ONE OF THESE DAYS

by Robert Rescue

Wedding

“Are you even listening to me, Robert?”

The man in front of me had already had a few. With one hand he was clutching a beer bottle, and with the other he was holding on to the bar. I had to be nice to him because he was the owner of the place.

“Of course, Edgar. I’m all ears.”

Edgar was from Wedding, and a little rough around the edges. People in the Bar said that he still lived out of the moving boxes that he hadn’t unpacked since 1983. Signing contracts was not his thing; he had more respect for a hearty handshake. He used to own a hauler company, so some said, but others claimed he’d made his money in the red-light district. I once googled him and found out that he had worked as a police reporter for one of the sleaziest tabloid newspapers in Berlin.

“When Wedding was still red, full of Social Democrats and Communists, that was quite something, you know. Every day Nazis drove up in their trucks and tried to intimidate people, but the locals showed them. My father was always getting into brawls and beat up Nazis a bunch of times. After the war, the French soldiers stayed. He started fights with them too when they went on the rampage in his bar. He didn’t care that they were our protectors keeping the Russians out of West Berlin. You should handle with things the way he did, believe me, it earned him respect. If anyone’s giving you hassle, smash him right in the face. When my father fell down the stairs drunk in 1983 and broke his neck, I moved here from Schöneberg. I was working for the newspaper, and I can tell you, there was a lot going on. Murder and homicide on every corner. I remember a case right here in this building. A son killed his mother and hid the body for four weeks. Then he wanted to bury her in Schiller Park and they caught him. But after the Wall fell, there was peace. For about fifteen years, I guess. Well, now and then a dog got run over, a bank got robbed, or a person got killed. But that was about it. Until a few years ago. Then the place burst into life, in the truest sense. If no one’s interested in you, you can lead a quiet life, but when people start turning up for the fancy apartments, you get a lot of lowlifes, believe me. If I was still writing for the newspaper, I think I’d be on the road all day, from dusk till dawn. Stabbings, robberies, and murder, the whole shebang. Just like the old days.”

Edgar paused and took a sip of his drink. As he did, he leaned back. I was poised, ready to make a dive for him if he fell off his stool. But he had a grip on himself. For a moment he looked thoughtfully out the window. Then he turned back to me. “And the flashiness of the houses. Don’t think much of it. Everything here used to be a different shade of gray. For decades. Didn’t bother anyone. And now suddenly everything’s blue and red or piss-yellow. And some assholes get rich on high rents, and people who can’t afford them have to move away. I earn money on rent, and it’s enough for me to live off.”

Edgar took another sip. Then he looked at me with a serious expression. “What will happen when I’m gone, Robert? I mean, to the house. It’ll go to my daughter in Charlottenburg. And me and her have a different way of thinking.”

“You’ll be around for a while longer,” I said. “And even if it all gets fancy around here, Liebenwalder Strasse 33 and the Bar will stay just the way they were twenty years ago. We don’t have the money for renovations and high rent.”

Edgar simply nodded. Then he took his beer and stood up, lurching forward in the direction of the sofa. He sat down, leaned back, and fell asleep shortly afterward. Edgar and I were the last people in the Bar. I sat on my stool, lit a cigarette, and had a think.

It had been quite a few years now since artists had started moving to this poor multicultural district in north Berlin, selling their heating-duct sculptures and paint-splattered canvases on the sidewalk. Speculators—who bought up the art studios, ousted the artists, and threw their extravagant art into containers—thought this was great. Wedding was turning hip. Old stores like the umbrella shop and the music shack, whose inventory probably dated back to 1980, shut down. New stores opened that sold things the locals had never heard of: smoothies, vegan draft beer, and liquor bottled and sealed in jam jars.

Students moved to Wedding but the dream of having their own digs at a reasonable price was long gone. Either they rented a twenty-five-square-meter box for six hundred euros a month or their parents bought some fleapit for a hundred thousand straight off. Those looking for room in an apartment had to be vegan, nonsmokers, outgoing, and female. For all others, or people with vices, speed-roommating in the hottest hipster bar was the only remaining option, and whoever failed the test was forced to return to some outback town and abandon the dream of studying, social climbing, and high life in the capital.

It was thanks to Edgar that the Bar even existed. Anyone who had lived through the past ten years shared his views on gentrification and speculation. There was no speed-roommating or schnapps in jam jars. And no ping-pong table either. In the back room, which most referred to as the “salon,” except one who in ignorance of room sizes called it the “hall,” there was a dartboard; but it was out of use because the darts had been lost and no one had gotten around to buying new ones. The house beer bore the dubious name of Pilsator, cost an unbeatable one euro fifty, and was drunk by all those who put alcohol content before taste. If you needed to line your stomach, there were peanuts and pretzel sticks. The joint had no employees; its supporters were a collective and they all worked on a voluntary basis.

It was a shabby place, a former butcher’s shop, of which the eye-catching blue-and-white art nouveau tiles remained on the floor and walls of the front room. The furniture was old and worn, the toilets uninviting, and the mold creeping around the walls clung uncomfortably to your clothes after you’d been in the room for just five minutes. The homemade stage in the salon groaned under the footsteps of comedians and bands whose audiences were sometimes big, sometimes small.

The regulars were usually nonconformists who felt that the atmosphere matched their lifestyles; or people interested in tiles; or people who loved the name, the simplicity of which they regarded as an inspired, creative feat until they found out from the bartender that it was due to lack of inspiration. Many years ago, the founders of the Bar hadn’t been able to agree on a name, despite the limited range they had come up with: the dreary Drinking Den, the arcane Basalt, and the stripped-down Music Café. So they had done well to stick to a description of what the place really was.

I’d been part of it for five years and was responsible for the finances. I also took care of the hard liquor. Once a week I went to the supermarket and spent most of my money on whiskey, gin, and rum, and a little on pretzel sticks, peanuts, and cleaning supplies. It was embarrassing because the cashiers probably thought I was a drunk who flushed down the peanuts with the alcohol and wiped up the mess with the cleaning fluid afterward. It was mostly me who used the cleaning products when I was on bar shift, because I was the only one who prized cleanliness.

Cleanliness was in fact my middle name. When there weren’t any customers, I cleaned.

Just then, Frederik, Fauser, and Kuba, three of my fellow bartenders, entered the joint. “Edgar didn’t make it upstairs again?” asked Fauser, amused.

“I’ll wake him up later,” I replied. “By then he should be sober enough to manage the stairs.”

The three lined up at the bar, and I handed them each a Pilsator. Fauser took out his smartphone and wrote messages, and Frederik and Kuba continued a conversation about their plans to attend a festival in Poland soon. I went to the broom closet and took out the cleaning supplies. My goal was the freezer in the back of the storeroom. It was connected to the power supply, although it wasn’t being used at the moment. When the ice machine broke down in the heat of the summer, I fetched ice cubes from the supermarket, reinforcing the cashiers’ impression that I was a drunk, and stored them in the freezer. Although the ice machine was still running for the time being, we left the freezer permanently on. Food had once been stored in it for a party but the remains had been left inside and then forgotten. However, someone had managed to turn off the freezer shortly afterward. We had to draw straws at that time to decide who was going to clean up the mess. Since then the freezer had given off a hellish stink that was only halfway tolerable when it was switched on. Now seemed to me like a suitable moment to go at it with the cleaning fluid and, if I was lucky, solve the problem. When I entered the storeroom and went over to the corner where the freezer stood, I saw that the boxes of wine bottles that were normally stored on top of it had been put on the floor. That was strange. I went back out to the front and asked the boys.

“No idea,” said Fauser, looking up from his smartphone. “Someone probably had the same idea as you but gave up after moving the boxes.”

“Maybe it was you, Robert?” said Frederik. “On your first attempt. Maybe you’ve just forgotten?”

I didn’t rise to his jibe. Our relationship wasn’t exactly the best. We’d had a fight recently, because he had kicked up a fuss with Lisa, the neighbor who lived over the bar, which was not conducive to community relations. Frederik was a failed local politician who had turned Wedding and its issues into his cause. He had stood as a candidate at the last House of Representatives election but hadn’t earned the required majority. Since then he’d been involved in the Bar, but only until the next election and his victory. After that he’d be too busy.

“It wasn’t me,” said Kuba. He had Polish roots—his name was actually Jakub, but no one wanted to call him that, hence the nickname. “But I wish you every success.” He wasn’t being sincere; that was just his way of being polite.

I went back into the storeroom, resenting not for the first time the others’ indifference to keeping the place clean.

I opened the lid of the freezer.

Benno was lying inside.

Startled, I dropped the lid. It banged shut. What was going on? Benno, the Bar’s hard-core stoner. In the freezer. But could it be that my senses were playing tricks on me? I hadn’t slept much the night before.

I propped myself on the lid with both hands, still holding the cloth in my left hand, and mulled things over. I could go back out to the front and convince myself that I’d imagined it. But that wouldn’t work. As if in slow motion, I lifted the lid again. This was really happening. That was Benno.

He was squatting in the freezer, his hands resting in his lap, as if partaking in one of those crouched burials from the Stone Age that I’d recently seen in a documentary. Maybe he’s asleep? I thought. He could have lain down in there half an hour ago, feeling tired. But I hadn’t seen him in the Bar all evening. I leaned over, felt his upper body, then shook him. No, Benno wasn’t asleep. I straightened up and carefully closed the lid, like I was scared of waking him up somehow.

As I hurried out to the front, two thoughts crossed my mind. For one thing, I was annoyed that I’d come up with the idea of ​​cleaning the freezer. If for whatever reason someone else had opened the freezer, then that person would now have sleepless nights ahead. Secondly, I wondered what the consequences would be.

“Does anyone know what’s up with Benno?” I asked when I was back behind the counter. Joe and Tanja had shown up. With Joe’s arrival, all the active members of the Bar’s staff were present. Tanja, his girlfriend, had pulled out a year ago because the place was too chaotic for her, but she often dropped in, picked up on what was going on, and got annoyed, which is why she kept on saying that she would be avoiding the place in the future. But because she wanted to spend as much time as she could with Joe, she always ended up sitting at the bar anyway.

“Since his girlfriend left him, he’s been keeping a low profile,” said Frederik. “A break from social life, he texted me. He was here for a while last Saturday. He went into the hall and after that I didn’t see him again. Why do you ask?”

“Last Saturday, huh?” Being frozen had prevented Benno from being discovered on olfactory grounds, or else the smell of rotten food from the freezer had masked everything else. “And his girlfriend hasn’t shown up since?” I said. “Has she called anyone and asked what’s up with Benno?”

“No,” answered Fauser. “But that’s how it is with breakups—you don’t see each other for a while, right?”

This was a typical Fauser question. He knew nothing about breakups. No one had ever seen him with a girl- or boyfriend. No one had ever talked to him about it, not even in a drunken stupor. Everyone assumed that he was asexual.

“Why are you asking about Benno?” Frederik said. I looked around. No guests, and Edgar was asleep.

“Because he’s in the back lying in the freezer. Dead. Well, lying in the sense of crouching. Like in the Stone Age.”

Joe choked on his beer and spluttered. Fauser put his smartphone down on the bar and looked at me in confusion. It was Kuba who was the first to respond. He set down his beer bottle and went out the back. No one followed him. A short time later he came back. “Robert’s right,” is all he said. Then Frederik, Fauser, and Joe got up and went out back.

“Benno’s not allowed in the storeroom” Tanja complained. “He’s not an active member. He’s a nice space cookie, but he’s not allowed out back.” She lit a cigarette and dragged on it violently several times. Then she shook her head repeatedly, mumbling something about a “pigsty.”

Tanja had a problem with change. She didn’t want to accept that the Bar was changing too. She wanted it like it was five years ago, when things had been run better overall. Sometimes we talked to her about it and tried to make it clear that the Bar would never be the same again, but her persistent refusal to acknowledge this bordered on the pathological. When Joe worked behind the counter, she helped him and droned on all evening about the good old days.

“Neither Frederik nor anyone else could have known he went into the storeroom,” I said, getting annoyed with myself as I spoke. There was no point in having this conversation with Tanja.

“Then the person on shift should have checked,” Tanja griped. “The beer store is out back too. People help themselves and don’t pay. When I still worked here, that never happened. I always made sure that no unauthorized people went into the storeroom. And now they’re even allowed to head out back and kill themselves. This place is really going to the dogs.”

Frederik, Fauser, and Joe came back in again. Fauser heaved himself up on the barstool. “Goddammit! Last week, the toilet wasn’t flushing, Lisa was moaning about the noise, and now there’s a corpse. Can’t a week go by without some kind of problem?” He gestured with the beer bottle in his hand and then brought it back down on the counter hard. The beer started to foam and overflowed. “Shit, fucking shit!” he yelled.

Joe tried to roll a cigarette. It took him three attempts before he managed to come up with something that looked vaguely like a ciggy. He fumbled to light it. “Wow,” he said, evidently summing up his reaction to the discovery. He was a nerd who spent all day designing websites. His was an orderly world of bits and bytes. He only knew corpses from first-person shooters, and they weren’t real. He reached for his beer. His hand was shaking. He raised his other hand and pointed to the door. “Should I lock up the front?” he asked. “Because of Benno, I mean. Well, not exactly because of Benno. I dunno.”

“No, that would attract more attention,” Frederik replied. “If anyone shows up, they’ll ask why we’re closed.”

“The question is, what are we going to do now?” Kuba piped up.

“We found this in the freezer,” Frederik said, unfolding a note. “Written on a computer.” He put it on the counter and each of us in turn leaned over and read:

 

Howdy, howdy, friendz of the beloved Bar,

I no its no good wot I done.

It meenz Ill go to hell and burn. Peeple hoo cummit sooeyside go to hell. But Cora woz so great to me. She tuk me as I am. But then she didnt wont me anymore. Eazy come eazy go. We wuz both happy here and I thought I was gonna dye here and when she cums she can think of me. Jeses save me!

 

Big sorry!

Benno

 

That was Benno, no doubt about it. His dope consumption was remarkable. His first joint of the day was in the morning after getting up, and his last was right before going to bed. By his own admission, he had been permanently stoned for seven years, and the effects of it were visible to everyone. His concentration was shot to pieces and he suffered from mood swings. When he talked, you had to listen carefully to understand what he meant, and occasionally interpret it so it made any sense. He himself didn’t seem bothered. He claimed that he felt better than during his pre-hashish period.

“So we’re off the hook,” said Kuba. “We had nothing to do with it. Pity about Benno, I liked him. But there’s still the question: what do we do now?”

“Easy, we call the police,” said Fauser. “He’s killed himself, no idea, perhaps with pills, and wrote a farewell note. Like Kuba said, we’re off the hook.”

“But it’ll have consequences,” I said. “The police will close the Bar, possibly for a few days. We can’t afford it. How am I supposed to cover the rent or electricity at the end of the month? A night like tonight blows out the whole budget, and it’s not our first bad evening this month. Tomorrow is stand-up comedy night. That brings in good money, as does the weekend. We can’t close.”

“You don’t want to notify the police?” yelled Fauser. “And you’re using money as a reason? I mean, that’s fishy, right? Did you bump him off or what?”

He can’t be serious, I thought. He’s just blown a fuse.

“Hold on a minute.” I leaned over the counter and pointed a finger at Fauser. “Everything was fine between Benno and me, okay? I may not have been his best buddy, but we were cool. You yourself said it was suicide. I just came up with a spontaneous solution to this dilemma from a financial point of view, which I am responsible for.”

“I don’t understand why Benno had to kill himself here,” Tanja interjected. “Why couldn’t he have done it at home, in the park, on a bridge, or in the subway? Plenty of people throw themselves in front of trains. No one kills himself in a bar. Now we have all this trouble, just because of him.”

Tanja’s objection wasn’t very helpful, I found, and I wasn’t the only one who thought so.

“I agree with Robert,” said Frederik. “If the police show up, there’ll be problems. The labor inspector might come here too and go over the place with a fine-tooth comb. Then we’ll lose customers because people will think it’s creepy that someone died in here.”

“So?” Fauser argued back. “The dust will settle after a while, and in the meantime, we’ll just do without the fucking money, or one of us can advance the cash for rent and electricity. And the thing about the labor inspector is just speculation.”

“Perhaps I haven’t made myself clear,” said Frederik. “I meant to say that blowing the lid on this business will damage me personally. You know I lost the last election for the Berlin House of Representatives by a narrow margin. If it gets out that someone killed himself in a bar where I volunteer, it’ll ruin my reputation. I don’t need news like that. Then I’ll have already lost the next election. The campaign starts in three months, and the public won’t have forgotten it by then.”

“And that means?” Kuba now asked. Like everyone else, he knew what that meant, but he wanted to hear it from Frederik.

“We leave things just as they are. We keep looking for a solution. But for now, it’ll remain a secret between us. Until one of these days. Well, the day when we know how to proceed.”

“If someone finds out, we’ll be in big trouble,” Fauser cried out. “Because of a cover-up or something. The police will definitely think we had something to do with it.”

“If that happens,” said Frederik, “then let’s just say we didn’t know. We’ll pretend that anything they find is a shock for us too. Until then, we’ll imagine that Robert didn’t open the freezer and we’ll presume it’s empty and smells bad.”

Fauser went over to the front door and locked it.

Tanya weighed in again: “What if the ice machine breaks down and we have to store ice cubes somewhere?”

“Then Robert will just put the ice cube bags on top of Benno after his shopping trip,” Frederik explained. “Very easy.”

I swallowed.

“But if I do a shift with Joe, I’m not getting them out,” Tanja said. “I can tell you that right away.”

“Why don’t we just clean up Benno’s body?” Kuba suggested.

“How? And put it where?” Joe asked.

“In movies, they always do it with a carpet,” Tanja said. “We used to have a long one lying in the salon. Where is it, actually?”

“We threw it away during the last major cleanup because it was so filthy,” I replied.

“I have one at home and I could go get it.” Frederik was excited, as if he’d found a solution to the problem. “We can put him in the dumpster after it’s been emptied and throw a few garbage bags on top. Then we’ll be rid of him.”

“That’s not going to help,” I said. “If we get Benno out of the freezer, he’ll start to smell—and a lot differently from garbage. Some neighbor will notice and inform the property manager or the police.”

“But then we can just pretend we don’t have a clue.” Frederik’s repeated suggestion to pretend not to know anything was starting to bug me. None of us would be able to keep up such a pretense at a cross-examination, except him, perhaps. “I mean, we’re a bar. If someone drops down dead in here, then of course we’d inform the police. They’ll think the dead guy’s a tenant.”

“If the police find out that Benno was a regular here, we’ll get busted,” said Joe. “And if they find him rolled up in the dumpster, they won’t believe he killed himself.”

“What about the suicide note?” Kuba said. “It proves that Benno committed suicide, and if they do an autopsy, they’ll find out that it was an overdose.”

“I don’t think it’s worth much as evidence,” said Frederik. “As I said, it was written on a computer and isn’t signed. I don’t know whether it can be proven for sure that he killed himself. Someone could have strangled him or given him tablets. Damn it, we don’t even know how he died!”

For a moment there was silence. Everyone was thinking. For my part, I was ready to agree with Fauser’s suggestion. It seemed to be the simplest: we could call the police right now, and in two or three hours the situation would hopefully look a lot better.

“We could carry the carpet up to Schiller Park in the dead of night and drop him there,” Tanja said.

“Someone would see us,” Kuba countered. “There are always cars on the road, or partygoers. We’re not in the country. Two or three people carrying a rug at night looks suspicious even in Wedding.”

Edgar and the murder case here in the building went through my mind.

“We could dismember him,” Joe said. “Like, piece by piece. Then carry the parts at night out to Schiller Park and bury them. A piece a week.”

“Okay,” said Frederik, “that’s how we’ll do it. Will you take care of it?”

“I was only making a suggestion,” Joe responded, raising his hands defensively. “I don’t know how to do it. We could ask Inga. She’s a trained nurse. She’ll know for sure.”

Frederik’s fist landed on the counter. “No way are we going to let someone outside this group in on this. No regulars or their groupies, and certainly not anyone who might, possibly or probably, know how to dismember a corpse!”

Suddenly everyone grabbed their beer and knocked it back. Joe belched loudly, which got him a stern look from Tanja. I brought six new cans from the refrigerator.

“What about a body bag?” said Kuba. “They are definitely sealed against odors. His parts could be disposed of in a body bag in the dumpster.”

“You don’t just come across them in supermarkets,” I said. “Probably on eBay or Amazon. But what if these things are checked or you have to prove you’re a funeral director? And a body bag is certainly more prominent in a dumpster than a carpet.”

“None of these ideas help,” Fauser said. “We should just call the police. We’ve got nothing to be afraid of, period! If the place stays shut for a few days, it stays shut. Robert, is it really not possible?”

I sighed. “All right, if that’s the way it’s got to be. But no longer than a week. Let’s just hope business picks up afterward. I’m worried that the reserves won’t make up for lost revenue.”

Fauser, Joe, Tanja, and Kuba nodded at me.

“We’re not going to do that,” Frederik said, scanning across each of us. “Or do you really want to destroy my career?”

No one answered him.

Half an hour later I was alone again with Edgar. I went over and woke him up. “Boy oh boy,” he said. “I thought I was at home in bed. So comfy here on the couch.”

“No problem.”

“Anything happen? Did anyone wonder who that bum was lying around snoring?”

“No, no one came. It’s been a quiet evening.”

* * *

At the Bar, decisions took awhile to be made or put into action. The plan to purchase a ventilation system for the mold problem took five years. In that time, a “project group” consisting of Joe and Kuba was set up to examine the issue, but they did nothing for four years, not even managing to meet or discuss anything. It was thanks to Frederik, who looked into funding possibilities, that at least part of the money was collected. I scraped together the rest from the reserves that—disciplined treasurer that I was—I had put aside but hadn’t actually intended to spend, at least not to that extent. Yet the mold problem did not disappear with the ventilation system; at most, it was kept from spreading. That was my opinion, but the others had a different one. There were countless other examples of decisions that were discussed but never carried out. With Benno, however, it was different.

* * *

The next evening, turnover was very good. The Anglo-American stand-up comedians did their weekly show and brought a bunch of people who were in the mood to drink. But the mood among the team members was tense. While the comedians were having their after-show party in the salon, I collected a new case of beer from the storeroom and hurried back behind the counter.

Fauser continued to insist that we inform the police, saying he wouldn’t take any shifts and would stay away from the Bar for the time being. Kuba and Joe declared that until further notice, they would only turn up for their shifts. Tanja no longer wanted to come, which we would have welcomed under different circumstances.

* * *

Two days later, on Saturday, the matter escalated in a way which we all should have expected. It was a lousy evening, especially for Joe, who was on shift. No guests until eleven o’clock—but then Benno’s girlfriend showed up.

Joe texted for help: Benno’s girlfriend is asking about him. She’s worried coz she got a letter from him. He wrote that he’s gonna end his life in a place they both know. What should I do? Help!

No one wanted to have anything to do with it, so we all just gave Joe advice.

Frederik: Don’t tell her the truth on any account. The thing with her and the suicide letter is alarming.

Tanja: Sweetie, just say you don’t know anything.

Kuba: You have to lie to her. You’ll do a good job of it, I’m sure. Tell her we haven’t seen him in days and that we’re sad about it.

Robert: Show concern! And make it clear that the Bar is with her and we all hope that they get back together again. Good luck!

It took Joe an hour to answer: I managed to shake her off. She’s really down. Says she can’t stop thinking about him mentioning a place they both know. Convinced he means the Bar. Even showed her around and said it can’t be true, Benno must have meant a different place. What should we do now?

He got no reply. But everyone was secretly wondering what would happen if she came back and became more insistent or even asked the police to investigate Benno’s letter.

* * *

Four days later, I was in the Bar again in the evening, mainly to pick up the money from the weekend. On Sundays and Mondays, the place is closed. That Tuesday, I had shopped at the supermarket and taken out the empties.

“Has Benno’s girlfriend been here again?” I asked Kuba, who was standing behind the counter.

“No. Maybe Joe managed to convince her that Benno didn’t mean the Bar. But maybe she’s not that sad about him after all and is busy doing something else.”

“Maybe she went to her parents’ place to get away from it all,” said Frederik, who had just come back from the bathroom. “She hasn’t been in touch again. I’m friends with her on Facebook, but she hasn’t written anything. She’s bound to turn up again at some point.”

I considered all of this. Kuba’s view didn’t sound plausible. I had talked to Benno’s girlfriend a couple of times and she didn’t seem insensitive, so I didn’t think she’d brush aside Benno’s disappearance like a lost pack of cigarettes or a hair clip. Frederik’s view seemed likely if you assumed she wasn’t a Berliner. But it appeared that I knew something he didn’t. She’d told me that she came from Friedrichshain. It may well be that she had gone to see her parents for some comfort, but that was hardly far enough to be able to forget about Benno. And why, on top of that, would she have given up or taken a break from her search? If she didn’t know what to do next, she might have at least contacted the police. I took a deep breath. Had she been here last night? She surely knew that she wasn’t likely to bump into anyone during the day. Whose shift had it been yesterday? She must have been here last night. If only to ask whether Benno had shown up or if he’d been in touch with one of us.

“Whose shift was it yesterday?” I asked.

“Mine,” said Frederick.

“Was it busy?”

“No, there wasn’t much going on. Joe stopped in at around midnight. The cheap beer probably lured him here, despite everything. But today, it’s a whole different story. There’s a big group in the hall. A birthday, I guess. Here out front, though, it’s just a gaping void.”

“Okay,” I said to Kuba and Frederik, “you’re probably both right. We won’t have any trouble for the time being, and if Kuba’s right too, she might never come back again. Even if it doesn’t solve the crux of the problem, we’ll manage somehow.”

I got up from the counter and turned to Frederik. “Are the takings in the hiding place out back?”

He nodded.

“I’ll just collect them then drink up. Feeling a bit under the weather today.”

* * *

I had to carve a path through the throng of people having a party in the salon. First I went to the hiding place in the far back of the former office, which was now just a storage room mostly for broken things. On one shelf there was a bunch of CDs, including Santana’s album Welcome from 1973. A strangely inviting title for the hiding place where Frederik deposited the money. Then I went back into the storeroom and stopped in front of the freezer. She must have been here last night, I thought again. It had been Frederik’s shift.

The thing with her and the suicide letter is alarming, he’d texted.

Alarming, I thought. What a strange word to describe the current situation. As if Benno’s girlfriend were a threat. I shook my head and tried to think of something else. I should go out front, say goodbye, and head home. But something wouldn’t stop nagging me.

Slowly I put my hand on the lid.

“What are you doing?” I heard from behind me.

I turned around.

Frederik.

My hand moved away from the lid.

“I wanted to see whether our problem had disappeared into thin air.”

“I’m afraid not,” Frederik said.

“What makes you so sure?” I asked. “I mean, perhaps—”

“I get your wishful thinking, Robert. We all feel the same way. But you yourself know that these kinds of problems don’t just disappear. And as I said, this secret stays in the Bar. Everyone is in on it and no one can opt out because we’re a community. Or do you want to quit and make trouble?”

“No, no,” I said, moving toward him. “She’s was here again, right? Yesterday?”

“Monday. Monday afternoon,” said Frederik. “I was here to sort the crates in the storeroom.”

“And what happened?”

“Nothing happened,” he said.

I looked at the freezer again. Frederik had probably told her there was no news. Then she’d left again. Just like that. The idea was comforting, and that was something. Why should I bother myself with another problem?

I went out front with Frederik and drank up my beer. Then I ordered another one. I drank for long enough to believe that everything really was all right.

* * *

For four weeks, nothing happened. The team members dropped their concerns and started coming back to the Bar because the beer was cheap and alcohol makes people forget. At the counter no one spoke about Benno and his girlfriend anymore; it was sometimes difficult when one of the regulars asked. Although we were clumsy at first, the lies soon flew off our tongues with ease.

Then Thursday night came around, stand-up night. It was Fauser’s shift and also his birthday. As always, it was a lively evening with good revenue. Two of the comedians stayed after the show in the storeroom and got so sozzled that one felt sick and had to vomit. The freezer seemed a suitable place to relieve himself. He simply pushed the wine boxes off. But I suspect that what he saw then really turned his stomach.

A little later, Fauser called the police.