“Blum?”
“Yes?”
“How much longer?”
“Not long. 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 antsy, darling.”
“We could at least open the champagne.”
“We’re sitting in a closet, Mark.”
“So? Is it against the rules to drink champagne in a closet?”
“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 favor 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.”
“Then don’t be so impatient.”
“I want to drink a toast with you here and now.”
“Okay, then I want to kiss you while we wait.”
“Not yet.”
“Then when?”
“Soon.”
“But I want to kiss you now, not later, Blum.”
“Do you really, really want to kiss me now?”
“Yes.”
“Then come with me.”
• • •
Blum opened the closet door and ran, ran on tiptoe through the furniture store. 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 night watchman who suddenly appeared. The flashlight 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 night watchman 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 night watchman, 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 night watchman grinned and politely informed them that the furniture shop was closed. Then he escorted them to the exit, just like that.
• • •
In the parking lot outside the furniture store they could hardly believe what had happened. To think that they’d been caught and there were no consequences! Only their laughter ringing out over the empty lot. 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 windshield 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 windshield. 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 gray tracksuit and begun to run. Out of the Old Town just before darkness fell. Over the bridge of the River Inn, along Höttingergasse and up to the forest.
• • •
Blum waits. She keeps looking in the rearview 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 modeling 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 justify what is about to happen.
• • •
The man of God comes, running towards Blum, who is ready to turn the key in the ignition. He can see the little car beside the path. He thinks nothing of it, he runs on. Until he reaches her, until she turns the key, about to step on the gas. Another twenty seconds. She must do it. Now, go!
• • •
She feels the car striking his body as the future bishop falls to the ground. She has only a brief glimpse of his horrified face; she doesn’t hesitate for a second, she runs him over, breaking bones. Pitilessly, Blum brakes and reverses. She must work fast, she must drag him into the car, force him into the trunk, wrestle with his legs, his arms, his torso. She jumps out of the car and uses all her strength to push, haul, and lift the priest into the small trunk. He is only a mass of flesh and bones. She ignores the pain he must be feeling. She ties him up with duct tape, gags and binds him. An accident, she thinks. Just an unfortunate accident. Breathlessly, she slams down the cover of the trunk, gets back into the car, and drives away. In six hours’ time she will be in Trieste. In six hours’ time she will talk to him. If he’s still alive then.
• • •
There are no traffic checks along the highway. She takes care not to attract attention; she has a full tank and doesn’t need to stop. She feels no pity for the priest. She doesn’t hear him groaning, doesn’t hear any noises coming from the car trunk. The sound of the engine drowns them out. The road runs through the Italian countryside, all of it familiar, every service station that she passes, the road signs at the exits. Blum and Jaunig are on their way to the sea. There is plenty of time to think, plenty of time to get accustomed to the situation, to the fact that she has killed before, and may kill again. She remembers that TV series.
• • •
Dexter. Mark loved it. He would sit in his study watching it for hours on end, watching a forensic scientist administering his own ideas of justice. Taking villains out of circulation, liberating the world from scum. Mark loved all seven seasons; he kept trying to persuade Blum to join him in the world of the serial murderer. Blum always laughed at him. She didn’t understand how Mark could think that anything on that show was remotely like reality. Nonsense, she said, lying down beside him on the sofa. It was all nonsense, so far-fetched, a man striking out on his own against the villains who had fallen through the net. A man of the law making sure that justice is done because no one else will. It was a fable of revenge, unrealistic and pointless. All the same, Blum lay there beside him, watching the man on the screen pinning his victims down on a table with plastic wrap. Plunging a knife into their hearts, then chopping them up and throwing the parts into the sea. It made Blum laugh. At Mark, and at Dexter. Dexter was nothing more than a murderer. She tried to get Mark to see that, but he defended Dexter to the hilt, even though he was a police officer himself.
• • •
Just before reaching Verona, Blum smiles. She has abducted a man, just like Mark’s hero, she has chopped him into pieces and put the pieces in caskets. She thinks of the hearse, the Funerary Institute, the cold room, the preparation room. Perfect conditions. Blum’s screenplay is better.
• • •
Blum drives on. She is composed, almost indifferent. She knows the peace that comes from within, even when your world has been turned upside down. She drives straight on. Just as she steered the boat so long ago. In the sunlight, eight years before. There’s nothing to stop her now. It’s the middle of the night, and Trieste lies just ahead. Herbert Jaunig is still alive. If she drives really slowly she can hear his groans, and the wheels passing over the asphalt. The sound of the wind, the car engine, and that muffled bellowing, distorted by the gag. Pain, despair, fear. Blum drives on without pity. He is still breathing, he can speak, and he will speak. They’re nearly there. Just down the winding roads to the harbor. The familiar pier, the Lanterna di Trieste, the old yacht, the sea.