Wolf Haas - Eternal Life

“You’re here on your own anyway, walking,” Handless says.

Of course, you couldn’t not hear Brenner’s amazement now when he said:

“But, can you drive a car?”

Now, to pick up Lorenz Antretter. Needless to say, Brenner’s interest was piqued. Vergolder was with Lorenz all evening long, December the twenty-first. That’s when Lorenz gets his Christmas gift every year, always the twenty-first, because on the twenty-fourth, of course, just family.

Company Christmas with the ski school on the twenty-second, and with the lift personnel on the twenty-third. On the twenty-fourth, only the closest family, Vergolder’s wife, if she were still alive, and her parents, who came over from America every year at Christmas. Kids, well, none, and since his wife died, only the in-laws. And last Christmas, needless to say, not even the in-laws anymore.

But this piqued Brenner’s interest now, why Lorenz was getting picked up by Andi the Fox of all people. And frankly, even more than that, what interested him was how that’s supposed to work, a woman with no hands driving a car.

But then, it was just like with the beer-drinking. I mean, so far as Brenner goes, it seemed more or less normal to him. There were these knobs mounted on the steering wheel-it almost looked like the wheel of a ship, of an ocean freighter. Like on TV, where the captain just stands and turns, that’s how it looked, and the German wedged her arm-stumps between these knobs, and that’s how she steered.

Naturally Brenner thought she’d have an automatic transmission, but not what you’re thinking, her having an automatic transmission. She changed gears, that was a real thrill, because, on the gear stick some kind of cup had been screwed on, and she stuck her arm-stump into it, and that’s how she changed gears.

And Brenner was amazed at how safe she drove. He didn’t have much time to concern himself with Handless, though. Because Andi, who was sitting in the back, and Brenner was in the passenger seat, and from the backseat, Andi was telling him his tale, no interruptions.

Now, you should know, people say Andi’s a little slow. And to Brenner, it seemed more like the gas jockey was a little too fast. But they meant the same thing, the people and Brenner.

“That alibi of Vergolder’s, you do know it’s a bunch of baloney, right, detective? A bunch of Schmarren ?”

This struck the German as odd and she laughed into the rearview mirror now:

“ Schmarren fit for a kaiser?”

“Nuthouse Schmarren ,” Andi says.

It seemed to Brenner like Andi’s rage was spreading, like when you get a toothache today and a sore throat tomorrow, and the day after that it’s a middle-ear infection. First, it started off on the asphalt with Gschwentner the farmer, then it caught Vergolder, and now Andi’s rage wasn’t even stopping at his friend Lorenz.

Brenner wasn’t completely certain about that, though. It’s more like when you get an infection that meanders around, practically aimless. Or, Andi’s rage was like when you get yourself all charged up with electricity off a cow fence and then you shake somebody’s hand, and then he shakes somebody else’s hand, and the person who gets electrified isn’t you but the last person in the chain. And the last in the chain, that was Andi’s rage at Lorenz now.

“Why do you say nuthouse Schmarren ?” Brenner says.

“Where are we picking Lorenz up from, Detective?”

“The nuthouse,” Brenner says.

Interesting, though. Andi didn’t want to hear that get repeated. Another person saying nuthouse about his friend Lorenz.

“It’s not what you think, though,” he says, “because Lorenz isn’t nearly as bad as the other Zellers. Take Mario.”

All of the sudden Mario was standing on the end of the cow-fence chain now.

“You know Mario, Detective?”

“Fürstauer’s assistant.”

“That’s Mario. Every night he stops in to gas up his moped, his KTM. Always right as I’m closing up. And every day he only puts a liter in. So I says to Mario, he should kindly act like a normal person and gas up once a week, because why else does a moped tank hold five liters for, what do you think, Detective?”

“So that you can put five liters in it.”

“Or four, as far as I’m concerned. Mario, though, he says to me: But this is a business, isn’t it. So I says: This ain’t a business, because I can scrape more off the bottom of my shoe!”

Brenner was immediately sorry that he laughed at that. Because, Andi, naturally:

“I can scrape more off the bottom of my shoe!”

And because nobody was laughing anymore, he got dissatisfied, and needless to say, one last time:

“I can scrape more off the bottom of my shoe!”

Brenner was amazed at how deft the German was on the road. A few times he even caught pedestrians staring, or other drivers looking over and desperately searching for her hands.

But try talking to the German, well, that was currently impossible.

“Interesting how you get the most tips when it’s overcast. But not like you’re thinking. Because certain kinds you never get tips from. Out of principle. Certain kinds of cars and certain kinds of drivers: never a tip. Interesting, though, how those kinds seem to multiply in certain kinds of weather. Nice weather, let’s say. And on top of that, nice weather gets you the most bugs on the windshield. So you’re washing off dead bodies. And bug bodies are the tiniest. But those blue-bloodsuckers. Because those are the kinds, like Vergolder, I never wash their windshields-out of principle. I’m always telling them that there’s no point in weather like this because-too many blue-bloodsuckers out flying around. They get annoyed that I’m always telling them the same story. But they never seem to get it that it’s them, I mean with the blue-bloodsuckers. Those tightwads theirselves is what I’m talking about, those tip-misers. Because, to be honest, the blue-bloodsuckers aren’t the worst when it comes to cleaning. What’s bad’s the bee-eaters, they’re big as birds-and that’s just when they’re squashed. But it’s those tightwads theirselves I’m talking about when I say to them blue-bloodsuckers that there are too many blue-bloodsuckers around.”

Andi got tired at some point, and by the time they got to the tunnel, he was asleep in the backseat.

“He’s like a child,” the German said.

“You got kids?” the detective asked.

But the car ahead of them, he must’ve been a crazy. Middle of the tunnel he peels out, crosses the double-lines, and overtakes a truck. This was the tunnel that just six months ago five people died in, all because somebody had the same idea. This time nothing happened, only the detective forgot that he’d just asked a question.

“Are you actually from Holland?”

Handless’s German was so peculiar. Awkward, it sounded, or somehow, let’s say, like when there’s an opera on TV. Not just precise High German, but practically right angles. Just like the way High German sounds to us Austrians, maybe that’s how Handless’s language sounds to a High German. Somewhat stilted, the way people sound when they have a perfect command of a foreign language. And the fact that it’s not their native language-you only notice it because they never make a mistake. So Brenner thought, Maybe she’s Dutch.

“I’m from Hamburg.”

And that’s strange to our ears, too, of course, Hamburg German. Or the German they speak way up there, let’s say, like that political guy up in Schleswig-Holstein, where they found him dead in the bathtub with his clothes on.

“But I’ve been living in Zell for more than a year now,” she says.