Фолькер Кучер - Goldstein

‘I don’t believe you’re cold-blooded enough to just gun me down. Besides…’ He pointed towards the maintenance gangway encircling them. While they had been speaking the gas dome had descended by a few centimetres. ‘At any moment this place is going to be surrounded by uniform officers with loaded carbines. If you shoot me, they’ll gun you down like a hare.’

Tornow looked to the side, which was all Rath had wanted. With a quick movement he was beside him, with both his hands on the pistol in Tornow’s right hand. A shot resounded from the Mauser, the bullet flying high into the night sky.

The two men landed on the gently sloping dome of the gas holder. There was a muffled thud as the Mauser and Tornow’s right hand crashed against the metal. While Rath focused his energies on the man’s firing arm, Tornow kicked him hard in the groin, catching him off guard. Rath felt everything go black and for a moment couldn’t breathe, but still he clasped the hand holding the weapon, slamming Tornow’s knuckles against the steel gas holder. He absorbed the kicks and punches until Tornow’s knuckles bled and he let go of the pistol. It slid a few centimetres and came to a halt. Before Tornow could retrieve it, Rath slapped it away as if it were a table-hockey puck, only to watch it skidding across the gently sloping metallic surface. It turned on its axis several times and finally, still moving at pace, slid over the edge of the gas bell. It didn’t fall into the depths, between the telescopic bell and guide framework, as Rath had hoped, but flew across the gap to land on the catwalk grating of the maintenance gangway.

Tornow ran over, diving across the floor and lying face down on the edge of the gas holder, frantically stretching to take the pistol in his grasp. Rath rose unhurriedly to his feet, ignoring the pain from the blows Tornow had dealt him, and pulled his Walther from its holster.

He had just loaded the weapon when Tornow finally reached the Mauser. He had failed to realise that the gas holder was still falling. The handrail on the maintenance gangway hadn’t moved, but the rail that fenced the edge of the gas holder continued its descent. Tornow had reached through both rails to grasp hold of the weapon. His eyes dilated when he realised that his right arm was stuck, jammed between them.

Rath needed a moment to work out what was happening. It was Tornow’s initial, barely suppressed cry of pain that alerted him.

‘Pull your hand away, for God’s sake,’ he cried.

‘I can’t! I can’t!’ Tornow’s voice was already panicked. ‘Stop the damn thing! Stop it.’

Rath looked around for an emergency switch, but that was nonsense: it was gravity pulling the gasometer down. Someone had to pump in more gas to reverse its relentless downwards motion. He climbed onto the maintenance gangway, ignoring Tornow’s cries, and called down to the others. ‘Stop it!’ he shouted, as loud as he could. ‘You need to stop the gasometer. Send it back up!’

He couldn’t tell whether they had understood. Tornow was still screaming when he climbed back onto the dome and tried to lift him out of the trap. It was hopeless.

Tornow pulled on Rath’s arm, but it was already too late. The two rails had wedged his forearm tight and wouldn’t let go.

He screamed like a banshee as the bones in his forearm broke one by one. Rath tried to pull him away, but couldn’t, the steel rails that were slowly moving apart had his arm firmly in their grip. The pistol slipped onto the catwalk grating; Tornow’s hand hung loose and strangely contorted above it.

Tornow wasn’t screaming any more. The pain had rendered him unconscious. Still, the gasometer descended relentlessly, millimetre by millimetre. Rath heard muscles and ligaments tear, bones crack, and despairingly tried again to pull him away. He didn’t think about what he was doing, just pulled and pulled, knowing all the while that it was hopeless. Then, abruptly, and with one final, ugly noise that sounded like a curtain ripping, the gasometer released the cadet, and Rath pulled his body away from the handrail.

Dismayed and exhausted, Rath gazed at the unconscious Tornow, at his right arm, or what remained of it. From the shredded stump jutted fragments of bone, torn sinews and ligaments. Blood sprayed at regular intervals onto the metal of the gas bell. Rath took his belt and bound Tornow’s arm, until the blood was no more than spitting from the horrific wound. He climbed onto the maintenance gangway, surprised, at that moment, not to experience any vertigo, and looked for Gennat and the officers below. ‘An ambulance,’ he shouted down. ‘We need an ambulance, God damnit! Quickly!’

The announcement that grated through the loudspeaker sounded every bit as miserable as Rath felt.

‘Attention please, the fast train from Hannover will shortly be arriving at platform 3. Please mind the platform!’

He stood with Kirie in the queue, waiting to buy a platform ticket. They had already checked in Charly’s luggage but, even so, her nervousness was driving him mad. He had accompanied her to the station as a matter of course… but something told him it was a bad idea, and not just because he hated goodbyes.

‘Come on,’ she said, for at least the twenty-third time, ‘or we’ll miss the train.’

He rolled his eyes, but the gesture was only seen by the man at the counter, who assumed it was directed at him.

‘Hold your horses! I’ll be with you soon.’ First he had to supply tickets to a family of five.

Rath winked at Charly and waved the ticket as if he had won first prize in the lottery, but she seemed to have left her sense of humour at home. Perhaps she had stowed it in one of the three suitcases that were making the long journey with her.

They made for platform two where the train to Paris (via Magdeburg, Hannover, Cologne and Brussels) was scheduled to depart in twenty minutes. Kirie pulled on her lead excitedly, sensing, as usual, that something wasn’t quite right.

Potsdamer Bahnhof was where Rath had begun his own fateful journey, arriving in the crisp cold of March 1929. It was where he had received and taken leave of his few visitors since then; and it was where, in a station locker, he had deposited evidence that no one must ever find.

Yet never before had he felt so out of place.

They walked along the platform, hoping to avoid the crowds. Charly looked at her watch. ‘Where has Professor Heymann got to?’

‘The train doesn’t leave for fourteen minutes. It hasn’t even arrived yet.’

She wasn’t listening, but rummaging in her handbag, looking for her passport for the umpteenth time.

‘In the side pocket,’ he said. ‘Next to the ticket.’

He couldn’t bear it any longer, and didn’t know how he would manage the next quarter of an hour until her professor showed up. He had to take his leave now while they were still alone and a private, intimate goodbye was still halfway possible.

‘Kirie and I had better go. We don’t want everyone to find out that… you know.’

Charly nodded wistfully. She leaned down and ruffled Kirie’s black fur. ‘Well, my darling, look after this one for me,’ she said. ‘I’m glad he’s still got you at least.’

She stood up straight and looked at Rath. He could hardly bear her gaze. ‘Let’s keep it brief,’ he said. ‘I hate long goodbyes.’

She nodded.

He took her in his arms. ‘I love you,’ he whispered in her ear, as a shrill whistle sounded from the platform opposite. He wondered if he had ever told her before, remembering an old saying: that love disappears as soon as you give it a name. You should never talk about love, simply live it. He could no longer remember which clever person laid claim to it, but all of a sudden it seemed horribly plausible.