Sascha Arango - The Truth and Other Lies

“Would you like a slice of bread with it?”

——

Obradin’s incisors lay in the damp sand of the cellar floor. The steep steps that you had to go down backward at the best of times were now extra slippery with bloody saliva. Earlier Obradin had smashed the glass door of his shop, presumably because he couldn’t find his key, and had plunged headlong down the steps trying to fetch a second barrel of slivovitz from the cellar.

A big pile of shit next to the slivovitz barrels furnished evidence that Obradin must have been in the cellar since eleven in the morning. At lunchtime the little harbor pub opened, where Obradin lost a further tooth, because his idea of payment in kind did not correspond with that of the landlord’s. As it later turned out, the tooth was rotten and would have had to have been removed sooner or later in any case. Not one of the men who came rushing up to help managed to pacify the raging Serb.

He was finally hit by a tranquilizer dart from the game warden’s gun. The tranquilizer, known as Hellabrunn mixture, was dosed for a rhinoceros; even so, Obradin had enough time to sing the Serbian national anthem before falling into a deathlike sleep.

Helga, who had accurately predicted the course and duration of his rampage, was waiting outside the fishmonger’s together with the doctor when her husband was returned to her more dead than alive. It was heartbreaking to watch her suffer. In twenty years of married life she’d experienced half a dozen of these attacks, without ever finding out what caused them. The eruptions remained as unpredictable as earthquakes. Obradin claimed not to be able to remember what triggered them, which from a toxicological point of view was hardly surprising. The doctor diagnosed various hematomas and tooth loss in Obradin, but otherwise normal vital functions; the men carried him to the double bed he shared with Helga and there he remained for the time being.

——

Outside, Poncho was barking. A vehicle drew up. Henry saw that it wasn’t the police. Lashed tight with blue cord, Martha’s bicycle stood like a monument on the pickup bed. Henry had seen the bike countless times without feeling anything. What is there to feel at the sight of an old rusty bike? But now it was different. Standing at a right angle to the frame, the handlebars and the old lamp were pointing straight at him. The rust at the neck of the saddle was gleaming like dried blood — and there in the wheel was the broken spoke he’d never replaced.

At the steering wheel sat Elenor Reens, the mayor, and next to her the young woman from the beach. She was wearing a baseball cap and had set her sunglasses upon the brim. Elenor got out and took a packet containing Martha’s things from the backseat; the rubber sandals and Martha’s parka were in a plastic bag. She put everything on the hood.

“Just let us know if there’s anything we can do. No matter what. We’ll always be here for you. I’m speaking on behalf of everyone — you and your wife are in the thoughts of the whole town.”

“Thank you.”

Elenor followed Henry’s gaze.

“This is my daughter, Sonja.”

Sonja opened the door hesitantly, got out, walked around the car to Henry, and clasped his outstretched hand. She was wearing white sneakers and faded blue jeans; her khaki jacket was buttoned up to the neck as if she was cold. Her hand was cool and slender, her eyes were of topaz-blue earnestness, the line of her lips looked as if it had been drawn with a fine brush. Aphrodite stops at nothing to torment me, Henry thought. “How could I have forgotten? We’ve already met,” he said. Sonja nodded. Henry had the feeling she wanted to tell him something she couldn’t say in her mother’s presence.

Elenor went back to her car. “Oh, by the way, Obradin went berserk again. The game warden brought him down with a tranquilizer gun.”

——

Every murderer ought to know that, as the science of criminal investigation, modern forensics are very thorough. If a person disappears, no stone is left unturned. The murderer has to prepare himself for an investigation that may go on for a long time and will brook no logical contradiction.

A murderer must be alert. His enemy is detail. The thoughtless word, the mere nothing he forgot, the trifling mistake that wrecks everything. He has to keep the memory of his crime alive and kindled within himself every day, but still keep silent. But keeping silent is against human nature. It’s not easy to keep a secret. A lifetime spent keeping silent is agony. Looked at that way, a murderer’s punishment begins on the day of his crime.

The wife-killers and husband-murderers among us should take particular note that any personal advantage derived from the disappearance of one’s spouse, whether it be life insurance or the understandable desire for freedom, will bring an even more thorough investigation in its wake.

No one knew this better than Henry. In his long days of leisure he had extended his knowledge of forensics, learning among other things that the police notify the insurance companies in cases of unexplained death. As everyone knows, insurance companies are not fond of paying back money they’ve already collected, no matter how small the sum. If they do settle, it should always be interpreted as an act of tempering justice with mercy. When it comes to paying out life insurance, they get particularly suspicious and let loose their detectives. You have to beware of these specialists, who work on commission and are paid by results. They know that all the world’s a stage and act accordingly, searching not for truth but always for untruth. Murder, fraud, and self-inflicted injury are insurance scams as far as these gentlemen are concerned — there’s no other way to describe them. In this way they deny the psychological aspect of the struggle for existence — and for them a policy payment is tantamount to the triumph of evil. So, as a basic rule, murder should look like an accident. That is harder than it may seem to begin with, because even an accident has a plausible story behind it; accidents don’t just happen. But more on this later.

Strictly speaking, Martha’s death wasn’t murder; it was an accident. Nevertheless Henry had already made two crucial mistakes. He had failed to call the police straightaway, and the whereabouts of Betty’s Subaru shouldn’t have been associated with him. Whatever the police found out, in the end it should be clear beyond doubt that Henry would not derive any advantage from Martha’s disappearance.

That corresponded entirely with the truth. There was no life insurance in his favor, only in hers. Henry wouldn’t inherit a thing from Martha, because it wasn’t Martha who was rich but he. Nor had she been in the public eye — that was just him. So far, so good. Thanks to his experience of lying, or merely making excuses, Henry was confident that people would continue to believe him as long as he lied. It was only the truth he had to be sparing and prudent with.

He put the packet containing Martha’s clothes on the kitchen island. Then he said good-bye to Betty and Moreany, who were going back to the publishing house together. Henry saw them to the Jaguar, embraced them both affectionately and with equal intensity, and whispered in Betty’s ear as he said good-bye, “Report the car stolen; I’ll explain everything to you later.” She waved to him. She’s got me in the palm of her hand, Henry thought, and waved back.

——

Jenssen was a young detective with butter-yellow hair and watery blue eyes. He was descended from Vikings; Henry could see that at a glance. He was athletic and he clearly worked out. His manicured hand felt strangely fat. He had read Henry’s novels, was a big fan of Aggravating Circumstances , and would have liked to have been a court reporter, but, as he told Henry, he couldn’t write. Well, who can? Henry thought.