Thomas Glavinic: The Camera Killer

I HAVE BEEN REQUESTED to commit everything to paper.

My lady friend, Sonja Wagner, and I took advantage of the Easter holiday to make a trip to West Styria. We live near Linz in the north of Austria. Because my partner comes from the Graz area, we have some acquaintances in Styria. We left home by car on Holy Thursday, having arranged to meet up with various friends at an inn near Graz that afternoon.

In the course of that get-together, my partner consumed an excessive and injurious amount of alcohol (a liter of white wine, six one-ounce shots of tequila, and a questionable amount of beer). Early the next morning, around 5:00 a.m., I had to take a room at the inn and put her to bed.

It was 2:00 p.m. on Good Friday when my partner emerged from her alcoholic stupor. We drove the relatively short distance to our friends, Heinrich and Eva Stubenrauch, who reside at No. 6 Kaibing, 8537 Kaibing. We got there around 3:00 p.m. and received a warm welcome. A snack was prepared for us and, because of the fine weather prevailing, served on a big wooden table outside.

We expressed surprise at the fact that the yard was teeming with cats, twenty-five or thirty of them. Heinrich informed us that the animals were the unwanted property of their landlord, a farmer whose house was only some twenty yards away.

My partner declared that the air and the scenery were glorious and that the snack was doing her sore head good. I had to shoo eight wasps away from my lemonade.

After the snack, it was around 4:00 p.m. and almost as hot as in summer. My partner expressed a wish to go for a walk because it might improve her condition. There were no good walks in the immediate vicinity of Heinrich and Eva’s house, so they drove us to a pull-off beside the main road approximately three miles away. Beyond it lay some extensive fields of wheat and corn. Heinrich jokingly remarked that this was the biggest stretch of terrain in the locality uninterrupted by hills. We walked along the farm tracks between the fields, conversing about commonplace topics (our health, the news, and suchlike).

Insects were whirring through the air, crickets chirping. The sun was blazing down with such intensity that I had to don a pink baseball cap inscribed “Chicago” for fear of getting sunburn or even sunstroke. Discounting the sound of insects, absolute silence reigned.

We left the agricultural land behind us and made our way through some tall grass. There was nothing much to be seen, just a lone tree, a few bushes, and something that resembled a building. On approaching, we saw that it was a small, dilapidated house. Heinrich, who had visited this spot once before, knew all about it. Apparently, it was the remains of a farmhouse that had burned down two decades earlier. Rumor had it that arson was involved. The farmer and his wife had perished in the flames. Superstitious inhabitants of the neighboring village swore that the ruin was haunted and gave it a wide berth. My partner urged us to leave there at once.

Heinrich chaffed her. Did she believe in ghosts? he asked.

She said she’d had an awful feeling even before we reached the spot. Although her thick head might be to blame, she said, the place had a sinister aura. She couldn’t account for it, but she felt frightened.

Heinrich cracked a joke. At that, my partner started to tremble all over and ran off. We had no choice but to follow her. Nobody said anything, and we drove back to the Stubenrauchs.

That evening the women made spaghetti Bolognese. While they were busy in the kitchen, Heinrich talked to me about fishing. Now and then, a cat would get into the house, causing him to jump up and chase the animal outside. He told me that the creatures were regular pests and could not be allowed indoors because they made everything dirty and unhygienic.

After supper, we played rummy. During an intermission occasioned by Eva Stubenrauch’s need to obey a call of nature, my partner fetched two packets of Kelly’s chips from the kitchen.

Heinrich turned on the television and switched to the news channel. The first news item concerned a state visit abroad. The second reported that two children had been murdered in West Styria — an appalling crime, it seemed.

“Large-scale manhunt in progress. The police are seeking a man of medium height, age thirty or thereabouts, who compelled two children of seven and eight to kill themselves by jumping from tall trees and filmed those crimes with a video camera. A third boy, the deceased children’s nine-year-old brother, managed to escape. Urgent inquiries are in progress.”

Heinrich encouraged the womenfolk, who had now returned, to watch the news. Eva put her hands over her face. My partner said she had never heard of anything so terrible. Heinrich drew our attention to the fact that the town mentioned in the report was located quite close at hand. He claimed to have heard of the family concerned, whose senior member was the local fire chief, and thought he might have seen the father’s picture in a regional newspaper. We all expressed surprise that anybody could compel someone else to commit suicide and wondered how such a thing could happen.

It was, therefore, a while before we could re-devote ourselves to our game of cards.

I won a little money, my partner lost some, Eva won a lot, and Heinrich lost heavily. We ate chips and drank red wine, which Heinrich fetched from the cellar at intervals. Since the cellar was accessible only from outside the house and it had started to rain hard that night, he came back wet every time. This gave rise to general amusement. At around 1:30 a.m., when we had been playing for several hours, Eva replaced the cards in their packet. Before we all took our turn in the bathroom to brush our teeth and wash our faces, Heinrich looked at the news channel again to see if there was anything further about the murdered children. There was nothing new, however. I followed my partner upstairs to the second floor where the bedrooms were situated, taking care to step on the wooden treads with a different foot from her.

The next morning, the sun was shining again. We breakfasted outside at the wooden table. The Stubenrauchs had fixed us a lavish breakfast, including salami, several kinds of cheese, eggs, toast, butter, marmalade, crackers, and fruit juice. We voiced our appreciation by praising its quality and expressing our thanks.

The farmer from next door, who was ambling around in grimy blue overalls and a hat too small for him, came over to us from time to time and spoke about the murders committed within such a short distance of us. He said he knew the children’s parents, and anyone who did such a thing should be done away with himself. He mimed a hanging as he said this. He spoke in an excessively loud voice, as if he himself or one of those present were deaf.

The farmer’s wife, too, came over to us. Seating herself on the bench beside Heinrich, she put her hands on her lap, which was covered with a stained apron, and shook her head and grimaced to convey how shocked she was. My partner, who had finished her breakfast before me, was standing some six feet from the table at this stage, staring silently into space. Eva nodded at the farmer’s wife to convey that she shared her opinion.

Everyone sighed. Heinrich, rolling an apple across the bare tabletop, asked if anything more was known about the perpetrator. My partner said she felt thoroughly unwell and couldn’t bear to hear this news talked about. Heinrich advised her to put her fingers in her ears. She was being silly, he said, and she ought to be glad it was such a fine day.

The farmer’s wife asked Eva if she wanted to accompany her to the Easter food consecration service later on. Eva replied that she couldn’t yet say when she would go and told the farmer’s wife not to wait for her.