I didn't find a Lehmann on the buzzers of Niebuhrstrasse 46 or 48 either. I read the buzzers of number 46a once more but found no further information. I was on the point of giving up, but then I hesitated, perhaps because I had glimpsed something from the corner of my eye that had been picked up by my subconscious. The tiny plaque by the door of the shop read HELMUT LEHMANN. Helmut Lehmann-nothing more. The door was locked. Inside the shop there were a counter, two chairs, and an empty display stand for pantyhose.
On the counter stood a telephone and an answering machine.
18 A demigod in gray
I knocked, but nobody emerged from a hidden trapdoor or stepped out of a secret panel. The shop remained empty.
Then I rang the second-floor apartment and found the landlord. He told me that the old widow who had run the haberdashery had died a year or so ago and that her grandson had been paying the rent ever since. “When might I be likely to find young Herr Lehmann?” The landlord eyed me with his piggish little eyes and spoke in a whiny Rhineland tremolo. “I have no idea. He told me that he and his friends want to turn the shop into a gallery. Sometimes one of them is here, sometimes another, and then for days on end I don't see or hear anyone.” When I delicately tried to ascertain if he was certain about the identity of the grandson, Lehmann, the landlord's whininess turned to outrage. “Who are you? What is it you want?” His tone smacked of bad conscience, as if he had let his doubts be bought off by a high rent.
I went back to the station. There wasn't a train until 5:11 in the afternoon, so I sat down in a café across the street. I sipped some hot chocolate and went over what I knew and didn't know.
I knew that Lea was Leo. I could also imagine why Leo had altered her name to Lea. I, too, always chose aliases close to my real name. In one of my past assignments I had used the alias Hendrik Willamowitz to infiltrate a gang that traded in American cigarettes and stolen German antiquities. There was something I liked about the name. But on two occasions I didn't react fast enough when someone called me Willamowitz, and that was that as far as the gang boss was concerned. Ever since, I have been Gerhard Sell, or Selk, or Selt, or Selln whenever I needed an alias, and these are the names I also have on my fake business cards.
But what did Leo need a fake name for? She'd turned up at the psychiatric hospital under a fake name and was registered under that name-the receptionist there had no information on a Leonore Salger, and Dr. Wendt, too, had said that he'd only learned her real name from me. A patient at the State Psychiatric Hospital and an American au-pair girl in a remoter part of the Odenwald-a good move if one wanted or needed to go underground. But why would Leo want or need to hide? It was crystal clear that she was not hiding within the guise of therapy from a threatening father, but from the phony Herr Salger, the phony or real Herr Lehmann, or myself-his informant or client. Did Wendt know more about this? Everything undeniably pointed to Wendt's having arranged the au-pair position for Leo in Amorbach. Even Eberlein seemed to assume that Wendt had something to do with Leo's disappearance. Maybe he had even helped her hide out in the psychiatric hospital in the first place.
I ordered another cup of hot chocolate and a chocolate meringue. Who was the mysterious Herr Salger? He had played the role of under-secretary from Bonn quite convincingly on the phone. He knew that Leo had studied French and English at the Heidelberg Institute for Translation and Interpretation. He had a photograph of Leo that came from her. Had she given it to him?
As I nibbled at my meringue I sketched out a love story. Leo, wearing a crumpled yellow blouse, is cutting class. She is sitting on the bank of the Rhine. A young attaché from the Foreign Ministry comes sauntering by. “Hello young lady, may I…” They go for a walk. More walks follow. The banks of the Rhine are not the only place where they kiss. Then the attaché is posted to Abu Dhabi and she stays behind, and while he only sees veiled women who remind him of Leo, she meets a handsome young man or two. The attaché returns from Abu Dhabi-there is jealousy, arguments, stalking-she moves from Bonn to Heidelberg-he follows her, threatens her. A foolish story. But what made it compelling was the locality. Salger/Lehmann had to have a reason why he would choose to play the role of the father from Bonn, and the most obvious reason was that Leo was from Bonn.
I finished my chocolate, asked the waitress the way to the main post office, paid, and left. It was only a few steps. I already knew that I would not find the name Salger in phone book number 53 under Bonn. But perhaps the widow of an under-secretary, whom I could picture as Leo's mother, might be living out in the suburbs. I could see the private home bought with a state subvention, small and white, in a pretty, colorful garden with a lodger's apartment and a rustic fence. I didn't find the name Salger in Bad Honnef, Bornheim, Eitorf, Hennef, Königswinter, or Lohmar. I did find a landscape designer by the name of Günter Salgert in Meckenheim, and a management consultant called Philipp Salsger. Encouraged, I worked my way through Much, Neunkirchen-Seelscheid, Niederkassel, Rheinbach, and Ruppichteroth to St. Augustin. There I found an E. Salger, and that was that. Siegburg, Swisttal, Troisdorf, and Windeck only offered up an M. Sallert who specialized in renovating frame houses, and a nurse by the name of Anna Salga. I wrote down the address and phone number of E. Salger and went into a phone booth.
“Yes, hello?” It was the shaky voice of a woman who had been struck by congestive heart failure, had had a stroke, or was an alcoholic.
“Good afternoon, Frau Salger. My name is Self. Your daughter Leonore will have told you about my son. My wife and I are so pleased about the two of them and think it is high time that we met you. You see, I happen to be in Bonn today and I thought-”
“My daughter isn't here. Who is this please?”
“My name is Self. I am the father of her friend…”
“Ah, you are the TV repairman. I was expecting you yesterday.”
I could rule out congestive heart failure. It had to be a stroke or alcoholism. “Will you be home around six?” I asked her.
“I couldn't see my TV movie yesterday. And now I can't even see the movies I have on video.” The voice shook once more and broke. “When will you come?”
“I'll be over in half an hour.” I bought a small black-and-white TV set at Hertie for 129 marks, and a screwdriver for 9.99, and gray overalls for 29.90 at a sale. Then I was ready to make my appearance as a demigod in gray at Frau Salger's sickbed.
19 Why don't you go, too?
The taxi driver in front of the train station was pleased. The trip to the Drachenfelsstrasse in Hangelar is one of the good longer fares. But when I struggled into my gray overalls on the backseat, he peered at me, frowning, through the rearview mirror, and when I walked through the garden gate carrying the TV set, his wary eyes followed me. He waited with the engine running; I have no idea why. I rang twice. There was no answer, but I didn't go back to the taxi. He finally drove off. Once I could no longer hear him, there was total silence. Sometimes a bird chirped. I rang a third time, the doorbell echoing and dying away like a weary sigh.
The house was big, and there were tall old trees in the garden. Only the fence was as I had imagined it. I made a wide detour over the lawn and reached the terrace at the back. She was sitting on a wicker lounger under an awning with green and white stripes. She was asleep. I sat down across from her on a cane chair and waited. From a distance, she could have been Leo's sister. Close up, her face was deeply furrowed, her shoulder-length ash blond hair had gray strands, and her freckles had lost their mirth. I tried to immerse my own face in those furrows and gauge the inner state that would correspond to them. I felt the harsh wrinkles over my own nose and the sharp lines in the corners of my eyes as I defensively strained to narrow them.