Jakob Arjouni - Brother Kemal

It was a few minutes before the housekeeper, wearing a white apron, opened the front door, took a brief look at me, and then pressed a button that made the garden gate swing open.

‘Good evening,’ I wished her once I was inside.

‘Good evening,’ she replied without a trace of friendliness. ‘Who shall I say it is?’

I smiled at her. ‘Nice to see you again. Kayankaya is the name. I was first here two and a half weeks ago and since then there’s been one question I can’t get out of my head.’

‘I’m busy cooking supper.’

‘As I said, just one question. I’m sure you can remember the day of my visit. It was the Wednesday when Marieke came home.’

She raised her eyebrows disparagingly. ‘How often do you think she comes home?’

‘You mean how often does she go missing?’

‘The supper, Herr …’

‘Kayankaya. This won’t take long. That morning two and a half weeks ago — why were you so surprised that I was still here when you saw me leaving?’

She stopped, frowned, looked reluctant to reply. ‘Why would I be surprised?’

‘Because you had heard the front door open and close once already. And you thought there was no one in the house but me and Frau de Chavannes …’

‘Well, I’m sorry, but I don’t remember either that morning or you yourself, even if that may seem unlikely to you …’ A slightly malicious smile hovered briefly on her lips. ‘So many people go in and out of this house.’

‘You mean it’s not like the old days, when the de Chavannes parents kept a calm, decent household.’

‘I don’t mean anything.’

‘Fine,’ I concluded. ‘Then would you please tell Herr Hasselbaink that I’d like to see him?’

At the same moment the living room door opened and Valerie de Chavannes came out into the hall. She stopped in surprise, and you couldn’t describe it any other way: her face was radiant with delight. She cast a quick glance back into the living room, where the TV was on, closed the door and came towards us.

‘Herr Kayankaya!’ she said, just loud enough to be heard only in the hall. She was wearing a lightweight, red summer dress that flowed down her firm body, which showed distinctly through the flimsy material. She was barefoot. Without taking her eyes off me she said, ‘That’s all right, Aneta, I’ll look after Herr Kayankaya myself.’

The housekeeper looked briefly from Valerie de Chavannes to me and back again. ‘Supper’s nearly ready,’ she said, and disappeared into the kitchen.

Valerie de Chavannes came close to me, looked into my eyes and said in a low voice, almost a whisper, ‘Hello.’

‘Hello, Frau de Chavannes. I’m really here to see your …’

She laid her fingertips on my mouth and said a quiet, ‘Shh,’ as if soothing a child. Then she took my arm and led me into the front garden.

‘Are we going for a walk?’ I asked.

She didn’t reply, just laughed briefly and quietly. Was she drunk? But she didn’t smell of alcohol. Other drugs?

In the shadow of a bush, she took my head in both hands, looked deeply into my eyes again and drew my mouth close to her full, dark lips. It was a fervent, moist kiss, as soft as it was determined; I felt the light play of the tip of her tongue, and I had to pull myself together not to attack her.

When she ended the kiss, her hands slid down my hips and she said, sighing, ‘I knew it. I knew that very first time that you would help me.’

She said that very formally. I’d once read that upper-class French people, even when they’re married, quite often address each other formally. When I read that I thought it crazy. Kissing, in bed, after making love? Now I realised that the idea appealed to me.

‘I’m so grateful to you.’ She let her hands slip a little further down. ‘You’re wonderful. I … if I can ever do anything for you …’

Anything — good heavens.

‘Forgive me, Frau de Chavannes, this is all delightful, but what are you talking about? I brought your daughter home quite a while ago.’

She looked at me, wide-eyed. ‘About Abakay, of course.’ Her voice was unsteady. ‘You did it for me, didn’t you?’

It took me a moment to let that remark, with all its implications, sink into my mind, and then I suddenly had to laugh. I listened to myself: a dry, incredulous, harsh laugh. In fact I was afraid. What a twist that would have been: to think that I might be convicted after all of Abakay’s murder in this roundabout way!

*

‘I hope you haven’t mentioned this utterly crazy idea to any of your girlfriends, maybe at the tennis club?’

‘What …?’ Her radiant smile, so seductive and promising a moment ago, was gone, and she looked genuinely taken aback. She retreated a step. ‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean you must be rather lonely to think up something so outlandish.’

‘What do you mean, outlandish? I read it in the paper, and after all that there’s been between us …’

‘All?’ It was hard to believe, but nothing suggested that she didn’t mean it seriously. ‘We flirted a little, that’s all, Frau de Chavannes.’

‘Flirted’, she repeated incredulously.

‘Yes, that’s what it’s called. I didn’t want either to marry you or to run off to South America with you.’

I looked from the bushes to the villa, and the fence between the garden and the road. ‘Is this your secret place for seeing special visitors?’ And when she didn’t answer: ‘Did you meet Abakay here? Arrange to look at photos back at his place?’

‘You …! Shut up!’

I nodded. ‘Okay. If you’ll promise me not to spread any romantic fairy tales about us. Abakay was shot in connection with his drug dealing. You can be glad about that if you like. And now I would like to speak to your husband.’

She looked irritated. ‘My husband?’ And then, suddenly sounding anxious, ‘What do you want to do that for?’

‘A friend of mine has a gallery and would like to meet him.’

‘So you came here specially for that?’

‘I happened to be in the neighbourhood.’

She stared at me. All of a sudden she looked very tired, thin and positively unhealthy. She had folded her arms and was standing in a slightly stooped position, all the tension drained out of her body.

‘You needn’t show me in, I can find the way myself. If you’d like to think for a little …’

She hesitated, and then said contemptuously, ‘Yes, I would like to reflect for a little.’

I raised my hand in farewell. ‘Good luck, Frau de Chavannes.’

She didn’t move. She was looking at the ground, as if she were inspecting her pretty bare feet in the grass. Those pretty feet and legs, in fact everything about her … it was a shame. I turned once more at the front door. Valerie de Chavannes was still standing in the shadow of the bushes. A passerby might have taken her for a statue.

In the hall, I heard the sound of a mixer in the kitchen, and the TV was on at high volume in the living room. I hammered on the living room door with my fist.

‘Yes?’

I went in and saw Edgar Hasselbaink lying on the grey cord sofa that was as big as my living room. He wore a lemon-yellow, close-fitting linen suit, bright blue sneakers, and his curly hair, which was about twenty centimetres long, stood out wildly in all directions. Under the suit jacket his chest was bare, and his dark, muscular, obviously very fit torso was on view. At first sight he looked like a mixture of a crazy professor, hipster and model for summer fashions.

I imagined Valerie de Chavannes beside him in her thin red dress, and wondered what they were playing at. Saint-Tropez in autumnal Frankfurt? Or did they dress up in the evening just to look sexy for each other? And then did they watch the news together? And eat supper afterwards?