The Stronger Sex (35 page)

I dried myself quickly and called Klofft's number. Cilly answered, obviously surprised that I was ringing so early. I asked how her husband was. She said all right, and why? Was there any special reason?

He had obviously kept quiet about our meeting on Sunday morning and the reason for it. I told her that he had called me and I had gone out to see him.

“For anything in particular?” she asked. “I mean, did he want to tell you anything new about that case of dismissal without notice?”

I said, “That too, but mainly he called me because he was feeling bad. Very bad.”

She said nothing for a moment. Then she asked, “Do you mean physically?”

“Not just physically… mentally as well. But not least physically, yes. For a moment I was afraid he might actually die while he was on the phone to me.”

“Oh.” She said nothing for a while, and then went on. “When I helped him out of bed and into the bathroom yesterday morning, and got him dressed, he was the same as usual. And when I took him his breakfast later. Or I wouldn't have gone out. But I thought I could leave him on his own until Olga came. She was going to bring him a piece of her home-made cake and make him some soup for lunch.”

I said, “Yes, I know.”

“And she did. What time did he call you, then?”

“Around ten thirty, or not quite.”

She made a non-committal sound.

It was difficult for me, but I went on all the same. “You know… I'm anything but knowledgeable about medicine, but I think… I got the impression yesterday morning that he's in, well, a very delicate state of health. Rather unstable. Rather dangerous. I think that… strictly speaking he shouldn't be left alone. He could stand up and then stumble at any time; he might even fall to his death! Or have one of those attacks when he goes red and comes out in a sweat, his blood pressure going right up or something, and he'd need a doctor at once, but he wouldn't be able to call one himself, or he might be too obstinate to do it, and…”

“But my dear Alexander… how am I supposed to prevent it? I can't sit beside him day and night, noticing every movement, every drop of sweat and…” Suddenly I heard a suppressed sound, a cough, no, it wasn't a cough, but when she went on, her voice sounded tense, constrained, high, as if she were forcing herself to speak. She said, “Look, he wants to sleep on his own, and I want that too, but how often do you think I wake up in the night and listen because I think I heard a clatter, the noise he'd make falling downstairs if he wanted to fetch a bottle of wine, tried to get on the stair lift, felt dizzy and then…”

She was sobbing wildly. “How am I supposed to prevent it?”

I was horrified. I cried, “Cilly! Cilly, don't!” For some time I heard only inarticulate sounds on the line. I said, “Please don't, Cilly, please! I didn't want to…”

After a pause, in which I just heard her breathing, she said, “All right.” Her voice sounded the same as usual again, a little cool but not unfriendly. “I'm sorry. I know it's risky to leave him alone. You're right. But he knows he can call me any time. At the studio or wherever I am. He knew I was at the studio. He'd only have had to call me. Well, this time he called you.”

I listened intently to her voice. Was there an undertone to that? An undertone of jealousy?

Nonsense! That was certainly a fantastic notion. But one way or the other there was still something I had to tell her. I cleared my throat and then said, “And by the way, he told me the answers to those two questions. The answers you didn't want to give me.”

“Ah. Did he?”

“Yes.”

After a moment she said, “Did you want to speak to him now?”

“No! No, I…”

“You can set your mind at rest, I've just been into his room, and he's OK. He's the same as usual.”

“Yes, yes, I understand that. I… I'll ring again if I may.”

“Of course you may.”

Hochkeppel was already at the office when I arrived. Simone said, a little reproachfully, “He's just been asking whether you were out at a meeting.” I put my briefcase in my office and went in to see the boss. He lowered the newspaper he had been reading, or pretending to be reading, and pointed to the chair in front of his desk.

I sat down and said, “I hope you had a nice weekend?”

“Very nice, thank you.” He hesitated and then asked, “How about yours?”

“Not so good.”

“No?” he asked, as if my answer had surprised him, but I suddenly felt sure that he knew all about it, right up to the last few words I had exchanged with Cilly. She'd had time to call him, whether at home or at the office, and tell him the whole story. It rankled that she obviously trusted him more than she trusted me. “No quarrels with Frau Leisner, I hope?”

“No, no, far from it.” I took a deep breath and said, “Well, I went to see Klofft. Yesterday morning. He rang me. He
was on his own, his wife had gone out. To her studio. And the Polish woman who comes in to look after him was out. It seems that at weekends her husband likes to have her at home and… available to him.”

He listened attentively. You might have thought everything I was saying was news to him.

I said, “He was obviously desperate when he called me. It was probably one of those attacks I've seen him having before. Flushes, racing heartbeat, I assume. Very short of breath. And he was in fear of death. When I got there, he felt better. I think being on his own depressed him. And the fear of being helpless. Unable to do anything to help himself.”

He raised his glasses slightly. “Why didn't he call his wife? She could have come home at once.”

I let the corners of my mouth drop as if I didn't know the answer, and shrugged my shoulders. He ignored this, and asked instead, “And why didn't he call the doctor?”

“He doesn't trust doctors. At least, that's what he told me.”

“Yes, yes, and above all he's afraid that would tarnish his image. The great Klofft, sick and weak, putting himself into other people's hands. People who would tell him what to do and what not to do.”

I said, “I don't think it was that. I think that by now his view of that problem… of his situation is a little different. Well, very different, I think.”

He raised his eyebrows and stared at me for a minute. Then he lowered them again, and turned his eyes away from me. Finally he asked, “Was that all?”

“No.”

He looked at me as if I was keeping him in suspense to know what, as I was now sure, he knew already.

I said, “He answered the two questions we've already discussed here.”

Hochkeppel frowned. “Two questions?”

“Yes. Two questions to which Frau Klofft already… knew part of the answers, but she didn't want to tell me.”

“I see, I see,” he said. “So?”

I said, “Frau Fuchs did in fact threaten to go off work sick if he wouldn't let her have the week off that she wanted. And he said she could have her week off if she would sleep with him once again… no, to be precise, two more times. Once right then, during that conversation, and then again when she was back from her holiday.”

He said, mouth hardly open, “I can hardly believe it! The old goat!”

I thought fleetingly of the hunting expedition in Hungary when Hochkeppel had been one of Klofft's party, and I thought of Julischka, yes, that was her name. I said, “But that wasn't the whole of it. Frau Fuchs said she'd go along with that. She helped him to, well, get it up. Orally. Although he never got it in. She suddenly felt disgusted and marched out.”

He stared at me in silence.

I said, “But I doubt whether that changes the fact of coercion.”

“No. Hardly.” He was silent for a while, and then said, “Alex, I'm sorry I got you into… into such a messy business. I didn't know all this, believe me. I thought I was ready for anything, but not a thing like that, I assure you.”

“I believe you.” I laughed. “And I can always take his advice if all else fails.”

“Advice?” He sounded slightly alarmed. “What advice did he give you?”

“He said now I could decline to represent him. As I'd already threatened to do. No one could expect me, he said, to represent a… someone like him in court.”

“He said that?”

“In those very words.”

He swallowed audibly. Then he said, “But you wouldn't do that, would you?” Open-mouthed, he stared at me. “Decline to act for him, I mean… you wouldn't do that to me? Would you?”

As I returned his glance, I noticed that I was instinctively frowning.

He said, “I did explain that we mustn't lose this case. Or give up on it. Because then everyone would think I lost it – or gave it up – on purpose. Out of ancient vengeful feelings. To hit Klofft where it hurts. Everyone would think I'd sent you out as a front man and I was steering you from the background. We can't allow that impression, can we? Do you understand why I said you surely wouldn't do that to us?”

“Yes, yes, I do! And I haven't forgotten anything.” I shook my head. “Set your mind at rest, I'm not declining to represent him.”

He nodded, obviously very pleased.

I stood up and looked at him. “I'm not letting the man down when he needs help. Whatever he's been up to.”

He nodded. Then he said quickly, “And we may be in luck. It could be that Frau Fuchs herself doesn't want this… this sex stuff broadcast far and wide. Because she won't want the new boyfriend to hear about it.” He laughed. “Maybe he's a little prim about that kind of thing.” Then he asked quickly, “How much time do we have left? Until the hearing, I mean?”

“A good two weeks.”

He nodded. “Tell me if you have any questions. I mean, we should sit down together again anyway and discuss the whole case. In all its aspects. And all the eventualities. The judge is Dr Pandlitz, isn't he?”

“Yes.” He seemed to be in such high spirits that I was afraid he would go on chatting for ever now. “I'll get down to work,” I said.

“Yes, good. Do you have a lot to do today?”

“No, but there are some things I have to catch up on.”

“Yes, do that. But not too much of it.” He laughed.

I was still with Simone and Frau Enke when he left the office in his hat and coat. “I have a meeting now,” he told us. “And then I'm lunching at home. Enjoy your own lunch, all of you.”

“Same to you, Dr Hochkeppel,” said the ladies in chorus.

36

Over the next few days I called Klofft twice. Both times Cilly answered the phone, and both times she said only that he was all right, but he was asleep in his chair just now. I didn't feel quite comfortable about this, and I didn't want to wait for the end of the week and then sacrifice the weekend to getting rid of that uneasy feeling. I called him on Friday at noon, when I had finished my spell in court. Once again Cilly answered.

I said I had to see him to show him a document, and asked if I could drop in.

She said yes, of course, and then against all expectations we would see each other again.

This time, as I was coming straight from court, I drove not along the expressway by the river but through the old suburb. It was a hot day. An Indian summer had set in, and women wore summer dresses and sandals and left their legs bare. Only the older Turkish women went about in their heavy, ankle-length garments. Their wrinkled brown faces under their headscarves ought to have been shiny with sweat, but they looked dried out. Once again my image of Cilly came to the front of my mind. Her graceful, suntanned limbs stretched out on the deckchair in her garden.

I stopped at traffic lights and felt as if I could catch, through the open door of the old house, its slightly musty but cool smell, felt as if I could see the muted glow of the floor and wall tiles in the hall, the dimly lit wooden stairs. Then a breath of wind blowing through the open car window brought me the smell of fresh vegetables and fruit from the lavish display in front of the shop on the corner here.

Not Olga but Cilly opened the door to me. She was wearing her painter's smock and green sandals on her bare feet. The sandals made an attractive contrast to the red of the varnish on her toenails.

She invited me in, closed the door behind me and said in an undertone, “I thought we were never going to set eyes on each other in this world again.” She laughed softly.

I said, instinctively lowering my voice as well, “I'm sorry… I really do have a lot of work to do.”

“And that's all? Really?”

She looked up, as if to see whether there was anyone up there eavesdropping on us. Then she put her hand on my arm and led me to the other end of the hall, where she stopped and stood right in front of me. She left her hand on my arm.

She said, “Not in a bad mood? No resentment of our difference of opinion?” Her eyes shone in the dim light. “Not sick and tired of this old woman and her unpredictable whims and moods?”

“What on earth are you talking about?” I said. “You're not an old woman!”

It was the same as the first time we kissed on the sofa in her studio: I don't know now how it happened, whether I made the first move or she did, but suddenly our lips were together, and this time it was not a gentle kiss that she gave me. I felt her tongue and then her teeth, and finally she thrust her stomach forward and pressed it to mine.

I did not retreat, although the question of whether she wasn't afraid of the risk throbbed inside my head. Because it
was
a risk we were running, she in particular, even if Olga wasn't in the house, or Karl, or any of the other servants, of whom there were several, the gardener or the cleaning lady or whoever. I didn't retreat.