Little Hands Clapping (23 page)

‘Doctor? The meat?’

‘You know what it is,’ he said, quietly. He looked up, and their eyes locked. ‘It is a buttock. A human buttock.’

Horst froze, but only for a moment. His heart thumped as he took out his notepad and pencil, and with trembling fingers he raced to keep up with the confession. His mind took a while to process what he was hearing, and it wasn’t until the doctor was recounting the butchery and consumption of a third body that the scale and the nature of the crimes he had uncovered began to sink in. He felt his knees begin to buckle, but he steadied himself and carried on writing.

The fireworks rattled the old man’s window, and his thin, white curtains changed colour in the flashes of light. He lay still, his eyes fixed on the ceiling. In the castle grounds an orchestra was playing in time with the display, but the music didn’t carry as far as the cold, bare rooms in the roof. When the first movement ended there was a round of applause then the evening fell quiet, but he knew the cacophony would soon return, and he wouldn’t be able to sleep until it was over. His night already disrupted, he had no intention of waking up early in the morning as well.

He made a decision. When the second movement began he would go downstairs and see the girl. If necessary he would do as the doctor had requested, and help her on her way. By the time the fireworks were over he would be rid of her.

Madalena carried on looking at the small patch of sky above the rooftops, where the colour had been. Before she and Mauro had left for the city they had been to see the fireworks in their town, and as they stood side by side with their heads tilted back she had remembered how it had felt to be a little girl, and smiled at the thought that in years to come they would be there with children of their own. She had pictured a boy and a girl, their eyes sparkling as they looked up to the sky. These two had made regular appearances in her daydreams, and there in the museum she saw them again. This time they were farther away than usual, just beyond her reach.

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. She closed her eyes but they were still there, trusting her and loving her, seeming not to know that one evening in a hotel bar with chandeliers and a white grand piano she had let them down. ‘I’m so sorry.’ Smiling and laughing, they slipped out of focus, and faded away.

There was a rumble, and again the sky turned bright with fireworks. She wished she could make them stop, and it struck her that she
could
make them stop. She turned away from the window, and walked over to the table.

She climbed up, and put the noose around her neck. She tightened it, and closed her eyes.

As the doctor’s confession continued, Horst became anxious. He knew he had to get him to the station so this monologue could continue within a recognised legal framework. The doctor was recounting some of the difficulties he had encountered while butchering a particularly plump young woman from Cloppenburg, and when this was finished he sighed, and Horst took this opportunity to say to him, ‘Doctor, I wonder if we could continue this conversation in the comfort of the police station.’

The doctor thought for a moment, then sighed once again, and nodded. ‘Yes, officer,’ he said. ‘I understand. But first I shall call my dog and say goodbye to him. He will be taken care of?’

Horst nodded. The dog would be taken care of, in a sense.

The doctor went over to the patio door and opened it, but instead of calling Hans he stood quietly for a moment, as if in contemplation, before running into the darkness. Horst, taken by surprise, raced out after him, to find that the doctor had tripped over a hosepipe, and was lying spread-eagled on the lawn. Before Horst could get to him he scrambled back on to his feet and ran to the high garden wall. He tried to climb over it, but ended up hanging by his fingers, his legs flailing, frog-like as his slippered feet failed to get a grip on the bricks. He gave up and stood in the flower-bed, bent double and panting. Through the still air came the crackle of fireworks.

‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Very well.’ The dog appeared, wagging his tail, and he followed the men back into the house.

Horst closed the patio door, and the doctor patted Hans. ‘Somebody will be here to collect you, my friend,’ he said. ‘I’m so sorry.’

Leaving the dog locked in the house, the two men walked to Horst’s car, the doctor’s shoulders hunched. They got in, the doctor in the passenger seat. Horst was surprised by how calm he felt, knowing that in a few minutes he would be arriving back at the station with a soon-to-be-notorious cannibal. He smiled at the thought that Big Max Weber would be on the front desk.
Book him, Weber
, he will say, and Big Max Weber will ask what the charge is. He will leave a few moments before replying. Then he will smile and say, calmly,
Cannibalism
. Big Max Weber was famously impassive. In moments of extreme surprise, though, he would raise his left eyebrow, and his colleagues had a running challenge to see if they could get him to do this. Horst had not managed it yet, but he had a feeling that tonight would be the night. This was his defining moment, the scalp of his career, and the biggest story the town had seen since he had joined the force. It was his
magnum opus
.

‘
Magnum opus
,’ he muttered under his breath. He looked forward to telling his son all about it.

As they got closer to the city centre the bangs became louder. People without tickets for the castle grounds were standing in clusters in spots where they could get a clear view of the display through the buildings and the trees.

‘It is the fireworks tonight, Doctor Fröhlicher,’ said Horst.

The doctor said nothing. He had decided that his story would not end this way. He was not ready to give up. He had thought of a plan, and in just a few seconds’ time he would have a chance to carry it out.

Madalena stood on the table, her eyes closed and the noose tight around her neck. She pressed a hand against the pocket where she had put the note, making sure it was still there. It was. Now all she had to do was step forward. Not wanting to die with her eyes closed, she opened them and there in front of her, almost close enough to touch, was the old man, staring up at her. His nightshirt and nightcap were catching the flashes of colour from outside, while his face remained a deathly grey. She felt no surprise, or fear. She felt nothing. She looked back at him and he spoke, his voice barely audible above the noise from outside. She couldn’t understand what he was saying.

‘Don’t try to save me,’ she said.

She noticed what almost seemed to be the faintest flicker of a smile, then it vanished and he spoke to her in perfect Portuguese, in an accent that could have come from her own home town. ‘I have not come to save you,’ he said. ‘I shall return in a short while, by which time I expect you to have finished what you have started.’

He turned and walked out of the room.

Madalena tried to put the old man out of her mind, and concentrate on her task. The whole encounter had been so strange it was almost as if it had never happened, but it had, and she had been unsettled by it. The fireworks thundered and crackled, and she closed her eyes again, and gathered herself in preparation. Once again, she was ready. She opened her eyes, and stepped forward.

Before her back foot left the table, she stopped. She could smell something. It was wonderful. She opened her eyes, and looked around her. She was no longer ready. She was no longer calm. She realised she was alone in a foreign land, in a place where she wasn’t meant to be, with a noose around her neck and one foot suspended in the air. The second movement stopped, and the city fell quiet. She was terrified.

It happened so fast. The car stopped at a red light, and the doctor unclipped his seat belt and opened the door. Horst made a lunge to restrain him, but reined in by his own seat belt he managed only to get a grip on the doctor’s elasticated waistband. With a few kicks, a wriggle and a forward roll on to the street, the doctor was free. He ran off, leaving Horst gaping at the pyjama trousers in his hand. A moment later, abandoning the car in the middle of the road and not even stopping to close the door, he got out and gave chase.

As he ran, Horst could feel his big moment slipping away. Instead of making Big Max Weber raise an eyebrow, he would have to explain to his son that he had lost his job by letting the city’s biggest ever criminal slip from his grasp. He pictured the look on his wife’s face as they packed their belongings into crates, getting ready to leave town in disgrace. It was chilling. Even the rabbits looked disappointed in him. Spurred on by his need to avoid this outcome, and keeping his eyes fixed firmly on the retreating bare bottom, he ran. Already he was short of breath, and there was tightness in his chest, but he didn’t slow down.

The doctor ran into the maze of pedestrianised streets in the city centre, looking for an opportunity to shake off his pursuer. He caught the occasional glimpse of himself in a shop window and wished he was wearing something on his bottom half, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it. One of his slippers fell from his foot, and he hopped along for a few paces as he balanced things out by kicking off the other one. The pavement scraped against his bare soles with every stride, but while he was aware of the discomfort he focused only on getting away. He knew exactly where he was going. Once he had shaken off the policeman he would make his way to the back of the museum and rouse the old man, who would have no choice but to take him in and give him trousers, and hide him from those who would lock him away. They would live together in the roof. He would have to share his meat from now on, but that was a small price to pay for relative freedom, and besides the old man didn’t look as though he had much of an appetite. Maybe they would even have a stroke of good fortune that night, and be eating a supper of fresh steak before bedtime.

The people standing in the streets were craning their necks to see the flashes of light, but every so often one of them would notice him streak past. Already in a carnival mood they laughed at the sight, and nudged their friends and pointed. It was only the adults with young children who looked on with horror as his private parts, no longer private, windmilled as he ran. Occasionally he would weave around somebody who would think,
That man looks just like Doctor Fröhlicher. I must remember to tell him about this the next time I see him – he will be very amused
.

The doctor looked over his shoulder at the purple-faced policeman chasing him, and was angered by the advantage the other man’s shoes gave him over his own bare feet. Everything about this situation seemed unfair, but what irked him most of all was that he was so clearly morally superior to those who would condemn him. He looked at the people he was running past, and knew they would be horrified if they had known what he had done, that they would label him a
monster
, or a
fiend
, but he knew in his heart that he had done so much more good than harm in his life, that on balance he was a better person than any of them would ever be. He was a doctor, and though there was no way of quantifying the good he had done, he knew it was considerable, even when his occasional transgressions were taken into account. He looked at those who would denounce him, and could see that they were just ordinary people who cared little about anything beyond the boundaries of their own lives, people who drank normal coffee without giving a thought to the lives of those who produced it. He knew just by looking at them that they lived only to look after themselves, and to cast judgement on others. As anger burned inside him he longed to throw back his head and shout
Hypocrites
, but he didn’t. He just kept running, as fast as he could. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself.

The policeman was gaining ground. There were only a few paces between them but he was no longer worried. His chance to shake him off had come at last. He was approaching the gardens surrounding the City Hall, and all he had to do was scale the high fence and disappear into the darkness around the back of the building. With so many possible points of exit he knew the policeman would have no idea which one he had taken. With an athletic bound he jumped up and gripped the black iron railings, and feeling as agile as a monkey he made it to the top. As he vaulted over, his hand slipped and his body fell, landing on the long spikes. For a moment it felt as if this wouldn’t matter, that he would be able to lift himself off and keep going, but he couldn’t. The cold metal dug into his flesh, and the spikes broke the surface of his skin. He counted four holes, from his chest to his abdomen. His strength had left him, and the agony registered only as an irrelevance. The usefulness of pain had passed; it told him nothing he didn’t already know. In his mind he charted the passage of the spikes as they penetrated organs, and cracked bones. They pushed against the skin of his back, then broke it, and he slipped down until he could go no further. He tried to see himself as an impaled martyr, misunderstood and hounded to his doom by his fellow men, but the elaborate speeches of self-justification that he had planned for his final moments, the words that had seemed so noble, had vanished from his mind.

The policeman was looking up at him.

Horst could see that this would be his last opportunity to question the doctor. Something had been bothering him as they were running through the streets. His confession had seemed quite comprehensive, but at no point had the doctor mentioned how he had got hold of the bodies he had butchered. Horst knew that if he was going to claim true glory he would have to find this out. ‘Did you work alone?’ he asked.

The doctor’s high ideas left him, and his humanity took over. He felt only a desire to share the blame, to drag somebody else down with him. He looked at the policeman, and said, ‘I had an accomplice. He lives at the museum . . .’ Then the policeman vanished, and everything around him vanished until he was no longer stuck on the railings of the City Hall on a cold evening, but standing in a lovely garden on a clear summer day, and there before him was Ute.