In Free Fall

  Julia settles back into the sofa contentedly and takes her cup off the armrest.

  “What strange methods of investigation you have.”

  When Schilf grabs her by the shoulder, coffee spills onto her bare legs and leaves a dark spot on the sofa cover.

  “Hey!” Julia shouts. “Are you crazy?”

  He lets go of her immediately and his elephant eyes look her in the face.

  “What did the man say?” he asks pleadingly.

  An artistic work of transformation plays over Julia’s features: first indignation, then astonishment, and finally mockery.

  “What do you mean?” she says. “It was perfectly clear.”

  She looks first into one of the detective’s eyes, then into the other, before a glow of realization dawns on her face.

  “I see,” she says. “You haven’t read Orwell!”

  “So?” the detective prompts.

  “That is doublethink,” Julia says. “It means holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. In Orwell that is a practice of totalitarian systems.”

  “No,” Schilf says. It sounds like a cry for help. Julia takes his hand, looking concerned.

  “What’s the matter? Don’t you think it works?”

  “Yes, yes.”

  “There you go. And that guy there,” she indicates Oskar, who is still pointing his finger and smiling devilishly, “thinks that guy there”—Sebastian, sitting next to the host, is flickering on the screen—“is particularly good at it.”

  “Doublethink must go,” the detective says.

  He can’t stop staring at his girlfriend; his frozen gaze needs somewhere to land. His heart is beating like a drum. The black king has forced itself into the farthest corner of H8. The white king has fallen off the edge of the board. Chess pieces whirl around and sixty-four squares have torn themselves apart, clattering onto the hard ground.

  Is the existence of mankind in the world not enough of a misunderstanding? the detective thinks. Must aural misunderstandings add to the confusion?

  And: When branches surface at two different places in a pond, they can absolutely belong to the same bough.

  He feels gentle fingers stroking his cheek. This time they are not his own.

  “Have we solved the case?” Julia asks tenderly.

  “Fuck, yes,” the detective says.

  [2]

  TO SENIOR POLICEMAN SCHNURPFEIL, Rita Skura is the most beautiful woman in the world. There has never been a more beautiful woman and there never will be, unless they were to have a child together. Schnurpfeil does not think of himself as a clever person. He has not experienced much, and therefore has not much to tell. He also has no particular abilities that would distinguish him in a crowd. But he knows that he is good-looking and feels that, for this reason alone, he is a good match for Rita Skura. Besides which he has been exemplary in his loyalty to her. And she doesn’t have a boyfriend. She is married to her ambition, and this quality, as Schnurpfeil’s perusal of the pay-banding has told him, will bring her a considerable income one day. Rita will pursue her career and earn more and more, first enough for two, then for three or four. Schnurpfeil would not mind staying at home and taking care of everything for a woman like Rita; on the contrary, he would be proud of her. His plans are clear, well thought out, and quite flawless. He just hasn’t found the right moment to present them to her.

  The senior policeman leans back in the passenger seat of an Austrian police car and gazes at a landscape that looks as if it were shorn every morning by a lawn mower. When Rita had asked him if he fancied a trip to the Bregenz region, he imagined blue skies, white clouds, and green meadows, all of which are very much in evidence. But Schnurpfeil also thought of the safety belt between Rita’s breasts, and of her brown eyes with the sun smiling out of them. He said yes so enthusiastically that Rita gave him an odd look. Schnurpfeil didn’t mind this. Odd looks were the least of his troubles when it came to the detective.

  However, now it is not Rita sitting next to him but an Austrian policeman whose stomach barely fits behind the steering wheel. He lets rip at the hordes of tourists on whom he and his countrymen depend. The town center in Bregenz is full of people who behave as if their visitors’ taxes have paid for an all-day pedestrian zone, so reluctant are they to make way for cars. Schnurpfeil can at least be thankful that he does not have to find his own way to a place called Gwiggen. On the backseat, his green police cap and the Austrian’s white one lie next to each other harmoniously, a symbol of international police cooperation.

  When the car starts creeping up the foothills of the Pfänder mountain, swinging heavily from side to side on the curves, the Austrian releases a sigh that smells of Jagdwurst. He comments on the beauty of the landscape as if he had discovered it himself. Schnurpfeil does not understand how someone can be proud of a region that is too kitschy even for a postcard. Anyone not wearing lederhosen or a dirndl looks out of place here. This scenery might have been the right environment in which to discuss his life plans with Rita. But now he has no choice but to bring the detective the information that she needs: all of it, quickly and thoroughly, to her full satisfaction, as he always does.

  The car finally judders over a dirt track and comes to rest in the shade of a thoroughly German oak tree. The Austrian wipes his neck with a checked handkerchief and puts his seat back, while Schnurpfeil gets out and walks toward the wooden house. With its wide balcony and its intricately carved gables, it looks like a giant cuckoo clock. In the meadow, a tower made of wooden posts, barrels, and cable rises up so mysteriously that the senior policeman does not even attempt to guess at the purpose of this construction. In the distance, a group of children is running along the edge of the forest.

  Inside, the building smells of tea and shoes. There is no one at reception or in the dining hall. Schnurpfeil opens and closes numbered doors, and looks into room after room full of bunk beds until he stumbles upon a boy and a girl in a shabbily furnished office. His appearance throws them into some confusion. The fat boy stares at the police badge, his eyes bulging as if his head is bursting with sheer concentration. Schnurpfeil decides to address himself to the girl. Her hair is shaved at the sides and tied in a ponytail. When she speaks, the stud of her tongue piercing clicks against her teeth. Once the senior policeman realizes that these are not children on vacation but two of the group leaders, his tone becomes more formal.

  They remembered Liam, yes, of course. His father had caused a stir when he came to pick up his son out of the blue. The girl had helped the poor boy pack. Head lowered, he had folded his socks one by one and insisted on making his bed exactly as they had all learned on their first day.

  Who had brought the poor boy here?

  The two group leaders look up at the ceiling and grimace. Difficult to say. On the first day, about a hundred children arrived in Gwiggen. It could have been the man who picked him up, but perhaps not. In any case, the man wasn’t particularly tall. And wasn’t especially short, either.

  Schnurpfeil loses patience immediately. He has always found it difficult to take people with Austrian accents seriously. With an imperious movement he waves the fat boy away from the chair behind the computer, sits down, and grabs at a tattered ledger that is lying open on top of a pile of magazines. The book contains charts full of information: arrivals, departures, details of age, gender, illness, dietary requirements, details of deposits. All the entries are in different inks and different handwriting. Leafing through the pages, the senior policeman finds Liam’s name under number 27. There is his date of arrival, but no other comments. As he is about to put back the book, a piece of yellow paper falls out from between the pages.

  In round handwriting: Stefan, no. 27, not coming because of flu. The father rang. F.

  Schnurpfeil asks the girl if she wrote this.

  She shakes her head vigorously. F is another person. And the note was wrong. The poor boy was there. Just left early. Why does the officer look
at her so strangely?

  Schnurpfeil sinks back into the chair as the group leaders discuss the situation. He clenches and unclenches his fists, observing the play of muscles in his forearms. He thinks about the moment when he will report back to the detective. Perhaps he will claim that the forgotten note was lying hidden in the pile of magazines. Rita Skura will look up at him and push the hair away from her forehead, showing him her armpits. Thank you, Schnurpfeil, well done.

  The silence in the room brings him out of his reverie. The fat boy is staring at him and the girl has disappeared to fetch reinforcements. A few minutes later, Schnurpfeil is surrounded by children who all look like Liam, whose photo he has seen in the file. High voices screech and sticky fingers reach out for the leather holster containing his weapon. Schnurpfeil does not like children, other than the ones he will bear with Rita Skura.

  He jumps up and makes his way to a man towering over the throng. That’s Stefan, the boss, the fat boy says. With his untidy beard, Stefan looks like an eternal conscientious objector. He speaks in a nasal tone that infuriates Schnurpfeil.

  He couldn’t leave the scouts alone in the field, so he brought them in. He knows nothing about a phone call or flu. There’s a lot going on, he doesn’t have eyes in the back of his head. And he doesn’t understand what’s so important about this now.

  Schnurpfeil grabs Stefan by the arm and presses hard.

  Yes, of course he remembers. A tall man brought the sleeping Liam to Gwiggen and carried him into the house in his arms.

  The senior policeman strengthens his grip, whereupon Stefan remembers that the man had dark hair. And when the senior policeman adds the pressure of his other hand, he also remembers that the stranger had really piercing black eyes and a really arrogant face. He is really sure that this was not the same man who took Liam away a few days later.

  Schnurpfeil puts away the yellow note, takes down F’s full name, and wishes everyone good day in his purest German before he blazes his way through the babbling hordes of children and leaves the room.

  The Austrian officer has fallen asleep in the car and wakes with a start when Schnurpfeil shakes him by the shoulder and asks him for the car phone. Of course it would be more pleasant to deliver the news in person. But Rita Skura does not joke about such matters. Complete. Thorough. Swift. Satisfaction guaranteed.

  The senior policeman picks up the receiver and moves it as far from the car as the cable will allow.

  “Mission accomplished, boss!”

  “Enough of that Starship Enterprise crap,” Rita says. “Spit it out.”

  It is precisely these retorts that Schnurpfeil most loves about Rita Skura.

  [3]

  “JULIA? IS THAT YOU?”

  “Far from it, Schilf. Why do you always answer the phone with a question?”

  This has never occurred to the detective before. It is probably just the way he is.

  “And who is Julia?”

  “My girlfriend. I told you about her, in a moment of weakness.”

  “Whatever you say!” Rita is in a good mood. “I probably didn’t believe it.”

  “Same here.”

  “Very funny. I’m calling to lecture you.”

  “All right,” Schilf says morosely. “It’s an upside-down world.”

  Rita has not phoned at a good time. The round foyer has the acoustics of a cathedral. Schilf tucks himself between two pillars beneath a cupola painted with the constellations of a winter sky. Downstairs, people are milling about as they wait for the program to start. They peer into display cases set in the walls or stand in small groups chatting. The floor shakes when a train passes behind the building.

  “The theme of today’s lecture is: ‘What it feels like to have a case snatched away from under your nose.’”

  “Go on, then.”

  “Do you know who took Liam to scout camp after the supposed kidnapping?”

  “Yes.”

  “You’re bluffing.”

  “Certainly not.”

  Rita Skura sucks air through her teeth. The hissing sounds like a false bottom being moved aside. The conversation stagnates, while her good mood changes into its opposite.

  “Then say who it is,” she finally huffs.

  “Oskar.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because it’s the truth. How about you?”

  “My people were in Gwiggen.”

  The detective can’t help smiling. He knows that the role of Rita’s “people” is played by Senior Policeman Schnurpfeil.

  “I received a description from Gwiggen. It matches a photo in the murderer’s desk drawer.”

  “What were you doing in Sebastian’s desk?” the detective asks sharply.

  “A search,” Rita says. “That tried-and-tested tool of police investigations.”

  “For God’s sake! Why don’t you just stop this nonsense and leave him in peace?”

  “It’s perfectly simple, Schilf. He killed a man.”

  “He’s confessed.”

  “I’m looking for a motive.”

  “Then you can call me!”

  Startled by the loudness of his own voice, Schilf claps a hand over his mouth. Carefully, he leans over the balustrade. No one looks up at him. The two people he would like to corner are standing in front of a glass case containing globes of various sizes. A pyramid-shaped piece has been cut from each, revealing the colorful stripes inside.

  “I’m not calling with questions anymore,” Rita says, “but with answers.”

  When the two people turn away from the display case, Schilf lifts his gaze to the solar system hanging from steel cables in the middle of the foyer, turning like a giant mobile. Schilf envies the drive toward orderliness that keeps the planets on course. He has looked up the second law of thermodynamics on the Internet: In any system chaos increases constantly unless immense amounts of energy are used to stop it. Schilf has clearly not had enough energy even to protect Sebastian from Rita’s search. His apartment must look as if a tornado had passed through.

  “Anyway,” he says, “I’m happy that you finally believe it.”

  “Believe what?”

  When Schilf’s targets stop in front of the next display case, a spotlight casts a halo of light around their blond hair. Two angels striding through space, the detective thinks.

  “That you finally believe in the blackmail.”

  “For goodness’ sake.” The cheerful Rita has disappeared. It is the police officer who is talking: cool, unscrupulous, and efficient. “You don’t seem to be up to speed. This Oskar person who brought the kidnapped boy to Gwiggen is Sebastian’s best friend.”

  “The stuff of Greek tragedy,” Schilf says.

  “I call that being an accessory to murder, and very clever, too. The professor has to get rid of a rival. His friend fakes a blackmail. Much better than a shaky alibi. I knew from the start that this was a crime of passion.”

  “And that’s why you proceeded from the opposite of this conviction, right?”

  “In any case,” Rita says, “crimes of passion are terrific. Crimes of passion have nothing to do with the hospital scandal.”

  “Listen to me!”

  The panic that the detective has made such an effort to suppress bursts forth so strongly that Rita falls silent for a moment. Schilf leans his forehead against a sandstone pillar and forces himself to speak quietly.

  “You’re right, it could have happened that way. But I swear to you, Rita, that it didn’t.”

  “Schilf …”

  “It was a silly boy’s prank, thought up by a particularly dangerous boy. It was a great love, the Many-Worlds theory, and a masterwork by the most ruthless criminal that exists on this earth: coincidence. So ruthless that I prefer not to believe in him.”

  “Detective Schilf?” Rita says. “Are you listening to yourself? Silly boy? Great love? Coincidence?”

  “I can explain it all,” the detective whispers.

  The little angel has reached ou
t an arm, and his fingertips follow the lines of text on a board. He is saying something. The grown-up nods.

  “I’ll bring the person who is the real culprit to you. He’ll confess. You can tell the powers that be that the case has been solved. Stop trying to beat me, Rita—help me!”

  “But what are you expecting me to do, Schilf?” Rita cries.

  The detective holds the phone away from his ear so that he can dry his forehead and cheeks. There is a ripple of movement below. The first few people are walking toward the stairs. Schilf bends down and picks up the briefcase wedged between his feet.

  “Are you doing anything tonight?” he asks.

  “Of course not.”

  The two angels are floating up the stone staircase. Schilf retreats farther behind his pillar.

  “I have to sort something out here first,” he says. “Don’t do anything. Be prepared.”

  “One more question. Do you think this case has anything to do with hospitals at all?”

  “Not in the slightest.”

  “OK. See you later.”

  The detective slips the mobile phone into his trouser pocket and waits until everyone else has entered the auditorium. Then he, too, produces his ticket and slips inside.

  IT’S DARK. There are no seats. Everyone is clustered together looking at the dome above them, which is lit with a bluish glow. A teacher tells her giggling class to sit down on the floor, as they can’t keep their balance in the dark. The detective has some difficulty keeping his balance, too, as he pushes his way through the crowd. A giant spiral is beginning to turn in the artificial sky. E = mc2 shoots across it like an asteroid. The children screech excitedly and duck.

  “In the great play of Being, we are actors and spectators at the same time,” a male voice announces to open the show.

  Schilf has found his two angels and is standing directly behind them. Every time the taller one moves her shoulders, the smell of her silky hair rises. She smells quite different from Julia—even sweeter. The aroma, as that of lime-blossom tea, calls forth images from the depths of his memory. This is my new past, Schilf thinks. I’ll remember this when I go: a man, a woman, and an excited boy turning their faces up to space. Perhaps a caress on the back, too, interlinked fingers, and a child’s head that fits neatly under the palm of the hand. Schilf almost taps his two targets on the shoulder; he stops himself just in time. Here, right in front of him, are two people whose future he is responsible for. Fate has united them with him in a tiny speck on the outer crust of this planet.