Nothing in the room reminds Wolf of the fact that he grew up here. The posters have disappeared from the walls, even the stickers have been scratched from the inside of the door. Not a single piece of furniture is left from those days, and even the color of the walls is different. The room could be anyone’s.
In one of the cupboards there are stacks of cardboard boxes containing his old belongings. Books, comics, cassette tapes. The bottom row is devoted to the photograph albums, and on top of the albums there’s a box filled to the brim with film canisters. Wolf’s photographic phase lasted two years, and afterwards he sold his darkroom and never picked up a camera again. More than thirty undeveloped films are left over from those times. Wolf doesn’t know how durable films like that are. He should have thrown the box away a long time ago.
The dates on the albums were written with a silver marker. Pictures of the clique, pictures from school, and even a handful of nude shots of a girl who went to America shortly afterwards and didn’t want him to forget her.
Wolf piles up the albums chronologically, then he hesitates and puts them back in the cupboard. He doesn’t know what he’s doing there. He only knows that right now he doesn’t want to look back.
Lutger finds him lying on the bed in the spare room, his face buried in a pillow. Lutger sits down on the edge of the bed and waits a minute before he says, “Take your head out of the pillow, or you won’t be able to breathe and you’ll suffocate. And where will that leave me?”
Wolf laughs involuntarily. He lifts his head and sees his father’s face as a pale patch in the darkness.
“You’re a good father,” he says.
“I know.”
Wolf turns onto his back. He wishes he could cry. Since Erin’s death he has shed no more tears. He would so love to weep for Frauke, but there’s nothing.
“I slept with Tamara after the funeral,” he says, “and I don’t regret a second of it.”
Lutger says nothing for a moment, then says, “I’m glad. After all those years you’re almost like brother and sister, but they say love between brother and sister has its charms as well.”
“Lutger, that’s not funny. I’ve known Tamara for more than ten years, and I never thought it would come to anything. And suddenly Frauke dies, and Tamara and I … Does that make any kind of sense? I can’t see it. But it’s good, it’s right. So I don’t need to see any sense in it.”
“Wolf, it’s fine.”
“Of course it’s fine.”
Wolf falls silent and a few seconds later he adds, “It really is fine, isn’t it?”
“What are you really worried about?”
“Nothing.”
“Come on, what is it?”
How does he know? He can’t even see my face in the dark, am I that transparent?
Wolf imagines giving his father a brief summary of the nightmare that invaded their lives just a week ago.
By the way, the killer took a picture of you, Lutger, what do you have to say about that?
“I feel like everybody’s disappearing,” he says instead, and even as he says it he realizes that he’s more concerned about that disappearance than he is about a lunatic who gave them the job of getting rid of a corpse.
“They all disappear, and I’m left behind,” he says.
Lutger shrugs.
“I stayed behind when your mother left us. Kris did the same. You’re exaggerating a little. And besides, Frauke and Erin didn’t just disappear. No one did that to
you
.”
Wolf stares at the ceiling and is glad they’re sitting in the dark. Of course no one did it to him, but it still feels as if there’s an invisible weight lying on him. Loss, and more loss, time and again. Wolf doesn’t want to say it, he guesses that it’s going to sound like the ravings of an idiot, and yet he says it anyway.
“It seems not to matter so much to all of you. You’re strong, you keep going the way you were, but take a look at me.”
“You’re whining.”
“Yes, I’m whining.”
“And we don’t just keep going the way we did before, we’re just good at bluffing, believe me.”
Lutger stands up.
“Come on, let’s the two of us go downstairs now, and I’ll open the expensive wine that you and your brother gave me last year. Let’s raise a glass to Frauke. To Frauke and Tamara.”
“Just like that?”
“Just like that. And because I’m glad you’re here. Kris was right. It was time for us to talk to one another again. The house missed you too, I could tell. If you must, you can stay the night here—”
“What do you mean,
Kris was right
?” Wolf breaks in.
“You know what he’s like. He asked me to invite you to dinner so that we can spend a bit more time together.”
Wolf reaches for the bedside light and turns it on. Dazzled, father and son screw up their eyes.
“
When
did he ask you?” Wolf demands.
“It was right after the funeral. He called and said you could use a break and … Hey, where are you going?”
“I’ve got to go.”
“But …”
“We’ll catch up later.”
Lutger is left alone in the room. He hears the front door closing and wonders what has just happened.
Two hours and fifty-six minutes after he left the villa, Wolf turns back into the drive and is surprised that only his car is missing from the parking area. He’s even more surprised by the picture that presents itself to him in the kitchen. It’s past midnight. Tamara and Kris are sitting at the kitchen table drinking tea. They’ve put out a mug for him.
“What’s going on here?” asks Wolf.
“Sit down,” says Kris.
“Why did you ask Lutger to invite me?”
“Wolf, please, sit down.”
Wolf sits down at the table. When Tamara is about to pour him some tea, he holds his hand over the mug.
“We’ve got to talk,” says Tamara, “so take your stupid hand away and have some tea with us.”
Wolf withdraws his hand, Tamara pours the tea, the brothers look at each other.
“We had to get rid of you,” Kris starts to say.
“I worked that one out for myself, but an explanation would be nice.”
And so Wolf learns of Meybach’s final job and hears what Kris and Tamara have done.
“You’d have been in our way,” Kris explains.
Wolf digests the news, then he says, “Does that mean it’s over now?”
Wolf and Tamara look at Kris at the same time, as if he were the one to decide when it was over.
“It’s over,” Kris says resolutely. “I sent Meybach the file. We will never hear from him again. I promise you that.”
Tamara nods. Wolf tilts his head slightly to one side as if to see Kris from a different angle. It’s a short, bitter moment in which he understands with perfect clarity that his brother has just lied to them.
“What is it?” Kris asks.
“Nothing,” Wolf replies. “I’m just glad it’s over, that’s all.”
T
EN MINUTES
, fifteen minutes. Tamara sits on the bed, and nothing happens. Frauke’s room stays as it was before Tamara came in. Deserted and empty. Tamara doesn’t know what she expected. She goes into the cellar and fetches cardboard boxes. She empties the shelves and starts packing Frauke’s books in the boxes.
“What are you doing there?”
Wolf stands in the doorway.
“Cleaning up.”
They look at each other.
“It’s all fine,” Tamara reassures him, “really.”
Wolf nods, he doesn’t come any closer, she can see that he wants to come closer.
It’s time for us to tell Kris
, she thinks and says, “Why don’t all three of us go out for dinner tomorrow night. We should get away from the villa for a few hours and …”
Words fail her, she doesn’t know what’s waiting for her out there.
Frauke will be everywhere
.
“… celebrate Frauke,” Wolf finishes her sentence.
“Exactly,” says Tamara and smiles. “Celebrate Frauke.”
And talk to Kris
, she thinks and can’t say it.
What am I scared of? They’re brothers, not rivals. But we’ve known each other so long. We’re like a constellation, and no one alters a constellation without producing chaos
.
Wolf wishes her good night and shuts the door behind him. Tamara regrets not asking him in. Suddenly she’s alone again, with the emptiness that Frauke left behind.
She starts with the desk, clears up the papers, unplugs the computer and wraps up the cable. She takes the pictures and posters off the walls. She is very careful. She doesn’t know which of her things Frauke’s father will want to keep, and if she’s quite honest she doesn’t really care. This is her farewell.
She puts the cardboard boxes by one wall, the clothes by another. It takes her three hours and everything’s cleared away. The only thing she’s left untouched is the bed.
Tamara slumps back exhausted and there, between the sheet and the blanket, she finds Frauke and inhales her smell with relief. She buries her face in the pillows and cries herself to sleep as if she were a child with the weight of the whole world on her shoulders.
Tamara wakes up with no sense of where she is. It’s seven o’clock in the morning. She opens the windows and feels as if by doing so she is freeing Frauke’s smell. She looks around the room and is content. Afterwards she will ask the brothers to help her carry the boxes into the cellar. She’ll think of a good restaurant tonight. She decides to stop grieving before midnight.
Tamara balances her breakfast on a tray and sets it down on the table in the conservatory. She steps out into the garden. The Belzens’ house still looks abandoned. Tamara wonders where they could have gone.
Maybe there was a family emergency, or else they’ve gone off somewhere
.
Yes, but why didn’t they let us know?
And as she stands there, the rising sun bathes the house in light, and Tamara notices a movement behind the terrace window. She walks across the still damp lawn to the shore. The dew is cool under her bare feet. She stops by the low quay wall and now she can see that there is a man asleep
in an armchair in the Belzens’ living room. As she watches him, the man wakes up and looks at her. Motionless, as if he had only been pretending to be asleep. No surprise, nothing.
That isn’t Joachim
.
Tamara doesn’t know how she’s supposed to react. She tries to smile and raises her hand. The man gets to his feet and disappears for a moment from Tamara’s field of vision, then the terrace door slides open and he steps out of the house and into the garden. He stops by the quay wall and calls over to her:
“Wonderful morning. You’re from the villa, aren’t you?”
“You got it,” says Tamara.
“Helena and Joachim have told me about you.”
The man puts a hand to his chest.
“I’m Samuel.”
“Tamara.”
Samuel points behind him with his thumb.
“I’m looking after the house while the two lovebirds are on the Baltic coast.”
“I wondered where they were,” Tamara says with relief.
Samuel sticks his hands in his trouser pockets and points to the water with his foot.
“I’m surprised they haven’t built a bridge here yet. You’re so close that you could almost touch.”
Tamara doesn’t think fifty yards is so close that you could almost touch, but she nods anyway and looks at the water as if she too is surprised that no one has thought of building a bridge.
“OK, back to it.”
Samuel waves goodbye, disappears into the house, and closes the terrace door behind him. Tamara turns around, and is about to get back to her breakfast when she sees Wolf in the conservatory doorway. The sight of him reminds her of him standing in Frauke’s room yesterday.
He’s still there, he’s concerned
. Wolf is dressed only in shorts, and is holding Tamara’s coffee cup.
“Old man Belzen’s changed,” he says.
“You should do something about your morning erection.”
Wolf looks down.
“That’s not an erection,” he says. “I always look like that.”
“Dream on.”
Wolf hands her the cup.
“His name is Samuel,” says Tamara. “He’s looking after the house while the Belzens paint the Baltic red.”
Wolf grins.
“Since yesterday I’ve only seen you grinning,” says Tamara. “What’s that all about?”
She kisses him before he can reply. Then she pushes her way past him and sits down at the table. Wolf stops in the doorway and looks down at himself.
“Now
that’s
a morning erection,” he says.
“Who’s interested?” asks Tamara as she cuts open a bread roll.
NOT TRUE
.
Kris shuts his eyes tight, opens them again.
True
.
He finds it hard to believe that the name appears just like that on the doorbell nameplate. He was sure the address was wrong.
Here I am in the middle of Charlottenburg, a few houses away there’s an organic shop, there’s a playground on the corner, and Meybach’s damned name is right there on the nameplate. It’s absurd
.
The front door is open, three bikes lean against each other in the hall. Meybach lives in the front part of the building. Third floor. There is a sisal carpet on the stairs, and his footsteps barely make a sound. His finger settles on the doorbell. He doesn’t know what he’s going to say, but he’ll know as soon as he sees Meybach, he’ll know whether he finds himself facing the murderer or not. His face will give him away.
The gun lies heavy in his jacket. Kris has the feeling that everyone knows what he’s hiding there. He saw himself in a shop window. He’s so inconspicuous that it’s almost embarrassing. A tall, scrawny guy with his hands dug into his jacket pockets. Nothing more.
He rings the bell again, and now there’s a hint of relief.
Why should he be there?
Kris imagines Meybach on the other side, pressing his ear to the door and listening.
Why am I here?
Kris sees himself going down the stairs and driving off. No one needs to find out. Kris has made himself a hero unasked, and he could creep off unasked just as easily.
But not after the second job, everything was possible before, but now …
Since the second job Kris no longer believes that Meybach will stop murdering.
The lunatic has tasted blood, and if I don’t stop him, what will he do next?