Rohort went to France

  Some years ago, correction, many years ago, a memory lapse, then a jolt, a reminder, a hostile interjection, time is not a friend in the mirror. It was my student days, now faraway and remote, hard to believe they happened.

  There was a task, a group of us were cleaning up an old house. It had been used for boarders. I came upon some papers, my intention was to read them. I didn't , I kept them or more correctly I didn't lose them.

  Recently they emerged in another clean up. This time I took notice. The writer had had a rudimentary education, but the narrative was comprehensible, the tale was unusual. It deserved publication. I made corrections to make it presentable, grammar, punctuation, spelling, but the direction, the meaning it was unmistakeable.

  And so brushed, polished, filed and cleaned it is here for you or the world to read.

  It was a moment that Ted had dreaded. He knew it bewould be coming, the question was when.. Of course it might not have happened, but Ted was right.

  It was Klinka’s passing that Ted had feared.

  Ted was an immigrant. He’d arrived in the country with nothing much in mind, he was young, barely out of school. He worked in offices, he was educated, it seemed the thing to do, but it didn’t agree with him. He’d rather have been a battery hen, such was his perception of life sitting at a desk. Besides the job was hazardous, sitting in a room filled with tobacco smoke, it didn’t agree with Ted’s health.

  So Ted made a career change, he borrowed a lot of money, bought houses no one wanted, they were cheap and filled them with people no one wanted, they could of course be sometimes wanted by the police.

  It worked. No one was interested in what he did, the area was unloved. The neighbours were young people renting cheap flats, it was close to town, it was convenient, their sojourn there was temporary. They had their lives to lead, doing what young people generally do, parties, girlfriends, boyfriends, marriage for most was the exit from this whirl. During this interlude of carefree living the activities of their neighbours was

  uninteresting.

  The other people living in that area were the Foreigners. That was their designation. They were categorized by their spoken language, English was not their first tongue. They were not outcasts but were ordinary people, they had been displaced by war. For them it was a new beginning, the country a haven. Unlike the other occupiers in that area, they worked, saved and bought themselves a house.

  Their expectations and priorities had been moulded by the conflict, Ted’s business did not interest them.

  And so Ted was free from spying eyes and censure. He did nothing illegal, it was different.

  What was different were Ted’s basic priorities, he was motivated by fundamental need. He needed money to pay his way, which meant income, his boarders were expected and made to pay the rent. The only other priority was don’t downgrade the houses further, I e: no vandalism. He could see no point in upgrading the property, more rent perhaps and ‘Better People'. But Ted was not fussy about who he dealt with, better to buy more property and watch the land values rise.

  A further avoidance of censure were Ted’s habits. He was not interested in liquor or socializing. Few knew him or anything about what he did.

  Ted collected some unusual boarders. Many had habits that made them unwelcome elsewhere. Klinka it was to be discovered, belonged in this category.

  Klinka had arrived many years earlier, probably 20. Ted did not bother with records, when people arrived or left or where they came from. They arrived they paid rent, they left they were forgotten. Some left feet first under a blanket, some in the custody of the police and some were simply not there, missing presumed gone elsewhere. His priority was the current crop of boarders and their rent.

  He kept some records, it was unavoidable, the tax authorities had to be kept at bay, there had to be some explanation for his accumulation of property. Was there rent and how much? His experience in offices enabled him to do it. There were no beautiful annual accounts with pictures and optimistic forecasts, it was history in black and white and no more.

  So where did Klinka fit into this picture? He came he paid rent, was quiet, no visitors and certainly no destructive habits. For Ted it was a room filled without a problem person.

  Some year earlier, probably eight, there had been another passing, the transition from this world to the next. The man was not missed, there were no tears at the graveside. Money and junk were his specialties, insufficient of one and too much of the other. Klinka had assisted in the clean up. .

  So how could Klinka, a model boarder, cause dread? Klinka had the figure of a person who did not eat much, the ultimate achievement in dieting. Usually he sat in the kitchen playing patience when Ted arrived to collect the rent, occasionally Ted had to knock. Klinka would squeeze out through the doorway, it was obvious something was blocking his exit.

  This something was a hoard of clothes, bags, shoes and whatever, its weight at the local land fill was 3,800 kilograms approx. Six loads were taken by Ted in his van, one weighed in at 620 kg.

  This hoard had been identified whilst Klinka lived, all that was unknown was its weight.

  Ted was an expert at ignoring problems. It was probably an essential qualification for his job. It was certainly not an occupation for a worrier.

  The hoard could not get any bigger, there was no space for more. Ted assumed Klinka would die and then would come the clean up. Ted outlived his boarders. He gave himself a better chance, no tobacco, weed, liquor and a diet of plain, regular and wholesome food. Funless perhaps but when he was shovelling up the bits that fell off some of the corpses he saw the benefit, he was not shovelling with the angels, but in this world and not the next.

  “We have’nt seen Klinka since Saturday.” Greeted Ted when he came on Wednesday to collect the rent. It was one of the other boarders. Ted guessed correctly what had happened. Police custody no, had left and gone elsewhere, most improbable, he was old and had lived there a long time, in hospital, the other boarders would most probably have known. One final option and Ted believed the most probable; death. In two hours Ted was to be proved correct, Q.E.D.

  First knock on door. As expected no answer. Second got a key turned the lock and pushed. Turn the key yes, push it was impossible. Klinka’s hoard and his body blocked the way.

  Open a window, the entrance was blocked by a set of drawers.

  Ted had a skill saw with him, it was fortuitous, the windows could be opened wide enough to admit its use. An attempt to open the window wider failed.

  There was a gradual demolition job on the drawers, clothes and more clothes were pulled out of them. Then two television sets fell down, the drawers had supported them. They did not work of course, then it became possible to open the window wider. More and more was pulled out of this morass till finally it was possible to snake in through the window.

  This part of the operation had taken two hours.

  Ted saw two legs sticking out of a pile of something. The light was not good and it was hard to identify anything.

  Ted did not do what most people would have done, he did not immediately call the police. He intended to do it, but not just yet.

  There had been previous experiences.

  On one occasion the police had worked on a body for some hours, it was probably suicide, there were live wires, some of the insulation had been scraped off, electrocution had probably been the intended cause of death. The police had been unaware of the hazard.

  Ted discovered it when he was cleaning up. He started shovelling up the mess, bits had fallen off the body , the man had been dead for some days. He got a jolt, but carried on, then another jolt. He stopped, he saw wires, they were connected to the main.

  The wires were familiar, then he remembered, they had been hanging in a tree, the deceased had seen them too. He showed intense interest. This had puzzled Ted. Now the explanation, there was intent.

&nb
sp; He called the police. There were photos and the wires were made safe.

  The man had been a veteran of two campaigns, the Western Desert, then Normandy and finally in Germany guarding the guards in a concentration camp. He was seventeen at the outset. It had been all too much. He was another victim of Hitler’s Reich.

  The deceased was an immigrant, he was from the British Isles, he had an accent, he did not speak Kwinglish, Kiwi English.

  Then there was Jackson’s passing. Jackson’s was stretched out on his bed stripped to the waist, Ron was sitting in the room drinking.

  “Is he ok?” Ted asked.

  “I’m scared.” Answered Ron.

  “Put your hand on him.” Said Ted.

  “He’s stone cold.” Said Ron.

  Ron had been drinking in the company of a corpse. What went down his throat was more important than the company.

  The police were summoned and the body was removed and Ted cleaned the room up. It contained a crop of fleas.

  Then who should arrive some hours later but a snoop, an apparatchik from the council.

  The police had done some ringing up, but the snoop was too late, the mess and the fleas were gone.

  Ted’s rent did not cover room service and he didn’t supply fleas, they were B.Y.O. Bring Your Own fleas.

  There had been other experiences, Ted was wary of the police.

  Ted cleared the clothes and whatever from around Klinka’s body as it was passed out through the window. There were pairs of helpful hands outside, the other boarders, they packed it into plastic bags.

  Ted’s concern was the door, how to open it. The hoard of clothes etc. reached up to the ceiling and where the body and the door was it was steep and formed a cliff. As it was passed out through the window more and more fell down.

  Ted did not have a lot of time to think about what he was doing.

  His worry was the door. He knew of the capabilities of the police, smash the door down and get the body out. Who would put the door back up?

  Ted had hung doors in the past, he’d had a work bench and tools, it was all set up. Now he had nothing, it was a task he did not wish to face.

  Some might have said what about the body. The man was dead from natural causes, there was no question of a homicide enquiry. If someone had got in and killed him, how would they have got out? The body and the morass blocked the exit.

  Ted could move and pick up the body but it would fall back and block the way. He could not ask a boarder to assist in the room. The police might have taken a dim and possibly a prosecution. Ted did not want to involve others and certainly not incriminate them. There were boundaries. There was also smell. Klinka had been dead for some days, there was a reek. It was an evolutionary signal, keep away.

  There was a small quantity of liquor in the room, the boarders would not touch it.

  The pins could be knocked out of two of the hinges thus separate them and enable the door to open, but the body blocked access to the lowest.

  The room contained Ted, a body and a morass of blocking debris.

  Ted climbed out of that room, washed his hands and called the police. His exertions for that day were over.

  The bottom hinge was pried off with little damage, the door was rehung easily.

  The police were sympathetic, Ted made a statement, the day was over.

  Removing the debris was straightforward, there were pairs of helpful hands, it was soon done.

  There was a small silver lining, Ted found a few useful items amongst the morass. He confided in his diary there was an easier way to acquire them, I.e: hand over money in a shop.

  Justice