Foxes, he wondered, or even a wolf down after the winter, hungry?
He remembered something about a wild dog someone had told him growing up.
He returned to the storehouse and looked about for something; a pitchfork, any kind of a tool — or even a stick would do.
There was nothing except a length of light aluminium pipe, very light, with a pinch in it. A makeshift fence post, he remembered then, from an experiment to raise rabbits. He heard the dog barking again, and gave up searching for anything with more heft.
The floodlight went on as he began to skip out into the yard.
He shielded his eyes with his free hand; he wondered why the dog hadn’t set it off. There was no Berndt here now. Felix heard him somewhere off in the dark close by, growling almost all the time now.
Then there was a yelp, and a second one. It was followed by a low, steady growl that broke off into a whine.
Felix rounded the gable end of the farmhouse and called out.
The dark form, half skipping and half loping toward him, had better be Berndt. He lifted the pipe. It was his grandfather’s dog all right. It moved low to the ground, its legs stiff and splayed.
“Felix?”
It was Opa at the door, without his dentures.
“What in the name of Christ is going on?”
“Berndt’s spooked. He went after something.”
He tried not to notice his grandfather’s sunken mouth.
“I think he was bitten maybe,” he added.
Limping a little, the dog returned to the side of Felix’s car. He heard a low steady growl coming deep from its throat. Its back end wagged once or twice.
“Some light, Opa. It could track a satellite.”
“It’s a quartz one, they told me they’re good. The Watch people what am I saying? Your fellows, the Gendarmerie. I was wondering about burglaries a while back. They — you said install lots of lights. With those things on them.”
“Motion sensor?”
“What?”
“Do they come on if someone walks by?”
“Sure they do. That’s the idea. When they’re on, that is. The verdammt things go off if a goddamned bat goes by. Don’t laugh. It happens up here. Sometimes I put off that thing you said. That motion thing.”
He reached down to pat the dog. Beyond the whitewashed walls and the orchards’ closer trees was inky black.
“Uhh,” his grandfather sighed. “Something might have gotten a bite of Berndt you know I’ll bet it’s that idiot Kreiner up the road. That depp who ‘forgets’ about his dogs. He has a couple of nasty brutes he doesn’t bother to discipline, I tell you.”
Felix turned the tip of the metal post on the cement.
“You poor fool,” said his grandfather to the dog. “Yes, I can feel something. Where are my glasses?”
Beside the cup with your teeth in them, Felix didn’t say. He walked toward the bushes. The yard light caught pieces of the trim and the windows on the cars. Felix stepped closer to be sure the interior light in his Polo was actually on.
He wasn’t mistaken. He stopped, and listened, and moved his hand down the pipe, grasping it tighter. His grandfather’s low chatter as he tried to soothe the dog, blended with paws scratching on the cement. There were no cars on the road this time of night up here.
The light stayed on. The door wasn’t closed properly. Now he felt that pressure building in his diaphragm, the tingling and tightness at the back of his neck. Again he strained to block out the mutterings from his grandfather. There was nothing.
The lit interior of the Polo reminded him of a fish tank in the living room at night. There was a shadow following the edge of the door down where it had not been closed tight. The usual junk was still strewn about inside. There was no change, no rearranging he could discern.
He opened the door and waited a moment before leaning in to check the glove compartment. Again there was nothing different.
He leaned over to lock the driver’s side. He checked the trunk, and did a walk-around to both doors then to be sure he had locked them.
His grandfather was fingering Berndt’s back, squinting, muttering.
“Is your car locked, Opa?”
“I never lock it.”
Felix shrugged. His grandfather stood up slowly.
“Geh scheissen,” he said. “You think we had a visitor here?
Some gauner…?”
“You said something about burglary here, and that’s why you bought the lights?”
His grandfather seemed puzzled.
“Well I heard that. But your oma wanted them. We always have a crop of dummies in the area, young fellows, but”
Felix had put up his hand without knowing it. He turned slightly to hear better. It didn’t help much. The driver was not revving it much at all. The engine wasn’t one of the whiny two-strokes, he was sure. Felix listened as the engine surged a little and then lessened on the bike’s descent. It was a four-stroke all right. Whoever was on it was taking hilly ground, and in no apparent hurry. The sound faded quickly then.
“A motorbike.”
“What motorbike?”
“You didn’t hear it, Opa?”
“Hear what?”
THIRTY
Felix had sat by the window for a half-hour. He had left it half open. The night air had turned cold, colder than he had expected. Every now and then he heard some fussing among the pigs, which soon returned to quiet.
It was nearly midnight now. He still felt wired. He moved around in the chair, and felt the gentle sway and then the tap on his chest as his opa’s ancient binoculars settled again. He was careful not to make a racket moving the maps off his lap. Before he laid them down on the bed, he took another look over the one he had kept open.
He had seen that old Freytag amp; Berndt logo, the official map publisher, before. With the lousy colour and such a lame cover, he guessed it was 1950s. It qualified as an heirloom, he supposed, maybe even worth something in one of the stalls at the Saturday market off Herrengasse. It had a stale smell that reminded him of sour milk.
His eyes were itchy, prickly now. He rubbed at them before lifting the bedside lamp to hold over the map. Sure enough, the marks were still there. What had he expected, that the marks would have disappeared, or something? He followed the lines up around the contours of the hills behind the Himmelfarbs’ place. These trails must have changed over the years, he thought again. Thirty, 40 years was enough to grow one of the farmed trees they had put in back then. But there was no doubt about it, no matter how many times he looked at it. He had known it right away when he had first taken this map from the bag and opened it, releasing the tart, stale smell of storage and mouldering paper into the room, his heart beating in his ears almost: the line that had been drawn there ran along where the bodies had been.
He was getting stiff now. He should get up and move around.
He looked down into the farmyard below bathed in the harsh light of the quartz floodlight he’d persuaded Opa to leave on. A damned fine piece of acting to get to that point, he was sure. There had to be some award for pretending to be casual about it. He went along with his grandfather’s mutterings about local teens not having enough to do. He smiled when he remembered his grandfather’s expressions: a detschen, a cuff on the ear if he got hold of one of the little bastards. There’d be swat on the head, a watschen, on the way back too. And a solid kick in the arse, of course, to help them remember longer.
Felix stretched, and let his aching eyes out of focus. He should lie down and get some sleep. He was overreacting. He was overtired.
He was paranoid: time spent with Speckbauer would do that though, wouldn’t it? He stopped in mid-stretch and opened his eyes. No amount of talking to himself in his head would douse that feeling that something was moving around him, or by him, like the slow, almost imperceptible stirring when a landslide begins, before it gathers speed, sweeping away everything in its path He opened his phone and checked for a signal. A quarter-strength would do. He tiptoed over to the bed and pulled the duvet over his head. He already had Speckbauer’s card ready. He hesitated, and he thought about just stretching out and falling asleep. A night’s sleep would clear his head, and let him think straight. Speckbauer wouldn’t thank him for a call at this hour of the night.