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Sometimes May the first could be a headache for the Government. Rex liked to keep a tight rein on outcomes, and the May demonstrations were notoriously unpredictable. Keeping the public order was their priority. Still, compared to the riots in 2007, this year had been a breeze. Yes, the use of tear gas was unfortunate and there had been some harm to businesses and public property, but within an hour, the police had cleared the area around Kottbusser Tor and made a dozen arrests.
Rex smiled. Corinne had called earlier to say the coverage in the papers cast the Government response in a fair light. Of course, the liberals had been riled by the use of the gas, but in a world full of fear, coming down hard on crime won favour with the silent majority. Not only that, but Corinne had identified the acrobat in at least two separate reels of footage that had appeared on the news. She had yet to corroborate his participation in the rioting, but things were looking rosy. Rex recognised the narratives the media spun: there was always a push and pull between who would be depicted as the hero and who the villain. He very much preferred the role of hero. The day really couldn’t have played out any better.
He poured himself a whiskey in his study and turned on the hifi, ignoring the briefing papers on extra funding for the current crop of Olympic and Paralympic athletes on his desk that Corinne had requested him to look at. The opening bars of What a Wonderful World drifted out of the speakers, and soon he’d settled back into his leather armchair, listening to the croaky magnificence of Louis Armstrong’s voice.
The intercom buzzed and his wife’s voice filtered through. Jessy cocked her ears. “There’s someone at the door. Can you get it, darling?”
Rex swallowed his disappointment at the interruption. “Of course, darling.” Although often absent from family life due to the demands of state business, he took pride in being a more affectionate husband and father than his own father had managed.
He peered into the flickering grey-scale security monitors, squinting over the half-moon glasses he wore at home, to discern who might be visiting at this late hour. White-hot rage flared inside him when he recognised Karl Klein on his doorstep. He flung his glasses on his desk.
“Jessy! With me.” He stalked to the front door to unhook the latch with Jessy on his heels, her amber eyes glowing in the dark. “You dare to come here? It was bad enough at the Interior Ministry, but home is sacred.” Inside, his wife sat helping their son and daughter with their homework. Any second now, Sara’s violin teacher would arrive. They had high aspirations for their children.
Beside him, Jessy growled, and Rex hooked his fingers around her collar.
“Can’t you quiet that mutt?” said Karl.
Jessy bared her teeth, and Karl took a step back.
“Sit, Jessy,” said Rex, patting the dog’s smooth flank. She responded at once. “Why are you here, Karl, and how on earth did you find me?”
“I tailed you a few weeks ago,” said Karl. “You’re always out with that dog. It wasn’t difficult.”
Unkempt hair hung in Karl’s face, and grit blackened his fingernails. He emitted a nonchalance that irked Rex. What had changed? He should be quaking in his boots; he’d risked Rex’s wrath coming here. He had to know that.
Rex stared down his nose at him. “It was a mistake to come here. Your services are no longer required.”
Karl didn’t even react. “The police came after me today,” he said, cocking his head to the left and glancing behind him.
Rex didn’t care. He wasn’t this man’s father. Did Karl expect a shoulder to cry on? He’d warned him about the net closing around him and how he wouldn’t interfere. The man had dug his own grave. Regrets wouldn’t change the path of his life. How ridiculous and simpering some men could be when their choices had been their own.
Still, he couldn’t afford a ruckus here on his doorstep. The neighbours might be watching, or his family might come out. He took out a notepad from the chest in the hallway and ripped out a sheet before scribbling a number on it, and pushed it at Karl. “Here. My aide’s number again. She’ll see to it that you get cleaned up and advise you on how best to turn yourself in. You might cut a few months from your sentence that way. Now get lost.”
Karl clutched the note between dirty fingers.
Rex pulled Jessy back and made to close the door, but Karl jammed the doorframe with his foot. Jessy leapt forward, baring her teeth in menace and attached herself to Karl’s foot.
Karl yowled, and behind Rex, his wife peeked into the hallway. “Is everything okay, darling?”
Rex tugged back the dog, inserting his fingers into her jaw to prise it open when she didn’t relent. She released her grip. “I’ll just be a minute, Agnes. Go back inside, and take Jessy with you.”
His wife threw him a questioning look, but whistled for the dog all the same. Rex shoved the dog towards her. Jessy whimpered, but obeyed.
Rex turned back to Karl, who was nursing his foot. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he said, between gritted teeth.
“There’s someone here who wants to speak to you.”
Rex’s eyebrows shot up.
A man approached from behind the bush Rex’s gardener had painstakingly trimmed into a cone shape.
The acrobat. He searched his mind for the man’s name. Yusuf Alam.
A roiling heat spread through Rex’s belly, and for a moment, he regretted sending Jessy away. What were they doing at his house together? Could it be that Karl had somehow revealed their deal? He didn’t think it possible that he’d been betrayed. Karl had far too much to lose. He surveyed the men from under half-lidded eyes, calculating how best to extricate himself from this situation.
“Herr Alam. This is an unlikely collaboration.” He fought to maintain some kind of gentlemanly composure. They’d shaken his equilibrium by bringing the sordid edge of his business to his doorstep. It placed him in danger, and he hadn’t yet grasped what they expected from him. “I’m afraid if you’re here to persuade me to overturn my decision to close the circus, you’ve set yourself up for disappointment. Accosting me on my own doorstep is never going to end well. You’d do well to respect my office and all that it stands for.”
“I’m not here to ask anything of you,” said Yusuf, his accent careful. It struck Rex how proficient he’d become in German since they’d first met. “I know you’ve been playing God, that you’re behind the swell of hatred towards us. I know what you promised us, and what you delivered, and the gap in between.”
Rex reared up. He smarted at the accusations that his project had come up short. “You think I wanted you to fail? I was on your side, but nothing stays the same, boy, and nothing comes for free.”
Yusuf snorted. “Not even for you, with your birthright, your education, the privileges that fell into your lap by chance?”
Rex struggled to find a way to turn the situation to his advantage. His mind hurtled through a myriad of options. Police would attend his call in minutes, of course, but he couldn’t be sure how the scene would play out. How awkward for Sara’s violin teacher to witness it all, and how cumbersome to field all the questions from the government or, God forbid, the media. This was home. It wouldn’t do to sully it, or to expose his family to the ugly side of his job. No, it was best to extricate himself without outside help.
Still, he’d imagined he understood Karl and the acrobat’s motivations and strengths, but here they were together, and he couldn’t unravel what they would achieve from being in cahoots with one another. They were like chalk and cheese. Rex was unaccustomed to being challenged. He shoved his hands into his pockets, projecting power, as if the two men on his doorstep were mere insects.
“Who are you to lecture me? I gave you everything. I gave you a fresh start. It’s not my fault you made nothing of it. Look at what I’ve made of the opportunities I had.” He beat his fists against his chest. “This—” he swept his hand across the façade of his house with its vaulted ceilings and manicured lawn, “I earned this. Me. Without handouts.”
Karl had grown silent and stared impassively at a speck on the wall.
Yusuf’s skin flushed. “You think ambition and hard work got you here, Minister?” The last word hung heavy with sarcasm. “Have you ever given thought to where you were born, and to whom? Have you ever considered what impact your education and networks have had on you? Have you ever thought how different it would have been if you hadn’t been born into money or this place?” Yusuf shook his head slowly in disbelief. “Don’t you see? We internalise the roles written for us by others. The circus was our ticket to stay here, and we were so grateful. But you fooled us. We taught our bodies to do incredible things, but you don’t care–we can fly or fall–it’s nothing to you, as long as you come out of it intact. You reduced us. You colluded with Karl and you colluded with BAZ to rile up sentiment against us.”
Bile rose in Rex’s throat. His daughter’s tinkling laugh seeped out into the cool air outside, and his protective instincts kicked in. He’d had enough of this nonsense; he wanted to end it. He ejected his words in sharp, staccato beats. “My first duty is to the German people. How long do you expect me to be your champion? Resources aren’t finite, and neither is time. You haven’t been in my position. You don’t know the skill it takes to balance priorities for the country, how citizens bray for your skin when they sit in their armchairs criticising your every move. Maybe you should stop holding me responsible for problems that I did not create in the first place. Hold your President responsible, the one who created the conditions in your country of origin, rather than grasping me by the neck.”
Yusuf pinned him with a fiery gaze, and his voice soared into the night. “You talk a fine game, Minister, but I see in your eyes that I am nothing. You think you’re my better. But you’re mistaken. I am something. I will prove to you that even with all your tools and all your scheming, I’m in charge of my destiny.”
Rex didn’t have to argue with this ungrateful man. It changed nothing. The circus would still close, and he wouldn’t have to hear about this sorry affair ever again. “Get out of here, both of you, before I call the police. They would be here already were I not amused by these games.”
The men exchanged glances.
Rex stepped back on the threshold. He longed to send these two scurrying away with their tails between their legs. “What a mess you’ve left your poor sister in, Karl,” he said, adopting a jaunty tone designed to wound.
The corners of Karl’s mouth drooped and Rex felt not a shade of pity. He might have helped the girl had Karl kept his side of the bargain, but that ship had long sailed. Favours couldn’t be extended to all and sundry; they had to be earned with blood, sweat and loyalty.
“We’ll see,” said Karl. He turned away, and even from behind, he looked deflated, as if the air had been sucked out of his sails.
Rex watched, loosening his tie, as their backs retreated into the night.
He reached for his phone even before the door clicked shut to tip the police off to Karl’s whereabouts. If Corinne confirmed Yusuf’s role in the riot, he’d alert the police where to find him also.
His whiskey and Louis Armstrong waited.
