The attendant rewound the video to the place where Herr Simon was back at his car smiling, dirtying the clean windows, and taking his time sucking the gasoline out of the tank.
From that point on he played the video normally, i.e., forward and at the regular speed. And finally the scenes where Herr Simon was hoping to be able to see something suspicious. First you see him hanging the fuel nozzle back up. Then he moves the car so that the Volvo behind him can pull up. The Volvo driver gasses up, Herr Simon goes into the shop to pay, the Volvo drives off again without a stolen child. Then a silver Alfa pulls up to another pump, but the driver only walks out of the shop with two cans of Red Bull and no Helena. And briefly you see the red-haired woman-who was standing in Herr Simon’s way as he was trying to balance his double espresso on the counter-walk into the shop. The attendant knows her, though, because she lives right across the street and was only buying something from the shop like she does every day. Then an old white Golf pulls through just because it wants to turn around, such that the license plate can’t be made out, but it doesn’t matter, because it didn’t even come to a complete stop.
And then you see-forward this time and at the right speed-how Herr Simon comes back out of the shop and how he recoils as though the earth were opening up before him. It was almost worse for him to be experiencing this moment a second time now on-screen-or should I say for the first time.
“I’m sorry,” Milan said. “You can’t see anything. Was it valuable?”
“What?”
“What got stolen from your car?”
Herr Simon gave no answer. These forgotten minutes were such a nightmare that, if the screen had revealed him to be the kidnapper himself, he wouldn’t have been surprised.
“Should I call the police?”
“It’s too late now. They’re already over the mountains.”
He felt so numb that he had no idea what he should do. The pills weren’t helping him, the coffee wasn’t helping him, and the panic wasn’t helping him. Instead, complete power outage.
“Give me another espresso,” he said to Milan.
Because he was like a little kid now who’s gotten into some trouble and thinks that nobody will find out about it if he just closes his eyes or hides behind the house. That the newspapers criticized him so much for it, though, I don’t think is right, either. Somehow he expected two-year-old Helena to come strolling in through the door, and off they’d drive together. And believe it or not, he even bought a medium-sized chocolate bar for her. He told himself a medium-sized bar without any filling is a compromise that all parties could live with, chocolate proponents and chocolate opponents alike.
He ignored his cell phone’s ringing. Or what’s called ringing. Jimi Hendrix played “Castles Made of Sand” because that was what the son of the clinic’s psychologist had conjured up for him his first week on the job. For the first time in his life, Jimi annoyed him because he was playing the same thing over and over. Herr Simon didn’t even look at who was calling because the risk was too great that it might be the Frau Doctor. You should know, when he was on the road she would often check in during an abortion break to make sure everything was okay, and Herr Simon always made a point of asking Helena something so that her mama could hear her voice over the phone, and then she’d be pacified.
The two gas station drunks at the counter weren’t bothered any by the unrelenting ringtone either. Sure, they glanced over a little, but otherwise, no commentary. Fortunately, the gas station TV drowned out the cell phone a bit, too, because a blond newscaster was saying empathetic things to people with problems, but her voice was so aggressive that it sounded like the plastic surgeon had mistakenly nailed her vocal cords to her ears on her last visit.
Interesting customers came in now and then, which also distracted nicely. Because they didn’t just come in and pay, but would make the rounds, too, a bottle of water, chips and a sleeve of cookies, sausage on a bun, a newspaper, there was a lot to look at, and meanwhile his cell phone would go off, maybe twice per customer. Jimi sang again and again, but Herr Simon didn’t pick up.
From the way the gas station customers ignored him, he realized that they simply took him for a gas station drunk himself. Because one thing you can’t forget. Herr Simon looked like he’d just been to hell and back.
“Your phone’s ringing,” a customer said on her way out, on account of the way he was staring at her. But she couldn’t have known that it was only because of the chocolate bar she’d bought. He ordered himself another espresso, and when Helena still didn’t turn up, he left. Maybe she’d climbed back into the car, maybe she’d just gone on a little outing, and now she was back in her car seat again. Or another possibility. Maybe Herr Simon had just hallucinated the whole thing, possibly due to the pills? Because he did have a nonalcoholic beer yesterday, and even in nonalcoholic beer there’s still a little bit of alcohol, which means, if you drink thirty-six: drunken stupor. He’d only had one, but still, hope is hope. Or another possibility altogether: the kidnappers had changed their minds. They had returned the child, acting as if it had been nothing. Or, anti-abortionist Knoll had only wanted to make a slight threat, taking the child away briefly, like he’d threatened the Frau Doctor before, and then giving her right back-a rapping at the window, as it were.
Herr Simon retraced his steps exactly as he had taken them before, maybe out of a certain superstition that repeating the previous experience would make it un-happen. But when it comes to superstition, the good lord is merciless, he hates it like a CEO does a labor union. And still no Helena through the back window, still no Helena through the side window, still no Helena when he pressed the button on the key fob, and from the driver’s seat, still no Helena in the rearview mirror. At that moment, as he looked in the rearview mirror, his cell phone went off again. It made Herr Simon so furious that he pounded his fist on the steering wheel. Because he imagined the ringtone scaring Helena away, as though if it weren’t for Jimi Hendrix maybe she’d be sitting there in the rearview mirror. Jimi sang like he was mocking him.
Because of the fist-pounding and the third espresso, his heart was throwing another tantrum. But he forced himself to search the car. You’re going to say, where’s she supposed to be, Helena, she’s not hiding beneath the hood. But you see how the shock was slowly driving him mad. The panic was enough to drive him crazy, and where the panic left off, the pills picked up and drove him even crazier. Because now he was clinging to the thought that children like to hide. That it’s fun for kids, you get the idea. And even though the little girl wouldn’t have been in a position to hide anywhere but her car seat, he searched the whole car. Maybe she was curled up comfortably behind the backseat, waiting for that dumb driver to finally find her. But no Helena behind the seats, no Helena under the seats, no Helena in the glove compartment, no Helena beneath the floor mats, not even a Helena in the trunk.
There was a moment when Herr Simon thought he might start crying. But it didn’t come from within, not from his inner desperation, no, it came more from his face, from outside. And even then he didn’t cry. Instead, whether you believe it or not: he sneezed five times in a row. By the fifth time he was already walking back through the gas station’s automatic doors and ordering himself another espresso. And then finally he called Kressdorf. The Frau Doctor, impossible, he’d rather die, because to tell a mother I lost your child. In a situation like that you fear the mightiest Lion of Construction less than you do the mother.