What was morality anyway? Helmut asked himself. Wasn’t it simply being caught and punished for what you did? That was ‘wrong.’ Or escaping responsibility for your crime? That was ‘right.’ Wasn’t that the rotten scheme? Helmut knew no one else would understand his reasons. He didn’t need to wait for anyone’s approval. The rational calculation of his murderous plan unfolded in the weeks after his return to New Haven. It started as a detailed dream, then became a blueprint and finally seized him as an inevitability that awaited only the crepuscule of this day.
Helmut didn’t want to slip on the ice outside and inadvertently plunge the nine-inch stainless steel Cutco knife into his chest. He dropped the knife into his backpack, collected the notes from the research he had done the night before at Sterling Library and added a short sequel to the Compilation that the professor expected this week. He was late for work.
Helmut worried that the long blade of the Cutco knife would rip his backpack, so he tore off a piece of cardboard from an abandoned box on Bradley Street and wedged it around the tip of the blade. The streets were empty. Everyone, except a few graduate students, had left for Christmas vacation. Yale had shut down to avoid paying exorbitant utility bills. The blanket of winter cold was oppressive. The German department was holding its last faculty meeting of the year that night to discuss the schedule for reviewing incoming graduate applications and to vote on several faculty appointments for next year. Werner Hopfgartner would be at this meeting. Afterward, he would probably have a drink with a few colleagues in the faculty room. The department maintained a stock of expensive liquor for its senior members. Then the professor would walk home, as he always did. Werner Hopfgartner would toddle down Hillhouse to Sachem, then to Whitney Avenue, just across the Hamden town line, and past Edgehill Park. Whitney was more like a highway at that point, flanked by a narrow sidewalk. On one side of the walk, thick evergreens sat atop a hill; on the other, a snow bank was often piled high. It would be like walking in a ravine. At that spot, the professor would be momentarily hidden from the street view. The streets would be dark and abandoned. There, Helmut would wait for him. His hands trembled inside his sleeves.
When he reached Harkness Hall, his face was numb from the cold. Helmut patted his cheeks, stomped his shoes on the thick webbed mat at the entrance and pushed open the foyer doors. Inside, the air was pleasantly warm. His footsteps echoed down the cavernous hallway, and in the empty classrooms. Downstairs, in the maze of offices and seminar rooms, it felt even more deserted. The lights were off. A faraway door slammed shut. Helmut found his office door and turned on the bright fluorescent light and closed the door behind him.
His first shot of caffeine woke him up. Helmut turned on his computer. Everything had to be normal. He had to work as if nothing would happen that night. No little mistake could bring the suspicion of murder back to him. He had purchased the Cutco knife long ago, at a garage sale on Bishop Street. He would get rid of it as soon as the deed was done.
The location he had selected was perfect. He had imagined the scenario, and its possible variations, a thousand times. A week ago he had visited the site. It had been empty. Cars seldom passed through that part of Whitney Avenue at that hour. It was the professor’s regular walk home from Yale. Street crime in New Haven was rampant. Just this semester, two drug dealers had shot each other, and an undergraduate had been caught in the crossfire. Who would assume the professor’s death was anything but another random tragedy in this godforsaken town?
And afterward, Helmut would stay out of sight. School was officially over. Only three working days were left before Christmas vacation began for Yale employees. He would have minimal contact with people during that time. The chairman and several other people were leaving in the morning for a conference in Europe. It was possible that Helmut and a couple of the secretaries would be the only people around to mourn the gruesome death of Werner Hopfgartner. Helmut might even shed a tear. But the tear would be for Anja Litvak. The tear would be for the truth.
It had taken more than two weeks after he returned from Italy before Helmut overcame his wild hatred for Werner Hopfgartner. For a few days, Helmut simply wanted to strangle, then and there, the distracted old man who so casually strolled the halls of Yale, absorbed in his bourgeois, academic life, far removed from the blood of his past. But each day, Helmut forced himself to think about his hatred, not to act on it. A drastic act would only hinder the progress of true justice, Helmut reasoned. The truth would have its final incarnation in his careful plan, and his escape. What was certainly not needed were official accusations, and a careful consideration of the ‘facts,’ and the considered resolution that something had to be done, and the conclusion, from informed and expert opinion, that there did indeed exist possible transgressions, but not quite enough, of course, for any serious punishment. Only swift justice was necessary. Justice after decades of escaping blame and reveling in a life of lies. Yes, justice! Helmut declared to himself. Real action! Real morality! A morality of blood and consequences and impact! Enough with debated half-truths and lies and obfuscations! Enough with this emasculation of the living truth! What was not wanted was another philosophical seminar of nothing, from nothing, for the purpose of nothing. So Helmut did not immediately smash the professor’s bulbous face into the stone walls of Harkness. He would take his time. He would use his well of hate to plan what should be done, to detail the act that would fulfill his moral reason. Imagining what he would do to Hopfgartner gave Helmut a strange, fluttery pleasure.
Helmut took a swig of coffee. He locked the door and turned off the overhead fluorescent light. He unzipped his backpack, took out the knife. It was nine inches long, shiny, with a weighty feel to it. Helmut discovered the most comfortable position was to hold it with his palm underneath the handle, his arm ready to plunge into his target. The blood, he thought, might disgust him. But the deed would not. Certainly the wrinkly pink face of Hopfgartner, shocked at his own bitter end, would be enough to carry Helmut through any difficulties.
It would only be a sweet and total victory if Helmut escaped detection. He had imagined every contingency. He knew how the investigating authorities would view the crime. Nobody would implicate him. The deed would soon be done and he could begin again. With a washcloth, Helmut meticulously wiped every inch of the blade and the handle to rid the knife of his fingerprints. He dropped it into his backpack and zipped the flap shut.
His nerves could not be a problem. Helmut had nothing to worry about. Not only had he planned everything in his head, but he was right. His act was right. He tried to push away the possibility that at the crucial moment his mind would be filled with doubt. It was simple. He would take the knife and kill him. He would make it appear like a robbery or an assault. He would leave quickly, discard the knife and reach his apartment safely. The next day he would be shocked upon hearing the news. He would be shocked and go about his business in mourning for the old bastard. In time, the brouhaha would end, Helmut would take his vacation, and by the time he returned to Yale the incident would begin its gentle fall into the oblivion of the past. Simple, he repeated to himself. Everything would be straightforward and simple. He would not lose his nerve.
The act was carefully planned. If he failed, it would be a failure to carry out an almost mechanical process. It would be a failure to perform. He had to be clear about his purpose and the simple steps to achieve that purpose. There could be no ambiguity here, no room for conflicting emotions. Maybe his head would reel a bit, but he would control it. His will would control any tendency to lose his mind at the moment of truth.
Helmut paced inside his small office and poured himself another cup of coffee. He pulled open the desk drawers, then forgot what he was looking for. On the computer screen, the rows and rows of amber words seemed to call him; the incessant hum of the machine seemed impatient, too. He had done no work at all. Who would care about Hopfgartner’s work by tomorrow? He just needed to relax. He still had hours to go. He had to be patient.
Trying to get rid of his headache, Helmut massaged the top of his head, his temples and his neck. He walked hurriedly to the restroom and washed his hands. He walked back to his office, locked his door again and sat quietly in the half-light of the small, barred window behind him. He tried to work, but his head throbbed. He heard footsteps in the hallway, and his heart froze. The steps stopped in front of his door. The doorknob rattled.
“Helmut, are you in there?” Ariane asked.
He stayed quiet.
Oh, Ariane! My most precious love! You are but the bride of a monster! How can I tell you what’s in my heart? How? Maybe you would laugh at me. Maybe you would recoil in horror. Your eyes, yes, the mere sight of your eyes! That would be enough to dissolve this hatred into specks of dirt. I don’t know, Ariane. Suddenly I don’t know anything anymore. Why, dear God, did you come for me? Why just at the moment when I need to cut away from all flesh, when I am about to leap into this murderous act? You would call it ‘despicable.’ You would turn away from me if you only knew! That would be worse than killing myself. That would be a million suicides. Ariane, what should I do? Am I a raving lunatic? What’s wrong with me? Murder? Am I completely out of mind? Will I really kill Werner Hopfgartner? With a knife? What demons have possessed me! That almost seems laughable. Will I shed human blood with a knife? Absurd! Maybe I won’t do it. Maybe this is just a nightmare in my waking hours. Maybe … I don’t know anymore.
But Anja. I hear Anja’s voice. Maybe I am insane. I hear her crying. I see her alone in the trees. I remember being alone and humiliated. I remember, too, the fat little boy hiding in the bathroom. And I see this man, Ariane. I see this evil man, Ariane. He laughs everyday still. He has had years of laughter. He has triumphed over the screams of others, he has triumphed with blood on his hands. And he laughs still. God has cursed us! He has either cursed us or He was never here to begin with. We’ve pretended God was here for our own sanity! That’s the truth! We’ve pretended evil is punished and good is rewarded. A perfect scheme! With certain qualifications and explications for any exceptions or irregularities! Of course, God is with us! To protect us, to make our world safe and good! Hah! The ultimate lie in a world of lies! Just open your eyes! Look for yourself! You will see exactly what I see!
Oh, Ariane, forgive me. What I am about to do is not a ‘crime.’ You will not agree, I dare not tell you! This act will save my soul. How can I live in this world if I don’t act? I would lose my right to be a human being. And yes, you will say, Why should human beings care about the truth? It’s excessive, this caring. It’s bizarre to want to live in the truth, is it not? Real truth-seekers, those who would die or kill for the truth, they seem out of place somehow. Better to have that bureaucratic instinct and call for committee hearings to resolve the matter! But I will not do that. I can’t do that. Maybe what I will do has nothing to do with the truth. Maybe that is just another fantasy from the same place that created God. In that case, I will kill him simply because I want to. For no reason at all. I will kill him because of our humiliation and destruction and because of their laughter. I will kill him to see it can be done. I will kill him because I am alive and because he will be dead. I will kill him because I don’t know anymore. I will kill him simply to know I can. Darkness, give me the strength!
After a while, Helmut heard Ariane walk away.
The faculty meeting was scheduled to start at 6:00 p.m. It was now 5:00 p.m. Helmut’s stomach churned. He had forgotten to eat lunch, and now he felt weak and nervous. Harkness Hall was deathly silent. Everyone had fled the upstairs offices for home. Where should he wait for the meeting to end? How would he find out if Hopfgartner and the other professors were having a drink afterwards or simply going home? The faculty conference room was on the third floor. The faculty lounge was next to it.
At 6:45 p.m. Helmut closed his office door, the backpack slung over his shoulder. He trudged up the stone steps in thumps that seemed preposterously loud to him. On the third floor, the hallways were empty. He heard faint voices at the end of the hallway, from inside the conference room. Through a narrow door window, Helmut glimpsed the faculty of the German department around a huge table. A professor Helmut didn’t recognize was speaking.
My God! Helmut realized. Werner Hopfgartner wasn’t there!
Helmut craned his neck to scan the room. Maybe the professor was behind the wall to the left. Helmut needed to be sure. It was quite possible the old man had skipped the meeting entirely. That would be a disaster. Should he wait like a fool? Helmut found a secluded spot in the stairwell at the far end of the hallway. He could hide behind the double doors, but still keep watch through the narrow door windows. No one would use those stairs to leave the building. From there, he could see the door of the conference room and entrance to the faculty lounge. Yet he would be hidden.
Why had he been waiting in his office? Hopfgartner might have already escaped. Helmut would never be able to summon the nerve—the will—to do this again. Even now, as he waited, the absurdity of his plan shook his bones. What was he thinking? Was he really planning to slit a man’s throat with a knife? Was he was completely out of his mind? But Hopfgartner had sacrificed an innocent girl to satisfy his selfish pleasures, Helmut reminded himself. Hopfgartner embodied every self-righteous social climber without a conscience. The old man deserved to die.
A door creaked open down the hall. Helmut heard a loud conversation. The meeting was breaking up. Two professors went quickly down the main stairwell. Several others entered the faculty lounge. Still others lingered in the conference doorway, arguing, laughing.
And there was Hopfgartner! He chatted with a young colleague, Zachary Kohl, who had joined the department last year. They strolled into the lounge. For some unknown reason, Helmut nearly burst into the hallway and screamed.
Helmut’s plan was on track. Thus far everything was perfect. He had to wait for the professor to leave the faculty lounge. He checked his watch. It was already 8:20 p.m. The longer the old man stayed in the lounge, the better. The later it got, the fewer people would be on the streets of New Haven. Helmut could enjoy the cover of darkness. His plan could finally reach its perfect moment. Everything had to be right. Everything had to be absolutely perfect or he would not risk this folly. If events unfolded perfectly, then the plan and the deed would also come to be, without question. This seemed clear to Helmut Sanchez. This incredible perspicacity overwhelmed him with a giddiness that threatened to erupt out of control.
He heard a door slam shut below him. Then footsteps. On the stairs, rising toward him. In a few moments he would be caught! He could only escape into the hallway, but faculty members still lingered at the conference room door. The footsteps were a floor below him. Helmut stuck out his head into the hallway. The last straggler walked into the lounge. He pushed through the stairwell doors, hurried across the hallway and slipped into an empty seminar room. The stairwell doors fell softly shut. The footsteps rose to the top of the stairs. And stopped.
Helmut glanced nervously around the seminar room. He had forgotten his backpack in the stairwell!
The stairwell doors opened. A security guard walked out. He was holding Helmut’s backpack! In a moment the guard would open it and find the knife. Then he would discover Helmut’s name on his papers and books. Helmut was panicking.
The guard trudged down the hall, the backpack slung over his shoulder. At the doorway of the lounge, he smiled sheepishly at the congregation of German professors drinking on the ruby leather couches.
Helmut dashed out the seminar room and through the stairwell door, and raced down the narrow steps to the first floor. He had to cut off the guard and retrieve his backpack. A rage exploded inside of him like a flash of lightning.
He caught up to the guard outside Harkness Hall, under the smoky amber lights of Cross Campus.
“Hey! Excuse me!” The guard turned around slowly, with the chubby face of a grown child. Immediately Helmut’s spirits soared.
“Hi,” the security guard said, with a heavy horse-like breath in the December chill.
“That’s my backpack. I was talking to one of the professors on the third floor, right before the faculty meeting—I work here—and I left it by mistake,” Helmut said, out of breath, faking a subservient mixture of modesty and embarrassment. His mind was racing. He fought the urge to just yank the pack out of the guard’s hands and run. He reminded himself to stay calm, but his face was perspiring. “That’s my backpack all right.”
“This is yours?” the fat guard asked warily, holding up the heavy pack at eye-level.
“Yes, sir.”
“Well, it’s a good thing I came by, mister,” the guard said, genially. “‘Cause, you know, all sorts of things get stolen at Yale. They blame the bums. And maybe those guys do snip a few things now and then. But I tell you, I’ve seen students with sticky fingers too.”
The guard still held the pack at his side. He wasn’t exactly frowning at Helmut, yet his smile was gone.
“I believe it. Sign of the times, I guess,” Helmut blurted out. The sweat dripped down the side of his face. He looked around. Cross Campus was deserted. Their bodies were practically hidden by the evergreen bushes at the entrance to Harkness Hall. Helmut shivered at the thought that had slipped into his mind.
“I was going to return it to ‘Lost and Found,’ but I guess I could give it to you right now.”
“Thanks.”
“If I was going by the book, and I usually do, I should turn it in. Don’t you think?”
“Well, yes. But it’s mine.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt it at all. You look like you’re telling the truth. I’m sure you’re an honest guy,” the guard said with a sly grin, shifting his heavy torso on his thick, stumpy legs. “You say you were talking to a professor in the hallway before the meeting?”
“That’s right. I really have to go. I’m in a bit of a hurry.”
“Well, that’s the weird part. Not that you’re in a hurry. Everyone at Yale’s in a hurry. Zip, zip, zip. That’s how I see them. Zipping off to the library. Zipping off to class. Zipping off to play Frisbee. No, that’s not the problem. You say you work here?”
“Yes, in the German department.”
“Ah, German! Got my worse grade in Mrs. Peterson’s German class in high school. Never got the hang of it. The verbs at the end, in the middle, split up. What a mess!”
“Excuse me,” Helmut interrupted, now incensed. The idiot was toying with him. He would hand over the backpack now or Helmut would snatch it away! No, that would be stupid, Helmut reasoned. He should calm down, and just play the game. “I’m sorry to sound rude, but I have a lot of work to do and I have to get going.”
“Well, the problem is I found this backpack in the third-floor stairwell, not the hallway. That’s why I think I should go by the book. Nothing against you, of course.”
“Look. I don’t know how it got in the stairwell. But if you turn it in to ‘Lost and Found,’ I’m doomed. I lose a night’s work and maybe more. I don’t know if I can come back to get it before the Christmas vacation. I don’t want to,” Helmut said, his eyes feverish, quick and fierce. “Please look in the bag.”
“What?”
“Open the bag and look inside. My name’s Helmut Sanchez. Just check any paper or book inside. It’ll have my name on it.”
“Well, I don’t know. We don’t really have the right to inspect anyone’s personal belongings.”
“Please, just look in the bag. It’s perfectly fine with me,” Helmut said, fighting to mask the desperation in his voice. The deep wrinkles on the guard’s gray uniform seemed strangely to incite him, shifting languorously with every movement of the guard’s massive body. Suddenly Helmut was cold again, and his hands were shaking. He seemed on the brink of an explosion.
“Okay, let’s see,” the guard said almost cheerfully. He tugged at the thick, black zipper that sealed half the pack. He opened it only a hand’s width, felt around, frowned slightly and began to pull something out. It was a paperback English dictionary. He opened it. “Okay. Here it is, ‘Helmut Sanchez.’ Just like you said. Sorry for all the trouble.”
“Thank you very much,” Helmut said, the backpack in his hands. He exhaled in relief. “Thanks again.”
The guard waddled away with a wave of his hand. Helmut opened the backpack in the foyer. The knife was where he had left it. He hurried up the alternate stairwell to the third floor of Harkness Hall.
He peeked inside the faculty lounge. Professor Hopfgartner was sipping one last shot of bourbon before dinner, his legs crossed like a young woman’s legs, modest, casual, seductive. Hopfgartner smiled, uttered a brief sentence, and stood up. Helmut barely got out of sight before Hopfgartner exited the lounge door.
Helmut hurried down three flights of stairs and waited in the basement shadows for the professor. Finally, Werner Hopfgartner appeared, walking slowly. He unlocked his office door. A few minutes later, the professor emerged with a long black coat, a vermilion silk scarf tightly wound around his neck, a cone-like wool cap on his head, his Austrian, wolf’s head walking stick in one hand, a small leather briefcase in the other. He locked his office door and exited the building on College Street. Helmut ran to the Wall Street exit. The backpack thumped against his back.
Shifting shadows danced in the empty streets. Not one car was parked next to Scroll and Key or Sprague Hall. Helmut hid next to the thick evergreens of Woodbridge Hall and waited for the professor to cross Wall Street on College. There he was!
Helmut shook his legs over the cold ground. He made his way slowly toward College, and crossed the street and turned left toward Hillhouse, keeping the professor in sight. On Hillhouse, just in front of St. Mary’s Church, Helmut saw the professor walking briskly ahead, faster than his own pace. Helmut wanted Hopfgartner to be one or two blocks in front, to make sure the old man took his normal route home. Once the professor started up Whitney Avenue—the only street that could take him to Blake Road—then Helmut could run on a parallel street, like Prospect, overtake the professor and cross back onto Whitney near Edgehill Park. There he would wait for him at the thicket of trees across the Mill River dam.
The professor hiked up Hillhouse, nimbly stepping over chunks of ice and ridges of snow piled on the curbs and driveways. With each crisp step, Hopfgartner touched the metal tip of the walking stick on the ground and swung it forward, like a pendulum. He disappeared inside long stretches of darkness. Helmut caught only glimpses of the old man in the amber light that filtered through the branches.
It was all unfolding so fast. It seemed as if Werner Hopfgartner himself might have been hurrying to meet his destiny on Whitney Avenue. Helmut’s heart beat savagely inside his chest. Sweat drenched his face. He followed a few hundred feet behind the professor. The moon was nowhere. An overcast sky of lead gray clouds hovered above them like a claustrophobic ceiling. Helmut felt like he was falling into a bottomless pit. He inhaled deeply and tried to control his breathing.
The professor turned right on Sachem, toward Whitney Avenue. Helmut stopped at the corner and watched the professor turn at the Peabody Museum on Whitney.
Helmut started to run. The footing on the slate sidewalk of Prospect was treacherous. No one had shoveled away the snow. The sidewalk was intermittently covered with mounds and ridges of packed ice. His knees buckled and almost gave way. The professor would take about forty minutes to walk up Whitney Avenue, to the Mill River dam.
Helmut could have easily beaten him by three or four blocks if he had trotted leisurely up the hill on Prospect. But he rushed into the night like a madman. He sprinted over snow banks, sliding and slipping. His face glistened with perspiration. His cotton shirt was soaked under his black leather jacket, which gleamed like shiny plastic. A cat jumped out of a bush and streaked across the street. As he turned back to face the sidewalk, he skipped over a patch of ice, lost his balance and crashed face first onto the sidewalk, his backpack bouncing off his back and into the gutter.
Helmut jumped up, picked up his bag and started running again. His right shoulder ached, and the right side of his chest felt as if his lung had trouble expanding. Glancing at the base of his left thumb, he picked out a chunk of gravel lodged into the skin. Blood oozed from punctures in his palm.
He almost slipped and fell again at Canner Street. The pain in his chest seemed to expand with the warmth of his body. His shoulder throbbed. He stopped, checked his right knee and discovered a rip in his trousers. A nasty scrape. More blood. The injury stung sharply. Blood was trickling down his leg.
His thick black hair matted against his scalp, Helmut finally turned and sprinted down East Rock Road. At the corner of Whitney, his knee buckled for a second. He thought he saw Hopfgartner striding up the avenue, about five blocks away. Helmut couldn’t be sure, but he knew he was far ahead of the professor. He ran past the entrance to Edgehill Park. The closed Amoco gas station was across the street and next to it was the barn-like museum for Eli Whitney. A few cars raced around the perilous bend adjacent to the Mill River, heading toward Whitneyville. At the Mill River dam, past the wooden bridge next to the museum, Helmut finally slowed to a walk. He could hear his heart beating inside his chest.
The paved sidewalk ended and became a narrow path stomped out of the weeds along Whitney Avenue. Snow had been pushed against the curb in uneven mounds by the snowplow. At the bend toward Whitneyville, the silent river snaked closer to the road on the opposite side. At this point, the walking path was nestled between Whitney on one side and a steep hill on the other. Pine trees and brush covered this hill. Along this secluded stretch, several hundred feet from Blake Road, the path veered into the hill and away from the road. A space of several strides was hidden not only from the houses high on the hill but also from the cars on Whitney. It was a byway through the trees. Helmut found the perfect spot behind a row of bushes and the trunk of a pine tree. He crouched, a knee on the ground, catching his breath.
It was inky black in that small bend in the pathway. Through the bramble of leaves and branches, Helmut could hardly see the road and the river beyond. Behind him the leafy underbrush rose precipitously. He had a clear view of the entrance to and exit from this bend. A streetlight by the Mill River dam, a single bulb of amber light, barely illuminated the shadowy murk. He yanked open his backpack and almost plunged his hand straight in. Was he out of his mind? He patted the inside pockets of his leather jacket and found his gloves. Why wasn’t he wearing gloves when he fell on Prospect? He thrust his hands into the furry lining. He knew his blood would smear the gloves’ inside, but what choice did he have? Then he gripped the knife, which felt heavier than before, like a sword, and set it down beside him. He closed his backpack and pushed it out of the way. The knife was in his left hand. Through the gloves, a sharp coldness surrounded his fingertips.
Helmut heard only the wind through the pine trees. The street was quiet. He waited for what seemed like hours, and still nothing. Crouching on his toes, he shifted his weight around; his left hand ached. Where was Werner Hopfgartner? Had he taken a different way home? Helmut’s head was dizzy. Would he truly murder Werner Hopfgartner? Minor hotspots of pain erupted over his body. Helmut imagined Anja Litvak in pain, and all alone. He imagined Anja in the trees above him, waiting too, and wanting what he wanted. But why should he be the one? Why should he soil his hands too? He was not like Werner Hopfgartner! He wasn’t! What on earth had his evil mind done to him? Helmut thought, exhaling for what appeared to be the first time that night. Helmut was about to get up and run down Whitney Avenue, but then he heard the distinctive click of the cane on the ice and distant footsteps.
The footsteps were getting closer, just coming around the bend. A wave of fear suddenly hit Helmut’s face. What was he doing? Why was he here? Bits of snow cracked underfoot, not more than a few feet away. A certain elation mixed with dread overtook Helmut like a red cloud. Werner Hopfgartner took the slight turn of the pathway into the trees. The knife dropped from Helmut’s hand and clanged against a rock.
“Who’s there? I know someone’s there!”
Helmut hesitated for a moment. His vision was blurred. Tears streamed down his cheeks. “You bastard! You horrible bastard! I know about Mühldorf! I know about Anja!”
“Helmut? What? Is that you?”
“You monster!” Helmut screamed at Professor Hopfgartner, standing a few feet away in the half-light. “You disgusting animal! You don’t deserve to live!” Amid the shadows, Helmut could see and not see the professor’s blue eyes. Hopfgartner held up his walking stick with the lance-like metal edge pointed at him. “I know!”
“So you do. I see,” said the professor in a steady, deep voice Helmut had never heard before. It reminded him of a bear’s growl. Hopfgartner planted his legs apart and grabbed his walking stick with both hands.
“I found out everything! I have the documents! You liar! You murderer!” The blood pumped wildly through Helmut’s head in a red frenzy, and he felt dizzy. He wanted to vomit.
“You have been even a better researcher than I imagined. But this truth will stay between us. It will never escape these shadows, you young idiot.”
“I will tell everyone, you monster!”
“What a stupid, stupid boy you are!”
Suddenly Hopfgartner’s figure disappeared into the shadows. A heavy blow from the walking stick’s sharp metal wolf’s head smacked Helmut square on the left temple. Stars erupted in front of Helmut’s eyes, and he crumpled to the ground. Another blow struck him on the neck, and another cracked against his ribs. Hopfgartner was on top of him, the stick gripped in his hands. The stick against Helmut’s throat. The professor was choking Helmut.
For a second, Helmut seemed to lose consciousness. The moment was almost lost. Then he feebly grabbed at the old man’s throat, flailing with his other arm. In the darkness, Hopfgartner’s sweat or spit dripped into Helmut’s eyes. The walking stick was pressed further into Helmut’s larynx with what seemed extraordinary power. The young man gagged, and his legs kicked weakly at the old man’s back. In one final gasp, Helmut struggled to free himself and reached for the ground behind his head. Helmut’s hand touched the knife’s handle amid the pine needles. Coughing and almost unconscious, he clutched it tightly, lurched forward with all his might and jabbed the knife into Hopfgartner’s chest. The professor moaned loudly, dropped the walking stick across Helmut’s chest, and fell back.
Helmut Sanchez struggled to his feet, stood back, astonished. The blood rushed back to his head. The knife was lying next to Hopfgartner. The professor was gripping his chest, quivering and coughing. In the shadows, everything seemed in slow motion. Helmut grabbed the knife. He jammed his boot onto the professor’s throat. With both arms upraised, Helmut thrust the knife home, deep into Werner Hopfgartner’s abdomen. Blood sprayed over his gloves and jacket. The professor screamed hoarsely and shivered to a stop. The blade had hit ice on the other side. A pair of headlights suddenly flashed across the road and disappeared.
Helmut looked frantically around him. He was alone. He had to think. He knelt over the professor and tore open the top buttons of the coat. A pool of blood spread over the cold ground. The professor’s coat and shirt were soaked with blood. Helmut grabbed the professor’s wallet and picked up the knife. He had blood smeared on his jacket. His pants were streaked with it too. He wiped the knife clean on the pine needles on the ground, grabbed a handful of leaves and wiped himself clean. He was panicking. Helmut grabbed his backpack and dashed down Whitney Avenue, the very picture of a macabre madman, blood-smeared, a nine-inch knife in one hand, his eyes dilated in wild abandon.
What was he thinking? Immediately he ran off the road, stepping into the bushes adjacent to the Mill River. He ran up to the river and flung the knife a good twenty meters beyond the water’s edge, the knife spinning like a Ferris wheel of death, blade over handle. It splashed dully into the water. Another car drove by. Helmut waited, and then jumped out of the bushes and sprinted down Whitney to East Rock Road. He turned west, toward Orange Street. The sidewalks were dark and empty. At East Rock Park, he pulled the wallet open, pinched out whatever money and credit cards he could find, and jammed the wallet deep into a trash barrel. He was out of breath and suddenly cold. What had he done? My God, what had he done?
At the bridge on East Rock Road, Helmut wadded up the money and flung it into the river. He found a secluded spot off the road and buried the credit cards after scraping a shallow hole in the cold dirt. He covered the spot with leaves and twigs. Now his knees were muddy. Blood was caked on his leather jacket. His gloves were grimy and black. He stood for a moment, collecting his wits, listening to the river. He was almost home. One more thing had to be done, he thought. His clothes. He turned on Orange Street and shunned the streetlights, zigzagging through the neighborhood like an animate shadow. In the darkness, from a distance, no one would notice the blood on his clothes. Only the appearance of his gloves was grotesque: sooty black and smeared with blood.
At the door to his apartment, Helmut peered up and down Orange Street. Then he went inside. He stripped off his clothes, including his shoes, and dumped everything into a plastic garbage bag. Only his leather jacket he spared, and his belt, which seemed untouched.
He was naked. His wounds suddenly throbbed again. His throat was a bright pink, and one side of his head was tender to the touch. He tightly tied the bag, shoved it underneath the kitchen sink and began to clean his jacket. By the time he was satisfied he had removed every trace of dirt and blood, the leather was dripping wet. Helmut hung the jacket in his bedroom. Then he turned on the shower. The steamy water at first scalded his skin. But then it soothed him. One side of his head pulsed as if an embedded worm ached to escape. The water sluiced over the wounds on his knee, cleansing him. Helmut found flaps of torn skin and pulled them off, wincing. His back ached, and he wanted to stay under the water’s onrush forever, but he had too much to do.
He dressed in jeans, a T-shirt and a brown sweater with frayed edges. He had to destroy the clothes in the bag. He couldn’t just throw everything away. It was almost midnight. Frau Hopfgartner had probably called the police already. They might be searching for the professor at that very moment. Helmut had no time to lose.
Helmut peered out his third-floor window. Nothing moved. He grabbed the plastic bag under the sink, threw in the stack of newspapers next to the door and ferreted out a matchbook from a vase full of matchbooks in his bedroom. On Pearl Street, he looked like a criminal Santa Claus who had been reclaiming his gifts.
He crossed State Street and found a near-empty trash barrel underneath the I-91 overpass. He wadded up several sheets of newspaper, lit one and dropped it into the barrel. The lip of the barrel glowed softly with the fire inside. He fed more newspapers into it, let them burn hot and then dropped in his shirt, which burned cleanly, his underwear and socks, and finally his pants, which almost suffocated the flames. Finally, he dropped his shoes into the blaze.
As Helmut stood watching the fire, a lone figure walked toward him from the overpass shadows. A black man, an old vagrant who offered him a swig from his whiskey bottle. Helmut declined politely. The two men stared into the barrel’s firelight, their faces concentrated on it as if it were an oracle’s vision of the future. Helmut thought about leaving, but he wasn’t sleepy, and he felt safe there somehow. The old man told him, in a gravelly voice, that he was from New Orleans. He said it hadn’t been a bad winter yet, that the cold was just good enough to keep a man on his toes, but not freeze him. He had tried living in society—the old man recounted, talking to himself and talking to Helmut—but society had thrown him out. There really wasn’t any society at all, he continued. It was just nasty people, some with the mind to push you out, and others who didn’t give a shit what you did.
After half an hour, Helmut started to leave, but stopped, found his wallet, and grabbed the bills inside. He gave them all to the old man. As soon as Helmut Sanchez disappeared into the shadows, he turned around and saw his companion with a branch fishing out the shoes from the bottom of the barrel. Who would care about those half-melted shoes anyway? The soles were still good and perhaps a bit toasty in the cold night air.