Wolf Haas - Eternal Life

And you’d have to know him pretty well in order to know how anxious he was all the time. And focusing on the essentials, let’s say, that wasn’t his strong suit at all. Nemec, he recognized this Day One and just had to rub Brenner’s nose right in it:

“Concentrate instead of ruminate, Brenner!”

Because that was Nemec’s answer when Brenner asked him if he could take a professional development course. Maybe it’s not that wise, either, when you’ve got a new boss, to ask for professional development on the guy’s very first day, since it’s going to mean at least two days out of the office. Brenner must’ve been thinking of that just now when he realized he hadn’t wrote a single word, even though he’d been staring at his table for an hour already.

Such a small filigree table, I mean, all you had to do was look at it, and it’d wobble. And you couldn’t imagine anyone using it for anything but looking at. Brenner, though. To him, this sort of thing didn’t matter. He had been typing up his reports here, week in, week out, for six months.

His grandfather back in Puntigam had been a carpenter. A thing like this he never would’ve called a table. Brenner still had two cabinets that his grandfather built. Nice, slim walnut units that’d been there in his parents’ apartment since before he came into this world.

And ever since his parents died, Brenner had them in his apartment. Because he didn’t have any siblings, and they fit in good with his government-subsidized apartment. Well, civil service apartment, since only civil servants live there-cheap rent, let me tell you. And now, of course, Brenner was afraid he’d have to move out since he quit the police.

And then something happened that surprised him. Because up till now he still hadn’t heard anything-no written notice, nothing. And instead of finally writing his report, he thinks now: Probably has to do with his old school chum Schwaighofer. Basically, it went something like this:

When Brenner put in a request for an apartment as in-demand as this one was five years ago, he was in for a surprise. At first he didn’t recognize him, because, bald and twenty years since he’d seen him, but his old classmate Schwaighofer recognized him right away. He was the office manager there and responsible for the allocation of the apartments. At first it was uncomfortable for Brenner, awkward, you know, because what do you talk about with a person when the last time you saw him was twenty years ago. And, even back then, they didn’t really talk all that much. Brenner had always been a bit of a closed book, you can’t forget. I don’t want to say stubborn, but shut off all the time. And Schwaighofer, too, never anything remarkable, that guy.

It didn’t stay uncomfortable for long, though, because, as a bachelor, he’d be put on a wait-list-yes, they’ve got waitlists for these-years! — don’t even ask. Then, three months later, he’s moving in, and goes without saying, his classmate Schwaighofer had made the arrangements. That’s the way we do it over here. The same everywhere.

And now, because he hadn’t heard anything in six months from the Civil Service Housing Authority, i.e. Schwaighofer, Brenner was slowly starting to get his hopes up. That possibly his classmate Schwaighofer was behind it, and there’d been some oversight-on purpose, I mean, computer or whatnot-about Brenner having to move out.

That’s neither here nor there. But for Brenner, things weren’t exactly going any different. He’s sitting in his hot room and he’s supposed to be thinking about work, but instead he’s thinking about his apartment. And hear me out, what I’m about to tell you now. Coincidence it was not, because-coincidence, well, there’s no such thing, it’s been proved.

Instead of the report now, Brenner must’ve been thinking about that one time he took his co-worker Anni Bichler back to his apartment. Anni, that was one of the two secretaries in his department, but the prettier one. This was a good five years ago that he took Anni home with him, because he’d just moved into his civil service apartment a few weeks before that. The next morning over breakfast, Anni says:

“Frankly-”

Now, you should know, if there’s one thing Brenner can’t stand. When someone begins a sentence with “frankly.” He’d become convinced somehow that sentences like that-that start off like that, with “frankly,” I mean-that they never amount to anything good.

He was in for a surprise now, though, because Anni Bichler said something completely different. Because he would’ve expected his colleague, Ms. Bichler, to maybe complain that he’d taken advantage of her in her condition, i.e. plastered.

The fact of the matter was that he himself couldn’t remember all the details from the night before. Only this much is certain: that the woman who was spreading apricot jam on her toast there at breakfast was his colleague from the office, Secretary Bichler. And that he’d agreed to switch over to a first-name basis with her over a drink yesterday at the birthday party of another colleague of theirs, Schmeller, who was then shot to death two and a half years later during the bank robbery.

But he didn’t know much more than that-above all if he’d actually slept with Anni. But she probably did know, and that’s probably why she was opening her mouth now to complain about something that Brenner, despite his best efforts, possibly didn’t even remember.

“Frankly, your apartment doesn’t have any atmosphere.”

Brenner was momentarily relieved. But it was only momentarily a relief. Because it struck him later that when a woman starts fannying around with your furnishings, this might mean something. Okay, in good German: Serious Intentions. But, not to worry, because Anni, just super, at the office she acted like nothing had happened.

And maybe nothing actually did happen, or possibly something did happen but neither one of them remembered, but-whatever, it’s no concern of mine, because it’s got nothing to do with who Ted Parson and his wife, her name was Suzanne, who put these old people on the chairlift.

But then, two weeks after the story with Bichler, okay, Anni, was at the police ball. And Brenner brings the Precinct Music Director’s daughter back to his new civil service apartment. And that’s when it slowly, bizarrely began to dawn on-well, how should I put it: realization. Because the Precinct Music Director’s daughter hadn’t even took off her shoes yet before she was saying:

“I don’t know, somehow your apartment doesn’t have any atmosphere.”

The very next weekend he was having those two walnut cabinets moved into his apartment. And not just had them moved, but he had cabinets that don’t come apart moved into the third floor of a civil service apartment building. It was by the skin of their teeth that they even got them up there, but believe it or not: no use.

Because the next weekend, or the weekend after that, he gets paid another visit. Brenner wasn’t exactly choosy in that sense of the word, and this was one hell of-but please, I could care less. Anyway, short and sweet, she said:

“Your apartment somehow doesn’t have any atmosphere at all.”

Now, why am I telling you all of this. Brenner’s sitting in his hotel room at the Hirschenwirt and waiting for his migraine pills to finally kick in. And instead of writing his report, he’s staring at the veneered table and thinking of the walnut cabinets from his grandfather. Those nervous blue eyes of his weren’t roaming nervously around now at all. But not because they were fixated on the table, because they weren’t, really. What they were really doing is looking through the table. The table and the whole hotel-room atmosphere didn’t bother Brenner one bit.