Was it possible that Rolf, that Katharina, would be this “Who”? Why not? Rolf more likely than Katharina, she did have a certain warmth, a “Communist warmth” as he called it, but only to himself (never would he mention that, never, not even on one of those double tracks), a warmth that he remembered in the Communists of his young days, in his fellow student Helga Zimmerlein, for instance, who had died in the penitentiary, or in old Löhr in the village, the only Thälmann voter, who got along so well with children that he had acquired the reputation of a Pied Piper—it had existed, that Communist warmth which had driven him as a student into Red taverns.
No, Rolf more likely than Katharina—his eyes held such an inscrutable dimension, shadowed by a strange melancholy, a dimension that remained opaque, grew even more shrouded when he played with his little son Holger, held him on his knees or tipped out the bag of building blocks and began to build a house with him on the floor—then he would hold the child close or look at him with such remote, cool tenderness and melancholy. There was always something eerie about that tender, shrouded gaze, even when he looked at Katharina, in fleeting
tenderness, touching her shoulder in passing, or her hand when he gave her a light or took a cup from her, that was worlds removed from the suggestiveness with which Kohlschröder imbued such gestures. It lay as deep as the mute utterances of a desperate man who knows what is in store for him—what?
Of course it had been fatal for him to have studied banking with that fellow Beverloh, but that happened to have been his dearest wish. Later he had even worked in one of Bleibl’s branch offices, quietly efficient—until he started throwing rocks, overturning cars and setting fire to them, at which time he had met Veronica. He never spoke about his oldest son, or about Veronica or Beverloh, just went on conscientiously studying financial and stock-exchange reports, and had such a quiet, dry, uncanny way of whispering over a cup of tea or coffee or a mug of milk: “Today I came across one hundred and eleven dead between the lines of the financial supplement, but it may have been only ninety-nine or perhaps a hundred and twenty.”
It sounded cold, precise, pitiless, like a casualty report after an attack or a retreat. Even Rolf hadn’t succeeded in explaining “economic processes,” as Kortschede called them, to him, he had never even properly grasped the economic processes involved in and around his paper, he had fought shy of them. Whether from laziness or indifference—he argued with himself about that. He had been dissuaded from taking an interest first by the older Amplanger, later by the younger: “Just leave that to us.”
Luckily Blurtmehl had a sense of humor, manifested in succinct, brief comments made while dressing him, driving him, serving him, bathing and massaging him—it was the humor of an expert masseur who knew how to avoid sensitive spots, how far he could go, knew too that he had hit the right nerve when he casually said, for example: “May I be permitted the observation that Director-General Bleibl has never gone through such bad times as you—and never will?” Blurtmehl discovered barely detectable damage suffered as a child, a young man, during the war, after the war, as a prisoner of war, forgotten illnesses of bowels and stomach, traces of typhoid and malaria, the scars
of minute injuries, spoke of them as “lying deep, deeper than the skin, going far deeper than the skin … no, no, sir, you’re not thick-skinned!”—here, of course, he was again alluding to Bleibl. Blurtmehl even spoke of the “burden of responsibility placed upon your shoulders which others should be bearing,” and no doubt was referring to the heart of the problem that made his limbs feel so leaden: that he was fed up with the paper, was bored to death when occasionally seated at his vast desk where there was nothing, nothing left, for him to decide—he had let his paper slip through his fingers, had allowed it to be taken away from him, stood only nominally for it, while Amplanger senior had long been representing Bleibl’s interests. He was no longer himself, he was merely the image of himself: irreplaceable as an image; had allowed himself to be deceived by an ever-increasing income, by a proliferating fortune—there must be something very mysterious in Blurtmehl’s hands for him to arrive at such insights under those hands, whereas Grebnitzer, even during long sessions of questioning, never penetrated to the heart of the problem. After all, there was nothing organic to discover, he had never had a heart attack, even his blood count was excellent—and yet there was that lead, that chill, in his limbs. Sometimes he actually feared a total paralysis when seated there at his desk, powerless “at the power center, at the very heart of capitalism,” while his fortune proliferated and he was anxiously concerned not to let a single cigarette “go to waste.”
And now this new office, in which he could decide even less, assuming that he was capable of arriving at any decisions at all. They had made it pretty clear to him, not only Bleibl but Pottsieker and Kliehm too, and most of all Amplanger: he played his part well. By mentioning the literary section, Bleibl had alluded quite plainly, brutally, to his occasional contributions to the paper, when he happened to write about Hieronymus Bosch or Salvador Dali. In him the Association had finally acquired a “literary section,” something for “the ladies.”
Blurtmehl knocked, heard the feeble “Come in!,” entered, and announced: “Your bath is ready.” He was quite obviously ill at ease, would certainly never again open the door in such a way as to make it look as if his boss were stumbling headlong into the room, never again. He was embarrassed after this his first faux pas in seven years, but probably Holzpuke had personally assumed command of him, had given him the order over the transceiver: “Dr. Tolm, our president, is very exhausted, he is struggling up the stairs with his last ounce of strength, now he is entering the corridor, now he is reaching for the door handle—now!” and he had almost fallen into Blurtmehl’s arms. It was with just such precision that assassinations were planned, and the Who began to take shape in the question: would it be Blurtmehl? Why not? He smiled at Blurtmehl, rose slowly to his feet. Of course he knew Blurtmehl’s past history, knew his personal habits down to the last detail, knew about his girlfriend as well as
her
history and
her
personal habits, but no one could know his thoughts. Who could assess and predict the susceptibility of this sensitive, emotional man? No doubt he had enough knowledge of anatomy to apply a throttling grip in the bathtub that would leave no trace and make his death appear the result of his notorious frailty. The holding open of the door had made him suspicious since till then Blurtmehl had taken scrupulous care to let him do certain things for himself: open doors, light cigarettes, and certain unavoidable manipulations on the toilet. After all, he had known Kortschede, too, for over twenty years: that man of fine limbs and fine mind who ruled with quiet ceremony over banks and newsprint, steel and real estate, and yet permitted the whisperings of his beloved Horst to be monitored.
“All right, I’m coming,” he said. Smiling, he thought: No, not today, certainly not today.
In the end she had allowed Miss Blum to go off with Kit for the milk after all, though she knew she didn’t need it anymore and wouldn’t be taking it with her. Kit insisted on this ritual, also on carrying the milk pitcher, which, of course, was empty and would only be full on the return trip, when the four kilos would get too heavy for her. She loved the cows, the smell of the stable, and for Miss Blum it was a welcome excuse for a chat with the Beeretzes, who were about her age, sixtyish, and somehow related, and there was always plenty to talk about, from the past, present, and future: Blorr in ten or twenty years, if bungalows and roads went on being built at this rate. They were still trying to guess who among the thirty-four eligible voters might have actually voted for the Socialist Party: seven people, and it always boiled down to the newcomers who had rented the old vicarage and fixed it up, a nice couple but a bit of a mystery, they seemed Liberal but almost certainly didn’t vote Liberal: the Blömers, he was an architect, she was an attorney, with grown-up children, four cars, and her brother, who didn’t
seem to do anything much, just worked a bit on the house and in the garden, smoked a pipe—seven exactly if you counted the children of voting age. The main thing was that there was plenty to talk about, and fetching the milk would take at least half an hour, or even longer, she hoped: she wanted some time to herself before Mama, before Käthe, arrived, wanted to say goodbye to Blorr, and found herself thinking about the milk: would Erwin be drinking it, would Miss Blum use it to make a dessert for him, or let it stand and thicken?—those last two of the many liters of milk they had fetched from the Beeretz farm: every day for five years, two a day, it must run into thousands.
She was too strung up to figure it out; besides, the fear had returned, rising this time from below, seeming to rise from her feet, heating her calves, blocking bladder and kidneys, creeping over her breast like a heavy, hot cloud, into her head; at other times it moved down from above, beginning in her head, sinking down, and Grebnitzer, whom Father still swore by, was still inclined to think that this was all due to her pregnancy. Of course the fear had to do with the pregnancy, yet these were not pregnancy symptoms; this was no longer the daily, familiar fear that they would kidnap Kit, and herself as well, or herself, or Erwin, or that they would simply do away with all three of them (she imagined someone drawing a line through their pictures and writing underneath: “Done”); it was no longer that intangible yet very real fear, it was quite different—palpable, tangible—and she couldn’t talk to anybody about it. There was no room inside her for two fears of such dimensions, so the tangible fear had supplanted the intangible one: for the past three months, ever since she had known positively that she was pregnant, and not by Erwin. In the four months before that Erwin had not once had contact with her in any way that could have caused the pregnancy.
Sometimes, yes, she did think of suicide: take some stuff or other, and it would all be over. What held her back was not the sinfulness, as such, in which she had been taught so emphatically to believe; but the thought of Kit, of Hubert, of
her parents and brothers, even of Katharina and the nephews, and last of all—least of all, she realized—it was the thought of Erwin Fischer, her husband. Leaving him was easy enough, and now she had made up her mind and hadn’t discussed it with anybody, had sent off Miss Blum and Kit with the milk pitcher as if nothing had changed. Everything, everything had changed. This time Kübler had gone along with them for protection; like all those before him, even Hubert, he would refuse to come into the house for a drink, he would stay in the courtyard, watchful, aloof, keeping a sharp eye on both entrances to the courtyard, while Rohner was indoors guarding her, keeping a watching eye on the weak points of the bungalow: the terrace, where she was now standing looking down on Blorr, and the rear garage door leading into the garden. What they all feared most was dusk, and now, in late fall, the milk had to be fetched earlier, and, although she hoped Miss Blum would take her time, she mustn’t stay out until dusk. That would lead to more trouble with Holzpuke; not that he became angry exactly, but he didn’t hide his annoyance when they failed to follow advice or instructions, and was always stressing—quite rightly, as she knew from Hubert—the nervous tension of his men, who would be held responsible if … After all, the affair of Pliefger’s birthday cake had been extremely serious, and as for Father—he was already dreaming of flying saucers descending on him and Käthe, now he was even scared of birds since that business with the duck and since old Kortschede had gone completely around the bend at the click of a lighter. And there had been that terrible business with Plotteti’s cigarette package.
Her fear was for Hubert, not for herself; she would be able to handle Erwin and the whole clique, the scandal and the howls of the Zummerling gang; she looked forward to the baby that was kicking away in such lively fashion inside her, she was afraid only for its father: Hubert, with whom for the past six weeks she hadn’t been able to exchange a single word. Since he had been made a bodyguard at Father and Käthe’s, she sometimes caught a glimpse of him, saw his silhouette
in the corridor upstairs in the manor, couldn’t speak to him, couldn’t write to him, couldn’t phone him. Because of Veronica, of course, she was being not only guarded but kept under constant surveillance, and fortunately neither Rolf nor Father nor Käthe had let on that she too had at one time been friendly with Beverloh. He had been Father’s protégé, after all, as well as Rolf’s friend, and Veronica had at one time been Rolf’s wife.
Fear also for Helga, Hubert’s wife, whom she had never met, of whom she knew only that she was blond, was called Helga, and was a very nice person, and then there was a dear little boy called Bernhard, who would soon be receiving his First Communion; she knew the address but couldn’t go there, of course. Kübler and Rohner, the new guards, never let her out of their sight, and she couldn’t very well—while escorted and observed by Kübler or Rohner—go to Hubert’s home, stand outside the house, and wait for Helga and Bernhard to come out. Divorce was out of the question for Hubert, and Erwin in his pride and vanity still believed that she was three months pregnant by him, whereas the sixth month had just begun.
He had been away for four months, traveling to Singapore, Panama, Djakarta, and Hong Kong, carrying on complex negotiations for the Beehive. He had had to establish whole production chains, find agencies, install mechanical equipment, hire representatives—and after successfully concluding this campaign he had come home jubilant. She must speak to Erwin, too, before he ran into Grebnitzer, who would congratulate him on the baby due in four months but which Erwin didn’t expect for six: a healthy child from a healthy mother, a healthy father. “Those hot flushes your wife suffers from sometimes are quite natural, perfectly normal,” and Erwin had already generously declared: “Even if it’s another girl, we’ll celebrate!” Of course he would let the press in on it, and the illustrated weeklies. “New blood in the Beehive! New blood in the Fisherman’s Shack,” as their smart bungalow was called. “A blessed event expected by one of our hopeful horsewomen: Sabine Fischer of the Tolm clan—one of our most endangered women!” Now
the lid would be put on all that, no champagne, no paper lanterns, while somewhere—where?—she would give birth to the child of a policeman. Where? Not here in Blorr, probably not at Tolmshoven, perhaps at Rolf’s, if he could spare her a room. She supposed she could have discussed it with Katharina, maybe with Rolf too, but first she had to speak to Hubert, she couldn’t very well let others into the secret over his head, and over Helga’s and Bernhard’s heads, before they suspected anything, she mustn’t start rumors, and there was one more thing that was as serious for Hubert as for Holzpuke: dereliction of duty.