I started thinking again about the Bletterbach around December 28. I read through my notes and once again began pondering what I had discovered at the courthouse in Bolzano.
On the evening of the 30th I made my move.
* * *
The woman who opened the door was tiny, with dark bobbed hair and big luminous eyes.
“Verena?” I said.
She immediately had me pegged. “You’re the film director everyone’s talking about, aren’t you? Werner’s son-in-law.”
“Salinger. Not director, screenwriter.” I showed her the bottle of Blauburgunder I had bought for the occasion. “May I come in?”
The wind was strong enough to freeze your bones, but it was only now that Verena seemed to realize. She apologized, stood aside to let me in and closed the door behind me.
“I imagine you’re looking for Max.”
“Isn’t he here?”
“He has a meeting in Bolzano. You’re out of luck, but take a seat anyway. Would you like a drink?”
“Yes, please.”
I hung up my jacket, scarf, and hat and followed her into the kitchen. Verena seated me at a table on which stood a hamper crammed with goodies. Fruit, jars of sauce, pickles, jam. All homemade.
“They look delicious.”
“The people of Siebenhoch,” she explained. “Either they want to say thank you, or they want to apologize. It’s fifty-fifty.”
I laughed with her. “Werner has also had his fill of Christmas baskets. And I’m at risk of indigestion.”
“A pity,” the woman said. “I thought I could offload some of ours onto you.”
We both laughed.
The tea was scalding hot and I had to blow on it. Verena had made herself a cup, too. I tried to imagine her in ’85, which wasn’t difficult. She couldn’t have been so different from the woman I saw now. Chief Krün’s wife looked not much more than thirty, even though she must have been pushing fifty.
“Is that bottle a thank-you or an apology?”
“Both, to tell the truth. I wanted to thank Max for not fining me and—”
Verena interrupted me, raising her eyes to heaven. “So he did his favorite number on you, too.”
“What number?”
Verena imitated her husband’s severe expression (his bad cop look). “Hey, stranger, make sure you don’t stick your fingers in your nose, around here we hate people who stick their fingers in their nose, we hang them in front of the town hall and then we practice clay pigeon shooting with their heads . . .”
The tea went down the wrong way.
“. . . using a nail gun,” she finished, winking at me.
“Yes, that number. Except in my case it was for speeding.”
“So half the bottle is a thank-you, and the other half?” she asked.
I hadn’t forgotten that Werner had his eye on me. But nor did I want to miss the opportunity to ask a few questions. So I said, half seriously and half facetiously, “We’re friends, right?”
“We’ve been friends for more than ten minutes.”
“Where I come from that’s time enough to build empires.”
“Then let’s say we’re friends. So spit it out.”
I sipped at my tea. “I’d like to ask Max about the Bletterbach.”
Verena’s smile turned sour, and a deep furrow appeared in the space between her eyebrows. This all happened in a second, then her face relaxed again.
“Didn’t they give you enough brochures at the Visitors’ Center?”
“They were wonderful,” I replied cautiously, “but I wanted to know something more specific about the killings in ’85. Simple curiosity,” I added after a pause.
“Simple curiosity,” she repeated, playing with her teacup. “Simple curiosity about one of the nastiest things that ever happened in Siebenhoch, Salinger?”
“It’s second nature to me,” I said, trying to give the words a light tone.
“Reopening old wounds? Is that also second nature to you?”
“I don’t want to seem—”
“You don’t seem, you are,” she interrupted. “Now take your bottle and get out.”
“But why?” I said, surprised by such vehemence.
“Because I haven’t been able to celebrate my birthday since 1985, is that a good enough reason for you?”
“I don’t—”
April 28. The birthday party.
Everything was clear to me now. I turned red.
I took a deep breath. “Maybe Max doesn’t agree with you. Maybe he’d like to tell me the—”
I stopped.
Hatred and pain. That was what I read on her features.
A huge amount of pain.
“It’s not up for discussion.”
“Why?”
Verena clenched her fists. “Because . . .” she replied in a low voice, wiping away a tear. “Please, Salinger. Don’t talk to him about it. I don’t want him to suffer.”
“Then why don’t you talk to me about it?”
Judging by the emotions crowding onto her face, a bloody and hard-fought battle was being waged in Verena’s mind.
I waited in silence for the outcome of the conflict.
“Promise you won’t tell him afterward?”
“I promise.”
L for liar.
B for bastard.
S for smile.
“You can be sure of it.”
“This isn’t for a film, right?”
“No, it’s a kind of hobby.”
It was an unfortunate choice of words, I admit. But if I’d told her the truth, she would have kicked me out. Not to mention that, by this point, I no longer knew what the truth was.
Was it simple curiosity that was leading me to ask all these questions? Or had the story of the Bletterbach become an obsession for me, too?
“What do you want to know?”
“Everything you know,” I replied avidly.
“What I know is that I hate that place. I haven’t set foot there since ’85.”
“Why?”
“Do you love your wife, Salinger?”
“Yes.”
“What would you feel toward a place where your wife lost a part of herself?”
“Hatred.”
“There you are. I hate the Bletterbach. And I hate the work my husband does. I hate that uniform. I hate it when he goes in search of poachers, I hate it when he does his number on the new arrivals . . .”—she looked around—“. . . and I hate these damned baskets.” She passed her hand under her nose and recovered her breath. “Max is a good person. The best. But that business has marked him, and I’d so much like to get away from here. Let the Forest Rangers, Siebenhoch, and this house go to hell. But it’s impossible. It’s like a scar . . .”—she pointed to the half moon around my eye—“. . . except that Max’s scar is here.” She placed a hand over her heart. “You can leave a place, but a scar you carry with you forever. It’s part of you.”
“I can understand that.”
“No,” Verena replied, “you can’t.”
But I could. The Beast was my witness.
“It must have been hard,” I said.
“Hard?” Verena snorted. “Hard, you say? I had to build him back up piece by piece. There were days when I wanted to leave him. To get away from here, to drop everything. To give up.”
“But you didn’t.”
“Would you have abandoned your wife?”
“I would have stayed.”
“At first he didn’t want to talk about it. I begged him to see a psychologist, but he always replied the same way. He didn’t need a doctor, he just needed a bit of time. Time, he’d say,” she whispered, shaking her head, “it was only a matter of time.”
“They say it’s the best medicine.”
“Until it kills you,” was Verena’s bitter reply. “And the story of the Bletterbach killings is a curse. Do you know about the others? Hannes killed Helene, Werner left without saying goodbye to anybody. He packed his bags and disappeared. And even before he left, there were more days when you didn’t see him around than days when you could say hello to him. He’d become another person. He was grumpy, hardly said a word. It was obvious he couldn’t stand being here anymore. Then there was Günther.”
Verena passed her hands over her arms, almost as if a shudder had run through her.
“It almost scared me, seeing him and Max sitting talking. They’d sit here for hours and hours, right here, talking and talking, with the door closed. They didn’t drink, thank God for that, but when Günther left, Max had a strange light in his eyes . . .” Verena searched for the words. “They were the eyes of a corpse, Salinger. Would you like your wife to have the eyes of a corpse?”
There was only one reply to that question. “No.”
“Then the visits grew few and far between. Günther had a girlfriend, someone local, Brigitte, and they started to get serious. He spent less time with Max, and I was happy that he was out of our way. Without Günther around, Max seemed to be better. But every year, toward the end of April . . .”
Verena started fiddling with her wedding ring.
“When it happened the first time, in ’86, I was nineteen. When you’re nineteen, death is something that happens to your grandparents or to mountaineers who slip and fall. I even thought that a party might do him good. You know, distract him.”
“You were wrong?”
“It was the first and only time I’ve seen him in a rage. No,” she cor-rected herself, “‘rage’ doesn’t do it justice. I got scared and wondered if it was worth fighting for a person who seemed out of his mind. Did I really want to spend the rest of my days with a madman? But then I realized that it wasn’t anger he was feeling, it was grief. Evi, Kurt, and Markus were his only friends and he’d found them torn to pieces. I forgave him, but I never again celebrated my birthday. Not with Max. The following year, the day before my birthday, he loaded the car and went off to his family’s old maso, to get plastered and wait for it to pass. Since then it’s become a habit, even a ritual. It’s a good compromise, and at least Max hasn’t ended up like Günther and Hannes.”
“Werner also saved himself.”
Verena made a face. “Werner’s older than Max, and he’s a different kind of person. As head of the rescue team, he’d seen all sorts. Max at the time was little more than a boy, although to me, innocent as I was, he seemed like a grown-up. Plus, Max had the telegram to keep the wound open.”
Seeing the bewildered look on my face she laughed.
“You don’t know about that, do you?”
“A telegram?”
“Do you want to see it?”
“Of course.”
Verena left the kitchen and came back with a photograph: Kurt, Max, Markus, and Evi with the wind in their hair. She took it out of its frame, and a yellowed telegram slipped out with it. Verena put the telegram on the table and smoothed it with her hands.
“This is the reason Max can’t resign himself.”
“What does it say?”
Verena showed it to me.
Geht nicht dorthin!
“Don’t go down there,” I murmured.
The date at the bottom was April 28, 1985.
“Who sent it?”
Verena sighed, as if she’d heard that question many times before. She turned the telegram over. “Oscar Grünwald. He was a colleague of Evi’s, a scientist.”
“And how . . .?”
“One of the first duties that Chief Hubner was only too happy to hand over to Max was going to get the telegrams and the urgent mail down there in Aldino. Siebenhoch was too small to have its own post office, and the postman was an old man who had to go back and forth on a pre-war moped. Max hated having to do it, he said it wasn’t suited to his role.” Her expression became distant. “The uniform meant a lot to him. And he was right. It gave him a lot . . .” She dismissed the thought with a gesture of her hand. “It was a kind of informal agreement between Chief Hubner and the postal service. Whenever something important arrived, a member of the Forest Rangers would go down to Aldino to collect it and then deliver it.”
“Isn’t that illegal?”
Verena snorted. “People trusted Chief Hubner, and Max, too, for that matter, so what was the problem?”
“No problem,” I replied, while all my concentration was focused on that rectangle of paper.
Don’t go down there!
“That morning, Max went down to Aldino to fetch the mail. Evi had already left for the Bletterbach, and Max slipped the telegram into his pocket and almost immediately forgot about it. That day was a real mess, even before the killings. Max had a lot on his plate.”
“Such as?”
“It was raining, and there were a couple of landslides. Max had to check them out. He was on his own, Chief Hubner had had a heart attack and was in the San Maurizio hospital in Bolzano. Then, toward evening, there was that truck that overturned and Max had his work cut out. It was a nasty accident and Max was afraid he wouldn’t get to my birthday party in time. He managed, though, because when he promises something, you can be sure he’ll do everything he can to keep his word.”
“What about the telegram?”
“I found it in his jacket pocket when he got back from the Bletterbach. If I’d known what the consequences would be, I’d have burned it. Instead, I showed it to him and Max made a face I’ll never forget. It was as if I’d stabbed him in the heart. He looked at me and said only, ‘I could have.’ Nothing else, but it was clear what he meant. He could have saved them. That was how his obsession began.”
“That doesn’t make any sense.”
“I know that, and you know that. But Max? In that situation? After he’d seen the bodies of the only friends he had here in Siebenhoch cut to pieces like that? I told you, he changed. He started pissing off the Carabinieri, bombarding them with phone calls night and day. He even came to blows with that captain . . .”
“Alfieri.”
“Who never lodged a complaint, but there you are. Max kept saying that nobody was doing anything to find the person who’d killed his friends. It wasn’t true, but if you told him that he’d lose his temper. When he realized that the investigation had come to a standstill and would soon be shelved, he started investigating by himself. He’s never stopped since.”
“I heard that the case file is in the barracks in Siebenhoch.”
“No. Max has it, in his grandparents’ house. The old Krün family home, where he grew up. He has everything there.”
By now the tea was cold. I drank it anyway, because I felt the need to smoke and that seemed like the one way to get rid of the craving. It didn’t work.
“Have you ever asked him about this Oscar Grünwald?”
“He’s never wanted to let me see his records, those he keeps locked up in the family home, but I’m convinced that Max has a file on every single inhabitant of Siebenhoch.”
I shuddered.
“It’s the only way he has of keeping going,” Verena said. “Keeping the anger alive. Max is an orphan. His parents died in a car accident when he was just a few months old. He grew up with his grandmother. Frau Krün. A hard woman. She was nearly a hundred when she died. Her husband was killed in the mine collapse in ’23, and from that day on Frau Krün never wore any color except black. With the death of her husband, she’d lost everything, there was no insurance at the time. They were very poor, maybe the poorest people in thewhole area. Max was a shy, gentle child. He was very good at school, but Frau Krün wouldn’t have accepted anything other than the best marks anyway. The only friends Max had were Kurt, Markus, and Evi. With them, Max didn’t have to be the toy soldier Frau Krün was trying to bring up, he could let himself go. Their deaths condemned him to solitude.”
“Thirty years of anger. Isn’t that self-destructive?”
“That’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”
We fell silent, lost in thought.
“What about you?” I asked.
“What about me?”
“What’s your idea about what happened?”
Verena toyed with the photograph, drawing small circles with her fingers around the face of a beardless, carefree Max. “You’re going to think me just a superstitious mountain woman, but I’m not. I trained as a nurse, and I consider myself a good one. Conscientious, well prepared. As many people here in the village can testify. I like reading, I was the one who insisted with the local council on getting broadband installed in Siebenhoch. I don’t believe in fairy stories, in monsters under the bed, or that the earth is flat. But I’m certain that the Bletterbach is a cursed place, just as I’m certain that smoking is bad for your health. There have been too many deaths down there. Shepherds who vanished into thin air. Woodcutters who’ve told stories about strange lights and even stranger footprints. Legends, myths, will-o’-the-wisps. Look at it however you want, but behind even the most absurd legend there’s a small element of truth.”
I thought about the people of Fanes.
“I bet,” Verena continued, “that after hearing all the nasty things said about you, it won’t be hard for you to believe me if I tell you that in the past there were a good few summary trials in this area. Witches above all, but no burnings. Siebenhoch had its own system of administering justice. Those poor women were taken and left alone in the Bletterbach. None of them ever returned. There are tons of Rumors about that place. And not even one that the people in the Visitors’ Center would like.”
“Horror attracts,” I said.
“Not that kind of horror. Have you been there?”
“I took my daughter.”
“And did you like it?”
“Clara enjoyed it a lot.”
“I asked you.”
I thought about it for a few moments. “No, I didn’t enjoy it. And I know it’s crazy to say this, everything in the world is old, but you feel the weight of time down there.”
Verena nodded. “The weight of time, yes. The Bletterbach is one huge graveyard. All those fossils, they’re bones. Corpses. Corpses of creatures that . . . I’m not a fundamentalist, Salinger. And I’m not a bigot either. I know that Darwin was right. Species evolve, and if they don’t evolve when their habitat changes they become extinct. But I believe in God. Not a God with a white beard sitting up there in the sky, that’s a vision I find reductive, but I believe in God and in his way of running the machine that we call the universe.”
“Intelligent design.”
“Yes. And I believe there must have been a reason why God decided to wipe out all those creatures.”
The kitchen seemed to have become darker and narrower. I felt a stab of claustrophobia.
Verena looked at the clock over the sink and her eyes opened wide.
“It’s late, Salinger, you have to go. I don’t want Max to find you here.”
“Thanks for the story.”
“Don’t thank me.”
“Then I hope the bottle is worth the price I paid for it.”
Verena seemed relieved by my joke. The interrogation was over. “I’ll let you know.”
We stood up.
“Salinger?”
“No, I won’t tell Max.”
Verena seemed calmer. Not too much, but enough for that furrow between her eyebrows to have disappeared.
She shook my hand. “He’s a good man. Don’t hurt him.”
I was looking for the best way to take my leave when we heard the door open, followed by Max’s weary footsteps.
“Salinger?” he said, surprised to see me. “To what do we owe this visit?”
Verena showed him the bottle of Blauburgunder. “He said something about avoiding a fine, Mr. Sheriff.”
Max laughed. “You shouldn’t have.”
“I’m almost one of the locals now,” I joked. “Anyway, it’s late, I was hoping to have a drink in company, but Annelise will be getting worried.”
Max looked at his wristwatch. “It’s not so late. It’d be a pity if you went home thirsty.” With long strides, he walked through the living room. “I’ll get the corkscrew and . . .”
He didn’t finish the sentence. He stood frozen in the doorway of the kitchen. I saw Verena take a step toward him, then stop and raise her hand to her mouth.
Max turned and hissed icily, “What’s this all about?”
He was pointing to the photograph and the telegram on the table.
“I was careless, Max, I knocked over the frame and—”
“Bullshit,” Max said. His eyes were pinned on mine. “A heap of bullshit.”
“It’s my fault, Max,” I said.
“Who else’s would it be?”
“I wanted to have a chat with you. That’s why I came.”
“But you weren’t here,” Verena cut in, almost falling over her words, “and I thought it would be best if I talked to him.”
“It’s my fault, Max,” I repeated emphatically. “Verena had no intention of—”
Max took a threatening step toward me. “Of doing what?”
“Telling me the story.”
Max was shaking. “And does Verena know why you’re so interested in that story?”
“What do you mean?”
He gave a contemptuous laugh. “That you want to make a pile of money.”
I stood rooted to the spot.
“Did this son of a bitch tell you,” Max said, addressing his wife, “that he wants to make money with a film about the Bletterbach killings? Take a seat, Mr. Director. Take our corpses and show them off to half the people in the world. You can even spit on their graves. Isn’t that how you earn a living, Salinger?”
“What the newspapers have published is a lie. I’ll demonstrate that as soon as the documentary on the Ortles is finished. And I can assure you I have no intention of making any kind of film about the story of Kurt, Evi, and Markus.”
Max took a second step toward me. “Don’t even dare speak their names.”
“It’s best if I go, Max. I’m sorry I bothered you. And thanks for the tea, Verena.”
I didn’t have time to turn to the door before Max grabbed me by the neck and shoved me against the wall. A wooden crucifix fell to the ground and broke.
Verena let out a scream.
“Show your face here again,” Max snarled, “and I’ll see you end up in a whole heap of trouble. And if you have any common sense, you dickhead, make sure you get out of here. We don’t need vultures like you in Siebenhoch.”
I grabbed his two hands and tried to break free. His grip was strong, and all I could do was gain enough oxygen to say, “I’m not a vulture, Max.”
“I assume that’s how things work in Hollywood, that you’re used to this kind of mean trick. But here in Siebenhoch, we have something called morality.”
He let go of me.
I gasped for breath.
Max hit me. A hard, accurate right to my cheekbone. There was an explosion of lights and I crumpled to the floor. When I looked up, Max was towering over me.
“Take that as a first installment. And now get out, if you don’t want a second.”
Aching, I grabbed my jacket and left.
* * *
Fortunately, Clara was asleep.
I tried to make as little noise as possible as I entered the house. I took off my shoes, cap, and winter jacket. The house was shrouded in darkness, but I didn’t need to switch on the light to find my way.
I managed to slip into the bathroom and rinsed my face. One side of it was the color of an aubergine.
“Salinger . . .”
I felt my stomach heave.
Annelise’s hair was ruffled and her expression alarmed. Even without make-up, I thought she looked beautiful. She took my face in her hands and examined the bruise.
“Who did this to you?”
“It’s nothing, don’t worry.”
“Who was it? That guy from Lily’s?”
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” I said, giving a couple of stupid grins in an attempt to calm her down.
The pain was making my eyes water.
“This time he won’t get away with it. I’m calling the Carabinieri.”
I stopped her. “Let it go, please.”
“What’s going on, Salinger?”
She wasn’t angry. She was scared.
“It was Max.”
“Chief Krün?” Annelise seemed shocked. “Was he drunk?”
“He wasn’t drunk, and in a way I deserved it.”
Annelise pulled away from me.
I’m convinced that part of her had already guessed what I was up to. The hours shut up in my study in front of the computer. The sudden excursions. They were all clues her brain couldn’t have helped but register. Except that she didn’t want to admit it. At this point, though, she had to have understood.
“What are you working on?”
Her voice was flat and monotonous. I would have preferred it if she’d screamed.
“Nothing.”
Annelise put her index finger on the bruise and pressed. “Does it hurt?”
“Fuck, yes.”
“Your lies hurt even more. I want the truth. Now. Immediately. And at least try to be convincing.”
“Can we go in the kitchen? I need a drink.”
Annelise turned and disappeared without a word into the shadowy corridor. I followed her. First, though, I peered into Clara’s bedroom. She was sleeping curled up on her side. I adjusted the blankets. Then I went down to the kitchen.
Annelise already had a beer ready for me on the table.
“Talk.”
“First of all, I want you to know it isn’t work.”
“It isn’t?”
“No. It’s a way to keep my brain active.”
“Getting yourself beaten up by half the village?”
“That’s collateral damage.”
“Am I also collateral damage?”
I noticed that her voice was shaking. I tried to take her hands in mine. I barely managed to touch them. They were icy. Annelise pulled them away and laid them in her lap.
I started to tell her everything, somehow avoiding the word “obsession.”
“It isn’t work,” I finished. “I need it to . . .”
“To?”
“Because otherwise I think I’d go mad.” I bowed my head. “I should have told you earlier.”
“Is that what you think? That you should have told me earlier?”
“I—”
“You promised. A sabbatical year. One year. Instead of which, what? How long did you last? A month?”
I didn’t say anything. She was right.
L for liar.
“God, you’re like a child. You throw yourself into things without a thought for the consequences. You can’t even—”
“Annelise—”
“Don’t say a word. You promised. You lied. And what will you tell Clara tomorrow morning? That you bumped into somebody’s fist?”
“I’ll make up a funny story.”
“That’s what you always do, isn’t it? Make up stories. I should leave, Salinger. Take Clara, and leave. You’re dangerous.”
These words came as a shock.
I felt my guts contract. The pain had disappeared.
“You can’t be serious, Annelise.”
“I am.”
“I made a mistake, I know. I lied to everyone. To you, to Werner. To everyone. But I don’t deserve this.”
“You deserve far worse.”
I tried to articulate a defense, but Annelise was right. I’d demonstrated that I was a terrible husband and an even worse father.
“You’re sick, Salinger.” Annelise’s tone had changed. There was a hint of tears in her voice. “You need those drugs. I know you’re not taking them.”
“The drugs have nothing to do with it, I just wanted—”
“To prove to yourself that you’re still you? That you haven’t changed? You nearly died on that glacier. If you think that hasn’t changed you, then you really are an idiot.”
I closed my mouth abruptly. My palate felt dry, my tongue reduced to a leather flap.
Get out.
“It’s pointless pretending it isn’t so. You’ve changed. I’ve changed. Even Clara has changed. It’s only natural. There are some experiences you don’t emerge from unscathed.”
“No, you don’t emerge unscathed.”
“Do you think I haven’t noticed? I see you. I know you. I see that look.”
“What look?”
“The look of an animal in a cage.”
“I’m almost out of it.”
Annelise shook her head bitterly. “Do you really think that, Salinger? I want you to look me in the eyes. I want the truth. But if what comes out of your mouth isn’t the truth, and nothing but the truth, I’ll call my father, take Clara, and spend the night at Welshboden.”
“It’s just that . . .”
I didn’t finish the sentence. It suddenly happened. Something broke inside me.
I burst into floods of tears.
“The Beast, Annelise. The Beast is always here, with me. Sometimes it’s quiet, sometimes it shuts up, there are good days, days when I don’t think about it even for a second. But it’s always inside me. And it hisses, it hisses, its voice, I can’t, its . . .”
Annelise hugged me. I felt her warm body press against mine. I sank into that warmth.
“I’m always afraid, Annelise. Always.”
The woman I loved cradled me as I’d so often seen her cradle Clara. Gradually, the tears abated. Only the sobbing remained.
Then not even that.
Annelise gently pushed me away. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I don’t want to take those damned drugs.”
Annelise stiffened. “You need them.”
Now even I realized that. “Yes. You’re right.”
Annelise heaved a deep sigh. “Promise.”
I nodded. “Whatever you want.”
“The sabbatical year. It starts now.”
“Yes.”
“You’ll forget about the Bletterbach killings.”
“Yes.”
“And you’ll start taking the drugs.”
“Yes.”
She looked me in the eyes. “Will you do that?”
“Yes,” I lied.