The shot had only made a popping sound, but the gun with its silencer looked vicious. He was wearing his mirrored sunglasses again and had turned up the collar of his coat. He looked at the gun, then at me, and then at the gun again. Suddenly he burst out laughing and let himself fall on the couch opposite me.
“We had trouble communicating earlier today, Herr Self, so I brought along an assistant, a therapist, so to speak.” He looked at his gun again. Turbo came into the living room, jumped up on the couch next to me, arched his back, stretched his paws, and began grooming himself. “I've also brought a lot of time with me. Perhaps our morning conversation simply suffered from a lack of time. You were in such a terrible hurry. Did you have an important appointment, or are you just obstinate as a mule? Do we have a pleasant or a difficult evening ahead of us? Whatever is obstinate and will not bend, ultimately breaks. How does Drafi Deutscher's song go? 'Marble breaks and iron bends…' I can assure you that there is a general rule behind that.” He raised his gun. I couldn't see where he was aiming-at me, over me, next to me-I could only see myself in the reflection of his sunglasses. He fired. Behind me, on the old pharmacy shelf where I keep my books and records, a bust of Dante's Beatrice, the work of an early-twentieth-century Munich artist, shattered. “See? That's how it is with marble,” he said. “And it isn't any different with everything that lives and breathes. Only there are no shards.” He raised the gun again.
I didn't try to figure out if he was aiming at Turbo or if it only looked that way. I staggered to my feet and slapped his arm out of the way. He immediately struck me back, hit me across the face with the gun, and pushed me back onto the couch. Turbo caterwauled and ran off.
“Just try something like that again!” he hissed angrily. Then he laughed once more and shook his head. “What an old fool you are!”
I tasted blood on my lip.
“Well, let's have it! Where's Leo?”
“I don't know. I've got a couple of leads, but that's all, just a couple of leads. I don't know where Leo is.”
“It's been three days since we spoke on the phone. Have her whereabouts slipped your mind since then?” He sounded surprised and ironic.
“It was a fishing expedition. It's not that I've forgotten her whereabouts, I just never knew them. Just a fishing expedition, know what I mean? I didn't like it that I could never get to see you.”
“Do you think I'm stupid or something?” he shouted, his voice breaking. But he immediately calmed down again, smiled, and shook his head. He got up, stepped in front of me, and waited for me to look up at him. Then he hit me again with the butt of his gun, just like that. Pain tore across my cheek and chin.
He didn't lose control when he shouted. He shouted with a cool head. I was frightened. I had no idea what…
The doorbell rang. We both held our breath. The doorbell rang a second and then a third time. There was a knock. “Gerhard, open up! Open up! What's going on in there?” Brigitte could see a glimmer of light under the door.
My guest shrugged his shoulders. “I guess we'll catch up some other time.” He left the room. I heard him open the front door, say “Good evening,” and descend the stairs with quick steps.
“Gerhard!” Brigitte kneeled next to me on the couch and took me in her arms. When she let go of me her blouse was stained with blood. I tried to wipe the blood away, but couldn't. The more desperately I ran my hands over her blouse, the worse the bloody scrawl became. I gave up.
25 Don't forget the kitty litter!
After Brigitte washed my face and cleaned up the cuts, she put me to bed. My face was on fire, but otherwise I felt cold. My teeth kept chattering. Drinking was difficult: My swollen lip couldn't hold the liquid in. During the night I was feverish.
I dreamt of Leo and Dr. Eberlein. The two were going for a walk, and I handed them an official document forbidding them to go on walks together as father and daughter. Eberlein laughed his smug laugh and put his arm around Leo. She snuggled up to him and threw me a shameless, disdainful glance. I was about to specify that not only were they to refrain from acting as father and daughter, but also as…when Eberlein suddenly whistled, and Anatol or Ivan hurled himself at me. He had been cowering at Eberlein's feet, waiting for his whistle.
When I fell asleep again, Chief Inspector Nägelsbach was walking me through a town. The buildings were of wood, as were the streets and sidewalks. There wasn't a soul about, and whenever I managed to peek into a house it turned out to be an empty shell without rooms or stories. Nägelsbach was walking so fast that I couldn't keep up with him. He turned around, waved, and called to me, but I couldn't hear him anymore. Then he was gone, and it dawned on me that I would never be able to find my way out of this maze of empty streets and houses. I realized I was in a Nägelsbachian matchstick town. I was tiny, no bigger than a watch hand or a jelly bean. No wonder I feel so cold, I thought, tiny as I am.
Brigitte brought me a hot water bottle and heaped blankets on the bed. In the morning I was bathed in sweat, but the fever had gone down.
Shaving was out of the question. And yet the scabby welts on my cheeks, lips, and chin did not split open when I brushed my teeth. I looked quite rakish, and decided against wearing a tie. Out on the balcony the sun was shining, and I unfolded my lounger and lay down on it.
What was next? Salger was a clever man. He had a repertoire of faces, vocal registers, patterns of expression, and behavior. There was something playful about how he made use of them, and our encounters brought to mind face-offs on a chessboard. Not the kind of chess evenings I had with Eber-hard, whom I could never hope to beat or even think of beating, where I just enjoyed the beauty of his moves and our being together, but chess games of the kind I used to play in the past, determined to beat my opponent. Chess games that were like sword fights, where the aim was to destroy your opponent-that is, not him, but his self-confidence.
I remembered how I had once battled a whole evening with my future father-in-law, who initially had treated me dismis-sively. His son and I had been schoolmates and later fellow students. “Well, well, I see you're trying your hand at chess,” he said to me ironically when he found us over a chessboard. Klara was standing right there, and I could barely hide my shivering agitation. To be insulted like this in front of her. “Do you play, too?” I asked with as much coolness as I could muster. Old Herr Korten was assured by his son that I played a passable game, and challenged me to a round the following Saturday. He offered a bottle of champagne as a prize, and I had to promise that I would clean and oil his gun collection if I lost. All that week I lived and breathed chess, worked my way through openings, went over the moves of games, found out when and where Berlin chess clubs got together. In the first and second games old Herr Korten still had a chance. But he lost, even though I allowed him to retract the moves he called his “foolish little slipups.” By then I knew how he played, and I toyed with him. That was the last time he challenged me to a game. And the last time he treated me dismis-sively.
So Salger wanted to play with me? Let him try.