Magic Hoffmann (21 page)

 

Two nurses were leaning over Fred and asking him to release Moni's head, but he seemed to hear nothing. His protruding eyes had a blind man's stare. One of them gently moved Fred's hands to one side, while the other grasped the corpse beneath the shoulders. They lifted her onto a stretcher and carried her away.

Then a policeman squatted down beside Fred, took his arm and asked him to stand up. Fred obeyed meekly. He was led to the snack counter and sat on a stool. The policeman disappeared, then returned quickly with a bottle of Schnapps.

After filling a plastic cup for Fred, he asked: ‘I'm sorry, but... could you possibly give us the victim's name?'

He had sat down on a stool next to Fred, and his hand rested on Fred's shoulder. He was plainly uncomfortable with having to bother him.

After a while Fred answered in a monotone: ‘Moni Sergejev.'

The policeman took the hand off his shoulder and wrote in a pad.

‘And your name?'

Fred didn't react.

‘Please understand, we need you as a witness... you must want the perpetrators to be caught and sentenced as swiftly as possible?' The policeman paused. ‘Forget it,' he said and stood up, ‘we can do this later.'

But he was wrong. While his hand rested helplessly again on Fred's shoulder, a second policeman, clearly his superior, arrived and demanded: ‘Your name please!' And when Fred remained silent, he threatened: ‘Otherwise we'll take you down to the station. It is our duty to ascertain the names of the witnesses.'

Fred slowly raised his eyes and stared at the officer.

‘Hans-Jörg Heim.'

‘May we see your identity card?'

Fred reached into his pocket and handed him the passport. Two minutes later the policeman received the information on his walkie-talkie: ‘Stolen.'

‘Well Mr Heim. Something appears to be not quite right. I'm afraid we'll have to take you with us for further questioning.' He pointed at Fred's luggage. ‘Are those your things?'

Fred looked at the black case containing his money, then he shrugged slightly and nodded.

Three and a half years later it was snowing in Dieburg at Christmas. On the twenty-fourth of December half a metre of snow lay on the town, and the white flakes kept falling. There was joy all around, and Mr Scheibel, the manager of the Edeka shop, was standing in the doorway greeting passers-by with a cheery: ‘This year'll do then.'

As darkness fell, he sat down behind the till and counted the day's takings. It was just after five and he wanted to close early today. Wife and kids were waiting. The shop was silent, apart from a soft scraping sound coming from the storeroom.

Mr Scheibel's assistant was arranging the cases of drinks. Four candles burned on the till, casting their light on the ledger. Good business today: chocolate-coated almonds, raisins, hazelnuts, vanilla sugar, rum - at Christmas people preferred going to the small corner shops than to the out of town supermarkets.

At half five Mr Scheibel was about to shut the door, when a young man rushed into the shop, asking for candied lemon peel. Shortly afterwards the doorbell rang again, and a young woman came looking for chocolate milk. When the man and the woman saw each other, they said, as if with one voice: ‘No!'

Annette and Nickel went up to each other, and after a brief hesitation, they embraced.

‘What are you doing here?' Annette asked, laughing.

‘Christmas,' answered Nickel, ‘what can you do? The old folk insist on it.'

Annette nodded. ‘That's how it is. And we do them the favour.'

Nickel grinned. ‘As long as we survive!'

When Mr Scheibel returned to the till with candied lemon peel and chocolate, he heard the woman ask: ‘So what are you doing with your German doctorate?'

‘I'm sort of a general secretary on a committee for saving Europe.'

‘For saving Europe...? I thought South America was your speciality.'

‘That was before. Everything in its time. And you?'

‘I'm a mother.'

‘No! Really?'

‘Mother and housewife. I'd never have thought it possible, but to be quite honest: it's wonderful!'

‘I know. To start with you think, well...but then...Lycka says the same.'

‘Roger - you must know him from that soap
Kreuzberg - Harder Than Steel
- he says: What's important is the nest. Maybe it seems fairly conventional at first, but after a while you notice that there's a lot of truth in it.'

‘But I'd be the last person to contradict him.'

Annette and Nickel smiled at each other.

‘Well,' said Annette, turning to Mr Scheibel: ‘I'd like three bottles of cola too,' and to Nickel: ‘Roger is addicted to cola - totally crazy.'

Nickel shook his head. ‘Imagine.'

Mr Scheibel called to the store room: ‘Case of cola, Hoffmann!'

Annette and Nickel looked at each other. Then they nodded knowingly.

Fred came through the grey plastic flaps, that separated the store room from the shop, paused for a moment and eyed the customers. Then he carried the case of drinks to the till, stood next to it and looked at the floor.

Annette and Nickel were in a hurry. ‘What do we owe you?'

Scheibel took the money, and Annette and Nickel murmured: ‘Happy Christmas,' and left the shop.

When the sound of the doorbell died down, Scheibel turned to his assistant and frowned at him. ‘Something wrong, Hoffmann?'

Fred kept his eyes to the floor and said quietly: ‘
Call me Hopeman, Scheibel. I
told you a hundred times: Call me Hopeman!
'

 

 

 

This ebook edition published in 2013

by No Exit Press, an imprint of Oldcastle Books

P O Box 394, Harpenden, AL5 1XJ

www.noexit.co.uk/arjouni

First published in German by Diogenes Verlag AG Zurich 1996

Copyright © 1996 Jakob Arjouni & Diogenes Verlag AG, Zurich

First published in the UK in 1998 by No Exit Press

The right of Jakob Arjouni to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

All rights reserved. This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author's and publisher's rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

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ISBN

978–1–84243–770-4 (print)

978–1–84243–771-1 (epub)

978–1–84243–772-8 (kindle)

978–1–84243–773-5 (pdf)

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