Tretjak (25 page)

Surprising himself, Tretjak had answered:
Yes, I can. But I have to ask you to be patient. I still need a little time.

He got the response he had expected:
I have waited such a long time. A few more months won't make a difference.

He found the idea intriguing: it was not like the other cases, when he had had to correct the past, this time he had to prepare a grand entrance for the past. It was mad that he had even sent the email. Did he ever want to work again? Would he be able to? Wasn't it completely clear that it was over? That the Fixer couldn't fix anything anymore? Too much had happened, there was not one single stone left in place from his old life, he thought. On the other hand: could he ever really stop doing what he was doing? He had to think of Dimitri Steiner and his death. With people like us, Tretjak thought, in the end there is always a reckoning. Those kinds of thoughts drove him crazy, and yet he couldn't stop them.

Tretjak had reached Buttermelcher Street. Still seven minutes to go until half past. He was standing in front of a shop selling leather garments: the window display was mainly made up of chains and collars with spikes on them, and in between stood naked male display dummies brandishing whips. For a split second he changed the subject of his thoughts: he knew a few homosexuals, and all of them were polite and sensitive human beings. How did that go together with the whips? Was he missing something?

It was one of those autumn days which can make Munich sparkle like no other city. That set off his next chain of thoughts: would he miss Munich if he left? How would it be if he went away and then returned to the city, would he feel like he was in an old movie which had continued to run without him? Tretjak liked Fiona's plans to go away together, for example to Brazil, a good place to live, or to Moscow, good for business. He liked her enthusiasm, her strength, which had started to pull him along.

Stefan Treysa had made coffee, and on the table a plate of buttered pretzels was waiting. As usual, Treysa was alone in the office, except of course for the parrot, who was quickly making himself heard with loud cries of ‘woof'. They were sitting on two office chairs opposite each other, with the small table bearing the pretzels between them. Tretjak thought that his friend looked even smaller, even thinner than usual.

Treysa started with a short introduction on the role of a therapist. In principle, it was impossible to be the therapist of a person one knew very well, a family member or a friend. A therapist always had to be able to keep his distance, to take an outside view, to be able to interfere effectively. A therapist should never be part of the system, which he was supposed to judge. Treysa smiled: ‘All right, let's attempt the impossible,' he said. ‘We have 45 minutes. I would suggest that the next session be tomorrow. We can discuss how to proceed then.'

Tretjak nodded.

‘I'm asking you what I always ask at the beginning: why are you here?'

‘Because I feel bad. Really bad. I can't sleep. I'm afraid. I'm not taking the tablets anymore. Maybe you'll say that is good news, but it's not. I know that it sounds idiotic, but with the tablets I still somehow had the feeling of being in control. But then I felt as if exactly this attempt to stay in control was making things even worse. I feel completely helpless, I think for the first time in my life.'

‘I don't believe that. I think you only blocked helplessness from your life. And now it's back.'

Tretjak was silent.

‘Gabriel, I'm going to summarise what has happened in the past months. There were several murders, gruesome murders. Acquaintances, close acquaintances of yours were killed. And your cleaning lady. A poor, elderly lady. And who did all this? Your father. Let me repeat this: your father committed these murders, your father with whom you have always had a disturbed relationship.'

‘I know what has happened. You don't have to tell me the story again.'

‘Yes, I do have to. Because I'm telling you for a very specific reason. How can a man who has experienced such horror not be in a crisis? How can a man who has lived through all that not think that the ground beneath his feet is trembling? Let me put it simply: there has never been a man who has had more reason to be in a crisis than you.' Treysa took a gulp of his coffee and said: ‘Could it be that you should acknowledge this fact, before we talk about everything else?'

‘No', Tretjak said.

‘What, no?'

‘You know me, Stefan. I have a philosophy of life, to which everything else is subordinated. I live by that philosophy. You can call it a crutch, I don't care. An important pillar of that philosophy is that I cut off everything behind me. What is past is past. Doesn't make a difference anymore. Nothing that happened a long time ago, nothing that happened a few years ago, not even what went on the day before yesterday. That is my principle.'

‘Yes, I know,' Treysa said. ‘And there were moments when you had me almost convinced. A life without a past? That's a real challenge for a psychologist.'

‘But right now it doesn't seem to work,' said Tretjak, ‘just when it is supposed to. Because every indication is that all the evil lies in the past. The murders, my father, everything. You know that I've been trained in the techniques of expunging the past. I've tried everything, but nothing has worked. Everything is bubbling up, so that I've got the feeling that I consist only of the past. I'm dreaming you can't imagine what kind of dreams.'

‘Tell me one dream.'

‘One comes back every night. I'm a little boy, about ten years old, and I'm walking across a meadow, holding an older man's hand, towards a clearing in a forest. Then the man says to me, “do you see the bird there, the big bird?” And I'm actually seeing a big bird hop into the meadow, a crow, black, as big as a human being. I want to run towards it. “No”, says the man, “I don't mean the little bird, I mean the big bird, the really big bird. Look carefully!” And then I see it. There is no clearing in front of us, but everything in front of us is just one giant bird, an eagle as big as a hundred trees. I feel that I am gasping with excitement. And then I wake up and I'm drenched in sweat.'

‘Interesting dream,' Treysa said.

Tretjak took one of the pretzels and said: ‘What is this all about? What, may I ask, is the message?'

‘Of the cuff I would say that the little boy, the little Gabriel, was not allowed to be a child. He sees only the small bird, not the big one. One thing is clear: your childhood is coming to the fore with this dream.' Treysa also reached for a pretzel. ‘Do you remember poor Professor Kerkhoff and his thesis about the Factory of the Soul?'

‘Yes,' Tretjak replied, ‘I remember well. I've got to thinking about it quite often lately.' Images appeared in Tretjak's mind's eye, brief clips. The arrogant face of Harry Kerkhoff. The strange message about the racehorse in the hotel restaurant in Sri Lanka. Then the news of Kerkhoff's murder. That's how everything started, the whole nightmare. ‘Yes,' he repeated, ‘I often think of Harry.'

Treysa once more summarised Kerkhoff's thesis. ‘Kerkhoff was a biochemist and brain specialist, not a friend of psychology. “If one absolutely has to work with this strange term, the ‘soul',” he had always pontificated, “then one has to imagine the soul to be something like a factory.” And he had thought of a factory with huge machines, which perform various functions. The machines produce, repress, plan, and when the human being feels fine these machines work perfectly and in harmony. In that case, nobody would think about stopping the machines or questioning them. Kerkhoff was convinced that it was best to just leave everything the way it was. If that human being, however, wasn't feeling so good, then it was time to go into the engine room and check out what was defective.'

Tretjak was able to almost automatically complete Kerkhoff's theory: if everything is functioning well, you still need to oil and fuel the machines. ‘He always told me, OK, you block out the past, but you therefore have to provide your soul with sufficient other stuff. You, for example, have to become a megalomaniac...'

‘That was Kerkhoff's idiosyncratic method...' said Treysa, and had to laugh.

‘Yes, megalomania was his thing, wasn't it? And in a way, it's mine as well. Kerkhoff told me that you have to be successful, very successful, you have to be diligent, you have to create your own world of experience. You cannot allow your soul even the briefest moment to turn around and look back.' Tretjak paused. ‘Now it obviously has turned around.'

Stefan Treysa stood up. And then he sat down again. ‘Yes, well, no wonder with all that has happened. The factory has been damaged from the outside. And we now have to get into the engine room and start up the machines again.' It was totally silent in the room, and nothing could be heard outside either, not even the parrot. ‘Tell me about your Fiona. What kind of story is that? I've seen you two a couple of times and you look good together.'

‘She thought she had caught a cool guy. And what has she got now? A ruin.'

‘Some women like that. Have you got plans?'

‘Fiona always makes plans. Start anew somewhere else, go away. The two of us.'

‘And you?'

Tretjak thought about it. He thought for a long time, too long in fact to say just something casual. ‘I mistrust her. I feel mistrustful. I ask myself why she is saying what she says, doing what she does. I ask myself whether there is an ulterior motive. This is what I think. I can't help it.'

‘Is there a reason for this?'

‘I don't know. I don't mistrust only her. I don't trust anybody. Even you. I can imagine that when I leave here, you'll call somebody to tell him how to get me. Because you are a part of a big conspiracy. I'm constantly imagining these kinds of things.'

‘I'm not surprised. With your kind of job, I would think the same way. Particularly considering what happened to you.'

‘Stefan, you asked me about Fiona. I think this woman is terrific. At times I even think I love her. But how is that going to work with a guy like me who is so overly suspicious? I'm damaged, really damaged. A guy like that should keep his hands off nice women.'

‘Hmm,' Stefan Treysa said, ‘maybe that's right.'

‘There is something else,' Tretjak said, ‘I've given you my father's letter to read, his farewell letter. What do you think?'

‘I've never read something so terrible. I use the word very rarely, it doesn't really belong to my vocabulary, but that letter is really evil. I can't think of another word for it.'

‘Yes, I agree,' Tretjak said, ‘but there is something wrong with that letter. Why did my father commit suicide at that very moment? He kills my cleaning lady and then himself. Why? Why doesn't he continue? Why doesn't he totally let loose it and do God knows what? I don't understand. And there is one point in that letter which is particularly strange. I don't know whether you remember. He writes...'

‘Be quiet,' Treysa said, ‘I don't want to hear any more about it. This letter is a hypnotic work. Your father wrote it with only one intention: it is supposed to take over your mind again and again, to create obsessive negative thoughts in you. He would be content if he could see you now. His plan is about to work. If it was ever sensible to expunge something from memory, then it is this letter. Expunge it, Gabriel. Expunge it forever.'

‘But this is not just about me,' Tretjak said, ‘this is about a case, which has to be solved. And maybe I can do that.'

‘I want to tell you something else now: you know the term “comfort zone”, don't you?'

‘No,' Tretjak said, ‘I don't know that term.'

‘Nothing defines a human being more than his comfort zone. That is, how he has grown accustomed to think, how he has grown accustomed to live. And with you I would add: how he has grown accustomed to solve a problem or not. A human being arranges his comfort zone and fights tooth and nail against any attempt to force him to leave it. He finds reasons, logical reasons, all sorts of reasons, which prevent him from moving into another zone.'

‘I'm not inventing anything.'

‘Yes, you are,' Treysa said. ‘You are falling back into your old routine: I want to solve a case and I'm applying my rules to do that. But this time it's not your case. There is no more case. Your father is the culprit, end of story. And you shouldn't get entangled in your father's spider web, but instead you have to take care of yourself. You have to get out of your tried and tested comfort zone. This is now all about Gabriel Tretjak, about your soul. You can't waste any time, none at all. You know yourself how serious the situation is.'

‘What do you mean, serious?'

‘You know that best of all. In addition, you are addicted to a certain medication, and it's not going to be that easy to come off it.' Treysa looked at his watch. ‘The hour is over. We'll meet again tomorrow. And then we'll enter the engine room.'

They said good-bye at the office door, and Tretjak had already walked down a few steps when he turned around one more time. Treysa nodded at him. Saying good-bye and then turning around one more time – he hadn't done that for a long time, Tretjak thought.

Treysa and he had first met a few years ago on a long train journey, on the Orient Express from Vienna to Istanbul. Tretjak had given the trip to a girlfriend as a birthday present, a terrific journey, with a sleeping carriage, total luxury. The neighbouring compartment was occupied by Mr and Mrs Treysa. They saw one another at breakfast and then again at dinner. They talked, and they liked each other. It had been a fun week as a foursome. When they said good-bye in Istanbul, they exchanged numbers but they didn't see each other again. But a few months later, Tretjak attended a reception at the Munich House of Literature, feeling a bit tense as he was about to organise the uncomfortable meeting of three people who were very important for a case he was working on at the time. And suddenly Stefan Treysa was standing in front of him, the small, slim man. Tretjak could really not handle him at that moment and overlooked him as arrogantly as he could – and he could be very arrogant. Treysa immediately understood, grinned, and walked on. Tretjak had liked that grin. He called Treysa the very next day. In a way, their friendship had started with a lie.