Night Work (19 page)

No one had ever seen what he was seeing. The bridge railings, the waters of the Danube Canal. The street, the winking traffic lights. At just after 3 p.m. on that particular day. It had been recorded with no one nearby. This recording had been made by a machine with no human witnesses around. Any enjoyment to be derived from the process had been confined to the machine itself and its subjects. The deserted street. The traffic lights. The bushes. Otherwise: no one.

But these images proved that those minutes had elapsed. They had come and gone. If he went there now, he would encounter a different bridge at a different time from the one he was seeing. Yet it had existed, even though he hadn’t been present.

He put in tape 4, followed by 5, 6 and 7. He made rapid progress. From time to time he got up to refill his
glass, make a snack or simply stretch his legs. He never took long, but it was dark outside by the time he played the tape showing Gaussplatz.

The Spider grazed a parked car and went into a skid. It rammed a car on the opposite side of the street, then skidded back across the roadway and collided with a van. The impact was so violent, Jonas stared at the screen transfixed. The Spider cannoned off the van and out onto the roundabout, where it spun several times on its own axis and finally came to rest.

For a minute nothing happened. Another minute went by. And another. Then the driver got out, went round to the back of the car and opened the boot. After looking for something, he sat behind the wheel again.

Three minutes later the car drove on.

Jonas still hadn’t transferred this sequence to the video recorder. He rewound the tape, but he didn’t press the record button even then. He watched the accident in disbelief, saw the driver get out and look around to see if he was being observed, then go to the back of the car. Why had he done that? What was he looking for in the boot?

And why couldn’t he, Jonas, remember all this?

The tape came to an end at half past eleven. He still hadn’t watched the second circuit. Maybe he would catch up with it another time. One circuit would suffice for the present. He would watch it when he got a chance.

Jonas roamed the flat, glass in hand, thinking how many years he’d lived there. He made sure the front door was locked. Read Marie’s text messages on his mobile. Flexed his stiff shoulders. Contemplated the knife in the bedroom wall.

Catching sight of his eyes in the mirror as he cleaned his teeth, he gave a start and looked down while the humming electric toothbrush whipped the toothpaste into foam. He spat it out and rinsed his mouth.

Back in the bedroom once more, he gripped the hilt of the knife and tugged with all his might. It didn’t move a single millimetre.

He examined the carpet on his knees. It seemed to him that the carpet beneath the knife was a little cleaner than the surrounding area.

He took the vacuum cleaner from the bedroom cupboard, where the unwieldy contraption was kept for lack of space. Removing the bag, he went into the bathroom and emptied its contents into the bathtub. A cloud of dust went up. He coughed, one hand shielding his face and the other probing the wad of compressed fluff. He soon came across some white powder.

Plaster dust.

Perhaps order was the key.

He rubbed his eyes, trying to fix the thought in his mind. Order. Changing as little as possible and, wherever possible, re-creating the original state of affairs.

He blinked. He’d had a dream, a bad dream. About what?

He looked at the wall. The knife had gone. He sat up abruptly. The camera, the shotgun, the computer, all were in their proper places. But the knife had disappeared.

He scanned the floor while trying to button his shirt with trembling fingers. Nothing. He went into the living room. No knife.

His head was aching badly. He took two aspirins and breakfasted on some marble cake straight from the plastic wrapping. It tasted artificial. He washed it down with orange juice. The memory of his dream came back to him.

He was in a room full of undersized pieces of furniture that looked as if they’d shrunk or been made for midgets. Seated in an armchair facing him was a body without a head. It didn’t move.

Jonas stared at the headless man. He thought he was dead until one of his hands moved. So, soon afterwards, did his arm. Jonas muttered something unintelligible. The headless man made a dismissive gesture. Jonas noticed that
the place between his shoulders from which the neck would have emerged was dark with a white circle in the middle.

Without knowing or understanding what he was saying, Jonas addressed the headless man once more. The upper part of the headless man’s torso moved stiffly, as if he meant to turn and look sideways or over his shoulder. He was wearing jeans and a lumberjack shirt, the top two buttons undone to reveal a chest covered with curly grey hair. Jonas said something. Then the headless man started to rock in his chair. Back and forth, back and forth he went, much faster than normal strength and agility would have permitted.

Laying aside his slice of cake, Jonas drained his glass and jotted down the outline of the dream in his notebook.

All he could find in the tool drawer was a small hammer suitable at best for knocking picture hooks into a plywood partition. He looked in the box beneath the bathroom washbasin, where he kept tools when he was too lazy to take them downstairs. Empty.

He took the lift down. His compartment in the cellar smelt of cold rubber. The toolbox containing the bigger tools was behind the Toyota’s winter tyres.

Jonas swung the sledgehammer experimentally. That would do the trick. He got out of the cellar quickly and ran back up the stairs. From below came more and more noises he didn’t like the sound of. He was imagining them, of course. But he didn’t want to expose himself to them for too long.

He stood in front of the wall. For a moment he debated whether it wouldn’t be better to abandon the whole idea. Then he raised the sledgehammer and swung it with all his might. It struck the very spot where the knife had been
embedded. There was a dull thud. Flakes of plaster rained down.

He took a second swing. This time the sledgehammer made a big dent in the wall. Red brick dust trickled from it.

Bricks in a building made of reinforced concrete?

He swung at the wall again and again. The hole grew bigger. Before long it was the size of the mirror-fronted cabinet over the bathroom basin. Now, whenever the sledgehammer landed on the edges of the hole, it bounced off them.

He explored the cavity with his hands. This part of the wall really did consist of brittle old brickwork, whereas the surrounding area, which was impervious to the sledgehammer, was concrete.

His fingers felt something wedged between two bricks.

Carefully, he knocked them out. A piece of plastic. He yanked at it, but it seemed to be deeply embedded.

There was so much debris on the floor by now that he had to fetch a broom and sweep it up. Deeper and deeper into the wall he went. He didn’t like the look of the thing he was tugging at, so he slipped on a pair of rubber gloves. The dust was making him cough.

Having exposed a substantial area with one hard blow, he gave the object another tug. With a jerk, it came away in his hand. Holding it gingerly, he took it through to the bathtub.

Jonas examined his find closely before turning on the tap. He wanted to make sure that the grey film adhering to the surface was ordinary dust, not powdered potassium or magnesium, substances that gave off an inflammable gas when in contact with water. It might even be some kind of explosive that detonated under similar circumstances. He would simply have to risk it.

Using the shower head, he washed off the dust and dirt that clung to the object. It was indeed made of plastic. It
looked like a raincoat. He mopped his brow and used the same cloth to dry the object. Then he picked it up and spread it out.

It wasn’t a raincoat. It was an inflatable doll. Although, on closer inspection, it lacked the orifices that would have identified it as a sex toy.

Jonas deposited the two suitcases beside the Spider. He circled the car, closely examining the bodywork. He could now understand why the front had been so badly damaged. After a crash like that, it was a miracle the car still went.

He inspected the boot very closely before loading the suitcases. It was empty save for the first-aid kit and the crowbar. What he had been doing in there after the collision remained a mystery.

He checked the number of kilometres on the clock, comparing the numerals with those he had recorded in his notebook the day before. They tallied.

At his parents’ flat he discovered he was short of space. The cupboard he’d kept his clothes in as a boy had ended up on a rubbish tip years ago. He would have to dump the unopened suitcases in his former nursery until he found the time to get hold of an additional wardrobe, which he would also put in there. The living room was now as it had been in his childhood, and any extraneous piece of furniture would spoil its appearance.

He vaguely remembered that they’d stored a lot of things in the attic because there were no storage spaces in the basement. He hadn’t been up there since he was a boy.

He fetched the bunch of keys left behind by the Kästner family, together with the torch and the shotgun. There was no lift, but he was scarcely out of breath by the time he reached the fifth floor. At least he was still reasonably fit.

The heavy door creaked open. A cold current of air rushed out at him. The light switch was so thick with dust and cobwebs that he guessed he must be the attic’s first visitor for years. He surveyed it by the light of the naked bulb suspended from a beam.

There were no separate compartments. Numbers scrawled in whitewash on three-metre-high beams indicated that the space beneath each belonged to a particular flat. In one corner lay a bicycle frame without its tyres and chain, and not far from it a heap of sacks filled with plaster. Some broken slats were leaning against the wall in another corner. He also spotted a tubeless TV.

On the floor beneath the number of his parents’ flat stood a heavy chest. Jonas knew at once that it had belonged to his father, not the Kästners. There was nothing to indicate this, no nameplate or label. Nor did he recognise it. But it was his father’s beyond a doubt.

When he went to open the chest, he found that it had no lock or handles.

He examined every side, getting his hands dirty in the process. He patted off the dust on his trouser legs and pulled a face. Then he gave up.

He went downstairs again. At least the attic would have enough room for the boxes. Before carrying them up there, however, he wanted to inspect their contents. For the moment, he dumped them in one of the neighbouring flats.

It struck him that he could simply leave them there. It was cleaner and he wouldn’t have so far to go if he needed something. But he stuck to his original plan: to restore order and maintain it. Those boxes didn’t belong in his parents’ flat. They had no business there, only in the space reserved for them in the attic.

The wind had got up again. Dozens of rustling plastic and paper bags, which must have escaped from one of the vegetable stalls in the Karmelitermarkt, were scudding across the square. Jonas got a speck of dust in his eye. It started to water.

He made himself a quick snack in an inviting-looking pub, then walked on through the streets. This district had undergone many changes since his boyhood. Most of the shops and restaurants were unfamiliar to him. He felt in his pocket for one of the little cards he’d written on. It bore the word ‘Blue’. That was no help. He looked around but couldn’t see anything that colour.

The wind was so strong it nudged him in the back. He kept on breaking into an involuntary trot. He turned to look. Just the wind, nothing more. He walked on, only to swing round again.

The street was deserted. No suspicious movement, no sound. Just the slithering of paper and scraps of refuse being blown along the street by the wind.

In Nestroygasse he looked at his watch. Not even six yet. He had plenty of time.

The front door wasn’t locked. He called, waited a few moments, then ventured inside.

A low hum was coming from behind the door on his left. He raised his shotgun and kicked the handle. The door burst open. He fired, cocked the gun and fired again. Waited a moment, then yelled and dashed into the room.

It was empty.

He was standing in a pellet-riddled bathroom, and the sound he’d heard was the gas boiler heating up the water. Catching sight of his reflection in the mirror above the washbasin, he quickly averted his gaze.

The floorboards creaked as he made his way around the flat. From the bathroom into the hallway. From the hallway to the kitchen. Back into the hallway and from there into the living room. The place was dark, like most old flats. He turned some lights on.

He searched various drawers for notes, letters and similar documents. All he found were bills.

The bedroom curtains were drawn. He saw the framed photograph on the wall as soon as he turned on the light. A boy of about ten with an expressionless face. Ingo. For a moment he thought the boy was smiling. Something else puzzled him, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

‘Anyone there?’ His voice cracked.

There were some photo albums on a shelf in the living room. He pulled one out and flicked through it without putting his gun down.

Photos dating from the seventies. Colour prints as poor as the ones he’d found at Rüdigergasse. The same haircuts, the same trousers, the same shirt collars, the same little cars.

All at once it went dark outside. He ran to the window. The shotgun fell over with a crash behind him. But it was only a storm cloud passing across the sun.

He had to sit down. Absently, he glanced at photo after photo. He felt close to tears. His heartbeat steadied, but only gradually.

In one of the photos he recognised himself.

He turned over the page. Snaps of himself and Ingo. More of the same on the next page. He couldn’t recall being on such close terms with Ingo. He’d been here only once, so he couldn’t think when or where these pictures had been taken. The backgrounds offered no clue.

A page torn from a newspaper fell out of one of the albums and onto his lap. It was foxed and faded and folded in the middle. Most of it was filled with death notices.

Our Ingo. In his tenth year. Tragic accident. Sorely missed.

Shaken, he laid the album aside. Then he remembered the framed photograph. He went back into the bedroom. This time he noticed what had escaped him before: it had a black border.

He was almost as thrown by his former playmate’s death as he was by the fact that he hadn’t learnt of it until twenty-five years after the event. They’d only had anything to do with one another in primary school. To him, Ingo Lüscher had been alive throughout these years – in fact he’d sometimes wondered what had become of the fair-haired lad from the neighbourhood. Little had been said about the accident, it seemed. His parents couldn’t have known Ingo’s, or they would have mentioned it.

How had it happened?

He made another search of the drawers in the living room. He shook the photograph albums, but only a couple of loose prints fell out. He looked for a computer, but the Lüschers didn’t seem to have gone in for modern technology. There wasn’t even a TV.

The folder was in the bedside table. It contained press cuttings. Accident: child killed. Motorbike knocks boy down: dead.

He read every article. What one omitted, the other mentioned, and he soon managed to form an idea of what had happened. Ingo had evidently run out into the street while playing, and the motorcyclist had been unable to avoid him. The rear-view mirror had broken the boy’s neck.

Killed by a rear-view mirror. Jonas had never heard of such a thing before.

He paced around the flat in a turmoil. A collision with a motorbike had caused the boy’s death. Thirty-year-old Ingo didn’t exist because of ten-year-old Ingo’s accident. The thirty-year-old might have escaped injury. He could
have protected the ten-year-old, but the ten-year-old had been unable to protect the thirty-year-old.

The same person. One a boy, the other an adult. The latter didn’t exist because the former had had an accident. A rear-view mirror, which mightn’t have done much to the adult, had broken the boy’s neck.

Jonas pictured thirty-year-old Ingo standing on the other side of the street and watching the motorbike knock down his ten-year-old self, knowing that he would never exist. Did the two of them speak to each other? Did the ten-year-old apologise to the thirty-year-old? Did the latter console the former by saying it was an accident for which he bore no blame?

And Jonas himself? What if a car had killed him? Or a disease? Or even a murderer? Then he wouldn’t have existed at twenty or thirty, nor would he exist at forty or eighty.

Or would he? Would the older Jonases have existed? Somehow, somewhere? In some unfulfilled form?

He parked the truck outside his block of flats. The embankment road was as deserted as ever. The Danube Canal gurgled softly past. Nothing seemed to have changed.

Once inside the flat he packed the clothes belonging to the dwarf from Attnang-Puchheim in his holdall and took a last look round. The inflatable doll was lying in the bathtub where he’d left it. The sack filled with debris from the wall was bursting at the seams. He tied up the neck and heaved it out of the window. He enjoyed watching it fly through the air. It landed with a crash on the roof of a car.