“It’s wrong,” I murmured as I sank into her sweetness.
Annelise raised her fingers to my lips. I licked them. They were salty. My excitement grew. With it grew the sense of unease.
Something wasn’t right. I tried to tell her. Annelise silenced me with a kiss. Her tongue was dry and rough. It didn’t stop moving.
I lightly touched her breast. Annelise arched her back.
I pushed farther in.
“It’s wrong,” I repeated.
Annelise stopped. She looked at me with eyes full of accusation. “Look what you’ve done.”
And at last I saw it.
The wound. It was horrible. A gash from the throat to the stomach.
I could see the throbbing of her heart, covered by a spider’s web of light blue veins.
From Annelise’s lips came a scream that was the cry of a tree as it fell.
* * *
The sleeping pills had stopped working. I threw them in the garbage.
* * *
At five in the morning, bathed in sweat, I slipped under the boiling jet of the shower. I was hoping that the water could chase away the cold I felt in my bones.
I tidied the house, swept the ice from the drive in spite of the pain in my back muscles, and by seven thirty I was ready to go to the hospital.
I had two objectives for that day. To buy the biggest teddy bear I could find and persuade Annelise to come back to Siebenhoch.
She’d now been in Clara’s hospital room for two days. She needed to get out of there or she would collapse. The warning signs were all there. Trembling hands, red eyes. When she spoke it was in a shrill voice I found hard to recognize. She expressed herself in monosyllables, without ever focusing on the person she was speaking to. I had no doubt it was partly my fault. We still had a lot to talk over, Annelise and I.
Would I tell her the truth? I asked myself.
Yes.
But only once I’d written the words “the end” at the bottom of the Word document that was saved in my laptop and now numbered several single-spaced pages. Only then would I take her aside and reveal the outcome of my inquiries. She would be angry, of course, but she would understand.
That’s why I loved her.
Nor did I doubt for an instant that this interpretation of mine was totally wrong. Because Annelise wasn’t stupid and what I was telling myself as I grabbed my jacket and went out to get the car wasn’t the truth. It was a partial (and stupid) version of the truth.
In other words: “Shit.”
Four letters.
Add two and you’ll have “square.”
Put on it a good thirty centimeters of snow now turned to ice, the tall thin bell tower and a crossroads: “Siebenhoch.” Add lots of confusion. Words that fly from mouth to mouth, contrite faces, some dazed, others that simply shake their heads. And a car coming from the north.
Mine.
Eight letters: “Salinger.”
* * *
I saw the flashing lights of a Carabinieri patrol car. And those of an ambulance. My throat went dry.
The ambulance was parked, its siren off, outside Brigitte’s house.
I parked where I shouldn’t.
“What happened?” I asked a woman tourist buried in a gaudy woolen scarf.
The woman lowered herself to the height of my open car window. “Apparently there was a gunshot.”
“Who . . .?”
“A woman. They say she killed herself.”
I barely heard the last part of her sentence. I was already out of the car. The onlookers had formed a small crowd. I made my way through it until a carabiniere pushed me away.
I took no notice, stood my ground. There was a paramedic outside Brigitte’s door, talking on his cell phone. I could see his breath condense in light blue clouds. The crowd pushed me forward. I just kept staring at the paramedic, dazed, until he put his phone in his pocket and went back inside.
I tried to peek in.
I couldn’t see anything.
When the paramedics, their phosphorescent overalls gleaming in the ghostly February light, came out pushing a stretcher with a sheet under which the outline of a body could be glimpsed, the crowd fell silent, holding its breath.
I had to take my eyes away from the stretcher as it was shoved into the back of the ambulance. I clenched my fists, digging my nails into the flesh.
“You.”
A voice I recognized instantly.
Hermann. He looked shaken. His camelhair coat hung open over a rumpled shirt half in and half out of his trousers. He wasn’t wearing a tie and he had a day’s growth of beard.
He raised his arm and pointed at me. “You!” he roared.
Everyone turned in my direction.
It took Hermann a moment to reach me. He stopped less than two meters away. From the inside pocket of his coat he took out a wallet.
He didn’t take his eyes off me. There was hate in them.
He took out a banknote, crumpled it, and threw it at me. I felt it slide to the ground.
“Here’s your money, Salinger.”
A second banknote landed in my face.
“Isn’t that what you want? That’s what films are for. To make money. Do you want some more?”
The third hit my chest. Finally, Hermann, shaking, flung his wallet at me.
Stunned by his attack, I didn’t react.
“I saw you leaving her house, Salinger. Yesterday.”
The carabiniere looked first at me then at Hermann, unsure what to do. We both ignored him. A void had been created around us.
Hermann took a step forward. “You killed her, you lousy worm.”
He made to rush at me, but the carabiniere held him back. A gray-green uniform appeared. Chief Krün.
He took me by the arm.
“It wasn’t me who killed Brigitte, Hermann,” I screamed, before Max could drag me away. “It was you, you fucking asshole. And we both know why.”
Max dragged me into a side street from which I could see neither the house nor Hermann. Only the gleam of the flashing lights on a barber’s sign.
I closed my eyes. “Is she really dead?”
“Suicide.”
“Are you sure?”
Max nodded. “She used a hunting rifle. She shot herself.”
“When?”
“The neighbors heard a shot just before dawn. They were the ones who alerted me. The door was ajar. I saw her and called the Carabinieri and the ambulance.”
“It wasn’t a suicide.”
Max looked me up and down. “That’s a very serious accusation, Salinger.”
“Hermann killed her.”
“She killed herself.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“She was drunk . . .”—a slight hesitation, as if he’d wanted to add “as usual,” but had had second thoughts—“. . . and there were bottles everywhere. Signora Unterkircher met her last night. Brigitte was already out of her head then.”
“And what did Signora Unterkircher do for Brigitte?” I asked bitterly.
“What we all did for years, Salinger. Nothing.”
I couldn’t sustain his gaze. “Brigitte didn’t kill herself. She was murdered. By Hermann.”
“I repeat: these are serious accusations.”
“I’m aware of that.”
“Do you have any proof?”
I lit a cigarette. I offered him one. “No.”
“Then keep your mouth shut. This is hard enough as it is.”
“Tell me the truth, Max, did you notice anything strange? Anything that could—”
“Nothing at all.”
“You said the door was open.”
“Brigitte was a drunk, Salinger. Drunks leave children in cars in July, they forget to switch off the gas and then light one of those.”
He was right.
But I knew he was also wrong.
“Maybe I shouldn’t tell you this,” Max said, “but Brigitte was holding a photograph in her hand.”
“A photograph of Evi?”
“Of Günther.”
“You think that’s a clue?”
“I think it’s a suicide note, Salinger. Nothing more, nothing less.”
We exchanged a few more words, then said goodbye. He went back to the scene of the suicide and I walked back to my car. When I sat down behind the driving wheel, I realized I had a crumpled fifty-euro banknote inside my jacket.
I threw it out the window.
I started the engine and drove away.
* * *
I got to Bolzano at nine o’clock. I couldn’t find the biggest teddy bear in the world, but the one that made its appearance in Clara’s room halfway through the morning was close enough.
“How are you, sweetheart?”
“My head hurts.”
“But not as much as yesterday?”
“Oh, no, not as much as yesterday.”
Clara stroked the hairy muzzle of the teddy bear and turned serious. It was the same expression I had seen the day before. As if she had something important to tell me but couldn’t find the courage to spit it out.
I smiled.
I stroked her chin, forcing her to look at me. “What is it, sweetheart?”
“Nothing.”
“Five letters,” I said.
“Mamma?”
“No.”
“Heart?”
I shook my head.
Clara shrugged. “Then I don’t know.”
“Truth,” I said.
She passed a hand over her head, looking for a hair to twist round her finger, the same gesture Annelise made when she felt under pressure.
She didn’t find anything, because her head was still wrapped in a heavy layer of bandages. Her hand fell back in her lap. She had again shifted her gaze away from me.
“You know you can tell me everything?”
“Yes.”
“Do you think I’m angry about the sled?”
“A little.”
“But there’s something else, isn’t there?”
Clara again made to touch her hair, but I took her hand and kissed it. Then I tickled her. Clara laughed, burying her face in the belly of the teddy bear.
“When you want to, you’ll tell me,” I said.
Clara seemed relieved by that proposition. With a solemn expression, she held out her hand. “It’s a deal.”
“What are you two up to?”
It was Annelise, accompanied by Werner. I stood up and hugged her. Annelise returned the gesture, but in a cold, detached manner. Beneath the scent of soap, I could smell the sweat on her skin.
“You should get some rest.”
“Did you buy that bear?” she asked. “It wasn’t here before.”
That was her tactic. Changing the subject.
“Yes, it’s a present. And you need to sleep in a real bed.”
“I’ll stay here until Clara has finished her treatment. Then we’ll go home. Together.”
She walked past me and sat down on Clara’s bed.
“OK,” I said.
We played together for a while.
I made an effort not to think about Brigitte’s death and concentrated on Clara. She was weak and pale, but at least she could see us. Soon, I would put her in the car and take her home.
To safety.
Never again, I swore, would I allow anything bad to happen to her.
It was a vow destined to be broken. That’s always the way it is when we swear that nothing will ever spoil the lives of our loved ones.
All I could do for Clara was give her good memories.
Werner’s words echoed loudly in my head. Just like the crash of the red fir tree brought down by the pain of two broken men.
Around eleven, along with the male nurse who brought Clara her food, the doctor also made his entrance. He recognized me and held out his hand. I shook it, embarrassed.
“You were right, Signor Salinger,” he began, after greeting Annelise.
“It was only a ladybug,” I murmured, turning red.
“Seven letters aren’t so many, when it comes down to it,” he said, bursting into a loud laugh that included both me and Annelise.
Clara, he told us, was reacting well. They had administered drugs that would ease the reabsorption of the hematoma. It had been touch and go, but the danger had passed.
“We’ll give her a CT scan, and on the basis of the results we’ll decide whether to discharge or keep her in a little longer.”
“What’s a CT scan, Mamma?”
Clara had already finished eating. I was surprised by her appetite, it was a good sign. I helped her to clean her mouth with a white napkin, something I’d stopped doing the year before and really missed.
“It’s like radar. You remember what that is?”
I had explained it to her during our flight to Europe. I had no doubt she still remembered. She had a prodigious memory.
“Yes, it’s a kind of radio that helps planes not to crash.”
“Well, a CT scan is a kind of radar that helps to see inside people.”
“How’s it done?”
“Well . . .” I turned to the doctor.
“It’s like a huge washing machine,” he said. “You’ll lie on your bed and we’ll tell you to keep still. Are you able to keep still?”
“For how long?”
“A quarter of an hour. Maybe half an hour. No more than that.”
Clara was silent, thinking about this. “I think I can do it.” Then, to me, she said in a low voice, “Will it hurt, Papà?”
“It won’t hurt at all. It’ll just be a bit boring.”
Clara seemed relieved. “I’ll make up a few stories.”
I kissed her and just then my cell phone rang. I gave Annelise a mortified look and made as if to cut off the call. My thumb lingered over the red button.
It was Mike.
“Excuse me.”
I went out and answered.
“Partner?”
“Wait,” I said.
I went into a toilet that I hoped was deserted.
“You’ll have to hurry.”
“What’s going on?”
“I’m in the hospital. It’s Clara. She had an accident. She’s better now.”
“What kind of accident? Salinger, don’t kid around.”
“She crashed into a tree with the sled. But she’s out of danger now. She’s fine.”
“What the hell does ‘out of danger’ mean, Salinger? What . . .”
I closed my eyes and leaned against an immaculate wash basin. “Listen, Mike, I don’t have any time to waste. Tell me what you found out. A whole lot of things have happened here in Siebenhoch.”
“I made more inquiries about Grünwald, but apart from more details about his theories, there’s nothing. Nothing about his death, I mean.”
“His disappearance,” I corrected.
“Do you really think he just disappeared, partner?”
“I don’t think anything.”
“Are you sure you’re all right?”
“No, I’m not all right, but please go on.”
A brief pause. Mike lighting a cigarette. I would have done so, too, but it wouldn’t be wise to set off a hospital fire alarm just for a Marlboro.
“You remember that Evi? She came up again.”
“In connection with Hermann Kagol?”
“Precisely.”
“The report opposing the building of the Visitors’ Center.”
“You already knew that?”
“Yes. What else have you found out?”
“Little or nothing. The report was refuted, and five years later the Visitors’ Center opened its doors.”
“Shit.” I banged my fist on the wall.
“What’s happening, Salinger?”
“What have you found out about Hermann Kagol’s annual turnover from the Center?”
“Including the hotels and other properties in the area?”
“Yes.”
“Several million euros.”
I felt the bile rising into my mouth. “Do you think Hermann could have killed Evi?” I whispered.
“What reason would he have had?”
“Because she held up his Visitors’ Center project.”
“You’re way off track, Salinger.”
It was a reply I hadn’t expected. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that if I’d been that Hermann, I’d have kissed the ground that Evi walked on.”
“But . . . the report . . .”
“The report blocked the Bletterbach Visitors’ Center project. Only, the first project wasn’t Hermann Kagol’s.”
Dizziness.
There was too much white in here.
“What the hell are you saying, Mike?”
“The first project for a Visitors’ Center in the Bletterbach didn’t come from Kagol Construction. It was from a consortium in Trento, Group 80. The same consortium that built a whole lot of ski lifts in the area.”
I felt myself sinking.
The floor beneath my feet shook. And buried me.
“Salinger? Are you there?”
“Evi’s report helped Hermann?”
“Precisely. According to my calculations, Hermann would never have been able to afford such an ambitious project in ’85 anyway. Evi gave him a hand, quite a hand. Why would he have killed her?”
No reason in the world.
“Thanks, Mike,” I muttered. “Speak to you soon.”
I hung up without waiting for his reply.
I turned on the tap in the wash basin. I rinsed my face.
I breathed.
Hermann hadn’t killed Evi.
I looked at my image in the mirror.
Now, I thought, now you know what a murderer looks like.
I had Brigitte’s murderer right in front of me. It was me.
“‘Are the dead restored?’” I murmured. “‘The books say no, the night shouts yes.’”
It was a quotation from my favorite book, the one that went with me everywhere. John Fante’s words took on a new meaning in the mouth of the murderer whose contorted face was looking at me in the mirror.
I couldn’t stand it. I bent double, crushed by the awareness of what I had done. I ended up hitting my head on the ceramic wash basin. The pain was a relief.
* * *
It was a male nurse who revived me. Behind his concerned face, Annelise’s bloodless one. As soon as she saw me open my eyes, she walked out of the toilet, slamming the door behind her.
“When you didn’t come back, your wife got worried. You must have had a blackout.”
He helped me to sit up. I was breathing with my mouth open. Like a thirsty dog.
“I can do it, I . . .”
“You had a nasty knock. It’d be better if . . .”
Feeling dizzy, I grabbed hold of him and struggled to my feet.
“I’m fine. I have to go. I have to . . .”
He objected. I didn’t even listen to him.
When I was outside the door of Clara’s room, I didn’t have the courage to go in. I could hear Annelise’s voice and my daughter’s chatter. I stroked the door.
Then I kept on walking.
I couldn’t face them.
* * *
Back home, I headed for the kitchen. I dug up a bottle of Jack Daniels and started drinking it. The first sip was like acid going down through my esophagus. I coughed and spat. I held out. Stoically, I stopped the retching. Another sip. More acid. All I could think of was Brigitte’s head split in two by the rifle shot. The blood spreading over the floor. I took a deep breath, trying to ease the nausea. I didn’t want to throw up, that wasn’t my aim. I wanted to get drunk. I wanted that total dreamless blackness that I’d experienced after banging my head in the hospital toilet. Before Annelise . . . The thought of Annelise was unbearable to me.
I drank some more.
This time, the Jack Daniels went down without burning. I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand. I headed for the living room and sank into my favorite armchair.
I took out a cigarette.
I had lost feeling in my hands. It took me a while to get the lighter to work, and when I succeeded I found myself staring at the flame like an idiot, wondering what it was for and why it seemed so important to move it closer to that white tube sticking out of my mouth. I flung the lighter across the room and spat out the cigarette.
I kept on drinking. My head grew as heavy as lead.
I tried to lift the bottle of Jack Daniels.
I couldn’t do it. It slipped through my fingers.
And then there was darkness.
When I came to, I was lying on the bed. I looked around, lost. I was plunged in darkness. How had I gotten here? Judging by my confusion, I must have dragged myself here all on my own. My last memory was the noise of the whisky bottle smashing on the floor.
I stared in front of me.
I tried to move.
“What did you imagine you were doing?”
I trembled.
I didn’t recognize the voice that had emerged from the darkness.
“Who are you?” I said. “Who are you?”
The voice turned into a shadowy figure. It looked gigantic. It moved jerkily. The dead, I thought, the dead move like that.
The shadowy figure switched the light on.
Werner.
Using all my strength of will, I got up off the bed.
“I’ve had a bad day.”
Werner didn’t comment. “You need to fill your stomach. Can you get downstairs on your own?”
“I can try.”
Getting down the stairs was laborious. Every movement reverberated in my cranium like a hammer blow. I accepted the pain. I deserved it. I was a murderer.
Twice a murderer.
First the men on the Ortles, and now . . .
Werner cooked some eggs, which I forced myself to swallow. I ate bread, and a slice of speck. And drank a lot of water.
Werner said nothing until I had finished. Only then did I notice his posture. He was rigid on his chair, his face contracted.
He struck me as being in pain, but above all embarrassed.
“I’m not keeping an eye on you,” he said. “I dropped by to ask for something. It’s my back. All my life I’ve boasted I never took anything stronger than an aspirin, but now . . .”
“Does it hurt?”
“I’m not a boy anymore,” he said regretfully.
“Why don’t you see someone about it?”
“Forget it, Jeremiah, I’ve never liked doctors. Don’t you have anything for the pain?”
Everything in him, the tone of his voice, the words he chose, clashed with what I read in his eyes. People like Werner hate two things: appearing weak and asking for help. I stood up, went into the bathroom and grabbed the box of painkillers that had been prescribed for me after September 15.
“Vicodin,” I said when I went back into the kitchen.
Werner reached his hand out for the box. “Can I take two?”
“One will be enough.”
He popped the capsule into his mouth.
“Annelise won’t be home this evening,” I said. “She may never come back.”
Werner took my packet of cigarettes. He lit one and I did the same.
“In a marriage, there are bad times and good times. They both pass.”
“What if they don’t?”
Werner didn’t reply.
He sat staring at the smoke rising to the ceiling, where it flattened out and became invisible.
When he’d finished the cigarette, he stubbed it out in the ashtray and stood up, using the table for support.
“I should be getting back to Welshboden.”
“Take the pills with you, they may help.”
“I’ll be fine tomorrow, you’ll see.”
“Take them anyway. I don’t need them.”
Werner put them in his pocket. I helped him on with his jacket.
Outside, it was dark.
“Jeremiah . . .” Werner said. “Can you hear it?”
I pricked up my ears. I tried to figure out what he was referring to.
“I can’t hear anything.”
“The silence. Can you hear it?”
“Yes.”
“Ever since Herta died and I was left alone, I’ve hated the silence.”