The Camera Killer (7 page)

In a complete reversal of our normal relative strengths, I managed to win not only the first set but the second as well. This
caused Heinrich to swear and eventually led him to accuse me of bewitching the ball and my opponent. His indignation attained such a pitch that it even sent Eva, who had been plunged in melancholy, into fits of laughter. Heinrich thereupon stepped up the frequency of his expletives so as to create a jocular, relaxed atmosphere. My partner stated that she had never thought Heinrich capable of pulling such silly faces. Her remark was likewise greeted with delight.

After I had won the third set as well (the first two had ended 21:19 and 21:17, respectively), Eva yawned and stretched, saying that she felt the need to go to bed. This intention was fiercely opposed by my partner. We saw each other too seldom because of the great distance between us, she argued, so it was wrong not to make the most of our time together.

Eva replied that she was exhausted and incapable of being congenial company, but she promised to fix us a first-class breakfast early the next morning and make herself available for a whole day’s communal activities and entertainment thereafter. When my partner made another attempt to change her mind and broached the possibility of her drinking a martini, Eva vigorously shook her head.

She rose and wished us good night, though we ran into her again downstairs. This was because the three of us left in the game room had thought it advisable to return to the living room, where we planned to round off the evening with wine and conversation.

While Eva was brushing her teeth, she talked to Heinrich—hampered by the foam in her mouth and the motion of the toothbrush therein—about the duties incumbent upon him as host the next day (sweeping the floor and beating the carpets). Heinrich said she was out of her mind; those things could be done after their guests had left. We supported him in that view.

After Eva had retired, Heinrich, my partner, and I sat down in the living room. My partner had kindly carried the tray of drinks, etc., downstairs from the game room. She suggested playing a game of rummy, but her suggestion aroused no enthusiasm, nor did her wish to play a guessing game. In that case, she said disappointedly, she was going to the bathroom.

Once she had disappeared, Heinrich confided in a low voice that he wanted to see if the murder video program was over. He turned on the television and muted the sound at once. The screen was showing the woman presenter we’d seen before. Fine, said Heinrich, we could start watching at the earliest opportunity. He wound the tape back.

My partner still hadn’t returned, so we agreed to start watching the video right away, though with the sound turned down so as not to disturb Eva’s sleep.

At 1:35, the long-haired brother’s face reappeared on the screen. He was still refusing to speak but was also prevented from doing so by the need to vomit. At 1:51, a barn came into view. We saw the two boys running toward it, the camera unsteadily keeping up with them.

At that moment, my partner came into the living room. She grasped the situation and scolded us. She didn’t feel like watching this now, she said. Heinrich said he couldn’t restrain his curiosity any longer. She would forgo the opportunity, she retorted, and wished us good night.

When the sound of her footsteps on the wooden stairs had died away, Heinrich asked me if she was offended. I responded—truthfully—with a shrug.

Smoke was just rising from the barn. The children emerged and paused beside the gate to watch the progress of their handiwork. When the whole building went up in flames at 2:03, Heinrich
approvingly remarked that they were smart boys; it couldn’t have been easy to torch a barn so quickly and effectively.

The boys were interviewed again, this time about their attitude to arson. Did they enjoy playing with fire? The cameraman received no satisfactory replies, so he asked if they would like to set fire to their brother’s corpse. Did they know what burning flesh smelled like? Sobbing anew, they answered both questions in the negative.

Heinrich dug me in the ribs. Could I conceive of such a thing? he asked. Could I put myself in the cameraman’s place? It defied one’s comprehension. What could be going on inside such a person?

2:42. “Screening this video is not sensationalism. It is a vain attempt to come to terms with an incomprehensible human tragedy.”

The long-haired brother was standing on the thickest root of a massive tree. He was enjoined to look at the camera with a cheerful expression. The cameraman said he was sure he wanted to leave behind a favorable impression of himself. If he were crying in the very last pictures of him, it would be bound to vex his mother. Contrary to instructions, the boy began to cry and, like his gap-toothed brother before him, hopped up and down on the spot.

The cameraman angrily complained that hopping up and down did not make a suitable contribution to a nice film, still less render it easier for his mother to take leave of a son. Couldn’t he imagine how distressed she would be to see him like this? In floods of tears, the boy whimpered something unintelligible. The cameraman told him to enunciate more clearly.

The long-haired brother now said, audibly, that he didn’t want to die and he possessed a savings book into which his grandmother had long been making regular payments. If he were released at once, he would let the cameraman have this savings book.

How did he propose to send it? he was asked.

He could, for instance, entrust it to the postal service, replied the anguished boy. The cameraman rejected this offer. Besides, he said, the savings book wasn’t enough. Hadn’t he anything more valuable? The long-haired brother talked of a money box. His parents sometimes put coins in it, and it hadn’t been taken to the bank for months. It occurred to the hog-tied brother that he possessed a similar savings book. He also owned an expensive bicycle, which he would relinquish in the cameraman’s favor. The latter replied that this was insufficient too, and ordered the long-haired brother to climb the tree. The response was a loud, protesting wail.

Heinrich, helping himself to a handful of chips, said, How frightful. That man must be the devil incarnate.

The camera showed the long-haired brother weeping and slobbering in close-up. The camera wobbled. The croaking voice bade the long-haired brother to look at the camera. If he continued to resist, the salting of the hog-tied brother’s abdominal cavity would commence at once. Then it would be the rest of the family’s turn. Reference was also made to the cameraman’s knife.

Accompanied by outraged exclamations from Heinrich, the long-haired brother could be seen starting to climb the tree, still weeping and bawling at the top of his voice. How terrible, said Heinrich. What can be going through the boy’s mind? Is he thinking the same as we would?

I asked what we would be thinking.

It’s awful, he said; they ought to pass laws that could prevent such things.

I asked what he meant but was shushed in reply.

Now that the long-haired brother had taken up his position in the treetop, the cameraman proceeded to question the hog-tied
boy. You’re on television, my boy, he said. Kindly tell our viewers what you feel about the fact that your brother is about to jump off a tree.

Boohoo, the boy replied.

This is revolting, said Heinrich. He asked if I would object if he briefly freeze-framed the film because he proposed to get himself another portion of ice cream from the kitchen. Not at all, I said. He inquired if I would like some too. I thanked him but declined. I wasn’t hungry and felt no desire for any ice cream. He retired to the kitchen, to return shortly afterward and deposit his bowl of ice cream on the table. Then he restarted the film.

The interview with the hog-tied boy wasn’t over yet. He made another reference to his savings book. This prompted the cameraman to ask about his grandmother. Did she suffer from diabetes or heart disease, and didn’t they, the two boys, consider it seemly to behave less hysterically? After all, these pictures might be made available to their grandmother and give her a heart attack. The cameraman wanted their grandmother to be able to say that the two boys had handled themselves well. He could picture the old woman sitting in front of the television. She would clasp her hands together and say, It had to be this way, but they both behaved well.

The camera voice called to the long-haired boy up the tree. It was time for him to put on a good show, it said. He should console himself with the thought that, by jumping, he was doing his surviving brother a favor. After all, the family would have far more money available for the hog-tied brother to spend on expensive bicycles and deposit in his savings book. That should surely gratify the occupant of the treetop?

The long-haired brother wept and shook his head.

The cameraman deplored this, saying that envy gets you nowhere in life. He announced that the boy would have to jump
in precisely ten minutes. If he obeyed instructions, nothing would happen to anyone else in his family. But if he jumped even one second too late, the hog-tied brother’s abdominal cavity would be slit open and filled with salt and red ants. After that, devastation would be visited on his parents’ farmhouse. His mother would be boiled alive, his father slowly cut to ribbons, etc. His grandmother too would be run to earth, and old women burned nicely.

Heinrich observed that the man behind the camera must be thoroughly sick.

The long-haired brother made no reply, so the cameraman inquired what it felt like, the prospect of dying in eight minutes forty seconds’ time. The boy shouted something unintelligible in a voice rendered hoarse by his previous bawling, yelling, and vomiting. Then he fell silent and stared into space.

Fancy, said Heinrich, he’s on another planet.

The cameraman turned to the hog-tied boy. Was it a nice feeling, owing his life to his own brother’s death? The boy thus addressed denied this. Or would he rather change places with him? he was asked. The boy beneath the tree stopped crying and stared fixedly at the camera. The cameraman repeated that he could save the other boy’s life by taking his place. The hog-tied brother yelled something unintelligible, and more whimpering could be heard from overhead.

Cut. 3:20. The cameraman reiterated all his threats to the long-haired brother in the event that he failed to jump in fifty seconds’ time. One second later, and everyone would meet a terrible end. Screams from up the tree.

Heinrich, who described them as bloodcurdling, felt compelled to wipe his eyes on the back of his hand.

There was still time, the cameraman told the hog-tied boy. He had thirty-five seconds in which to decide to take his brother’s place and dive off the tree headfirst, the way he did into the
swimming pool in summer. The boy stared at the camera, weeping but bereft of speech.

Another twenty seconds, said the voice.

A family appeared: father, mother, and two children. The parents were discussing financial investments. Heinrich sighed and said, Here we go again. As before, we were accorded some ten minutes in which to devote ourselves to conversation, or chips and suchlike, before the forest reappeared.

Another twenty seconds, said the voice. Then the hog-tied brother took a step forward and went out of shot. The camera panned down. The boy could be seen clutching the cameraman’s leg and imploring him not to make anyone jump at all. The voice called a warning and started to count: five, four, three, two, one...

We heard a scream but could see only a black screen. The channel had evidently censored this scene as well. The ticker repeated that screening this video was not sensationalism, but a vain attempt to come to terms with an incomprehensible human tragedy. Counselors’ phone numbers were inserted, together with the note to the effect that callers would be charged only a maximum of €0.50 per minute.

The forest reappeared, and we heard the tearful voice of the hog-tied brother. The sound abruptly ceased and the screen went black.

Outside the house, rain was beating down with undiminished intensity.

Heinrich laid the remote control aside. He’d had enough, he said; he didn’t want to see any more. How sick and degenerate the people who watched so-called snuff movies must be.

I pointed out that the third brother’s escape was also bound to be shown and was still to come, so that might cheer him up. Heinrich replied that he would watch it tomorrow; he wanted to
check the Internet to see if the killer had been caught or if the police at least had a lead.

“West Styria: Police net tightens. Checks have been run on dozens of people in the course of the hunt for the killer. Little information has emanated from the Ministry of the Interior because of the news blackout, but it is rumored that the killer has not yet left the area or may be a local inhabitant.”

Heinrich loudly demanded how they knew this.

“Violent protests against the transmission of the murder video. The German commercial station that transmitted parts of the so-called murder video during the night has been very sharply criticized by all schools of thought at home and abroad. The German president has called it a disgrace to the whole of Germany and publicly apologized to his Austrian colleagues. He referred to a failure of media policy and said he saw evidence of moral decay. One recourse might be stricter media legislation.”

Stupid idiots, said Heinrich.

Eva entered in her nightgown. She said hello and sat down on the arm of the sofa, which consisted of a white bolster. Heinrich stroked her back and solicitously inquired why she couldn’t sleep. He picked up some chips and put them in his mouth. Chewing noisily, he jerked his thumb at the window and said it would soon be light. Eva disputed this, saying there were still a couple of hours to go.

I went into the bathroom, where I washed my face with soap, brushed my teeth, and dried myself on one of Heinrich and Eva’s hand towels, which was adorned with a smiling cartoon character named the Pink Panther.

I returned to the living room. Eva was just taking her leave. She asked when Heinrich was thinking of following her up to bed. Soon, he replied. She waved to us and left the room.