THE WIND
was surprisingly mild. From somewhere over by the care center came a faint, unidentifiable metallic rumbling sound, and far in the distance he could hear the engine of the guards’ car driving round its endless circuit. Otherwise it was quiet.
Marko had shown no surprise when Daniel went out again after the night round. Leaning back against the wall of his cabin he had raised his hand in a limp, wordless greeting, and Daniel had responded in kind before setting off quickly down the hill.
As he walked through the small patch of woodland that separated the clinic grounds from the village, he reflected on the fact that what he was doing now was extremely dangerous, completely unnecessary, and not at all like him. He could easily wait till morning. There was no need for him to talk to Corinne right now.
But his desire for certainty—immediate certainty—was stronger than his fear. He could only remember one previous occasion in his life when he had been similarly desperate to know the truth: When he suspected that Emma, his former wife, was having an affair he had taken the day off and spent the morning frantically going through her drawers and pockets, and then he had tailed her to a meeting with her lover. He recalled how irrational and shameless his actions had seemed, but also the feverish excitement and—above all—the
urgency.
He jogged through the narrow, poorly lit village streets and went up the steps to Corinne’s loft apartment.
“It’s me, Daniel,” he shouted, so as not to scare her by knocking.
When she eventually opened the door, her face was streaked as if she had been crying. Then he realized it was sweat and that the furrow in her brow came from her annoyance at being interrupted. She was dressed in shorts and a tank top, salsa music was coming out of the speakers, and she was holding her boxing gloves under her arm.
“What is it? Has something happened?” she asked.
“No. I just wanted to talk.”
“Now?”
“Now.”
She let him in. “Can you wait ten minutes?”
He nodded and sat down on the sofa. Corinne drank some water from the tap, pulled on her gloves, and carried on training. Her shepherdess outfit was on a hanger by the wall, clean and freshly ironed.
Daniel watched her as she set about the punching ball. She was muttering aggressively, as if she were talking to an imaginary opponent, and he couldn’t tell if it was sweat or tears running down her cheeks, or possibly a mixture of both. There was a spotlight shining on her from the ceiling. The rest of the large room was dark, except for the strings of little red, green, and blue lights.
Daniel felt as if he had been left behind in a room where a party had just come to an end and something else was about to happen. An unpredictable after party for a few select people.
His heart was still racing from his rapid walk and the strange, intoxicating anxiety. Once again his thoughts wandered to Emma and the last terrible weeks of their marriage. He had squeezed the truth out of her like toothpaste from a tube, and no matter how hard he squeezed there was always a little bit left that he couldn’t get at. He had followed her, caught her red-handed, confronted her. Then came the relief and pain of knowing for certain. And the frustration at still not knowing everything.
There was a half-f bottle of wine on the kitchen counter. He pulled out the cork and poured himself a glass without asking, then sat back on the sofa as his pulse slowed down. The wine, the salsa music, and the regular thud of the punching ball filled him up and settled like a smothering blanket over his fevered thoughts. He watched Corinne’s fight with the black, lumpy monster, which took each blow with an unconcerned little swing. She was so slight, yet still so strong and stubborn, and utterly furious.
Exhausted, she staggered back, sank to her knees, and pulled off the gloves.
“What did you want to talk about?” she panted.
“Not yet. After you’ve had a shower.”
As the water ran in the bathroom, he wondered how to frame his question. His thoughts, which had been so sharp and clear a short while ago, as though lit up by a sudden flash of lightning, were now mired in doubt. When she emerged shortly afterward with her open, girlish face, her dripping hair, and a robe wrapped tightly around her body, he had almost forgotten why he was there.
“Well?” she said. “Have you had another idea about the drug deliveries?”
“No.”
“So what was so important that it couldn’t wait till tomorrow?”
She was standing with her arms folded, her legs set slightly apart as she looked at him from under her wet, absolutely straight bangs. A little girl in a bathrobe that was too big for her.
All his urgency vanished. That business with the babies didn’t matter. Odd. But that was how it felt. Maybe it was a lie, maybe it was the truth. It didn’t make any difference. If it was true, it must have been temporary insanity, a wound in a psyche that was otherwise completely healthy and beautiful. He didn’t want to know. Some things were more important than the truth. Such as the fact that she was the only person in Himmelstal who had shown him any friendship and warmth. The only person he could talk to.
Suddenly the worried look on her face cracked into a smile. And at that moment it was as if a switch had been flicked and thousands of tiny, silvery lights had come on inside her irises, all directed at him. How does that happen? he wondered in amazement. Where does the light come from?
“Well, tell me!” she said. “What was so urgent?”
“This,” he said, getting up from the sofa and cupping her face in his hands. He brushed her wet hair back and kissed her.
She pulled back with a jerk and put her hand over her mouth as if to shield it.
“No. We mustn’t,” she said.
“Why not?”
She folded her arms again, tucking her hands under her arms as if she were cold, and looked away without speaking.
“Don’t you trust me, Corinne? I trust you. Do you hear me?
I trust you.
You’re the only person here I trust. And I’m the only person
you
can trust.”
She was staring at the wall and shaking her head with her jaw clenched, like a stubborn child.
Daniel swallowed and went on. “I don’t know what you’ve been through, what you’ve done, or what you used to be like. But right now we’re here, you and me. Whatever happened before belongs in the past, I don’t care about any of that. I love you the way you are now.”
“Oh, God,” she sniffed. “Shit.” She ran her hand quickly over her eyes and added, “I love you too. I have ever since that picnic at the leper cemetery.”
“In that case, this is probably the only love that exists in this valley,” he said seriously. “Have you thought about that?”
She considered what he had said.
“You’re probably right.”
He moved his face so close to hers that their noses were touching and kissed her again. This time she didn’t pull away. They tasted each other, curiously and carefully at first, like some new food they’d never tried before, then with increasing passion. He took a step back and undid the belt around her waist, all the while looking at her face, ready to stop if she gave any sign. But she just looked back, smiling and trusting, and he opened her robe and gently stroked her girlishly small breasts with two fingers. She stood there motionless with her eyes closed and her nipples stiffening. Then she opened her eyes. The shower of light was flowing with full force. A dangerous, edgy glow.
“This is impossible,” she whispered. “It shouldn’t be happening.”
DURING THE
weeks that followed they made love as often as they got the chance. In Corinne’s apartment after training. In Daniel’s cabin. On one occasion outdoors under a pine tree, and several times in an abandoned barn. The awareness that they were surrounded by enemies spurred them on, and the brutal environment formed a sharp contrast to their own heightened senses, like ice on hot skin. Daniel hadn’t felt so virile since he was a teenager.
At the same time it was a welcome respite, after his constant adjustments and suspicions, to be able to sink into a warm embrace and put himself in someone else’s hands. A flight from the valley, into lust and forgetfulness.
He told Corinne about his childhood with his mother and her parents in Uppsala, about his chaotic birthdays with Max, and their complicated relationship as twins. And Corinne talked about growing up in Zurich, about her admiration for her father, a mountaineer who died on a climb when she was thirteen years old, and the little theater group she had belonged to, and an unhappy love affair with a married director. She never mentioned any babies, and he didn’t ask.
They spent almost all their time together. Every night after the patrol had stopped by he would creep down to Corinne’s apartment in the village. Love had emboldened him, and he now dared to move about after dark. The whispering voices out there were no longer anonymous. Thanks to Corinne, he knew who the shadows were and what they wanted. Most of them were completely uninterested in Daniel and left him alone. The ones you really had to watch out for lived beyond the clinic grounds and village. The basic principle seemed to be that the farther you got from the village, the crazier and more dangerous people were.
But obviously he mustn’t let his guard down. When Daniel brought his books back to the library, the librarian had given him an ambiguous look, tapped the cover of
The World of Birds of Prey,
and said, “I presume you read that the mating season is the most dangerous time for their prey. The reaction time of voles, for instance, decreases by a third when they’re in heat.”
“Yes, that’s supposed to be true,” Daniel had replied nonchalantly.
But he was secretly grateful for the warning. So there were people in the valley who were aware of his relationship with Corinne.
Every morning and every evening he and Corinne had to part in order to be in their respective homes when the hosts called. Daniel thought it was ridiculous. But when the hosts made their checks, you had to be in your registered abode. That was one of the ground rules in Himmelstal.
He had suggested to Corinne that he move in with her and register there instead. He had understood that that sort of thing happened occasionally. Corinne had told him, for instance, that Samantha had been Kowalski’s official lover, and that she had registered as living in his villa.
But Corinne had no desire to legitimize their relationship in that way and have it sanctioned by the clinic’s management. On the contrary, she was very careful that none of the doctors and psychologists find out about it. Daniel had to promise to keep it secret, and she wouldn’t hear of him registering at her address. So Daniel always had to leave Corinne’s flat in good time to be home in his cabin at the distinctly antisocial hours of 8:00 a.m. and midnight.
One morning he woke unusually early. The theater masks were staring with their empty eyes in the gloom. He got up and dressed, gave the sleeping Corinne a gentle kiss good-bye, and left the attic apartment.
A strange quiet had settled over the village. The first few hours after the good-night patrol could be pretty lively down here, but by this time, just before dawn, everyone seemed to have settled down.
There was plenty of time before the morning patrol showed up, so he decided to take the longer but safer route along the road. He’d be able to spot any potential enemies at a distance.
The bottom of the valley was still immersed in the darkness of night, but over to the east the sky was clear and cobalt blue. Daniel was freezing in his summer jacket and speeded up.
There was a sudden sound in the silence. At first he thought it was a bird calling. A creaking, whining sound that rose and fell in the cold air. Daniel stopped to listen. A short way ahead of him the road curved round some bushes. That was where the sound was coming from.
The creaking got louder; it was like a tune. Suddenly he remembered where he had heard it before. It was Adrian Keller’s bicycle cart.
Daniel had no desire to meet him on his own out in the valley at dawn. He quickly left the road and hurried across the frosted grass of the meadow to an old barn with a collapsed roof. He stood in the shelter of the wall peering out at the bend in the road. He saw he had left indistinct footprints in the frost and hoped that Keller wouldn’t notice them in the early morning gloom.
The creaking melody cut through the silence and a moment later the man appeared at the bend in the road. Daniel held his breath. The cart was loaded with the same wooden box as before.
Adrian Keller followed the road eastward for another hundred and fifty feet, then stopped. He climbed off, lit a cigarette, and sat down on the edge of the trailer.
The snow-capped peak in the distance was glowing rosy red while at the same time a bright star twinkled in the darker part of the sky. The sound of the circulating guards’ car could be heard far in the distance.
Keller smoked his cigarette without hurrying, then opened the sliding door of the box. There was a flutter of wings and he took a few steps back.
When Daniel peered out from behind the wall of the barn again, Adrian Keller was standing on the frosty grass with the falcon on his arm. Behind him fog was rising like smoke from the rapids.
A small, dark cloud was sweeping rapidly in from the east, and as it came closer Daniel saw that the cloud was a flock of pigeons. Quickly the man freed the falcon from its hood and set it loose. At the same moment the flock scattered and the hunt began high up in the glassy air. Daniel shaded his eyes against the rising sun as he tried to follow the falcon through its twists and turns.
Another falcon shot up from the bottom of the valley, and now there were two of them hunting. One of them returned to its master, who quickly grabbed the pigeon from its talons and sent the falcon back up at once without letting it taste its prey.
Adrian Keller leaned over the pigeon and it looked as though he was freeing it of something before tossing it in a sack. The second falcon was already on its way down, and the man received this new bounty as well, fiddling with it intently as the falcon flew off again. The flock of pigeons was no longer visible, but the falcon vanished over the edge of the rock face, and when it returned it had another pigeon in its talons.
When the falcons failed to find any more prey, Keller emptied the pigeons from the sack and let the falcons loose on them while he lit another cigarette.
Then he put the hoods back on the falcons, shut them back in their box, and cycled back with his trailer the way he had come.
Daniel waited a good while after the squeaking sound had vanished. He left the barn and went over to where the man had been standing. The half-eaten pigeons lay on the ground in drifts of bloodstained feathers.
Daniel crouched down and inspected the shredded bodies of the birds. One foot lay on its own, claws outstretched, some distance from the other pieces. Around the ankle was something black that looked like a bit of insulating tape.
He poked the bloody remnants with a stick. He discovered that each of the pigeons had sticky marks or fragments of tape tightly wound around its legs.
Suddenly Daniel realized how the whole thing worked: These pigeons were prepared by someone outside the valley and sent in at dawn just as Adrian Keller let his falcons loose. The falcons caught the pigeons, and Adrian Keller got hold of the cargo that was tied to their legs. And the pigeons that survived flew back to their dovecote outside the valley, the way homing pigeons do, meaning that their valuable load was returned to the sender. Nothing got wasted. They just had to count how many pigeons went missing and send the bill.
Daniel walked on toward the clinic. Near the main building he passed the hosts, who were laughing and chatting as they got ready to set out in their electric carts. They were wearing blue wool coats over their normal uniforms.
He unlocked his cabin door and sat down to wait for the patrol while he considered the best way to make use of his discovery. Should he tell Doctor Fischer? Another member of the staff? Would telling anyone actually be to his advantage? He’d talk to Corinne about it.
But now he suddenly felt very tired. As soon as the patrol had gone, he thought he might grab a couple of hours’ sleep before going back down to see her.
It seemed as if the patrol was starting down in the village that morning and working its way back up. He yawned and hoped he wasn’t going to fall asleep in his chair before they arrived. He always tried to be awake when the patrol came, but occasionally they caught him by surprise when he was asleep. Once he had almost hit one of the hostesses out of reflex. She had parried his blow with a surprisingly quick karate move, then laughed as if it happened a lot.
He had to wait another twenty minutes until he heard the familiar hum outside, then the knock and the door handle turning.
“Good morning, Max. Did you sleep well? You’ve already made your bed, I see,” the hostess said with a glance toward his untouched bed, clearly visible behind the open drapes.
She obviously realized he had spent the night elsewhere but seemed merely to find this amusing. Daniel didn’t reply.
The hostess was on her way out to her colleague when she turned around and, with her hands in her coat pockets, said, “Oh, yes. Your brother’s here. You knew that, didn’t you?”