Wendt's head was slightly raised, propped up by a stone jutting out from a slab, and it was as if his fractured gaze was reaching longingly into the distance. I would have liked to close his eyes. It would've been the proper thing to do. But the police would not like it. In Wieblingen I called from the nearest phone booth and asked to be put through to Chief Inspector Nägelsbach's office.
“I can't believe you sent me your colleagues from the Agency.” I had to get that off my chest first.
“I sent you who?” Nägelsbach asked.
“This morning I had a visit from Bleckmeier and Rawitz, from the Federal Criminal Investigation Agency. They wanted to know the whereabouts of Leonore Salger.”
“I had nothing to do with that. What you and I spoke about that evening…How can you think I would abuse your trust like that?” Nägelsbach's voice was shaking with indignation. I believed him. Should I be ashamed? Had he been more straightforward with me than I had been with him? “I apologize. I simply couldn't imagine that the Agency would otherwise think of questioning me.”
“Hmm.”
I told him I had found Wendt. Nägelsbach asked me to wait for him by the phone booth. Exactly five minutes later a patrol car and an ambulance appeared, along with Tietzke from the local paper, and three minutes after that Nägelsbach himself pulled up with a colleague. I got into their car and showed them the way to Wendt's corpse, and they set to work. I was free to go. “Let's talk tomorrow,” Nägelsbach said. “Can you come by my office in the morning?”
30 Spaghetti al pesto
The lightbulb on my landing was still out. I saw it as I stopped to catch my breath on the floor below and went back down again.
Brigitte wasn't home yet. Young Manu and I made my spaghetti carbonara-it's never too early for a child to be taught that cream is the body of a light pasta sauce, and vermouth the soul.
When Brigitte and I took the dog out for a walk late that evening, she wanted to know what was going on. “It's so great you're here and that the two of you cooked supper- and you even washed up-but I know you didn't come over just to please me.”
“How about to please me-wouldn't that be enough?”
She sensed that I wasn't telling her the whole truth, but she didn't want to push the matter. Back at her place we watched a movie and the late news. Before the weather report there was a bulletin in which the Federal Criminal Investigation Agency made a special public appeal for information. There hadn't been a bulletin earlier that evening when I'd watched the news with Manu. I didn't recognize the pictures they showed of the two nameless men. But the woman they showed was Leo, and they gave her name. The bulletin disclosed that there had been a terrorist attack on an American military installation and that there had been two casualties. Then a press officer from the Criminal Investigation Agency appeared on the screen and spoke of a new generation of part-time terrorists who lead normal lives during the day, and at night launch attacks with murder and fire. He asked the public to cooperate and to expect roadblocks and checkpoints over the next few days. He promised that any information that was provided would be handled in the strictest confidence and mentioned a substantial reward.
“Isn't that the girl whose picture is leaning on the small stone lion in your office?”
I nodded.
“I hope you don't think I'm thinking of the reward. What I'm thinking of is how I found you the other day. You told me you'd tell the police where she is when you know why they're looking for her. Now you know.”
“Do I really? There was a terrorist attack on an American base and there were two casualties; that's all I know. But how come I don't know when and where the attack took place? Leo went into hiding in January, now it's May. The way they're talking, you'd think the attack took place yesterday, and that she'd gone into hiding yesterday. No, Brigitte, I know next to nothing.”
As we lay in bed I made up my mind and set the alarm. I hoped that the people of Amorbach, and the Hopfen family in particular, hadn't seen the late-night news.
The following morning at six I was in my car, heading to Amorbach.
31 Like in the days of Baader and Meinhof
The streets were empty, and I was able to pick up speed. The sun rose as a pale red disk, but had soon steamed away the haze, blinding me in the many sharp curves between Eber-bach and Amorbach. The rainy days were over.
The Badischer Hof Restaurant had opened already, and the breakfast buffet was laid out. At the table next to mine sat a married couple who were outfitted in knickerbockers and red socks. They looked out of place, almost like aliens, but they were ready for their hike through the Odenwald, and were reading the local Bote vom Untermain paper over coffee and rolls. I was itching to tell them how important it was in a marriage to talk to each other and to ask them to give me their paper. But I couldn't work up the courage. All the same, I could see that Leo's picture wasn't on the front page.
It was on page four. By the time I rang the doorbell in Som-merberg at a quarter to nine, I had bought the newspaper and was holding it under my arm. The children were making a great racket inside. Leo opened the door.
I had recently caught only a glimpse of her, and even then she had remained for me the girl in the first photograph, the girl with the mouth that liked to laugh, with the question and the reproach in her eyes, the girl who was leaning on the little stone lion on my desk. I had not really come to terms with the young woman whose picture I had been given at the Klausenpfad residence hall. Now she was standing in front of me, another year or two older. Her chin and cheekbones showed determination. I read in her eyes: “What does this old man want? Is he selling something? Some kind of door-to-door salesman? Or has he come to read the electric and gas meters?” She was again wearing jeans and a man's checked shirt.
“What can I do for you?” Her accent was as thick as the peanut butter on the sandwiches Manu makes for himself.
“Good morning, Frau Salger.”
She took a step back. I was almost happy about the distrust in her eyes. Better a dangerous old man than a tiresome one.
“Excuse me?”
I handed her the newspaper, opened to page four. “I'd like to have a word with you.”
She looked at her picture with a mixture of curiosity and resignation: That's supposed to be me? Who cares, it's all over anyway.
I imagined that the picture was from the police files, when she had been taken in for fingerprinting during the student protests. Sometimes there is talk about criminalization by the police, meaning that law enforcement creates breaches of law as much as it fights them. These are unacceptable generalizations. It is only police photographers who are capable of “criminalizing” a person. And they are masters of their trade. Send them the most innocent and law-abiding individual you can find, and before you know it they will give him the mug of a criminal. Leo shrugged her shoulders and handed me back the newspaper. “Could you please wait a moment?” Her accent was gone.
I stood outside the door and heard snippets of Leo telling the children to put on their shoes, take along their jackets, and put their sandwiches in their schoolbags. Then she ran down the stairs and I heard her opening and shutting room and closet doors. When she came out of the house with the children, she was carrying a coat over her arm and a packed bag over her shoulder.
“Do you mind if I drive on ahead with the kids? I want to drop them off at the kindergarten and at the school and then leave the car outside Dr. Hopfen's office.” She unlocked the Land Rover and helped the children get in.
I followed in my car, and saw the little girl go into the kindergarten and the boys into the school. Then Leo parked the Rover, dropped the keys into Dr. Hopfen's mailbox, and came over to my car with her bag and coat. “Let's go.”