The Zurich Conspiracy (18 page)

Winter hadn’t come this early for years. It was mid-November, but already a deep layer of cotton-soft powder snow covered the mountains. Josefa was standing on an alpine slope somewhere in the Canton of Glarus where her former assistant had spirited her away to.

“OK, did I exaggerate?” Claire asked eagerly.

Josefa had to admit she was overwhelmed by the spare beauty of the mountain landscape. The region was completely new to her, and a bit unsettling.
What about avalanches?
But Claire reassured her that they were rare.

“I know this place like the back of my hand. We were here every winter as kids. And the nice thing is, very few people know about it.”

Until now, Josefa had only seen Claire in chic, urban clothes. She’d never imagined this ethereal, fragile-looking person skiing. Josefa wasn’t even sure she could do it herself. Sports were not one of her hobbies, and she was out of shape. But the sunny weather was simply too enticing, and when Claire reminded her a few days ago that she’d need skins for her skis, she ran out and bought some. Who knows when she’d have another opportunity to take a trip like this, especially now, with Paul Klingler swamping her with jobs? He had “outsourced” (he liked to use English jargon) a whole array of services. She now worked at home and spent most of her time by herself. She missed her team and working with Claire in particular, which is why this invitation delighted her so.

“Isn’t it terrific?” Claire repeated since Josefa was simply standing there in speechless admiration. A bowl-shaped valley lay open below them that petered out like a gentle wave against the mountainsides. The forest was covered in white. On the valley floor below was a mountain lake, buried under a mantle of snow, that Claire affirmed was magnificent for swimming in the summer. A snow-covered roof was visible in a clearing in the woods, probably a summer cabin. The area was refreshingly deserted, an oasis in the Swiss alpine landscape otherwise so spoiled by development. And it was less than two hours from Zurich by car.

Josefa looked high up the slope. “Is that an avalanche area?” Claire reassured her again, “No danger, you can bet on it.”

There was nothing Josefa could do but put her faith in Claire’s words. They skied up a little higher, then made themselves comfortable in a hollow after spreading out some aluminum heating foil. They shared sandwiches, dried fruit, and tea from a thermos. The snow glittered in the strong sunlight and Josefa applied a fresh layer of sunscreen to her face.

On the drive up in Claire’s SUV, they only discussed trivial things. Josefa was half asleep most of the drive anyway; her recent lack of sleep was catching up with her. She hadn’t uttered a word about Loyn in the car, but up here, surrounded by majestic mountain peaks, she felt more relaxed and willing to talk about it.

“You know, I’m very happy I stayed on at Loyn,” Claire announced out of the blue as she munched on a slice of dried apple. “I like the products. I like the promotional parties. I even like the stress and chaos there.”

“You don’t need to justify yourself, Claire,” Josefa interrupted. “I can very well understand why you stayed. I didn’t expect the entire team to quit out of loyalty to me. That would’ve been stupid.”

“It’s not just what happened to you; it’s Werner too. I feel I’ve been so deceived. But then I tell myself, he’s not going to be there forever. I can stand up to him. I’m tough. People like Werner come and go. Bourdin’s certainly not going to let him go any higher. And if Werner’s not going to get ahead, he’ll leave, and I’m next in line. So it doesn’t pay to give up.”

Josefa remained silent. She really didn’t have any desire to talk about Schulmann. Besides, she was rather exhausted from the steep climb. But Claire pressed on undaunted.

“I can make something of myself at Loyn, I know that. I’ll go far. I won’t let it all go to hell; I’ve sworn I won’t let that happen.” Claire’s normally high voice sounded shrill now. She cut herself off, like an unruly child fearing punishment.

Josefa knew the feeling well—the feeling that you can take on the world and win every battle. She had it at the beginning of her career too. She heaved a sigh. Claire would have her own inevitable disappointments, and she was so young.

“It’s OK, Claire,” she said, handing her the thermos of tea. “You’re right, people come and go. And we ought to get going before it’s dark.”

Josefa got up and zipped up her rucksack. Then they took the skins off their skis.

“Now the fun begins,” Claire shouted once they were on their sticks. And after a mighty push they went whistling over the powder, churning up white clouds left and right.

By the time they reached the car it was already dusk. Josefa was glad that Claire knew the area well and would get them safely to the bumpy, ploughed main road. They were just coming out of the valley basin and had stopped briefly at a turn-off when the motor died. Claire tried the ignition again. Nothing. She tried once again, but the engine wouldn’t turn over.
Shit
, Josefa thought, but was careful to keep her thoughts to herself. Claire, on the other hand, was completely calm.

“You’ll have to help me,” she said.

“Help you? I know next to nothing about car motors.”

“Just hold the flashlight so I can see.”

Snow flurries were falling. Josefa wrapped a scarf around her head and joined Claire a moment later as she fiddled around under the hood in the weak beam of light.

Shit, shit, shit
, Josefa thought to herself again.
This is
all
I need. To be trapped out here
,
miles from any human habitation. If Claire can’t fix the car, we’ll have to go ahead on skis
, she reasoned.

“More to the right,” said Claire, who kept poking around under the hood.

“Maybe it’s the electronics,” Josefa offered, fearing the worst: a cold night in the car. What if they were standing under an avalanche slope?

“No, this is an older model; it’s almost all mechanical. A kid could understand it. Try to start the motor up again.”

Josefa climbed in the car and turned the ignition.

Nothing.

Claire disappeared under the hood again, holding the flashlight herself this time. Josefa didn’t have the faintest idea what Claire was doing.

“Try it again,” she told her a moment or two later. Lo and behold! The motor kicked in.

“You deserve a medal,” a relieved Josefa gushed when her companion got into the car.

Claire maneuvered them safe and sound through the snow squall. “My father once went three weeks without speaking to me, not a single word, after his car died on our way home from hiking in the mountains. I was twelve at the time, and we had a four-wheel drive. The motor just went on strike. My father tried to figure out what had happened, thinking of everything it could possibly be but nothing worked.”

She geared down. “I finally said, ‘Maybe it’s the ignition problem Uncle Konrad was talking about the other day at our place.’ My uncle was a car mechanic and owned a garage. He’s long dead. You know how kids can have such acute hearing, picking up the weirdest things. That must have been what I had done because it just popped into my head.”

The snow flurries were lighter now and Claire stepped on the gas.

“My father went into a terrible rant, screaming: ‘You keep your nose out of it, you damn smartass!’ He was totally flustered… But I’ll keep it short: It turned out to be an ignition problem after all.” Claire turned up the heater. “After that he didn’t say a word to me for three weeks, didn’t give it a second thought. Three weeks. That’s a long time, Josefa. It was absolutely awful. I didn’t know what I’d done wrong. I was just trying to help.”

“Yes, fathers can be like that,” Josefa said pensively. She could imagine that kind of silence could hurt like hell, even if her own father never gave her the silent treatment. He preferred verbal punishments, acid sarcasm, and allusions sharp as knives.

Claire was looking straight ahead. “It was probably better he said nothing. Because whenever he did open his mouth, it was usually to tell me that I couldn’t do anything. But
he
was the real loser.”

“And your mother? What did she say?”

“Mother? She never came to my defense. My mother never ever stood up for me, not one single time. It just wasn’t done. Even when she knew I was in the right. Yeah, well, that’s how I learned that you had to help yourself.”

“So how did you help yourself?”

Claire braked carefully to take a sharp curve. The road was getting icy in spots.

“Well, for one thing, I wanted to go to a commercial college, but my parents refused to pay for my training. They thought that being a secretary was good enough. So I went to my uncle, the one with the garage, and he gave me a loan.”

Josefa thought that was a peculiar kind of self-help. “Did your parents know about the loan?”

“Somebody told them almost as soon as it happened, might have been my aunt trying to stick it to them. From then on they never ever spoke to me again, not even my mother. A home? I didn’t have one from that moment on. Who gives a damn. At least I finally got to show them I could get along just fine without them. Some people you can simply leave behind.” Claire glanced at her. “What was your mother like?”

Josefa watched the snowflakes dancing in the headlight beams. “I can’t really remember her much,” she said. “I was only fourteen when she died of cancer.”

“I despise my mother,” Claire stated bitterly. The words sounded all the more bitter in Claire’s bright, bell-like voice.

“Why don’t you despise your father? After all, he was the one who always put you down.”

“She should’ve called him on it, faced up to him. She should’ve fought for me. But her submissiveness made her his accomplice—against me, against her own daughter.”

Claire had worked herself up into such a rage that she hit the gas pedal too hard and the car skidded. Josefa seized the grab bar in fright, but Claire skillfully maneuvered the car back into her lane.

“Sorry, I’d better concentrate on the road instead of ancient history. I’m not a little girl anymore. I’m a grown woman and I don’t have to take any more crap from anybody. I can take on anybody today, can’t I?”

Josefa couldn’t tell if Claire was being ironic or serious, so she answered with a vague, “Mmmm.” She sensed that they had ventured into unknown territory; something had shifted in their relationship. Josefa was no longer the boss and Claire was no longer her subordinate. They were something else now, but what exactly that something was, Josefa couldn’t put a name to yet.

The beautiful weather was gone when Josefa went for a stroll by Lake Zurich the next day. It was two in the afternoon, but a thick fog had already darkened the sky. To top it off, it began to rain, and muddy water splashed on her new suede boots with every step she took. She walked past the Chinese Garden and turned into the Seefeld District where Paul Klingler had his consulting firm in a Biedermeier villa, where they regularly had their meetings. Today, though, she had something completely different in mind, and she’d already let him know it by phone.

She pushed the intercom button at the back door, and Paul appeared in person. Hardly a Sunday went by that he didn’t spend at least part of the day at the office.

“What sun were you lying in?” he asked, his gigantic figure leaning down to greet her. Josefa told him about her skiing trip with Claire but was unable to describe the way there or what mountain they’d climbed.

“Can I offer you something?” Paul inquired, always the proper gentleman (at least when he was in the mood) as he showed her into an office with a view of Lake Zurich. While his secretary (obviously she had to work Sundays too) was getting Josefa some orange juice, Paul opened his electronic archive for her and retreated to another room.

After two hours of on-screen searching, her eyes were burning. But she found what she was looking for.

She closed the archive and asked Paul’s secretary for a phone book. Despite the popularity of the surname Meyer, the exact name she was looking for was easier to find than she expected. Evidently Athena Meyer-de Rechenstein was so proud of her name she had it helpfully printed in full. Josefa scribbled down her number, packed up her documents, and bid Paul a quick goodbye.

The air seemed even colder than before. She took her cell phone out of her purse and entered the number she’d written down.

“Hello,” a woman’s melodious voice answered at once.

“This is Josefa Rehmer, a friend of Helene’s.”

It was so quiet on the other end Josefa thought the connection had been lost. But then she heard Helene’s mother again.

“Josefa, what a surprise! I may call you Josefa, yes? How are you?”

This time it was Josefa’s turn to be startled. The lady spoke High German. Why hadn’t Helene ever said her mother was German?

“Am I talking to Helene’s mother?” she replied.

“Of course,” the friendly woman’s voice answered. “You have the right number, Josefa. When can you come to see me?”

“Whenever it’s convenient,” Josefa replied in a wooden voice.

“Do you have time today?”