Magnus Stanke - Time Lies

Donnersberg was speaking to Herr Hoffmann.

Only it wasn’t Albert, it wasn’t quite him. Or was it?

While the men exchanged awkward, polite greetings and said something about Elvis Presley, Dagmar realised that this had to be his twin brother, Tobias Hoffmann. She risked a peek out the window and saw his back.

Albert had been wearing a suit and tie to church not half an hour ago. This man wore rubber boots and a brown parker. He had to be Tobias. Already he continued on his walk, was probably returning to the maisonette he shared with their old man up here somewhere.

Before he disappeared around a bend in the path, he glanced over his shoulder towards the parked car once more. It was enough to ascertain that the brothers were two different, albeit identically-featured, people. Albert and Tobias Hoffmann.

And yet, and yet…

When Donnersberg sat back into the driver’s seat, Dagmar was ready for it. She straddled him and didn’t even think about the fact that he penetrated her without the protection of a condom.

*

But she was lucky that time as her period returned days later as though nothing had happened.

And a few days after that her life changed for good when Herr Hoffmann walked into the Hamachers’ shop while she was at work. It was mid morning, a quiet time, nobody else around. She saw him before he entered, watched him approach through the glass window, and her heart accelerated. Dagmar had no doubt – this was the right Hoffmann. Albert Hoffmann.

‘Morning,’ he said and started filling his basket in the aisles.

He didn’t even look in her direction. Dagmar’s heart shrivelled and sank as though somebody had let the air out of an inflatable raft.

‘Good morning, Herr Hoffmann,’ she said, but still there was barely a glance in her direction.

She knew that Albert rarely ever shopped in the Hamachers’ corner shop. Didn’t he realise she worked here? Hadn’t he come to talk to her? Had he already forgotten all about their conversation at the graveyard? He’d said he wanted to ask her something about photography, the one field Dagmar knew she excelled at. Well, she certainly hadn’t forgotten. She’d bring it up when he paid at the checkout, just slip it casually into the small talk, the banter they’d be having. Maybe she’d even invite him up to her flat above the garage, the one the Hamachers let her have for next to nothing. She’d show him her photographic equipment and her Super 8 collection. Then, alone with him, maybe she could inspect his equipment. The photographic and the other kind.

Stop daydreaming. Snap out of it, Dagmar, or he’ll take you for the village idiot. Here he comes.

Hoffmann approached the till, his eyes on the items in his basket rather than on her, and Dagmar feigned disinterest by looking out the window.

A strange sensation invaded her. What the hell was she doing? This was a happily married, god-fearing man. What possible interest could he have in her, an ugly little shop girl, an orphan-outcast, a horny little teenager who hadn’t quite turned eighteen? And adultery, wasn’t that a mortal sin? A sin that, even confessed, barred you from access to paradise, just like murder?

Now he was close and she didn’t look away, couldn’t take her eyes off him even if she tried. She remembered what her face looked like when she smiled. She had seen it on a photo Anika took of her. Her smile could light up her ugly mug, and her eyes could sparkle, make the onlooker forget about that schnozzle of hers.

When he raises his eyes to look at me, let me sparkle, let me dazzle him.

She was ready. She smiled, put everything into it.

But he didn’t look up.

‘Do you have batteries?’ he said.

What was wrong with him?

‘Batteries? Sure.’ She pointed to the right of the counter. ‘What size?’

‘Ah, let me have a look,’ he said and veered away from her.

Dagmar tried to hold on to the smile, but felt it turning to stone on her lips, the light going out of her eyes. She knew if she didn’t do something, and quick, she would forever regret missing this opportunity.

A concupiscent thought brought a deeper glow to her cheeks and her groin.

Equipment. Picture his equipment.

‘Herr Hoffmann, one question. Didn’t you want to ask me something?’ she said, not knowing where she got the nerve.

He hesitated. ‘Huh?’

At last, though, he raised his eyes and met hers. Initially there was no recognition in them – he might as well have been seeing her for the first time in his life. But then something changed, crumbled almost tangibly in his expression. It was his distance, his restraint.

‘Remember?’ she said when he didn’t reply, just looked at her, taking her in.

‘You mean…?’ was all he said.

‘When we talked, outside your house? You said something about my photography?’

It only took a few more hastened heartbeats in her chest before, at last, he reacted verbally.

‘Yes, I remember. Your photography. Of course,’ he said.

‘You wanted to ask me something about it at church, I think. But then I never saw you there. You see, I always sit upstairs, next to – next to the organ,’ she said.

Her glow deepened as she thought of his sex organ.

‘Yes, I remember,’ he said, and finally Dagmar believed him.

There was recognition in his eyes, at last. And maybe something more. It emboldened her to go further.

‘Well, let me know. Anytime you want to see the collection, even today. Tonight. I’d be pleasured…honoured. It would be my…a pleasure,’ she said.

‘Tonight?’ he said, at last fully master of himself, fully himself, Albert Hoffmann again, turning that famous smile on.

That was the day. That night they became lovers.

*

That night was long gone. Years ago, more than three. The torrential affair had never ceased, not even after the accident that robbed Albert of his wife and child, and throughout the prolonged mourning period that followed the tragedy. At first, Dagmar thought he’d never come again. Hadn’t the accident paralysed him, bound him to a wheelchair? Several weeks went by. When she heard the familiar sound of his steps again outside her door she rejoiced. From then on, at least for a little while, she was proud to be the only person in Eschershausen to know that Albert could walk like before. There was nothing wrong with his legs. He maintained the wheelchair for the sake of the general public even after the rumour spread that his legs were fine. Still, nobody bore him a grudge over the deceit. He was Albert Hoffmann, after all. And as far as Dagmar was concerned, nothing had changed. He told her he would always come back for her.

She looked at the clock again. It was now past ten. He would come very soon or not tonight.

The candle had burned down and she had got wet again thinking about the day in the shop when he didn’t seem to recognise her at first, and how she seduced him – and there was no doubt that it was she who had taken the initiative that day, had made him her lover.

A lover with an impressive amount of stamina, loving her several times in the short while he would spend with her.

Thinking of his stamina increased the warmth she felt emanating from the space between her legs. If he did show up tonight they wouldn’t need to break the seal of the brand new tub of lube that sat on the nightstand. Not tonight.

If he did show, that was.

And then, at last, the sound of footsteps on the stairs. His footsteps. Dagmar could distinguish them from thousands.

She was ready and open.

Gerhardt Hoffmann had soiled his pants again. It wasn’t his fault, probably, but still… Ever since his second stroke his anal incontinence had become a frequent issue, and Tobias found himself wondering if his father wasn’t doing it on purpose, out of spite, because he knew that his youngest son wouldn’t let him marinate in his own shit overnight if he could help it.