Wolf Haas - Eternal Life

After the war, everybody was glad about the electricity and about the upswing, and the politicians called the reservoir the “Symbol of the Republic.” So maybe it was on account of the “Heidnische Kirche” that Nemec guessed political terrorism or something like that, but the people down here aren’t real political.

The police only came up with the idea because of the ski tourism, I mean, on account of the demand that it be shut down. Because the dead bodies. In the ski lift of all places. Because that’s deliberate. Practically a final warning. But there was no letter accompanying it, no phone calls, either, and so what kind of a warning’s that, really.

And then it got pointed out that this kind of threat is as old as the reservoir itself. Somehow the reservoir just stirs people’s imaginations. Maybe some anxiety, unconscious, I don’t know. The mayor of Zell had a whole collection of these letters. But the cops were here three weeks already before they found out about them. Because you’ve got to see to it that something like this doesn’t make its way into the public. Imagine if the tourists stayed away, possibly on account of some nonsense like this.

And the mayor always said: “Blow up a wall ten meters thick? It would be easier to blow away the mountains all around it.”

But in the council meeting minutes, well, sentences like these never made their way in. Because someone saw to it that it didn’t become official, let’s say, more like dead silent. And for the best. Because the reservoir’s still up there.

Brenner was thinking that, too, now, as he looked out at it from his balcony. The reservoir’s still up there, and nothing else has changed, either. Because if he was going to be honest, then he, too, a full half a year later now, still didn’t have a lead. And Brenner was in exactly the kind of mood where a person’s bound to get honest with himself.

The sun was slowly going down, and the lake was gleaming. Now there’s nature putting on a show, enough to make you say: unreal, nothing like it.

And it occurred to him that he was being about as thick as the Precinct Music Director’s daughter when, silently, he says to himself now:

“Frankly, it wasn’t the Heidnische Kirche, and it wasn’t Vergolder Antretter, either, and it wasn’t anybody else, either. But it must’ve been somebody.”

No, no, now look here. Zell’s not so small that everybody knows everybody else. But everybody does know Goggenberger, the taxi driver, Johnny. He’s an original, alright-you can say that again. Because he’s 120 kilos and got a pink Chevrolet that he’s been driving around Zell for twenty years. He’s never done anything else, because, Johnny’s not quite as old as he looks. But where he got the Chevrolet from, that’s what I’d be interested to know.

Now, on the seventh of September, Brenner had Johnny drive him to Kaprun. It was more, let’s say, not because Brenner absolutely had to go to Kaprun. But because taxi drivers, often times they hear a lot. And if he has Johnny take him somewhere, then maybe I’ll learn something, Brenner thought, but then it backfired on him.

Because, Johnny, he don’t say moo or baa. And even if you drove all the way up to Sweden with him. Because once a Swede broke his foot skiing, and he had Johnny chauffeur him all the way home to Sweden. And I have to say, enjoyable, that cannot have been, because Johnny smokes Virginias, and the stench in that Chevrolet of his-you can barely put up with it from Zell to Schüttdorf. And needless to say, he didn’t do much in the way of talking with the Swede, either, because the Swede didn’t know any German, and Johnny, well, I have yet to hear him say anything in Swedish.

“I’ll be damned!” Johnny’s saying now, as the weatherman reports on the radio that it’s going to be even hotter today than yesterday.

Otherwise, Brenner didn’t get anything out of him. When he’s drunk, Johnny talks nonstop, so when he’s quiet, it’s nonstop too. He’s rarely drunk, though, because, as a cabbie, he can’t afford it, of course, not one bit.

But there was something else bothering Brenner even more. Not the Virginia stench, though, because today his headache was completely gone, and so it wasn’t anything like that bothering him. He himself used to smoke up till about seven months ago. No, it was the fact that Johnny took the two-lane county road where every normal person drives 100 because, highway, you know-and you could even drive a nice leisurely 150, if they allowed it. And Johnny’s taking it at a steady 50!

Because Johnny-the Zellers know this, of course, but the outsiders get annoyed about it time and again-he’s never driven faster than fifty. But it was bothering Brenner, and that’s why he says, middle of the ride:

“I’ll get out here.”

“Here?”

“Yeah.”

“I’ll be damned.”

Johnny was surprised because there wasn’t anything around where Brenner got out. All of two kilometers outside Zell. But, go a couple hundred meters up toward Kaprun, there’s this barn that you probably know, the one that’s got those old ads hanging up. “The good old brandy,” it says. You can barely read it anymore. But remove it, of course, nobody does that either, because the ad’s painted right onto the wall.

Brenner hadn’t seen this ad-painting before, though. He was still watching the pink Chevrolet as it made a big show of turning around and peeling back off toward Zell again, practically at a walk. His miscalculation about Johnny wasn’t bothering him at all anymore. He could tell as soon as he woke up that morning that it was going to be another beautiful, sunny fall day. And then, right away he realized that he wasn’t any happier about having to write that report today, either. So, the ride with the cabbie was also a bit of an excuse. Because Brenner just wanted to get out a little, instead of just sitting in his hotel room and writing his report. He’s walking across the mowed field now and around to the barn, and he’s just seen the ad. “The good old brandy,” it says, but completely weathered, and Brenner’s wondering how many years or decades it’s been here.

One thing was certain, though. That the ad was at least twenty-five years old. For that you don’t need a laboratory or nothing, because the ad was facing the wrong direction. Not facing out to the street, but away from the street.

Because twenty-five years ago the highway got put in here, I mean, the one that Johnny still only drives fifty on. But the ad’s on the other side of the barn, the side that, from the street, you can’t see at all. Because that’s where the old road went by, and today it’s all broken up and got grass growing out of it.

Only, right here where the barn is, the road’s still intact. Okay, what am I saying-she’s got even better asphalt than the new highway, and the new one’s already been asphalted over three times in the meantime. But those 200 meters of old road, that was the Zellers’ summer curling strip, which Brenner also didn’t know about until now.

He watched the curling for a little while-it was about twelve-thirty now, not a cloud in the sky, I mean, beautiful days like this, there just aren’t that many of them in Zell. And Brenner just couldn’t imagine anymore who would kill somebody here, because, nothing’s more peaceful than summer Alpine curling.

Aside from Brenner, there was only one other spectator standing on the side of the road, but up at the other end, and Brenner couldn’t really recognize him from where he was. The other players were up at the other end now, too, and were sending their stocks sliding one after another. I mean, you’ve got to picture it like how they sometimes show it on TV, in France, with the silver pucks. And shuffleboard’s more of a sport for retirees anyway, but you don’t do Alpine curling with shuffle pucks, no, with ice stocks. And so that the stocks will glide over an asphalt court in the summer, you screw these little white plastic tacks into their undersides.