“Hello, anyone there?” he calls, keeping his finger on the doorbell. Then an idea comes to him, and he takes out his new cell phone. It takes him only a second to make a connection, and the cell phone in the apartment answers.
I knew it!
Kris knocks on the door. The ringing from the apartment comes like a shrill retort.
Here I am, what are you waiting for, come and get me
. It rings and rings, and Kris starts hammering on the door and gives a start when a voice downstairs says, “He isn’t there.”
Kris disconnects and leans over the banister. From the open apartment door a floor below, a man looks up at him.
“Hello,” says Kris.
“Hello,” says the man. “You’re looking for Lars, right?”
“Right.”
“He isn’t there.”
The man tilts his head on one side.
“Do we know each other?”
Kris shakes his head. He knows he has to explain himself now.
“It’s complicated,” he says. “Lars Meybach gave my agency a job, and there are some problems with it. I urgently need to speak to him.”
“Have you tried his cell phone?”
Kris holds up his phone. The man laughs and says, “What kind of agency?”
“Dating.”
“Typical Lars,” says the man, and now Kris laughs too, although he doesn’t know what he’s laughing about.
“Any idea when he’ll be back?”
“He’s at work. If you leave him a message on his phone he’ll … What is it?”
Kris points over his shoulder with his thumb at Meybach’s door.
“His phone’s ringing in the apartment.”
“Oh,” says the man. “Just wait a moment.”
He disappears from the landing, and a moment later he comes upstairs.
“Lars isn’t the type to leave his phone at home,” he says, holding his hand out to Kris. “Jonas Kronauer.”
“Kris, Kris Marrer.”
Kronauer has a spare key. He says Meybach won’t mind if he just looks in.
“Lars?” Kronauer stops in the doorway and just sticks his head inside.
“Hey, Lars, are you there?”
They listen, then look at each other, and Kronauer says, “Shall we?”
“OK,” says Kris, and they step inside the apartment.
He doesn’t know what he expected. The apartment is normal, just normal and tidy. It smells of aftershave, there’s a sweater over a chair; in the kitchen Kris sees an open newspaper next to a cup half full of milky coffee.
“Why are the mirrors covered?” he asks.
Kronauer lifts the cloth at one corner.
“No idea. In the Jewish faith you hang cloth over the mirrors in a house when someone’s died.”
“Has someone died?”
Kronauer shakes his head.
“Not that I know of. As far as I know, Lars isn’t even Jewish.”
They find the cell phone on the shelf in the bathroom. The mirror over the basin is covered with a cloth.
“He must have forgotten his phone,” says Kronauer.
“Do you know where he works?”
“I’ll write it down for you.”
It’s an advertising agency on Alexanderplatz. Kris says thanks and leaves the apartment with Kronauer. A floor below they part with a handshake. Kris can’t believe how lucky he is.
When he comes out of the building, Wolf is leaning against the passenger side of his car, his arms folded in front of his chest.
There goes my luck
, Kris thinks, and tries not to show any signs of panic as he crosses the street and walks up to Wolf. His head is working, trying to find excuses.
“Are you shitting me or what?”
“What do you mean?”
“You think I don’t know you? It’s me, Wolf, your brother.”
A couple turn to look at them.
“Keep walking,” says Wolf to them.
“You followed me,” says Kris, trying to change the subject.
“Of course I followed you. Just because Tamara fell for your act doesn’t mean I’m going to do the same.”
“What act? I haven’t a clue what you’re talking about.”
“Where have you just been?”
“Visiting a client.”
Wolf laughs.
“So one of our clients lives here?”
“That’s right.”
Wolf points to the building that Kris has just left.
“Over there? Don’t you think it’s a bit of a coincidence that Meybach’s name is on the nameplate too?”
Kris blushes.
“Maybe Meybach and this client are one and the same person.”
“Oh, shit,” says Kris.
“Right,” says Wolf. “Oh, shit.”
They sit around the corner in the Leonhardt. The atmosphere is awful. Wolf wants to know what Kris thought he was doing, trying to go solo like that.
“Who are you? Dirty Kris or something?”
“I said I’d deal with it.”
“This is what you call dealing with it? Going to the guy’s house? Are you completely crazy? Isn’t Frauke’s drowning enough for you?”
Kris says nothing.
“How on earth did you get hold of his address?”
Kris tells him he found out why Frauke crept secretly into the villa the night before her death.
“Meybach’s number was stored in my phone. Frauke phoned him twice. On Saturday night and then Sunday morning just before she drowned. I asked my former boss to use one of his contacts, and that’s how I got hold of Meybach’s address.”
“And what was your plan?”
“I wanted to talk to him.”
“Alone? You wanted to visit a guy who nails people to the wall? Are you completely insane? The guy’s a murderer!”
Kris looks round, no one is listening to them.
“Do you think I don’t know?” he says quietly, and unconsciously touches the gun in his jacket.
Wolf looks at him dubiously. Nothing that his brother is saying
sounds properly thought through. And Wolf knows Kris would never do anything that wasn’t thought through.
“So?”
“So what?”
“Was Meybach at home or not?”
“He’s at work.”
Wolf tilts his head.
“And before you ask me whether this Meybach is our Meybach: he is.”
Kris tells him about the cell phone in the apartment.
“You were in
his
apartment?” Wolf laughs. “You’re shitting me. So
if
the address is right and
if
this guy is our murderer, then he’s a complete idiot.”
“Or he’s fearless.”
Wolf stops laughing.
“Maybe he really is fearless,” Kris goes on. “But maybe he also wants us to find him. Have you thought of that?”
From the way Wolf looks, he hasn’t thought of that. Kris drinks from his coffee, which has grown cold. He wants the words to take effect. As he looks at Wolf, Kris wonders how he’s going to get rid of him now.
I’m the big brother, protecting the little brother. That’s how it’s always been
.
“Don’t think of getting rid of me,” Wolf warns him.
“No one wants to get rid of you.”
“Then trust me. Don’t exclude me.”
Kris hesitates, then he takes the piece of paper out of his trouser pocket and says, “If Meybach wants us to find him, let’s do him the favor.”
“What’s that?” Wolf asks.
Kris sets the address down on the table and pushes it toward Wolf.
“Let’s visit Meybach at work.”
“Sorry,” says the woman at reception, without taking her eyes off her monitor, “Meybach isn’t with us any more. He resigned three months ago. Is there anything else I can help you with?”
“Are you quite sure?” asks Kris.
“Sure as I can be. His mother fell ill and Lars wanted to look after her. Only for a month at first, then he pulled out completely.”
She looks up for the first time and smiles suddenly. It’s the fakest smile that Kris has seen for ages. Pure business.
“What did you want to see him about?”
Kris doesn’t know what to say. Wolf shoves him aside and takes over.
“We’re old school friends. We’re back in Berlin for the first time in years and we wanted to surprise him. Since he wasn’t at home, we thought we’d come and meet him here. Any idea where we go from here?”
Bull’s-eye. The woman has been challenged, they need her help. There are such people—people without a particular task to perform, who are almost lifeless in their dormant state, but full of energy as soon as you need them.
“Have you tried his cell phone?”
“He’s not answering.”
“Hm, let’s take a look.”
She bites her bottom lip between her teeth and leans forward on her chair. She no longer looks like a receptionist in her mid-twenties, now she’s more of a teenager faced with a mystery.
“You could try his parents.”
She slides back over to the keyboard, types and finds out that his parents live in Dahlem. She writes the address down and underlines the street twice as if Kris and Wolf were stupid. Her phone rings as she hands them the piece of paper. She picks up the receiver, her eyes drift across the room and past them. The brothers no longer exist for her.
“They probably breed women like that in a lab,” Wolf says on the way outside.
“At least she’s helped us.”
Wolf looks at the piece of paper.
“What exactly do you expect to get from the parents?”
“Something,” says Kris. “I’m happy with the crumbs from the table.”
“How poetic.”
No one answers when they ring the bell, but they can hear music from inside the house. Wolf walks to one of the windows and screens his eyes. After a few seconds he knocks against the pane. When he is standing next to Kris again the music falls silent and the front door opens. The woman is in her mid-fifties. She is holding a pair of scissors and a comb.
“How can I help you?”
“Mrs. Meybach?” asks Kris. “Lars Meybach’s mother?”
Her mouth tightens and she nods. Wolf tells her the same story that he told in the advertising agency. The search for the missing friend continues. Meybach’s mother asks them in. In the living room a poodle is sitting on a chair. There are hair clippings on the floor. When the poodle
sees the brothers come in, it is about to jump off the chair, but its mistress snaps at it.
“Sit!”
The dog cowers and sits where it is.
“He hates it when I clip his hair,” she explains and points to the sofa.
They sit down, and the poodle doesn’t take its eyes off them. Mrs. Meybach scratches his head. She doesn’t say anything, she just looks at the brothers, then clears her throat as if she had only just noticed that no one was speaking. She starts talking. She says she’s sorry that they have to find out like this, but her son died three months ago, and it’s a burden that the family still carries with it.
The brothers are back in the street. They don’t understand a thing now. They sit in the car as if anesthetized and don’t understand a thing. Wolf tries to introduce some kind of logic into the story. All that comes out is nonsense.
“You spoke to him on the phone. You found out his address, and you were in his apartment. I mean, his neighbor must know if the guy’s dead or not.”
“Maybe he’s a different Lars Meybach,” says Kris.
“Come on, Kris, that’s just crap. It’s
his
phone, ringing in
his
apartment. You saw the thing yourself.”
It’s four o’clock in the afternoon, the rush-hour traffic swells like a metallic tumor. They decide to drive back to Meybach’s place and talk to the neighbors. Wolf says Kris should avoid the autobahn. Kris says the autobahn will be quicker. They spend the next half hour stuck in traffic, get off the autobahn, and onto the Kurfürstendamm, and five minutes later a series of side streets has delivered them to the Stuttgarter Platz. Jonas Kronauer is no longer at home, of course. They ring Meybach’s bell again, and Wolf suggests breaking the door down. Kris has no idea what good that would do, and suggests going back to the advertising agency.
According to his mother, Lars Meybach had taken an overdose of sleeping pills and drowned in the bath. His neighbor and best friend Jonas was supposed to have found him. Mrs. Meybach had whispered the details in such a way that Kris and Wolf had had to sit leaning forward on the edge of the sofa to hear every word. She had said that her son was a depressive, so his suicide didn’t surprise anyone.
“We didn’t tell anyone outside the family that he’s dead. We couldn’t
have stood the humiliation. You know how people talk. Lars was a source of shame to us all. His death was a relief. Please, don’t talk to my husband about it. We have to go on living.”
The woman at reception doesn’t believe a word of it.
“Lars isn’t dead, that’s nonsense,” she says, laughing a pearly laugh like sweet sparkling wine. “We’re in regular contact with him, his last e-mail …”
She flips through her mailbox.
“… is dated 16th February. He wished André a happy birthday. André’s our boss. He still hopes that Lars will come back and work here again one day. Who told you he was dead?”
“We went to see his mother,” says Kris.
“Ah, mothers,” says the woman and smiles ruefully.
The brothers stand on the Alexanderplatz, still confused.
“Why would his mother lie to us?” asks Wolf. “Did she seem crazy to you?”
“Did Frauke’s mother seem crazy to you?” Kris asks back.
Before Wolf can answer, his cell phone rings. He takes the call, listens for a moment, and passes it to Kris.
“It’s Meybach. He wants to know what the fuck we think we’re doing.”
Y
OU AREN’T REALLY
surprised that they found the apartment. You expected that, it was what you wanted. But you didn’t expect they’d actually turn up on your doorstep. You’re glad it was Kris Marrer. He still remains a mystery to you. What he thinks, what he feels. You regret not having more time for him. His visit makes your life more real. Kris Marrer was in your apartment. Kris Marrer walked through your rooms, and Kris Marrer knows you’re alive.
He knows
. Even if you’re pleased, you shouldn’t let him know on the phone. You’re not an idiot. Let him have both barrels.
“What the fuck are you up to?” you ask again, after Wolf Marrer has passed the phone to his brother. “I thought we had a business agreement, and then I hear you’ve shown up at my house.”
For a few seconds there isn’t a sound at the other end, then Kris Marrer
says, “It doesn’t say in our agreement that we aren’t allowed to visit clients to discuss problems with them.”