Poachers Road (28 page)

She sighed.

“Oh I don’t know. Ach, I should keep my trap shut. Tomorrow – ask your opa tomorrow.”

TWENTY-NINE

W
ITH
B
ERNDT FOR COMPANY AND A BARE LIGHT BULB DRAPED
by a half-dozen strands of old cobwebs to light his way, Felix was soon elbowing his way around the rafters of what had been the vegetable store.

There was still a faint glow over the hills, but the night had come on fast.The dog was doing a lot of grunting, settling, and licking at its paws. From time to time Felix could hear the sniffling and kicks from the pigs.

The coolness soaked into his clothes and became a chill on his skin. Dust stirred, some of it falling like powder between the old boards that formed the floor of the loft. Old bicycle parts had found their way there for Opa Nagl to reuse at some date in the future, a date that had not come around and probably never would. There were even old rat poison tins that had been cleaned out.

He came upon dozens of wooden coat hangers, and then several carburetors or so he believed they were and at least a dozen tins that had once held cakes, but were stained with rust.There were neatly stacked pieces of Formica that Opa had used on kitchen counters.They must be 40 years old, at least. Baling twine, and rolls of wire.

The “suitcase” as Opa had called it was in fact a cheap, plasticy soft-sided bag. There were still travel tags attached where the small belt at the top had been left unbuckled. Felix slid it over, dislodging grit and dust that rained down on the dog.

“Sorry,” he said as the dog laboured up and shook itself. “I appreciate the company and all that.”

The tags were airline, Austrian Airways both. ATH was Athens right: Felix’s mother still mentioned how beautiful the Greek islands were. The 70s?

The other tag Felix couldn’t guess, someplace ESP. Spain? The puny combination lock was set. Felix tried his mother’s birthday, then his dad’s, finally his and Lisi’s. He started to look around for something to cut the strap, or snap the metal casing. Pincers maybe.

It was light. He might as well haul it down below and work on it there. He considered just dropping it to the hardened earthen floor but carried it down the ladder instead. A few steps from the ground he ran into the smell and he stopped, and tried to wave it away.

Berndt’s tail shuddered and his ears went back at the sounds of his name. Not altogether deaf then, Felix thought, and looked into the mournful eyes as the dog let his muzzle down on his paws again.

There was nothing in the shed for the job. Felix took out his keys and levered open the Swiss penknife’s blade.

“Don’t tell,” he muttered. “And I’ll keep quiet about you and your farts, okay?”

The leatherette gave way to the blade easily when it was held tight, and Felix slid his hand into the slit. He stopped then, and tried to figure out the faint scent that was coming from the hole in the case. Musty, certainly, but there was a trace of lavender. There were papers held with rubber bands. No rats, he almost said aloud.

He worked the slash more with his hands and began taking out the contents.

There were maps tied with more rubber bands, big envelopes with things sliding around in them: photos? There were copies of Gendarmerie reports too, old photostat copies that felt gritty under his fingertips.

Felix shook the case and tried again. He inserted his arm, and groped about for pockets inside. When he was sure he had all the stuff out he began to gather it. He hesitated then. He’d be here a couple of days. It was better to put the stuff back up, and then sneak the carry-all into his car and take them back to the apartment to read them again, if there was anything worth taking away.

He opened several of the maps in turn. The light bulb was almost useless. What was the point of keeping two old, identical tourist maps of Styria? They were actually from the 60s, not the 70s, he saw. There was another one of Austria: 1964? Maybe they were antiques someone was holding for some future windfall. The models on the front were worth a laugh anyway, if nothing else. The blonde hair on the girl had been lacquered into a helmet shape. Her Mann had a hairdo that aged better, a brush cut, and they seemed overjoyed with their map more than the Karmann Ghia parked conveniently in front of the mountains and the picturesque reflecting lake.

“There you go, Berndt,” he whispered. “Even before your time.

‘The Green Heart of Austria,’ our very own Steiermark.”

The dog’s eyes moved but that was it. The rubber bands on the second bundle gave way when Felix lifted them, and one map fell.

In the milky, dim light he saw it was different from the other. There was no colour to it, but it was well used, and strangely thick and robust, almost like a sheet.

This made no sense, he realized: it wasn’t in German. It wasn’t Austria. It wasn’t readable. He held it up close and moved around, trying to get the light to reveal more. Serbo-Croatian, he decided, and no tourist map. He left it open and picked up some others. Of the other three, two were local district maps, Austrian ones, and Felix saw names he knew: Leibnitz, Bad Radkersburg.The language changed at the yellow stripe, the border with Slovenia. Someone had traced the course of the Mur down from Graz, to where it entered Slovenia. It was exactly at the border, where the motorway booths were. Used to be: Felix looked up from the paper when he remembered. The frontier posts had been removed when Slovenia had gotten its junior ticket into the EU.

It took effort to see more detail. Darker spots became apparent, each made with the same black marker, Felix decided. It had been fine-tipped and the lines it made showed no signs of the careless tracing of someone in a hurry. It had been used to draw small circles and symbols too, most of them were within a finger’s length of the border. That was “15 km,” Felix guessed. Nearly all were Ts with a stroke across the bottom, a mirrored T of some kind.

He rubbed at his eyes, and realized too late that his hands had been covered in dust. He got up from his knee and held his left eye shut. Patience, he knew; “don’t rub it it makes it worse.”

“No,” he said, seeing Berndt beginning to rise. “Not much longer though.”

The dog’s ears went up and then dropped as he bent down to pat its head. It gave a contented sigh, half snuffle, half moan.

Felix kept his watery eye shut and went back to the maps, squinting and holding it up toward the light bulb. The paper yellowed with the light behind it, but now he saw the faint marks left by a ballpoint pen higher up on the map.They had a tiny liquid glint to them even now, like a snail’s track. The paper there had held the impressions left by the pen too.

It was annoying now: he just had to rub his eye. He let the map down on the ground and put the heel of his hand right on the eye, gently twisting it. He wondered but didn’t care what vile germs were in the dust now scratching through his eye.

The dog gave a half-hearted yelp. Felix opened his good eye a little, and watched it raise its head and bob it slowly side to side a few times.Then it shrugged itself up to standing, and Felix watched the ears stirring. Soon its body went from the arthritic slump into something closer to the taut posture Felix remembered from a decade ago.

“What is it, Berndt? Ghosts again, you old bat?”

The dog looked up at the mention of his name, before padding with liquid-sounding, wheezy breaths to the doorway. Felix followed him, and undid the hook.

“Go then, dummy,” he murmured. “Find your cat or your rat, but watch you don’t run into the wall.”

Whatever dirt was on his cornea was moving again. Felix closed and then opened his eyes several times. It wasn’t working. He heard another bark, more a howl than a bark. He held his eyelid closed and opened his good eye. The bugger was out of sight now, beyond the gable end of the house, where the cars were parked. He heard the pigs were shuffling about, and their grunts and snuffles were almost a conversation. Felix made a low whistle, keeping his eye on the edge of the wall.

The barks were more vigorous now. Felix let his eyelid up slowly. The grit seemed to have slid off his eye. He blinked to test it, and it worked, but was still watering. He made a louder whistle and called the dog’s name. So: Berndt was deaf when it suited him, apparently. But the mutt seemed to have found something Felix headed across the yard but stopped after a few steps.

Foxes, he wondered, or even a wolf down after the winter, hungry?

He remembered something about a wild dog someone had told him growing up.

He returned to the storehouse and looked about for something; a pitchfork, any kind of a tool – or even a stick would do.

There was nothing except a length of light aluminium pipe, very light, with a pinch in it. A makeshift fence post, he remembered then, from an experiment to raise rabbits. He heard the dog barking again, and gave up searching for anything with more heft.

The floodlight went on as he began to skip out into the yard.

He shielded his eyes with his free hand; he wondered why the dog hadn’t set it off. There was no Berndt here now. Felix heard him somewhere off in the dark close by, growling almost all the time now.

Then there was a yelp, and a second one. It was followed by a low, steady growl that broke off into a whine.

Felix rounded the gable end of the farmhouse and called out.

The dark form, half skipping and half loping toward him, had better be Berndt. He lifted the pipe. It was his grandfather’s dog all right. It moved low to the ground, its legs stiff and splayed.

“Felix?”

It was Opa at the door, without his dentures.

“What in the name of Christ is going on?”

“Berndt’s spooked. He went after something.”

He tried not to notice his grandfather’s sunken mouth.

“I think he was bitten maybe,” he added.

Limping a little, the dog returned to the side of Felix’s car. He heard a low steady growl coming deep from its throat. Its back end wagged once or twice.

“Some light, Opa. It could track a satellite.”

“It’s a quartz one, they told me they’re good. The Watch people what am I saying? Your fellows, the Gendarmerie. I was wondering about burglaries a while back. They – you said install lots of lights. With those things on them.”

“Motion sensor?”

“What?”

“Do they come on if someone walks by?”

“Sure they do. That’s the idea. When they’re on, that is. The verdammt things go off if a goddamned bat goes by. Don’t laugh. It happens up here. Sometimes I put off that thing you said. That motion thing.”

He reached down to pat the dog. Beyond the whitewashed walls and the orchards’ closer trees was inky black.

“Uhh,” his grandfather sighed. “Something might have gotten a bite of Berndt you know I’ll bet it’s that idiot Kreiner up the road. That depp who ‘forgets’ about his dogs. He has a couple of nasty brutes he doesn’t bother to discipline, I tell you.”

Felix turned the tip of the metal post on the cement.

“You poor fool,” said his grandfather to the dog. “Yes, I can feel something. Where are my glasses?”

Beside the cup with your teeth in them, Felix didn’t say. He walked toward the bushes. The yard light caught pieces of the trim and the windows on the cars. Felix stepped closer to be sure the interior light in his Polo was actually on.

He wasn’t mistaken. He stopped, and listened, and moved his hand down the pipe, grasping it tighter. His grandfather’s low chatter as he tried to soothe the dog, blended with paws scratching on the cement. There were no cars on the road this time of night up here.

The light stayed on. The door wasn’t closed properly. Now he felt that pressure building in his diaphragm, the tingling and tightness at the back of his neck. Again he strained to block out the mutterings from his grandfather. There was nothing.

The lit interior of the Polo reminded him of a fish tank in the living room at night. There was a shadow following the edge of the door down where it had not been closed tight. The usual junk was still strewn about inside. There was no change, no rearranging he could discern.

He opened the door and waited a moment before leaning in to check the glove compartment. Again there was nothing different.

He leaned over to lock the driver’s side. He checked the trunk, and did a walk-around to both doors then to be sure he had locked them.

His grandfather was fingering Berndt’s back, squinting, muttering.

“Is your car locked, Opa?”

“I never lock it.”

Felix shrugged. His grandfather stood up slowly.

“Geh scheissen,” he said. “You think we had a visitor here?

Some gauner . . . ?”

“You said something about burglary here, and that’s why you bought the lights?”

His grandfather seemed puzzled.

“Well I heard that. But your oma wanted them. We always have a crop of dummies in the area, young fellows, but”

Felix had put up his hand without knowing it. He turned slightly to hear better. It didn’t help much. The driver was not revving it much at all.The engine wasn’t one of the whiny two-strokes, he was sure. Felix listened as the engine surged a little and then lessened on the bike’s descent. It was a four-stroke all right. Whoever was on it was taking hilly ground, and in no apparent hurry. The sound faded quickly then.