But you couldn’t tell just by looking at her. She was laughing in the photograph of April 1942, which I’d taken outside our house in the Bahnhofstrasse after her so-called Italian trip with Gigi. And again in a picture from June 1941, where she is walking along Unter den Linden and comes across as cheerful. Had the other man taken this picture? I had also brought out a picture from her school days, one from the 1950s where she was finally playing tennis again, since I was once more earning enough, and a picture taken shortly before she died.
Ulbrich looked at the photos slowly, without saying a word. “What did she die of?”
“Cancer.”
He assumed a troubled look and shook his head. “It’s still not fair though. I mean, once a child is born it also has to…” He didn’t continue.
What would I have done if Klara had wanted to keep the child? Had she ever asked herself this and concluded that I couldn’t have handled something like that?
He shook his head again. “It’s all very unfair. What a beautiful woman she was. The man… the man must have also been quite handsome. And take a look at me.” He held his face toward me as if I’d never seen it before. “If you’d been my father, I could understand. But with two such good-looking people…”
I burst out laughing, and he was taken aback. He made himself another cappuccino and had another slice of apple pie.
“I read that article in the Mannheimer Morgen. I must say, your police force goes about things quite casually. Back in the East things would have been done very differently. But perhaps things will be done differently here, too, if someone points the police in the right direction.” His look was no longer sad but defiant, the way he had looked at me when we first met. Could it be that today he wasn’t so disappointed in me because he felt he had the upper hand?
I didn’t say anything.
“You haven’t really done anything. But the other guy, the one from the bank…” He waited, and when I was still silent, he continued feeling his way forward. “I mean, he clearly preferred not to tell the police that he… And I imagine that he’d also prefer that nobody else would tell them that-”
“You would tell them?”
“You needn’t say that so sharply, as if I were some… All I’m saying is, he’d do better not to leave anything to chance. Are you still working for him?”
Did he intend to blackmail Welker?
“Are you in such bad financial shape?” I asked him.
“I-”
“You’d do better to go back where you came from. I’m sure the security network will soon be flourishing there the way it is everywhere else. Firms will be looking for representatives, and insurance companies will be looking for agents who know their way around. There’s nothing for you to gain here. It’ll be your word against ours-how far will you get?”
“My word? What do you think I’m going to say? I was only asking. I mean…” After a while he said quietly: “I tried to get a job as a security guard, and also as an insurance agent, even as a zookeeper. It’s not that easy.”
“That’s a pity.”
He nodded. “There are no free rides anymore.”
After he left I called Welker. I wanted to warn him. Should Ulbrich seek him out, I didn’t want him to find Welker unprepared. “Thank you for informing me,” he said. He took down Ulbrich’s name and address and seemed quite unruffled. “See you next Saturday.”
14 One and one that makes two
The children enjoyed Welker’s party most. They were the right age-Manu and Welker’s son, Max, were a little older than Isabel, Welker’s daughter, and Anne, the daughter of Füruzan’s colleague who had taken part in the operation at the water tower. At first the boys sat at the computer, ignoring the girls, who went to another room and dolled themselves up. Brigitte crinkled her nose-she’d rather have seen them at the computer than falling into the beauty trap. But once the girls were all prettied up the boys forgot about the computer and began to flirt. Manu with Isabel, who had inherited the dark hair and fiery eyes of her mother, and Max with Anne, both blond. The garden was large, and when Brigitte and I took a walk over to the pear tree by the fence, we saw that one of the teen couples was making out on the bench beneath the blackthorn, and the other couple was sitting on the wall by the roses. It was a sweet and innocent sight. Still, Brigitte was worried when it got dark and the children didn’t come to the table that had been set up in the garden, so she went looking for them. They were sitting on the balcony drinking Coca-Cola and eating potato chips and talking about love and death.
The Nägelsbachs were there, along with Philipp and Füruzan, Füruzan’s colleague and her boyfriend, and Brigitte and me. I could see how relieved Philipp was that Nägelsbach had decided not to go to the police. There was also a young woman there whom Welker introduced as Max’s teacher at the Kurfürst-Friedrich Gymnasium and on whom he lavished as much attention as a young widower with two children could afford to. I’ve forgotten who the other guests were. They were Welker’s neighbors and friends, or acquaintances from his tennis club.
At first the conversation was a little stiff, but the awkwardness quickly evaporated. The wine, a chardonnay from the Palatine, went down so easily, the food was so simple and convincing-from thick green spelt soup and Victoria perch to blackberry trifle-and the glow of candles was so cozy. Welker gave a little speech; he was happy to be reunited with his children. He thanked the water tower commandos-though he preferred not to touch on why he had been away or what he was thanking us for. But everyone was pleased.
It grew cooler, and a fireplace was glowing inside the house.
“Shall we go for a stroll in the garden before we go inside?” Welker said, taking me aside.
We crossed the lawn and sat down on a bench beneath the blackthorn.
“I’ve thought a lot about Gregor Samarin-and us Welkers, too. We took him in, but everything we gave him was like a handout. Because we gave, we also expected his services. When I was a boy I had the room in the attic, while his room was in the cellar so he could take care of the central heating, which back then still ran on coal, not oil.” He slowly shook his head. “I’ve been trying to remember when I first realized that he hated me. I can’t recall. Back then it simply didn’t interest me, which is why I can’t remember.” He looked at me. “Isn’t that terrible?”
I nodded.
“I know that shooting him was even worse,” Welker continued. “But somehow it’s terrible in the same way. Do you know what I mean? What happened in our childhood bore fruit, as the Bible says. In his case, it was murdering my wife and everything else he did, and in my case, that I could only save myself from him the way I did.”
“He told me he liked your wife.”
“He liked Stephanie the way a servant might like the daughter of a master he hates. At the end of the day her place is on the other side, and when the chips are down, that’s all that matters. When Stephanie confronted him, the chips were down.”
The lights went on in the house and their glow fell on the lawn. It remained dark beneath the blackthorn. Someone put on a Hildegard Knef record: “One and One That Makes Two.” I wanted to take Brigitte in my arms and dance a waltz. “As for Stephanie,” he continued, “I don’t know where it was that they… Were they waiting for her up at the hut? I have no idea how they could have followed us without our noticing. We thought we were alone.” He pressed his hands against his eyes and sighed. “I still can’t rid myself of this nightmare. And yet all I want is to wake up and put it all behind me.”