Jakob Arjouni: One Man, One Murder

“Was it her idea to come to Germany, or was she hired by an organization?”

“She didn’t want to talk about that. She said those were just bad memories.”

“So all you know is that she came here the end of December?”

“Why December? June.”

“June …?” I counted on my fingers. “That’s nine months A normal visa is good for three.”

There was a moment’s silence. He was probably torturing his necktie. “You have to ask Koberle about that. He took Sri Dao’s passport after she arrived and only handed it back to her in my presence.”

“Was the visa for the whole period, or had it been renewed every three months?”

“Renewed twice.”

“And when you pondered how to keep your friend in this country, it never occurred to you to figure out how they managed to renew the visa?”

He hesitated again. “Yes, it did occur to me. I even wanted to go to the club and ask Koberle, but Sri Dao didn’t want me to.”

“Why didn’t she?”

“Because she was afraid of those people.”

“I see.” I dropped my cigarette on the floor and stepped on it. Through a curved letter L in “Heil Hitler” I noticed a policeman who was circumambulating my Opel with evident interest.

I had double-parked it and left the engine running.

“Then I’d say there are two possibilities: Either the visa stamps were forged, or your friend told the immigration service that she was getting married to a German citizen.”

“But I told you, Koberle kept her passport all that time.”

“Yes, that’s what you told me.”

Hands clasped behind his back, the policeman now leaned into the open window on the driver’s side.

“Just like you told me this morning that a marriage to her was out of the question. Tell me-why?”

While Weidenbusch was busy composing an answer, the policeman’s green hat reappeared, and the head under it scanned all directions in search of the culprit. Setting his hands in motion, he pulled pad and pencil out of his shoulder bag and proceeded to write a friendly note from your fairy godmother.

“… I would have liked to marry her, but when I suggested it to her, she just shook her head. Later, she even got angry with me. It must be something to do with her culture.”

Right. Tribes outside of Central Europe didn’t need reasons for their actions. They had “cultures.” Now the cop was scrubbing dirt off my registration sticker.

“All right. I’ll be in touch when I have news for you.”

“Will you get her back?”

“I will. Don’t worry. Talk to you soon.”

Before he could say anything else I hung up and ran across the street.

“O.K., O.K.! I’m back! You can toss that ticket!”

He looked up, surprised. He had just started lifting a windshield wiper to place the ticket under it.

“I’m leaving. Just had to make a quick phone call.”

“So? It’s illegal to park in a traffic lane.” He snapped the windshield wiper down over the ticket, straightened his back and adjusted his hat. “And let me tell you something, young man. You need to improve your attitude.”

“I don’t need any advice on attitude from my employees.” While he glared at me, uncomprehending, I opened the car door.

“Just think about it for a moment: I’m paying you a salary for writing tickets so the fines can be used to pay others who write me more tickets, and so on. In that sense, and as far as I’m concerned, traffic cops are a total loss. Nevertheless, I keep on paying my taxes every year so that you can have an apartment, buy schoolbooks for your kids, and go to the movies. Now, think about it-would you go on paying someone who keeps kicking you in the ass?”

He looked at me as if I had lost all my marbles, or as if I had never had and was never likely to have any. I pointed my finger at him across the doorframe. “See what I’m saying? But I keep on paying. How about a conciliatory gesture? How about tearing up that ticket?”

No reaction. Unchanged, frowning, one eye slightly narrowed he stood there as if he hadn’t heard or understood my question.

“Oh, forget it!” I got into the car and leaned out the window. “Loitering in the sun, wearing those threads paid for by the state, and bothering people-some would call that ‘workshy’ behavior.”

Ten minutes later I parked across the street from the immigration office, slammed the door, and ripped the ticket from under the windshield wiper.

The offices for names beginning with the letters K to R were on the third floor, in the left-hand hallway, behind the cocoa machine. The hallway was full of people of all pigments, standing, sitting, or lying down, all waiting for their number to come up. There were no benches or chairs. The floor was littered with cigarette butts and botched application forms. Faded posters advertised St. Paul’s and Town Hall-FRANKFURT AM MAIN, CITY OF SIGHTS TO SEE-and above the doors, digital counters showed the current numbers. A video game noise emitted by invisible speakers replaced the old “Next, please”. People weren’t talking much, and only in hushed tones, perhaps because they felt that it was necessary to ration what air remained in the fog of sweat and stale smoke. Due to security regulations, windows could not be opened.

I sat down on the floor and leaned against the wall, between an adolescent disco gigolo to my left who kept himself frantically busy smoking Marlboros and fixing his hairdo and a Polish couple and their son to my right. Dad and Mom were nodding out over the daily paper, the kid whiled away the hours making two plastic cowboys go “bang,” “zong,” and “pow” … I felt like going “pow” on him, myself.

Suddenly two men in uniform plowed through and past all the legs, children, and bags, disappeared in the office for S, and soon thereafter dragged a young black man down the hall and down the stairs while he kept protesting in broken German that he hadn’t known about the deportation order. The people waiting followed him with their eyes as if he were an apparition. There was a moment when it looked like everybody was about to say something, but then they just looked at each other and remained silent.

It occurred to me that the posters advertising Frankfurt were not only in poor taste, but-as far as this office was concerned-completely counter-productive. The interests of the immigration authorities would have been better served by pictures of beaches in Beirut-MARBLE, ROCK, AND BROKEN IRON-or desert landscapes in Ethiopia-THERE’S NOTHING LIKE HOME COOKING. A campaign to further national loyalty to crisis areas. One could even conceive a double-barreled approach, with, let’s say, a picture of a Thai girl flanked by her parents-WELCOME TO THE FAMILY this would not only encourage locals to return home, but would also appeal to the German male on vacation … Although it was true that the latter rarely set foot in this building. The video arcade noise interrupted my train of thought, and my number appeared on the display. I entered a standard office with standard furniture, postcards on the walls, potted palm trees by the window. The fortyish woman behind the desk was eating a cake. She wore a platinum blonde wig, a pink blouse, and a gold chain with an Eiffel Tower pendant. Her face was long and narrow and slightly remorseful, and when she spoke, it sounded as if she were reciting an instruction manual for disposable cigarette lighters. The room smelled of one of those perfumes designed to appeal to several tastes at once.

When she was done chewing and had wiped her mouth thoroughly, she picked up a pen and looked at her pad. “Number one hundred eighty three?”

“Right.”

She made a check mark. “Name?”

“Kemal Kayankaya.”

“Spelling?”