19
A package from Rio
The dogs followed me to the car and frolicked alongside, yapping, until I turned off the field-track, onto the road. My whole body was trembling and yet I felt lighter than I had in a long time. On the road a tractor came towards me. The farmer stared at me. Had he been high enough to see me as I pushed Korten to his death? I hadn’t even thought about witnesses. I looked back; another tractor was ploughing its furrows in a field and two children were out on bikes. I drove west. At Point-du-Raz I considered staying – an anonymous Christmas abroad. But I couldn’t find a hotel, and the cliff line looked just like Trefeuntec. I was going home. At Quimper I came to a police roadblock. I could tell myself a thousand times that it was an unlikely spot to be searching for Korten’s murderer, but I was scared as I waited in the queue for the police to wave me on.
In Paris I made the eleven o’clock night train. It was empty and I had no trouble getting a sleeping car. On Christmas Day towards eight o’clock I was back in my apartment. Turbo greeted me sulkily. Frau Weiland had laid my Christmas mail on the desk. Along with all the commercial Christmas greetings I found a Christmas card from Vera Müller, an invitation from Korten to spend New Year’s Eve with him and Helga in Brittany, and from Brigitte a package from Rio with an Indian tunic. I took it as a nightshirt, and went to bed. At half past eleven the telephone rang.
‘Merry Christmas, Gerd. Where are you hiding?’
‘Brigitte! Merry Christmas.’ I was happy, but I could hardly see for weariness and exhaustion.
‘You grouch, aren’t you pleased? I’m back.’
I made an effort. ‘You’re kidding. That’s really great. Since when?’
‘I arrived yesterday morning and I’ve been trying to reach you ever since. Where have you been hiding?’ There was reproach in her voice.
‘I didn’t want to be here on Christmas Eve. I felt very claustrophobic.’
‘Would you like to eat Tafelspitz with us? It’s already on the stove.’
‘Yes . . . who else is coming?’
‘I’ve brought Manu with me. I can’t wait to see you.’ She blew a kiss down the telephone.
‘Me too.’ I returned the kiss.
I lay in bed, and felt my way back to the present. To my world in which fate doesn’t control steamships or puppets, where no foundations are laid and no history gets made.
The Christmas edition of the Süddeutsche lay on the bed. It gave an annual balance sheet of toxic incidents in the chemical industry. I soon laid the paper aside.
The world wasn’t a better place for Korten’s death. What had I done? Come to terms with my past? Wiped my hands of it?
I arrived far too late for lunch.