Greed (32 page)

In future more than 2,000 people will be questioned in relation to the case, but what can one learn from people? They lie as soon as they open their mouths. It's always the same, it's what they've read and what they've seen on television, and they confuse that with what has happened to them and what really should have been in the newspaper, because it would have been much more interesting. Really it should only have been a matter of time, until the murderer would have been caught. It must have been a stranger. But there are hardly any strangers here and only a few tourists, and they are immediately conspicuous, because of their racy-sporty or rural-hunting costume, in which they dream of higher strata, to which they do not belong, and to whom the hunting grounds belong, no, they have no grounds here. In winter the frost's tender, sensitive hands chase away the strangers, in summer the rain, which mows down everything, even the bare earth. And anyone who's still left is driven off by us in person. Perhaps this girl, Gabi, wanted to see the whole wide world, but had not suspected that this small one would already be a size too big for her. Eyes bore into eyes and discuss and ask something. Names are mentioned, people are summoned for questioning. The Country Police are only doing their duty, the officers say again and again, when they once again stop in front of the hillock of a human being, who acts the boss in front of them, mole hill as Matterhorn; not much will come of all that. Each tells one's own truths, one more, the other less, the truths are, once one has got to know them, so hard to express, because they are probably not true at all. People are called, and they rush over in a state of agitation. Then they are sent away again. They all knew our Gabi, her mother and her boyfriend knew her particularly well, and they are questioned particularly well. They say, no one knew our Gabi as well as we did: There certainly wasn't another man. The two of them are sitting in the kitchen-living room again. They can no longer kiss the rim of the half-full cup of cocoa, which Gabi left standing the last time she was seen. She made it that evening before she left. She didn't finish it. The cup was rinsed. Where did she go after that? She shouldn't have gone out again, we definitely told her: stay at home or take your boyfriend with you. One or the other. The boyfriend didn't even know that she wanted to go out again, as he claims, although it's not much of a claim. She would never do anything without me, says the boyfriend. Funny. The boyfriend is at first naturally the main suspect, he doesn't, however, give the impression of having done it. He is altogether quite quiet. He was also quiet at school, except when he was required to say something. He did not have any greater difficulty than usual in expressing himself in the spoken exercise, which he delivered in the first lesson. There would have had to be something in the way he looked or in his voice. Nothing. He would automatically have had to make himself small in the face of something big like death, turn pale, stutter, something, sweat or stammer, if you like. His face seemed familiar to everyone, just as always. But who knows who he is, no, not the friend, who among us knows who he is. We, that is, everyone except me, knows how to make pheasant wrapped in bacon, but we don't know who we are. So, I am one of the few who really doesn't want to know. It's one reason why we always need variety, well, I don't need it. Perhaps we can find ourselves somewhere else? But to do that we always have to travel somewhere else. We also always knew everything about Gabi, apart from one essential detail, thinks the head of the regional CID even into his sleep, that is, even into his temporary death. It's the only way he can put himself in the position of the victim, by plunging into sleep and the next day hoping to have found a clue in his brain which he has not yet followed up. Again nothing. he's close, he knows that, but still: nothing. I'm sorry. I would tell you if I could. But I can't penetrate this dimension. A carton full of little wrapped sugar cubes from various cafes in places in the neighborhood, collected for the fun of it, which was no doubt as small as these sugar cubes, these keepsakes, which themselves don't keep their shape, but are happy if they don't have to dissolve and can first get to know two or three people to whom they are served, assuming their first owners have not damaged the wrapping with the signs of the zodiac too badly. But Gabi was always in these establishments alone, or with her boyfriend. There was never another man with her. At least no one whom we observed or whom we can remember. Her boyfriend claims she had recently perhaps been a little less passionate in love-making than usual, he says it shamefacedly. That points to something, but perhaps only that she had been a little lethargic or there was a lot to do at work. She wrote a letter, to a girlfriend: Mother and boyfriend hem me in, don't give me room to breathe, check up on me, pester me to do things, no idea what, it seems to be enough for them that I'm there, but I know, I'm their mistress, I know so, precisely because they pester me. Computers order these names, figures and dates, which in turn are shown to other men and machines. Many others note number plates and ask about the owners, who try not to look the fool. Too bad. One cannot know everything about a person, and one can know absolutely nothing about everyone, what does that mean. Even for someone smart it's hard to express, I already said so, and I'm not smart; I'll just have to take even better care to look smart, in order to understand life, although I already spend a fortune, otherwise in future I won't be admitted to life at all, and will have to let everyone else go in front of me. Would anyway be a bit late for life now, wouldn't it? If only I had learned something! When the mother wakes up, it hits her that her daughter is dead and she, the mother, can immediately go to her boyfriend in Germany, in Bavaria, but on first thoughts it's no fun at all, on second thoughts the fun will return. Yes, the two of them will return, perhaps after a really pleasant holiday together, Mr. Fun and Mrs. Joy of Living. The mother would in any case have moved away soon, why shouldn't parents be birds of passage for once? They want to move on sometimes, too. The mother has her own boyfriend and has put down a deposit on a house for Gabi, that should be enough, the couple, that was definitely the plan, would certainly have kept an eye on Gabi, lovingly hugged her, and Gabi would always have found ways and means of being horrid to them and to demand careful handling in return. Other people are also likewise burdened, no wonder that one would rather have their apartments instead of them; a wonder that most of them are still in one piece, given how often fate has struck them and wrested their few weak and delicate weapons from their hands before they could even read the instructions. So. Many are in the hospital. Mr. Westenthaler has smashed his kneecap for the umpteenth time, always the same one. All the rest are dead now, I decide, and so I save myself a lot of work, and they've already been cleared away by the good housewife's hand of death. So I no longer have to describe them. Thank you very much. The rest still lie under their burdens and wait for someone to put them back on their feet again and deliver them to someone who will perhaps be pleased about it. There isn't anyone like that, who sticks with one like the oak with the mistletoe. One cannot neglect oneself nevertheless, otherwise not even in the misty future will this long-desired partner turn up, who talks to one in a nice and friendly fashion. One must then on no account neglect him and not oneself either. When can one take a rest? It would be better if people had been on their feet long before that, then they would have had time to find someone better than the one they have. Only he who knows longing. Who knows what they suffer, the people? Oh, the one who knows and loves us is far away. In the water. Hardly is someone gone than one longs for him. Or not, who knows. No injuries of any kind could be identified on the girl's body, no visible ones at least. Someone got too close to her, but, to the forensic doctor's surprise, he by no means acted in a brutal way. What's even more surprising: in all probability no sign of sexual intercourse before death, not even traces of a violent attempt to penetrate her or ejaculate in or anywhere on her. The water obliterated these traces. Why did someone pull Gabi's trousers down to her knees and her pullover and shirt over her breasts? And yes, the open bra as well. Why these diligent pieces of work, which perhaps had nothing to do with diligence, but with necessity? And afterwards it wasn't necessary to pull up the woman's clothes again properly, why indeed, only the doctor is going to see her now, someone like that. It wouldn't have cost anything to make her look decent again and lay her out, the dead woman we see here. Two movements, one above, one below, but there are some who no longer have them at their command, ever since women can dress and undress by themselves. Did the taut weapons of a man take aim at this body, which came as suppliant or even as someone indifferent, which said no, and when I say no, does that mean no? You know, one can even lose self-control with suppliants in the face of their humility, which nevertheless demands everything, even as they throw themselves away, perhaps in order to create space for a whole lot more. Was it really necessary to pull down and push up her things so unkindly? And then this gentle, yet absolutely certain death, each one of its holds grips tightly-death, this free climber. He must be skillful, the fellow, sometimes he has to leave the scene of his activities very quickly afterwards. The young woman has not simply been choked or throttled, with the pressure and strength of firmly grasping hands, for several minutes, but gently through slight pressure of an open hand or a forearm on the throat, right on the nerve conductor center, which has its home there; dingalingaling sound the nerve ends with their integrated wiring, and then they're quiet and don't make a sound. No messages for you. Not on the display either. Time and date. In the year 2000 it will perhaps, at least for a while, be difficult to find the people whom death has marked with its expiry date. The computer will perhaps fail, felled, outwitted by time itself. And in 2001 it might get even worse, let's wait and see. Perhaps even death itself won't be working properly, because it will have been programmed with the wrong data. The young woman lying here with sodden head, armpit and pubic hair (so wet, it's as if nothing had ever grown there) lacks all marks of struggle and strangulation, which are virtually always found in such cases. Only a slight bruise on the right side of the head suggests that the head (in a car against the door cross-bar?) was struck hard and that then the dazed, but not unconscious woman was gently suffocated in this curious and unusual way. It can even have happened unintentionally, can't it? No, not that. An accident of love, which wanted something else than it could achieve? At any rate the girl didn't drown. The characteristic drowned lung, the over-inflation of the lung, the indistinctly defined, reddish to blue-violet discolorations on her body (Paltauf blotches) caused by hemorrhaging, are completely missing. No froth formation either? No, don't see any. The froth would arise during drowning through an intensive mingling of the fluid swallowed with chyme, gastric mucus and air. But did not arise here. Nothing to be seen. Any other questions? Make sure she's well preserved, but later I won't be able to answer them either.

Back to the country policeman Kurt Janisch: In the course of these days, as if there were a negative agreement in this respect, no more money is lent to him. Yet the sum of compliments, which women bestow on him, whom he stops, pulls over to the roadside, and leaves standing again, in ever more rapid succession (he hardly takes the time anymore to find out what significance each acquaintanceship could have for him, stares at driver's licences, at gold necklaces, fur collars, rings, watches, which grow towards him like tough, self-confident creepers, which know that not even the machete of someone running amok could destroy them. He hears excuses, which are delivered in a never-changing singsong, but he doesn't listen to these half-truths and excuses, he at last knows his own off by heart and doesn't need those of strangers, he prefers to note where the supposedly, presumably lowered eyes of the women are wandering, from the country policeman's penetratingly blue iris straight down to his fly, direct connection, these greedy, grasping eyes of women, and yet why are they so carelessly screened, with nothing but a protective coating of mascara, which probably only lends these glances weight and is intended to store them in a little fairy-tale forest, which one immediately wants to enter. But there one will probably have to pay admission, instead of taking something away and carrying it home, so we'd better just leave it), these extensive acquaintanceships add up, they mount like the snow up in the Alpine sphere, just as cold and just as pointless. Well, some get pleasure out of plunging in and down, strapped to my undercarriage, downwards, ever downwards, that already makes up half the profit. The country policeman, however, would need the whole profit for himself alone. For the athletes it has to be downhill. Or uphill, depending on the sport. But we can also certainly go up in the ski lift or the chair lift. Conversations develop, the women like the look of the country policeman, but they seem instinctively to scent his increasing desperation, at the moment that's too much for them for a nice date, you know, it's a bit too complicated just now, I've lived my life, it wasn't easy, and if I try again, then it shouldn't be such a strain this time. I have my job. And from time to time I just want to lie quietly in front of the TV and cry and laugh, one's never lonely with the TV anyway. That these women are supposed to invest something in this man is something they evidently suspect, previously they only rarely suspected it, and they recoil, these women of the country road, some humbly, some good-naturedly, few boldly. Yet they are supposed to risk their whole fortune to save the country policeman. It's not a good start, because it doesn't start at all. I'm telling you for the umpteenth time, this man is a somber figure, his uniform has already signalled that to me before a couple of times. Is he trying to get off with me, the women ask themselves, at whom he shoots his bright blue glances with the catapult of his strong, thick blond hair and eyelashes, glances which are supposed to be self-explanatory, but which can only write out fines, glances after which, with gestures which by now already begin irresolutely, he hooks into the warm flesh of breasts, to pull the blouse away a little and look into the cleavage, inside the cuddly soft sleeveless woollen pullover. How much wood does this one have outside her hut and how much gravel on her drive? Where is the old certainty of appraisal gone? The country policeman never used to be wrong before. Mr. Janisch, do you receive me, over and out? Everything has to go ever faster now, one thing virtually follows on the heels of the other, yet at the same time one must not forget the hottest iron in the fire, this one particular lady, not just for special moments, but at all events, that might turn up, and to whom it would be best he came as supplicant, she would like that, it would signal to her that he has been reduced in price and that she can at last afford him. It often happens to those with ambitions. They often appear so small to us in comparison to their desires and goals, which they spread out before us, dressed up as important concerns, so that we pay them due attention. And so we, too, slowly take less and less interest in them, these concerns of strangers. The woman, who loves, knows, and herself performs music, on a leash, always close beside him, the country policeman would like that, he wouldn't have to bother about her anymore, and if the music wants to sniff a little longer at one corner or another (isn't this sonata movement a little faster, and this finale a little slower, so that each note can be heard separately?), she's immediately roughly pulled back by the collar. I can't really grasp it yet, but this woman has perhaps, now of all times, at the wrong moment, discovered something like her dignity, that's what she calls it at least, and this discovery makes her so happy, like everything that's new. It won't last long. Sit! Basket! Music will do that for her, and wherever one tells it to, as long as it's the right person saying it; and it's always well behaved and comes straight back, when the CD player is set at start again, it only comes to her, the music to the woman, who alone understands music and it's all she understands.