Peter carries a tray in to Clara. When he comes back he says, "She likes her food. I take her a tray three times a day. Fortunately, she sleeps a lot because of her medication."
"She must be a burden to you."
Peter serves up stew with some pasta. "No, not really. She doesn't bother me. She treats me as if I were her valet, but I don't mind. Eat up, Claus."
"I'm not hungry. Does she ever go out?"
"Clara? No. She doesn't like to, and in any case she would just get lost. She reads a lot and likes looking at the sky."
"What about the insomniac? His house must have been opposite, there where the hotel is now."
Peter gets up. "Yes, that's right. I'm not hungry either. Come, let's go out."
They walk down the street. Peter points out a house. "That's where I lived at that time. On the second floor. If you're not too tired, I can show you where Clara used to live."
"I'm not tired."
Peter stops in front of a two-story building on Station Road.
"This is it. This house will soon be demolished, like nearly all the houses on this street. They are too old and unsanitary."
Claus shivers. "Let's go back. I'm frozen."
They part in front of the hotel entrance. Claus says, "I've been to the cemetery several times, but I can't find Grandmother's grave."
"I'll show you tomorrow. Come to the bookshop at six o'clock. It will still be light."
In an abandoned part of the cemetery, Peter sticks his umbrella in the ground.
"Here's the grave."
"How can you be so sure? There's nothing here but weeds. No cross, nothing. You could be mistaken."
"Mistaken? If only you knew how many times I came here looking for your brother Lucas. Even afterward, later, when he was no longer here. This spot has been the end of an almost daily walk for me."
They go back into town. Peter attends to Clara, then they drink brandy in what used to be Lucas's room. The rain falls on the windowsill, drips into the room. Peter goes to get a cloth to mop up the water.
"Tell me about yourself, Claus."
"There's nothing to tell."
"Over there, is life easier?"
Claus shrugs his shoulders. "It's a society based on money. There is no place for questions about life. I've spent thirty years in mortal solitude."
"Did you never have a wife, a child?"
Claus laughs. "Women, yes. Lots of women. No children."
After a silence he asks, "What did you do with the skeletons, Peter?"
"I put them back in their place. Do you want to see them?"
"We mustn't disturb Clara." "We don't need to cross the room. There's another door. Don't you remember?"
"How could I remember?"
"You might have noticed as you went past. It's the first door on the left as you come to the landing."
"No, I didn't notice."
"The door does blend in with the wallpaper."
They enter a small space separated from Clara's room by a thick curtain. Peter switches on a flashlight, illuminating the skeletons.
Claus whispers, "There are three of them."
Peter says, "You don't need to whisper. Clara won't wake up. She takes strong sedatives. I forgot to tell you that Lucas dug up Mathias's body two years after the burial. He told me that it was easier for him, he was tired of spending his nights at the cemetery to keep the child company."
Peter shines the flashlight on a mattress beneath the skeletons.
"That's where he slept."
Claus touches the mattress, the gray army blanket that covers it.
"It's warm."
"What's on your mind, Claus?"
"I'd like to sleep here, just for one night. Do you mind, Peter?"
"This is your home."
Report drawn up by the authorities of the town of K. for the attention of the embassy of D.
Re: request for the repatriation of your citizen Claus T., presently held in the prison of the town of K.
Claus T., aged fifty, holder of a valid passport and a thirty-day tourist visa, arrived in this town on April 2 of this year. He rented a room in the only hotel in town, the Grand Hotel in the main square.
Claus T. spent three weeks in the hotel, behaving like a tourist, walking around town, visiting historic sights, having his meals in the hotel restaurant, or in other restaurants in town.
Claus T. often visited the bookshop opposite the hotel to buy paper and pencils. Conversant in the local language, he chatted readily with the bookseller, Mrs. B., and with other persons in public places.
After three weeks, Claus T. asked Mrs. B. if she would rent him the two rooms above the bookshop on a monthly basis. As he offered a good price, Mrs. B. gave up the two-room apartment and went to stay with her daughter, who lives nearby.
Claus T. requested an extension to his visa on three occasions, which was granted without difficulty. However, his fourth request for an extension was refused in August. Claus T. disregarded this refusal, and owing to negligence on the part of our employees, the matter rested there until the month of October. On October 30, in the course of a routine identity check, our local police established that Claus T.'s papers were no longer in order.
At this point, Claus T. had run out of money. He owed two months' rent to Mrs. B. He was hardly eating. He went from bar to bar playing the harmonica. Drunkards bought him drinks. Mrs. B. brought him a little soup each day.
During his interrogation, Claus T. claimed to have been born in our country, and to have spent his childhood in our town, at his grandmother's house, and declared his wish to remain here until the return of his brother Lucas T. The said Lucas does not appear in any of the records of the town of K. Neither does Claus T.
We request you to settle the enclosed invoice (fine, administrative costs, rent for Mrs. B.) and to repatriate Claus T. on your own responsibility.
Signed, on behalf of the authorities of the town of K.: I.S.
Postscript
We have naturally, for reasons of security, examined the manuscript in the possession of Claus T. He claims that this manuscript proves the existence of his brother Lucas, who wrote the major part of it himself, Claus himself having merely added the last few pages, chapter number eight. However, the manuscript is in the same handwriting from beginning to end, and the sheets of paper show no signs of age. The entire text was written in one sequence, by the same person, over a period of time not exceeding six months, that is, by Claus T. himself during his stay in our town.
As for the content of the text, this can only be a fiction, since neither the events described nor the characters portrayed ever existed in the town of K., with the sole exception of one person, the supposed grandmother of Claus T., whom we have traced. This woman did in fact own a house on the present site of our playing field. Deceased without heir thirty-five years ago, she appears in our records under the name Maria Z., wife of V.
It is possible that during the war she was entrusted with the care of one or more children.
The Third Lie
The third book in the Book of Lies series, 1996
Translated by Marc Roma
Part one
I am in prison in the small town of my childhood.
It's not a real prison but a cell in the basement of the local police station, a building no different from the rest of the buildings in town. It too is a single-storied house.
My cell must have been a laundry room at one time; its door and window look out onto the courtyard. Window bars have been installed on the inside in a way that makes it impossible to reach through and break the glass. A toilet in the corner is concealed by a curtain. Against one wall are four chairs and a table bolted to the floor; on the opposite wall are four collapsible beds. Three of them are still folded up.