Wolf Haas - Brenner and God

“Just how am I, of all people, supposed to have kidnapped Helena?”

“Egypt’s third president was assassinated by his own bodyguard.”

“I wasn’t hired to be a bodyguard. I was hired to be a driver!”

Peinhaupt reached for the telephone and called up front to see whether the Frau Doctor was in the building. That sent Herr Simon into a panic-you’d have thought Peinhaupt had called in the bloodhounds.

“I’m just a driver,” he said, so sheepishly that he held himself in contempt.

“The Frau Doctor told us she and her husband selected you from a large number of candidates because of your police background.”

“So what?”

“So what. So that’s exactly why you were more than just a driver, Herr Simon. Do you think, with the threat being as great as it was, that they would have entrusted their child to just any stranger?”

You should know, back before Herr Simon had been hired, Knoll once said to the Frau Doctor during an argument that she should watch out for her only child so that the good lord doesn’t make her child disappear-like all those children she’d taken away from the good lord.

“Anti-abortionists don’t kidnap! They’re just poor crazies, slinging their rosaries. The anti-abortionists aren’t anti- children-they’re pro — children!”

“And the threats from Knoll you simply didn’t take seriously. Maybe you know him so well that you can assess his character that accurately?”

“He’d be the first kidnapper to announce the kidnapping ahead of time.”

“Don’t play any dumber than you already are. That’s exactly what’s so funny about it. If a kidnapper wants to extort money, then naturally he’s not going to announce it beforehand. But if he has a higher purpose, that’s something else altogether.”

“So that’s what you learn at the police academy these days?”

“As long as the kidnapper doesn’t make contact, then the demand is from Knoll to shut down the clinic, the only lead we’ve got anyway. And it can be assumed that a desperate mother like the Frau Doctor will grasp at any available straw. The longer the kidnapper’s silent, the more weight’s given to Knoll’s old demand. Without even having to send word. And no ransom to be handed over, either. A kidnapping without a neuralgic point, my dear Simon.”

I have to say, Knoll’s plan wouldn’t have been half bad. First, the casually made threat, without any witnesses in the room, of course, and not too long thereafter, the kidnapping. Because there’s nothing worse for the family than a kidnapping where no demand is made. And nothing worse for the police than a kidnapping where no ransom is handed over. As soon as the Frau Doctor closes the clinic on her own initiative without the kidnapper having to make a single call, the kid will turn back up safe and sound. Coincidence.

“Then it’s Knoll you’re after and not me. I’ve never seen the man before.”

“A woman’s waiting outside for you,” Peinhaupt said with a smirk and handed him the protocol to sign.

But his signature looked like two-year-old Helena had scrawled it for her driver. His hand trembled so much out of fear of her mother that Doctor Parkinson himself would have been proud of Herr Simon.

Good news now. It wasn’t the Frau Doctor who was waiting for Herr Simon outside in the hallway. She had enough to deal with, what with her nervous breakdown. Instead, Natalie was sitting out on the bench and looking at him with those serious eyes of hers that Herr Simon had liked from day one. Pay attention: Natalie was the clinic’s psychologist, because a pregnancy’s never terminated without psychological counseling. And it was the psychologist, of all people, who got to experience an unwelcome side effect of the pills in his first week on the job. You should know, the pills made him a little volatile. He’d often be serenity personified, then something small would set him off all over again. Or, he’d let a stupid joke rip that never would’ve even occurred to him before. Just so you understand. Because Natalie was very hurt at the time, even though Herr Simon hadn’t meant anything bad by it. It was just a careless moment when he’d played dumb and pretended like he thought her job was to counsel the embryos: dispensing consolation along the lines of, don’t make a big deal of it, life’s not that popular anyway, rest assured you can do without it, be glad that you can keep flying with the gnats.

Maybe you’ve already noticed how much he liked Natalie, because men don’t talk like such imbeciles otherwise. Did he get off on the wrong foot with Natalie? Don’t even ask. He tallied it up afterward, and believe it or not, she’d used the word “puberty” three times in one sentence.

And Herr Simon managed to insult her a second time within the same week. But to that I have to say, Natalie was being overly sensitive! Because she didn’t necessarily have to rebuff his compliment-that, in her case, it would have been a pity if she hadn’t been brought into this world-with such a scowl. My god, there will always be people who’ll make you want to say, it wouldn’t have been such a pity if their mothers had thought elsewise, and then for the vast majority, you’d say, it wouldn’t have made a difference one way or another whether they’re here or not-neutral, as it were. But very rarely is there a person who makes you say, it would’ve been an outright shame. See Natalie, with her black curls, with her white teeth, with her green specks in her dark-brown eyes, and with her mouth, which, in a single sentence, used the word “puberty” three times. But if you work in an area like the one Natalie works in, of course you don’t want to hear such a dubious compliment. I can understand Natalie on that. On the other hand, Herr Simon was brand new in the workplace at the time, he had yet to adopt the right conversational tone for the clinic, because-always a particular knowledge set, what you’re allowed to say where and how, and what you’re not allowed to say how and where.

But despite this minor friction, I don’t wish to say that Natalie didn’t like Herr Simon. Quite the opposite! Although she knew nothing of his police past, she’d felt right away that behind the slightly stiff and straitlaced chauffeur, an entirely different person was hiding. Because you can’t fool a skilled psychologist with the Herr Simon routine when really you’re an old Brenner.

But it was jinxed for these two, because today they were back on the rocks all over again.

“My god, look at you!” they both said at the same time.

And if it hadn’t been so sad, maybe they would have laughed and could have possibly begun a love story with this simultaneous exclamation, but alas, it was only a death story.

Well, death story only in the long run, what with all that happened the next week and the dirt that got dredged up, television, newspaper, and, and, and. Short term, as long as they were sitting there on the bench in the police station, no death story, of course, no, just an eviction story. Watch closely: Natalie had his possessions in a cheap duffel bag, and she got him to hand over his car keys and his key to the chauffeur’s apartment. Because Kressdorf had built a modest chauffeur’s quarters above the double garage in the driveway to the Hietzinger villa-quite comfortable-but not Herr Simon’s apartment anymore now because the Frau Doctor said, I never want to see that man again. You see, she was almost more afraid of him than he was of her.

Natalie handed him an envelope containing one month’s pay, and then she offered him her hand in farewell, and said something terribly nice that pained Herr Simon more than if she’d called him a murderer. Listen closely. She said, “Herr Simon, Helena always liked you.”