Woman of the Dead (14 page)

‘Because I’d like to know whether that brothel was part of your hotel.’

‘How entertaining you are.’

‘Am I?’

‘Very amusing, yes. By the way, the pasta here is excellent. You ought to try it.’

‘You haven’t answered my question.’

‘There was no such brothel. Never.’

‘Nonsense.’

‘The ladies gave massages, that was all. Classic back massages, sound massages, lymph drainage, underwater pressure jet massages, Ayurvedic and hot-stone massages, the full range. They were much appreciated by our guests.’

‘The clients in the brothel, you mean.’

‘Guests, young lady, satisfied guests. Why, even the village priest was a regular guest of ours.’

‘The priest?’

‘Yes, that speaks for itself, don’t you agree? A man of God gave the whole enterprise his blessing. He has trouble with slipped discs, poor man. The ladies helped him a great deal. That was all, it was perfectly above board.’

‘So you left the priest satisfied too?’

‘Yes, he’s a very good man, and it looks as if he’ll be the next bishop.’

‘And he was one of your regular guests?’

‘Yes again, and now I trust that I have answered all your questions and we can enjoy a glass of wine together.’

‘I’ll be happy to join you.’

‘By the way, what makes you think there was something wrong with the hotel all that time ago? And why now, after so many years? Why do you take any interest in this tedious subject?’

‘You’re a huntsman, aren’t you?’

‘What if I am?’

‘Five men enjoying themselves.’

‘What?’

‘With Ilena, Dunya and Youn.’

‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, but by all means go on. I’m always happy to talk to my constituents, particularly when they’re as pretty as you.’

‘Are you a rapist?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Are you one of the five men?’

‘Are you drunk? What on earth are you talking about? I think you’d better leave.’

‘I’m talking about abduction, unlawful imprisonment, assault, rape. And murder.’

‘That will do.’

‘Father and son. Perhaps the two of you were having your fun together.’

‘What about my son? What’s all this about?’

Blum turns and leaves without another word or glance. She simply walks away, with everything that he has said ringing in her ears. And everything that he hasn’t. He didn’t know what she was talking about, he’d never heard the names Ilena, Dunya and Youn before. He was surprised. He racked his brain and found nothing, his astonishment was genuine. And so were his lies about the brothel. How confidently he twists reality, extinguishes the past. Only massages. Massages for the priest. How absurd.

His mention of the priest is a bonus. A gift that someone has handed her, and all she has to do is open it. Remove the ribbon, crumple up the wrapping paper. A present that Johannes Schönborn has given her without knowing the avalanche he has set in motion. Blum pictures the randy priest punishing Dunya for her sins. A man of God in the brothel, a man of God in a cellar somewhere in hell. The son of the house is a photographer. A priest is a regular client. Blum knows him. She has met him at funerals, she knows his face, she knows how he speaks and moves. She sees him in her mind’s eye.

His name is Herbert Jaunig. He wears a kindly expression as he delivers the eulogy. As he shakes hands with the bereaved. As he rapes Youn. As he drags the girls out of their cages to whip them. Everything that Blum has heard comes back to her. Every word that Dunya told her, every little detail. He would punish Dunya for her sins, bringing his belt down on her back again and again, the belt buckle digging into her skin, screams echoing in the cellar. The way he quotes the Bible as he ties the boy down on the table. The way he seizes Youn by the hair and jerks his head up as he thrusts into him, the pastor’s sanctified prick absolving the boy of his sins as it roots around inside him. The saviour bringing those three lost souls back to the path of righteousness, the future bishop lovingly tending to his flock. Blow by blow, thrust after thrust. Punishment for the lascivious behaviour of his victims, his fist coming down on the boy’s back so hard that it almost drives the breath out of him. Dunya sits in her cage watching and can do nothing to help.

Blum leaves the restaurant. Nor for a second does she doubt the existence of that brothel in the Annenhof or believe that the pastor went there only for massages. He must have been an associate of Edwin Schönborn. She has no doubt about it, and no pity. She sees only the pastor before her eyes, only the photos that Edwin Schönborn took. Again and again those faces; she read those faces all night long, in the photos that she found in Schönborn’s studio. In an unlocked drawer, neatly sorted and stacked. Blum couldn’t stop looking at them: those eyes, the gaping mouths, the horror and emptiness on their faces. She has seen everything that Herbert Jaunig has done. All that he must answer for now. The good priest, one of the most popular in the country. Blum will make him talk.

Massimo wants to touch her again, hold her close. He says so quietly. He is sitting beside her at the dining table, and the children are playing on the floor. It is supper time. Massimo simply dropped by, he wants to be there for her. His helpfulness, his concern, his warm hand touching her.
I need time. I don’t know if that was wise of me, I was so lonely. I’m grateful to you, Massimo. Please let’s take things slowly. I have to think, Massimo. You’re wonderful, but all the same it was wrong, because of Mark. You know that. Forgive me.
She says these things without words, only with the touch of her fingertips. They do the talking, caress him, console him. Because she knows he wants more. He wants to be with her, day and night. But she can’t, not yet. She is afraid of it, she doesn’t want the children or Karl to see that the family friend has suddenly come between them. Blum would like to strip this closeness away now, be rid of it. It is suddenly burdensome to have him there, wanting something from her. She must tell him he should go, say she would rather he phones before coming. Blum knows that she has made a mistake, she was thinking only of herself; she knows she will hurt him if she tells him to go away. She knows that, and his fingers can feel it. They reach for her, longing, crying out.
Not now, Massimo, please. Please give me time.
She looks at him, asking him to go.
I have to put the children to bed. I’ll call, thank you, you’re an angel
. She takes him to the door, embraces him, feels his warmth. But then she puts the brakes on, draws away from him and closes the door. She is alone again, with the children. She doesn’t want any other man, only Mark.

She stands in the cloakroom for two minutes. She won’t let herself cry. She has to brush the children’s teeth, play with them, be a good mother, read them a bedtime story. She must be there for them, soothe her guilty conscience for letting Karl take on too much. But she can’t unsee what she’s seen, everything that has cast her life into confusion for the past five weeks. It’s there, it occupies every minute of her waking hours. When the girls are asleep, when they’re awake. She thinks of Dunya, of the Schönborns, of the priest. While she’s getting the girls into their pyjamas, while she reads them the story of the dancing horse, while she lies in the dark beside them humming a tune. Because it’s like a fever. That feeling, the rage, the certainty that Mark might still have been alive. Everything is in movement, everything will change.

But morning follows night, and with it her everyday routine. Funerals, Reza, the children, laying out bodies, preparing them, the tears of their relations. And the same questions all the time. How will she go about it? How will she overpower him? Where can she get him on his own? She thinks of nothing but Herbert Jaunig for days on end. She reads everything she can find about him on the internet. She finds out where he lives, how he lives. She watches him, follows him. She watches him saying mass in the cathedral, raising his hands to break the bread, drinking the wine from a golden goblet. A priest like any other, a man of God.

Hagen used to take her to church every Sunday. And every Sunday Blum hoped that the man in the cassock would help her. She had told him that she didn’t want to live any more. She was eight years old. She had been alone with him one afternoon in the confessional, safe and sad. She had told him that she couldn’t breathe any more, that she wanted a cuddle. An eight-year-old girl summoning up all her courage, trying to put her unhappiness into words, begging for help. Begging the man in the cassock who kept talking about brotherly love and mercy. Blum had cried. She remembers whimpering very quietly. He had heard her, and told her to stop that. His voice through the grating hadn’t done anything to make it better. Instead of taking her in his arms he had given her his prescription for happiness. Two Our Fathers and a Hail Mary. Three prayers for a happy childhood. A child who wanted to die, and a man of God.

Every Sunday she had hoped that he would take her aside, that he would remember what she had told him so often. Blum had believed for a long time that he could help her because Jesus was a good man, because Blum had been stupid enough to believe that. Thirty years later she stands at the very back of the church looking at the altar, watching without emotion as Herbert Jaunig gives the blessing, spreading wide his arms and promising heaven. A hypocrite, a play-actor, not a man of God. Not Jesus, just a man in his mid-fifties. Not a lamb but a wolf.

‘Blum?’

‘Yes?’

‘How much longer?’

‘Not long. You mustn’t get impatient now. I can hear someone moving about. We must wait until the staff have gone home.’

‘Did I ever tell you you’re crazy?’

‘Yes, you did. But that won’t get you anywhere. We must go through with it now.’

‘But you know I’m a police officer.’

‘Don’t get so het up, darling.’

‘We could at least open the champagne.’

‘We’re sitting in a cupboard, Mark.’

‘So? Is it against the rules to drink champagne in a cupboard?’

‘We wanted to celebrate in the mattress department.’

‘You wanted to.’

‘Because you don’t want a water bed. What else could I do?’

‘Correct, I’m not in favour of a water bed, and that’s why we’re spending the night in a furniture shop.’

‘Exactly.’

‘If they catch us it could be very awkward for me, you know.’

‘Like I said, don’t get so het up, Mark.’

‘I want to drink a toast with you here and now.’

‘We have to wait.’

‘Then I want to kiss you.’

‘Not now.’

‘Then when?’

‘We must keep quiet.’

‘But I want to kiss you now. If you don’t kiss me I’ll scream, and then you can forget all about that water bed.’

‘Do you really, really want to kiss me now?’

‘Yes.’

‘Then come with me.’

Blum opened the cupboard door and ran, ran on tiptoe through the furniture shop. Hand in hand with Mark, upstairs. To the mattress studio, the water bed. They sank into it, giggling and embracing, then kissed. It was their wedding day, six years before. When she thinks of it, the memory still makes her tingle. She can see it in her mind’s eye – the face of the nightwatchman who suddenly appeared. The electric torch that came on, the beam of light shining on their bodies. Two lovers in each other’s arms lying calmly on a water bed. Instead of jumping to their feet they simply looked up and past the watchman’s uniform to his face. No one said a thing, the nightwatchman didn’t move. Mark and Blum were smiling, there was no resistance. They gave themselves up and didn’t try to run away, but lay in their embrace, waiting to see how he reacted. The nightwatchman, the strong arm of the law. They were expecting the worst, but the worst didn’t happen. Instead of threatening them, exerting his authority over them, the nightwatchman grinned and politely informed them that the furniture shop was closed. Then he escorted them to the exit, just like that.

In the car park outside the furnishing store they could hardly believe what had just happened. To think that they’d been caught and there were no consequences! Only their laughter ringing out over the empty lots. Mark opened the champagne and Blum drank out of the bottle as they sat in the car, because it had begun to snow. Six years ago, in the little Polo where Blum was now waiting for Jaunig. Drinking champagne, holding hands, laughing until the bottle was empty. For a long time they sat in the car watching the snowflakes fall, until the windscreen was white, until they were alone. Mark and Blum, safe under a blanket of snow.

Blum is alone now. There is no snow on the windscreen. The seat beside her is empty. It is summer, and what happened then is only a lovely, painful memory. Blum waits for Jaunig to come up the slope. She knows he will soon be running this way, it won’t be long now. He’s done that for the last four days, always at the same time. She has waited for him outside the presbytery. Every evening he has arrived in the forecourt of the cathedral in his grey jogging suit and begun to run. Out of the Old Town just before darkness falls. Over the bridge of the River Inn, along Höttingergasse and up to the forest.

Blum waits. She keeps looking in the rear-view mirror, where she sees her face, her eyes. She thinks how Mark always told her that she had an unhappy mouth; it showed when she was sad or tired. She thinks of all the good things that Mark brought. How he had replaced her past.

Blum firmly believes he will come. She knows he will come. She has planned it all. She needed two days on her own, she said, two days at the seaside.
Please, Karl, look after everything. I’m so grateful to you, Karl.
She promised to bring the children something back, seashells and sand. She hugged Karl. Then she drank a glass of wine in the kitchen. The children were playing with modelling clay, and she decided on the next step, on what will happen when Herbert Jaunig appears at the end of the path. She remembers, with all her might, everything that isn’t here now, everything beautiful. She remembers Mark. It helps her to justify what is about to happen.