“Scruples,” says Frauke, “and respect for the dead woman. We didn’t just want to chuck her in any old place. Everyone deserves a decent funeral.”
“So you buried her in the garden?”
Frauke says nothing.
“Not everyone deserves a funeral, Frauke. Some people should just be chucked.”
“Is that why you came and got her from our property?”
The figure on the opposite shore doesn’t move.
“Who says I came and got her?” asks Meybach after a long pause.
Frauke breathes in with a hiss.
“What are you doing?” asks Meybach.
Frauke looks down at herself with surprise. She has stepped on the ice of the Krumme Lanke.
“Don’t be ridiculous. The ice won’t hold you. Do you think I’d be so stupid as to stand here if it held you?”
Frauke doesn’t answer him. Her right hand grips the handle of the knife in her coat pocket. In spite of the cold she feels sweat on her back.
Like yesterday in the sauna, everything’s repeating itself
.
“Did you really think I’d go to the trouble of getting the corpse out of your garden? I thought you were smarter than that. I probably shouldn’t spend any more time on you, now that you’re out of the game.”
“Who says I’m out of the game?”
Meybach laughs, and Frauke could kill him for that laugh alone.
“You mean your friends forgive you and are glad to see you again after you brought the police into their house? I wish we’d met under different circumstances, I think we would have gotten along. Whatever you have to do with the agency, you aren’t really a part of it. You should forgive yourself, Frauke, that’s the first step, and no one else can—”
“
HOW DARE YOU MEDDLE IN MY LIFE
!”
Frauke’s words ring out over the ice. She wasn’t speaking into the phone, she leaned forward and yelled the words straight at him. When she puts her phone back to her ear, Meybach says softly, “So I’ve touched a raw nerve, then.”
She can’t look at him any more. It’s over. She’s finished.
I’m not going to beg
, she thinks and snaps her phone shut. She puts it in her coat pocket and looks across to Meybach as if waiting for a starting flag, then she starts running.
F
RAUKE
L
EWIN
was the only one you were really taken by. When you took a closer look at the agency, she stood out right away. Something about her fascinated you. She seemed different from Tamara Berger, who struck you as fragile and anxious, too weak for real life. She was different from Kris Marrer, who seemed to consist entirely of corners and edges. And she was different from his little brother Wolf, who might have looked predictable, but you knew it was only an illusion. Those of us with feelings of guilt are the most unpredictable of creatures.
You concentrated on Frauke Lewin. For two days you were so close to her that in retrospect you wonder why she didn’t notice you. There was a closeness there, there was a connection, there was … You still can’t quite grasp it. You only know that you wanted to find out more about her.
You disliked her father right off. But you were fascinated by her mother. Her medical report, her life before and after she was admitted to the clinic, her relationship with Frauke. You saw where the guilt came from and decided to pay her mother a visit. It was a stupid idea. It was irresponsible and dangerous of you. And then she turned you away and didn’t tell you anything. Nonetheless your visit was worth it. You not only came a bit closer to Frauke, no, she phoned you and wanted to see you. And now that Krumme Lanke is the only thing separating you, you
really regret that there’s this problem between you. You wish you’d met her in normal life. You also wish she’d think about everything in peace. With a cool head. She would understand you. With more sympathy she would understand you. But like this …
“You aren’t really a part of it,” you say and try to read her facial expression in the distance. “You should forgive yourself, Frauke, that’s the first step, and no one else can—”
“
HOW DARE YOU MEDDLE IN MY LIFE
!” her voice rings out across the ice.
For a moment you’re speechless, then you say carefully, “So I’ve touched a raw nerve, then.”
They’re the wrong words, the conversation is over. Frauke puts her phone away, ducks down, and suddenly comes running toward you.
How can she be so brave?
After ten meters her woollen cap flies off her head and falls on the ice, her coat opens like a black flower. You can make out her determined expression, her arms pump away in the rhythm of her footsteps, something metallic glitters in her hand.
She’s attacking me
, you think and can’t believe it,
she’s really attacking me
. The big question now is, what are you going to do if she makes it across to your side? Are you going to have a fight with her? Look at her face, she’s a Fury. You could run away and—
I’m not going to make a fool of myself
.
Frauke has crossed the middle of the lake. She shows no hesitation, she has only one goal in mind. Meter after meter she’s getting closer, her footsteps echoing dully across the surface of the ice, you think you can hear her loud breathing, then there’s a sharp crack and the surface beneath Frauke collapses. The knife falls from her hand and skitters across the ice to you. Frauke tries to grip the edge of the hole, the edge comes away, water slops out and turns the snow gray before making it transparent. You stand there and watch. You can’t deny it, you’re relieved. Something like pity, something like disappointment rises up in you. You wonder how she could’ve been so stupid.
Not stupid, brave
.
Fine, as you wish. But I hope you know that the brave almost always die first, don’t you?
T
HE SHOCK ISN’T
just the cold of the water, the shock of failing’s much worse.
I was so sure I’d make it
.
Frauke knows instinctively that she has to hold her head above the surface or it’s all over. She reaches for the edge of the ice, which breaks away under her fingers. She kicks out with her feet, a ring of iron settles around her ribcage and cuts off her breathing.
Calm, stay calm, I’ll get out of this and then …
For several seconds she forgets to tread water. She sees Meybach clearly and distinctly standing on the shore. He hasn’t backed away. He hasn’t tried to run off. The mirage has a face.
I … I know him, I …
Frauke disappears under water, re-emerges, her fingernails scratch across the edge of the ice. She manages to brace her left arm.
Tired
. The cold is slowly making her tired. The back of her neck feels as if it’s in a bear trap. The pain is paralyzing and flows down her back, one vertebra at a time. The tiredness is everywhere now, it slows her movements and makes the pain fade into the background, while her waterlogged coat drags her down. Now Frauke gets her right arm out of the water as well, and supports herself on the edge.
The ice holds.
Rest, just rest for a moment …
Then she sees Meybach turning away.
“Hey, where do you think you’re going?”
He doesn’t reply, he doesn’t listen to her, he goes back up the embankment.
“Stop, you … Are you scared? Have I—”
The ice breaks, Frauke was careless for a moment and supported all her weight on the edge. Her head disappears under water, her nose fills up, she emerges coughing and gasping for air. Something sharp moves in her head and splits her nerves. Everything becomes dull and numb. The water freezes on her face, and when she reaches around, the edge of the ice isn’t there any more. Her hands meet the water and send it splashing into the air. The ravens start screeching. The lake pulls hungrily at Frauke, the tiredness is everywhere, the heaviness, the cold and the numbness that settles like a cocoon around her body and her whole being.
Calm, here is the calm
.
No one is standing on the shore now. No footsteps can be heard on the ice. Only the sun looks through the clouds, making the ice glitter. It looks like hope.
Soon …
Warmth settles on Frauke’s face. Her hands reach into the void, her movements slow.
Soon …
A wall of clouds pushes in front of the sun, the wind comes back, the ravens fall mute. It is silent. It is silent. Slowly the hole in the ice closes up again.
H
ANOVER IS BEHIND ME
, and I’m heading for Osnabrück. Only silence coming from the trunk. I stink. I’m lonely. I wish a tire would burst, the car would overturn, and everything would come to an end. I’m lonely, and I’m also cowardly. I don’t know what I’m really doing here. It’s up to me. It’s all up to me. Too much responsibility, too many decisions. I would only have to drive to the edge of the road. I could hold his nose shut. I could soak him in gasoline. I could throttle him or drop the jack on his head until he stopped moving. I’ve played it all out in my mind. Dragged him out of the car and pushed him into the highway. Thrown him from bridges. Laid him down in front of the car. Extinguished him.
I already let him talk to me. Even though I thought I was immune to it, I want to hear his story. He speaks, I listen, and as soon as I’ve had enough, he gets the tape back over his mouth and I drive on. I recognize the lies. But I don’t know. He’s told me four stories so far. He’s everything, he’s nothing, in his fear he reinvents. I’m waiting for the moment when it clicks and I can see through him. I don’t want all the things that have happened to look like a big coincidence. I hate coincidences. But that’s exactly what he makes it look like. One great big damned coincidence. I don’t want my friends’ lives to be left to chance. I’d rather kill a handful of gods. Or the one God, if he dared to antagonize me.
T
HE FUNERAL TAKES PLACE
four days later on a Thursday morning. The birds are clamoring in the trees, and a smell rises from the earth that is almost shaming in its intensity. Winter hurled itself over the land, and has withdrawn just as quickly. No snow now, no ice. Spring is triumphant, and the sun is a flickering, pulsing disk that makes Tamara lower her eyes.
Why can’t it rain?
Tamara feels awful. The air is too lush for her, the light too bright. Kris once said that nobody should say goodbye when the sun is shining.
Nobody
.
Tamara has the feeling of not being a part of it. She is standing at the edge of the playing field, waiting for the final whistle. The feeling reminds her of the summer afternoons she spent with Frauke at the sports ground. Two fourteen-year-olds watching a boys’ team training. They were the most boring hours of her life, and all just because she and Frauke wanted to show the boys that they were there.
Frauke, where are you?
Tamara wishes her thoughts could switch off for a while. She wishes the earth would tremble and the world take notice of the fact that she has lost her best friend.
After an argument, after a goddam argument
. Tamara now thinks she knows how Wolf must have felt when he found Erin dead in the bathroom stall. After that, nothing can be resolved any more. No discussions, no apologies.
Gone
.
Tamara lacks the courage to step forward. She wants to lay her hands on the coffin and say so many things, but she stays right where she is and straightens her legs.
An anonymous caller told the police that a woman had fallen through the ice on the Krumme Lanke. Within twenty minutes a rescue team
with water search dogs was on the spot and getting to work. The Krumme Lanke is a stretch of flowing water, and normally location within fifteen meters would have been possible, but the water temperature and the ice made the search difficult. The dogs couldn’t find a trail, so the rescue team broke the ice at two spots in the direction of the current. They sent two divers down to follow the flow of the water. Frauke was found at the mouth of the stream, just before the bridge. She had been underwater for three hours.
The same afternoon, Frauke’s father called the villa, after he had identified his daughter’s body. Wolf took the call, listened, asked no questions, and put the phone down when Frauke’s father asked him if he had understood everything. For several minutes Wolf just stood in the corridor staring at the telephone, then he went upstairs to Tamara, who was sitting behind her desk.
“Come here for a minute, Tammi.”
Tamara sat where she was. She didn’t like the way he stood in the doorway and looked at her.
“What is it?”
“Please, Tammi, come here.”
Tamara got up and walked over to him. He hugged her, he held her tight, and then he spoke. When he had said everything, he closed his eyes and tolerated Tamara’s fingernails in his back, but he didn’t let go whatever she did, he held her tight.
It was good that he held me
, thinks Tamara and reaches for Wolf’s hand. Behind her she hears a whisper, someone sniffs, a raven settles on the mausoleum opposite. They’re standing among Frauke’s schoolmates and fellow students. Tamara has recognized some faces, the rest are strangers.
What do they remember when they remember Frauke?
The raven rubs its beak against the wall of the mausoleum, then flies off again and disappears over the cemetery. In the distance the traffic murmurs along Onkel-Tom-Strasse. Life doesn’t take a break, it just goes on.
And afterwards we’ll start exactly where we left off
.
Tamara wishes for an earthquake.
On the phone, Frauke’s father spoke of an accident, and the police wrote it off as an accident as well. Still, the next day Gerald turned up at their place to ask if Frauke had been a suicide risk.
“Did she ever talk about it? I mean, she might have had guilty feelings about …”
He made a gesture that was suppose to take in everything—the villa, her friendship with them, the supposed corpse in the garden.
“Frauke would never have killed herself,” said Kris, and gave Gerald a challenging look.
Come on, contradict me
, his eyes said. When he learned of Frauke’s death, Tamara saw him crying for the first time. The tears didn’t last long, then the armor went up again, but they had been there, Tamara had seen them and was relieved that Kris became Kris again afterwards. Someone had to keep a clear head. Someone had to tell them what they had to do.