Two women stand among the graves near the entrance to the graveyard. Theres almost passed them before she noticed them. Automatically, without intending to, she looked their way. The women moved even closer together, trying to hide behind the gravestones. They looked to old Theres like big black crows. She didn’t need to hear their voices to know what they were whispering to each other. ‘Look, her over there, that’s Zauner’s wife.’
‘Ooh, how she slinks over the graveyard! Fancy her daring to come here on a day like this!’
‘The old man killed Afra on account of that bastard child.’
‘Went with a Frenchman, Afra, didn’t she? And then her own father killed her. It’s a sin and a shame.’
‘But you never know, maybe there was more to it. Old Zauner was locked up once before, under the Nazis. Once a convict always a convict, that’s what they say.’
‘That story about the Frenchman, I know all about that. Heard it from my sister-in-law who married over in Polzhausen, that’s where Afra worked as a waitress.’
‘There’s bad blood in that family.’
Theres went on, acting as if she hadn’t seen the two women. Since the terrible thing happened the villagers put their heads together when they saw her coming. It wasn’t the dead that you had to fear, it was the living.
They had all turned up for the funeral. The whole graveyard had been full, she had never seen so many people all at once before. They had been standing on the graves and even the graveyard wall. Everyone wanted to cast a glance at the new grave. And they had all hoped that Johann would be there as well.
‘Old Zauner the murderer.’
But they hadn’t let him come home for the funeral, which was just as well. He wouldn’t have understood, just as he didn’t understand so much else going on around him recently. Every day she went to the graveyard, and she went to church on Sunday, and once a month they let her visit Johann. Every time she saw him she was more frightened than ever; he was only a shadow of his former self. He often didn’t even recognize her now when she visited him. And when Theres began talking about Afra and the child, it seemed to her that he didn’t know who she meant. To her, that state of mind was intolerable, for it meant taking her daughter and her grandson away from her for a second time.
*
Zauner’s wife pushed the watering can down into the water in the stone trough with both hands. She watched air bubbles rise from the inside of the can. At first she had meant to stay away from the procession on All Saints’ Day, but then she had gone after all. She had waited right at the back, and hadn’t gone to stand by the grave until the last people had left after the procession round the churchyard.
She took the heavy watering can out of the water and went back along the rows of graves to Afra’s. The gravel crunched at every step she took. She put the can down beside the grave, broke off the faded stems of the flowers, put them aside and watered the rest. Then she filled the font with holy water. She put her hand in her jacket pocket and was going to take out the candle to be lit for Afra’s soul, when she heard a voice.
‘Giving them a drink to moderate the torments of purgatory, are you?’
Theres turned. Hetsch was standing behind her.
‘Oh, you gave me such a fright! What are you doing, still here? The procession is over. Why aren’t you at the inn with the others?’
Theres took the candle out of her pocket.
‘Maybe there’s something driving me on? Like those poor souls supposed to walk over the graves tonight?’
‘What do you mean by that?’ The old woman gave him an enquiring look.
‘Didn’t you ever hear about it, Frau Zauner? Tonight, folk can see who the dead will come to take away next year. Or maybe it’s just a guilty conscience keeps me on the move, same as you. You did see me out there on the day it happened, didn’t you?’
‘I didn’t see anyone. I was out and about all day.’ Theres was about to turn away, but Hetsch had a firm hold on her arm.
‘But you were there, at least you were there first thing, I heard the noise.’
‘No such thing. I was in Einhausen, Hetsch. Or that terrible thing would never have happened.’
Hetsch let go of her and stood there, his fingers fumbling with his jacket. He was looking past her at the gravestone, and suddenly he looked small and thin, although she didn’t even come up to his shoulder. All the assertiveness he liked to show was gone.
‘I always liked seeing Afra, and that day I wanted to know. I wanted to know if she’d bend or break. I thought I’d stay until she said yes, but then it all turned out differently and I went away.’
‘If you saw anything, Hetsch, you must tell the police.’
Hetsch straightened up. It was as if a different man were suddenly standing in front of her.
‘I didn’t see anything. But I wanted to tell you I really did like Afra a lot. I honestly did.’
Then he turned and walked away. Theres stood there watching him go until his figure was lost in the twilight. Finally she took out her matches and lit the candle she was holding.
I shouldn’t have gone out that day, she thought. He’s right, it’s my guilty conscience drives me here. I place the eternal light here for you so that the little one won’t be afraid in the night. When you needed me, Afra, I wasn’t there.
When Theres walked back to the churchyard gate past the rows of graves, it was dark, and only the lights burning on the graves lit the churchyard up a little.
She thought of what Hetsch had said about the dead, and how they would come looking for the one who was to follow them in the coming year. But the only person Theres saw walking over the graves that evening had been Hetsch himself. She made the sign of the cross.
‘God have mercy on his soul.’
From the evidence of the police officer Hermann Irgang, now retired, eighteen years after the events concerned
There’s something else I’d like to say here. Our investigations at the time weren’t confined to Johann Zauner as the possible murderer. We kept our eyes open, we looked in all directions, even though the father had behaved very strangely from the first.
The war was only two years ago, so there were all kinds of odd characters drifting about. Many people came out from the city wanting to barter something: clothes and pictures in exchange for butter, eggs and sausage. Now and then there were some who might have frightened you, they were going around in such a ragged state. Of course we looked carefully at that sort, because we’d heard that there were two young journeymen roaming the countryside at that time. And when some people said they’d also been seen on Zauner’s farm, of course we pricked up our ears, and we did all we could to find them.
At the time it wasn’t so easy to find an itinerant. In addition, we didn’t have names, just the fact that they were two young fellows and they’d been sleeping in a hay barn the night before the murder.
I couldn’t have sworn to it that we were really going to find them, but we did manage to get on their trail.
Unfortunately it soon turned out that we’d gone to all that trouble for nothing, because they weren’t able to give us any information. They did make statements saying they’d passed the house, but with the best will in the world they couldn’t say whether it had been that particular day or a day or so earlier. And they couldn’t tell us anything else that might have helped with our inquiries.
I don’t remember now who it was that questioned them, it ought really to be in the files, but once everyone knew old Zauner had confessed the records probably weren’t written up. People weren’t as particular about such things then as they are today.
The suspect had confessed, and the young fellows couldn’t tell us anything useful about the crime, so we just let them go again. What else could we have done? There wouldn’t have been any point in questioning them again, we had no legal handle against them, and if a man hasn’t seen anything then he hasn’t seen anything, and no amount of questions are going to change that.
At the time the news that Zauner had confessed was going around like wildfire, but even without a confession everything pointed to him from the start. It wasn’t just the endless quarrels with his daughter, his odd behaviour – he had scratches on his arms that he couldn’t explain to us, as his family doctor said at the time. I can’t say whether he was also examined by a doctor from the courts. We really didn’t take the easy way out; in the end he was the only possible murderer.