Snow White Must Die (Bodenstein & Kirchhoff, #4)(21)
They smoked for a while in silence. Across the parking lot a couple of late customers were leaving the Black Horse. They heard voices and then the sound of car doors slamming. The sound of the engines moved off down the road.
“Aren’t you afraid at night, in the dark?”
“No.” Amelie shook her head. “I’m from Berlin. Sometimes I’ve squatted with a few pals in abandoned buildings slated for demolition, and we’d have trouble with the squatters who were already living there. Or with the law.”
Tobias exhaled the cigarette smoke through his nose.
“Where do you live?”
“In the house next to the Terlindens.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah, I know. Thies told me about it. That’s where Snow White used to live.”
Tobias froze.
“Now you’re lying,” he said after a while, his voice sounding different.
“No I’m not,” Amelie countered.
“Sure you are. Thies doesn’t talk. Ever.”
“He does with me. Every so often. He’s a friend of mine.”
Tobias took a drag on his cigarette. The light from the glowing tip lit up his face, and Amelie saw him raise his eyebrows.
“Not a boyfriend, if that’s what you’re thinking,” she was quick to add. “Thies is my best friend. My only friend.”
Sunday, November 9, 2008
The party for Countess Leonora von Bodenstein’s seventieth birthday was not held at the elegant Schlosshotel but in the indoor equestrian arena, although Bodenstein’s sister-in-law had protested vehemently. But the countess didn’t want anyone to make a big fuss over her, as she put it. Modest nature-lover that she was, she had expressly wished for a small celebration in the stables or the arena, so Marie-Louise von Bodenstein had acquiesced. She had handled all the arrangements for the “event” in her typical energetic and professional way, and the result was breathtaking.
Oliver and Cosima arrived at the Bodenstein estate with Sophia shortly after eleven, finding a parking spot only with difficulty. In the historic interior courtyard of the riding stable with the cobblestones and its carefully renovated half-timbered buildings there was not a straw to be seen, and the big stable door was standing wide open.
“My God,” Cosima remarked in amusement. “Marie-Louise must have coerced Quentin into putting in a night shift.”
The tall old stables, built around 1850, formed one side of the noble stable building of the count’s castle. Over the years it had accumulated a venerable patina of spiderwebs, dust, and swallow droppings—but all that had vanished. The horse stalls, the walls, and the high ceilings shone with fresh radiance; the mullioned windows had been polished to a sheen, and even the colors in the frescoes depicting scenes from the hunt had been freshened up. The horses, who were curiously watching the commotion in the wide stable aisle over the doors of their stalls, had had their manes braided in celebration of the day. In the entrance hall, lovingly decorated as if for a harvest thanksgiving feast, the waiters from the Schlosshotel were pouring champagne.
Oliver grinned. His younger brother Quentin was one of those comfortable sorts of people. He was a landowner who ran the estate and riding stables, and it didn’t bother him in the least if the tooth of time left its mark. He had increasingly turned over to his wife the responsibility for the restaurant up in the castle, and in recent years Marie-Louise had transformed it into a first-class Michelin-starred establishment, whose excellent reputation extended far beyond the local area.
They found the birthday girl amid the circle of family and well-wishers in the vestibule of the arena, which was also wonderfully decorated. Oliver was just about to wish his mother many happy returns when the hunting horn corps of the congenial Kelkheim Riding Club opened the program in the riding arena. The presentations were a surprise by the horse owners and riding students for their countess. Oliver exchanged a few words with his son Lorenz, who was filming the occasion with camera in hand. His girlfriend Thordis was responsible for the success of the dressage quadrille, the performance by the trick riding group, and she would later ride in the jumping quadrille. In the crowd Oliver ran into his sister Theresa, who had come especially for the celebration. They hadn’t seen each other in a long time and had much to talk about. Cosima had taken a seat with Sophia next to her mother, Countess Rothkirch, in the grandstand on one side of the riding arena and was following the dressage quadrille with interest.
“Cosima looks ten years younger,” said Oliver’s sister, sipping on her champagne. “I might get jealous.”
“A baby and a good husband work wonders,” Oliver replied with a grin.
“Self-righteous as always, little brother,” Theresa teased him back. “As if you men have anything to do with why a woman looks good!”
She was two years older than Oliver and was bubbling over with energy, as usual. Her elegantly proportioned face was striking rather than beautiful, and the first gray strands mixed in with her dark hair did nothing to diminish her radiance. She had worked hard for each wrinkle and gray hair, she once said. Her husband had been taken from her too soon, struck down by a heart attack, leaving her with an ailing coffee-roasting business in Hamburg, a family castle in Schleswig-Holstein that needed a lot of work, and several properties mortgaged to the hilt in Hamburg’s best neighborhoods. Promoted to administrator of the company after her husband’s death, and despite raising three children and facing a dim outlook for the future, she had energetically taken the reins and fearlessly dived into the fray against creditors and the banks. Now, after ten years of hard work and shrewd dealings, both the firm and private property had been saved and restored. Not one employee’s position had been lost, and Theresa enjoyed the utmost respect from her staff and business partners.