Strangers: A Novel(108)
The man glances over his shoulder, toward one of his colleagues, who nods briefly.
“OK. It will be a little while anyway until we can get hold of a crane that will be able to lift the crate off of him. It doesn’t look good for him.” He hesitates. “You can speak to him briefly, but only in my presence.”
Gabor is led past; his gaze flits over us. He must know what’s awaiting him. Erik and I are alive. We know what really happened at Munich station, but will we be able to prove it all? So much of what has happened could be explained differently. What we have to tell sounds so improbable that I’m sure Gabor’s lawyers would take great pleasure in tearing every sentence apart.
And then what?
Simply going back into the building is harder for me than I thought. But none of the four dead bodies I can see are my father’s people.
From outside, I can hear the sirens of a whole fleet of emergency vehicles as I kneel down next to Bartsch. His face is waxy and white, his cheeks drawn; his breathing is shallow and fitful, but I think he recognizes me.
The thought of demanding something from a dying man seems repugnant, but this is my only opportunity. “Dr. Bartsch?” I wait until his eyes meet mine. “Please. Please, if you can, tell me what happened. What’s wrong with me. You know, don’t you?”
No reaction, at first. Then a tiny, barely visible nod. I lean over closer to him.
“The ambulance is here now,” says the policeman behind me. “You have to go.”
“Yes. Of course. Right away.”
Bartsch’s lips move. His voice is barely a whisper. “Forget it,” he says. He almost smiles, as if he had made a joke. “You forgot so much already. Forget this too.”
“Please,” I say, a little too loud. “Please don’t do this to me.”
There’s something wet in his breath. As though he’s sucking in air and water at the same time. “It’s a shame,” he whispers, “that I won’t live to see you kill him after all. Because you will.”
50
I’m standing in front of a police van and Joanna’s a few feet away, just inside the sliding door of an emergency vehicle, sitting on the floor. A woman wearing an orange paramedic’s jacket has draped a blanket over her shoulders and is talking to her in a calm voice.
There are dark streaks and marks all over Joanna’s face. Dirt and blood, mixed with tears, smudged all over her cheeks and forehead. Her hair is pasted to her head in strands. Something inside me is screaming to go over and take her into my arms. To press her against me, so tightly that I can feel her with every fiber of my being. To close my eyes and let the liberating certainty wash over us that we came through it, that we survived.
“Over here please, Herr Thieben.” One of the two detectives who led me over to the police vehicle points inside it. He’d introduced himself as Chief K?nig. “Let’s take a drive.”
“What about my fiancée?” I ask, gesturing over toward Joanna. The policeman follows my gaze.
“She’s still being treated, but you’ll see her later at the station.”
I take a demonstrative step back and shake my head. “No, I’ll wait for her.”
The second man, a somewhat portly, half-bald detective whose name I’ve forgotten, puts his hand on my shoulder. It’s too firm to be a friendly gesture.
“That wasn’t a request, even if my colleague put it politely. Get in the car now. Frau Berrigan will be brought to the station shortly.”
I want to tell the man that I’m sick and tired of being ordered around. That he should take a moment to imagine what we’ve just been through, and that he can take his orders and shove them where the sun don’t shine. Just a second later, though, I remind myself that we were just involved in a shooting that resulted in numerous casualties, and that these men probably saved our lives.
My eyes remain fixed on Joanna. “All right, but I’d at least like to go and see her quickly.”
“Hurry up then,” K?nig says before the portly man can answer.
Joanna gets up as I approach. The blanket slides off her shoulders, but she doesn’t seem to notice. She just stands there, looking at me. We embrace, caress each other. Hold each other in silence. Sometimes you don’t need words.
Joanna breaks away from me and touches her hand to my cheek. A semblance of a smile flits over her face. You can go, it probably means. Everything’s OK now.
* * *
When we get to the station, the two officers take me to a somberly furnished room and offer me a cup of coffee. Once a young man has set down the steaming cup in front of me and left again, they ask me to tell them, in sequence, what happened, and especially what I know about the bombing at Munich station.
I start with the evening when Joanna suddenly didn’t recognize me anymore. I do, however, understate the seriousness of the situation by quite a bit. My fear that Joanna could be shipped off to a mental institution is still there.
The two men constantly interrupt me with questions. Can I say any more about this or that; why don’t I take a moment and think again carefully. What part do I think Gabor played in the whole affair, and do I know who von Ritteck is. Whether I witnessed any part of the shootout in the warehouse. Did Gavin and his people open fire, or simply react to the shots the other men fired. From time to time, they exchange unreadable glances.