just at the billboard advertising cough drops across the street. “After my divorce I discovered that the most important questions are the ones you ask yourself,” he said.

“And—did you find the answers?”

Sauter studied the cough drops once more. “Some, yes, others take longer. Maybe a lifetime,” he chuckled. “But I think that’s easier to live with than continuing to just look the other way, at least in the long run. I…I still find myself a riddle, in many respects, but a…a…er…friendly riddle.”

Sauter looked self-conscious. Josefa decided to rescue him from this awkward situation by glancing at her watch.

“It’s getting late. I think I’ll take the streetcar.”

“May I go with you to the stop?”

Josefa hesitated and then nodded.

It was five thirty in the morning when Josefa arrived at Loyn’s head office—probably for the last time in her life. She wanted to avoid running into anybody, thus the early hour.

The “talk” she’d had with Walther was now behind her and she didn’t care to answer to anyone else about her decision to leave. Her conversation with the company president had only amounted to wrapping up a few formalities anyway. He hadn’t tried to persuade her to stay, and she resented that. Auer probably spread it around that Klingler had poached her. Let them think what they wanted to think.

She’d already said goodbye to the members of her team. The flood of good wishes, the sad words of farewell, and the gifts—everything had moved her deeply. Most of her coworkers thought her decision was just a matter of time even before the golf course “incident” (the official company euphemism for it). Schulmann was making her life difficult every which way, and neither he nor Bourdin, who was still in hospital, said so much as a word about Josefa’s departure.

Whereas Claire…she had stormed into Josefa’s office towering with rage when she heard. She’d never seen her assistant so beside herself. Frustration was written all over her face.

“I can’t believe it, Josefa, I simply can’t believe it,” she repeated over and over. “We could’ve done it! We’re that strong of a team, you and I and the others. What’s going to happen to our projects now? We’ve worked so damn hard on them! How can you give everything up just like that? We’ve fought for so much. And what’s going to happen to our team? You’ve built this team, Josefa! We’re a lot stronger together than Schulmann and Bourdin. Why are you letting them beat you? This isn’t at all like you! Are you afraid of them? Are you scared of Schulmann?”

Scared of Schulmann? Maybe she was, but not as scared as she was of herself. Something she ought to have confessed to Claire, told her of the anger inside, but of course she hadn’t. How could she have explained it to her? She didn’t exactly know how to explain it to herself. Besides—
she
was the boss, the strong one, masterful. How
could
she show any weakness in front of Claire? Things will be OK, she told herself. If you want to have a career, you’ve got to change.

And Claire shouldn’t be blind to that fact either. Josefa had kept her out of Schulmann’s line of fire whenever she could during the past few months. But she couldn’t help notice that Schulmann never aimed directly at Claire; his tactics were to ignore her or treat her with exaggerated politeness. That was surely a particularly sadistic punishment for her. Regardless, her assistant didn’t talk about leaving Loyn anymore, to Josefa’s great relief.

Claire, kind soul that she was, had deposited some empty cardboard boxes in her office, and Josefa was using them to pack up the rest of her things. Bianca had put press clippings from the golf tournament and a pile of photos on her desk—a final act of service. Some older pictures of Beat Thüring from the St. Moritz horse show were included, much to Josefa’s surprise. In those pictures he didn’t look like the playboy inclined to booze and drugs that the media portrayed. In one photo he seemed to be engaged in earnest conversation with some other businessmen. Another photo showed him sitting with Van Duisen, Westek, and Salzinger around a table, all with solemn expressions on their faces.
What might they be talking about?
she wondered.

She sighed, pushed the photos and clippings aside, and began to clear out her desk. It was then she noticed a pretty earring on top of a note from Marlene Dombrinski: “This was found at the golf tournament. We don’t know whose it is. Am I to take care of this?” Josefa twirled the earring around between her fingers. She couldn’t recall who’d been wearing it, though it was extraordinary: Three rubies shaped like petals were set in gold, with a transparent stone in the middle and a diamond teardrop dangling from it. Lines were engraved on the back of the petals, suggesting tiny snail shells.

She put the piece of jewelry in an envelope and shoved it into a small safe in the filing cabinet. She was about to e-mail Marlene when she got the sudden feeling that she was not alone. She heard a soft rattle, then a noise like somebody sucking air in between their teeth. Somebody was prowling around behind her door. She leapt to the door in a single bound and tore it open.

“Good morning,” Pius said, holding a cup of coffee in one hand and a plate of croissants in the other.

“It’s you!” Josefa exclaimed, both annoyed and relieved. “So early again. You gave me one hell of a scare.”

“Let me put this cup down,” Pius said in his deep bass voice. And then with a look as warm as liquid chocolate, “You might easily have given me a nicer welcome.”

Josefa suppressed a grin.

“Why can’t you sleep until seven the way normal people do?”

“I’m a man of the dark, my dear. Dark caves, darkrooms—”

“You put a lot of work into creating your own myth, Pius,” she interrupted. “Am I supposed to be impressed?”

“Don’t you wish to thank me for the nice surprise? I saw your car and straightway went to the kitchen. The croissants are warm, by the way.”

“Thanks, Pius, that’s sweet of you. Maybe you can be so sweet as to carry these boxes downstairs with me?”

“That’s a woman for you: Give an inch…Are you still in mourning for Thüring?” He spotted the picture on top of the pile.

“Thüring? Actually I never had any dealings with him,” Josefa said, drinking her coffee slowly and with relish. Suddenly Ingrid popped into her mind. What was the connection between that beautiful stranger and Thüring?

Pius bit into a croissant. “A lot of people won’t be unhappy that Thüring drowned. He led a fine life on other people’s money.”

Josefa looked at her watch. “I’ve got to get moving before the place gets busy. Are you going to help?”

But Pius was still going on about Thüring. “Maybe he simply absconded. You know his body hasn’t been found yet.”

Josefa took the picture out of his hand. “But there were witnesses who claim they saw him drown. Sharks probably feasted on his body—come on, let’s get to work.”

Pius and Josefa were waiting for the elevator, their arms laden with boxes, when the door opened and Hans-Rudolf Walther emerged. He nodded briefly in Josefa’s direction and then gave Pius a look of obvious displeasure.

“I hope you won’t be taken off the payroll for helping a defector,” she whispered to Pius once they were inside the elevator.

Pius put down the boxes and wiped a few crumbs off his lips. “He knows better than that,” he replied with total aplomb.

The photographer’s last remark was still going through Josefa’s head that afternoon on a Lake Zurich steamboat. Whatever did Pius mean, and why was his voice so…so
cold
? Sali was beside her, feeding pieces of bread to the gulls and chattering to himself in Albanian. She was surprised by how unusually warmly she felt toward the little guy. Strange, but she’d never thought she’d find it fun to spend time with a kid, and a foreigner to boot. She wondered if Stefan ever took his kids on boat rides. She realized she’d been thinking less and less about the man who’d so quickly exited her life. They’d never talked about how Agnes got her phone number or how long she’d known about their affair. Actually they hadn’t had a proper talk at all since that day—Stefan was preoccupied with his son’s accident and his impending move to the US—but it wasn’t even necessary. It was obvious to both of them that there could be no thought of continuing their affair. And there were moments when Josefa felt liberated. No more waiting. No more guilt.

Her cell phone rang, though she barely heard it over the roar of the ship’s engines.

“Where are you?” Paul Klingler asked.

“On a steamer with Sali,” Josefa shouted. “We’re just getting off at the Zürichhorn landing.”

Sali ran down the gangplank to see Jean Tinguely’s cacophonous sound sculpture. Tourists and other onlookers were following the rise and fall of its wheels, spheres, levers, and listening to the clanking, ringing, and rattling of the huge perpetual motion machine. The boy was completely spellbound, walking around and around it.

“You rang?” Paul said.

They were business partners now—she had to get used to the idea. Josefa had expressed her willingness to carry out assignments and projects for him, but she stressed she would be working independently. She didn’t want any new relationships with employers.

“Tell me, what was it between you and Schulmann at Harckmüller, Sinclair and Partners?” She’d waited a long time to get up the courage to ask him that question.

“Hmm,” Paul hummed. “Did a little birdie chirp something in your ear?”

“Not a birdie. Richard Auer did me the favor. It was sooo nice not know anything about it.”

“Yesssss…” Long pause.

“Schulmann and I worked together for a short time at Harckmüller six years ago. Schulmann, the scheming little shit, got half the company riled up against me. And so I left and have never regretted it.” He cleared his throat. “Be glad you quit Loyn, Josefa.”

It suddenly went remarkably still. Tinguely’s sculpture had gone quiet, the show was over. Sali immediately pulled her by the hand; he’d spied an ice-cream cart.

“Paul, I’ve got to run…”

“Sure, we’ll talk later.” He sounded relieved.

While Sali was savoring his ice-cream cone, Josefa impatiently checked her watch, again and again. She made a quick decision to hail a cab, dragging a reluctant Sali along behind her. When the car pulled onto Feltenstrasse and stopped, Josefa noticed a second taxi stopping at almost the same time in front of the restaurant across the street. She saw a man in a dark green windbreaker get out of the cab. He looked quite familiar, and then she realized where she’d seen him before: on the boat this afternoon, then near the Tinguely machine. Josefa thought it odd but had no time to see where he went. Sali’s parents were surely waiting.