The Stronger Sex (7 page)

“How true!” His mouth twisted in a wry smile. “Just about nothing, I'd say! But you're forgetting the fitters' workshop. He was employed there at the time, as a foreman or something. Anyway, they kept meeting each other by chance on the site after she'd moved into her studio in the yard.”

He stopped. After a while I asked, slightly incredulously, “And so she fell in love with him?”

He looked at me, smiled, shrugged his shoulders and turned back to the window. “Looks like it, wouldn't you say?”

“Yes, but…” I stopped short, suddenly realizing that this conversation was taking its toll on him. Whatever I said to explain why I couldn't understand Cilly Klofft's deciding to marry this man, why I thought it incredible, it would hurt Hochkeppel, I felt sure of that. Because I'd have been hammering it home that it meant casting an unattractive shadow of doubt on Cilly herself, on her taste and her judgement.

He too was silent for a while. When I began to fear that the silence might get embarrassing, he said suddenly, “You know, Alexander… I can't explain it properly either. But he was rather good-looking in those days. A woman's kind of man, people said, though Heaven knows what that means.” After a pause he added, “And among the art students she'd mingled with there were quite a number of rather, well,
weedy characters. He'd have seemed like something more than that. A real man, so to speak, no question of it.”

His mouth twisted. Then he said, “Or maybe she was impressed by him as a technological genius, an inventor. I'm sure he made a great display of that. And he really had invented a few things already. Took out patents for them. Valves of some sort, gauges, devices for adjusting measurements precisely. I remember a beer-tapping system, but there were much more complex things as well. At the time he was begging his boss, the owner of the fitters' workshop, to go in on the production of these instruments. But he was probably too old and too inflexible, so Klofft's devices had to be shelved, for the time being anyway.”

He nodded, and then said, “The misunderstood genius, do you see?” After a small pause he added, with a caustic laugh, “Extremely interesting, that kind of thing! And extremely attractive, I assume.” He all but closed his eyes and fell silent.

Then he suddenly sat up, looked at me as if he had just woken from sleep and asked, “Did you find anything in the file?”

It took me a moment to realize what he was talking about. “In Klofft's file – no. Or nothing I could use against Frau Fuchs.” I hesitated, and added, “More like the opposite. More like something she could use against us.”

He frowned and looked at me keenly. “And what might that be?”

“She booked a few treatments in that hotel. Medical treatments, obviously. Even on the first day. That's in the detective's report. And he said that the hotel lays stress on its range of what its advertising calls ‘wellness' treatments. Medical treatments.”

“Didn't this Sherlock Holmes character bring back one of the hotel's brochures with a list of the treatments on offer?”

I hesitated, and then said, “His report did indicate that there was something of the kind. But it wasn't in the folder.”

“So?”

I looked enquiringly at him.

“Have you asked Klofft about it yet?”

After a moment I said, “Not yet. No.”

“Then off you go and do it,” he said. “Put the fear of God into him. It's no use leaving him in peace. He'll only think he can put one over on us.”

I got to my feet, hesitated for a moment and then said, “OK. See you later, then.” I went to the door. As I glanced back, leaving the room, I saw that he had taken his glasses off and had bent his head, pressing his thumbs and forefingers to his eyes.

7

In my room the heavy silence of a summer afternoon reigned. I hesitated for a moment, but then picked up the phone and rang Klofft's private number. I got the answering machine. “You have reached the home of Cilly and Herbert Klofft…”

It was her voice. I listened, and by the end of the recorded message I was so confused that after the beep I could only swallow for a moment. Then I said quickly, “Good afternoon, Frau Klofft, this is… good afternoon, Herr Klofft, this is Alexander Zabel. I must… I must speak to Herr Klofft, it's urgent. Please let me know when I could reach him. Many thanks and… well, it would be best if I could come to your house. As soon… as soon as possible. Thanks… yes, thanks and goodbye.”

I hung up and left my hand on the receiver. Judging by what I'd stammered out, she'd be likely to assume I was
unhinged. The heat of the sun was making itself felt in the room in spite of the air conditioning. My hand on the receiver was beginning to sweat.

I went over to the window and opened it, because I suddenly needed to be in touch with the sounds of the outside world, maybe even a breath of wind. But the warm air that suddenly flooded in made me close the window again at once. I stood there for a moment and then sat down at my desk, picked up the folder on top of the pile that Simone had left on the left-hand side of it, and opened it.

I stared for some time at Hochkeppel's remark to me; Simone had taken it down and attached it to the first page of the file. When I realized that I had not taken in any of these comments, let alone understood them, I closed the file and pushed it away. I hesitated for a moment, then picked up the phone and pressed the redial key.

Yet again I got the answering machine. I listened to her voice until the beep sounded, and then I quickly broke the connection.

I spent a little while trying to relax. I leaned back, propped my elbows on the arms of the chair, placed my fingertips together and closed my eyes. But this sort of hocus-pocus, as practised and frequently recommended to me by Frauke, has never yet helped me. I opened my eyes again, opened Klofft's folder and began leafing through it.

After a short time I raised my eyes from the file. I looked at the telephone and then at my watch. It was not a decision I'd thought about, making it on the basis of clear reflection, it was more of a reflex action working independently of my mind. I put Klofft's papers in my briefcase, left my office and looked in at the secretaries' door. “I'll be at Herr Klofft's, I don't know for how long. See you!”

I didn't drive down the busy main street of the old suburb; like Karl Schaffrath, I took the expressway going upstream beside the bank. The traffic wasn't too dense, I had opened
the window, and reasonably cool air blew in over the river. I began to feel at ease. However, I also realized that that wasn't just because of the pleasant breeze.

I knew it was the prospect of seeing Cilly Klofft again today, on a pretext handed to me by Hochkeppel in person, and one that even sounded plausible.

It was as if my boss had instructed me to play with fire, and at the same time absolved me of any responsibility. It was like a big win in some kind of celestial lottery, an outing to Paradise, without any conditions, without any threat of penalties if I happened to be transgressing the laws of the place. Authority had given me permission to sin and absolved me in advance.

Of course I knew that this comfortable feeling was bound to prove deceptive very soon. Old Hochkeppel was not Lord God almighty. And he certainly had not sent me chasing off to the Kloffts in such a hurry so that I could get closer to the woman who had been the love of his life. More likely he wanted to get a clearer notion of whether her husband, obsessed as he was, had already involved our legal practice in something from which we wouldn't be able to extricate ourselves intact.

That was clear to me, yet as I turned into the shelter of the old avenue, I was overcome by a bold, improper, utterly impossible idea. It was the same idea that had occurred to me once before, when I was sitting next to Karl Schaffrath as he drove me back along this avenue from my first visit to the Kloffts, and I saw the flickering sunlight filtering through the leaf canopy of the elms behind my closed eyelids.

I saw Cilly Klofft sunbathing on her terrace, concealed in the little garden with its profusion of green to shelter her from prying eyes. I tried not to, but for a moment I saw what had been hidden from me at our two meetings and would continue to be hidden from me. I saw her naked.

Then the sense that I was embarrassingly, shockingly breaking a taboo gained the upper hand. What had come over me? Had Frauke maybe hit the bull's-eye with her ridiculous suspicion? Even if her insinuation that I'd been intimate with Cilly Klofft was wrong – wasn't it what I secretly wanted? And if that was so, ought I not to reproach myself for a deviation from the straight and narrow? And at the same time of an outrageous insult to this woman?

When I turned into the drive, and after some hesitation left my car outside the garage, I was sorry that I hadn't stopped for a moment on the way to try to disentangle my confused feelings. Too late now. I went up the three steps and rang the bell. The little chime sounded inside the house.

After that there was no sound for quite a long time. It struck me that I could go back at once and avoid a confrontation with Cilly Klofft. Next moment I realized that my wish to see her again was too strong for that. I waited.

Maybe she was out with him somewhere. Surely he must sometimes want to leave the house. Maybe Karl was driving them to a café with a garden where Herr Klofft felt like drinking coffee.

I was wondering whether to ring again when suddenly the door opened, slowly and soundlessly. Just inside it Cilly Klofft appeared in a grey smock spattered with splashes of colour. I saw her eyes shining in the dim light of the entrance hall. She was smiling at me.

“Well, what a nice surprise! I didn't expect to see you again so soon! Come on in!” She held the door open.

My scruples were gone. I said, “I didn't mean to take you by surprise. I called and left a message.”

“I haven't listened to it. And my husband probably hasn't either.” She glanced at the stairs. “He'll probably still be having his siesta.”

“I'm sorry if I…”

“No, no, that's no problem.” She glanced down at herself and looked at her smock. The thought came to me that because of this heat she wasn't wearing much under it. She said, “Go into the living room for a minute, and I'll just change into something else.”

“No, please don't bother! I… I don't want to disturb your work. I only came because I need to speak to your husband, urgently.”

She looked at me as if wondering what to make of that. “But won't you have time for a cup of tea with me?”

“Well, yes… yes, that should be possible.”

“Then come along. We'll look in and see what my husband is doing first.”

I went up the stairs ahead of her. On the way I turned and said, lowering my voice, “I didn't know you had a studio here.”

“Oh, it's only a makeshift. I fitted it up for myself after my husband stopped… stopped going out any more. He wanted… well, yes.” When we had reached the top of the stairs, she signed to me to wait. She went to a door beside the room to which she had led me on my first visit, opened it cautiously and looked inside. Then she closed the door again, shaking her head. “No, he's not in bed.”

She went to Klofft's daytime room, opened the door, looked in. “Herbert? Dr Zabel is here.”

I didn't hear any answer. She nodded to me; I went past her and into the room and closed the door behind me.

Klofft was sitting at his laptop beyond the balcony door, and its screen showed a game of chess in progress. He had a thin cigar with a thread of blue smoke rising from it between his lips. He waved his hand vaguely in the air behind him, without looking round, and said indistinctly, cigar bobbing about, “Sit down. This will take a moment.”

I had an idea that he was trying to provoke me with his brusque behaviour. I went over, put my briefcase down on
his table, leaned forward and looked at the position of the chessmen on the screen. Then I said, “Rodzynski versus Alekhine. Paris 1913, right?”

He sat still for a moment. Then he turned slowly to look at me. “You're bluffing.”

“What do you mean?”

“Don't pretend you have that game in your head. Do you think you can fool me? You found it in
Prisma
magazine, just like me two weeks ago. With a commentary by Norbert Heymann.”

I smiled. “Did I claim I didn't?”

“It'd have been the height of impudence if you had.” He glanced at the position of the game on the screen. “Rather an amusing performance. I don't mean yours. I mean the way Alekhine demolished his opponent. Antediluvian, but amusing.”

“Yes, you could call it that. The two-knights sacrifice.”

He turned to me again. “So you play chess?”

“I did. Not enough time these days.”

He nodded. “Same as me. Only with me it's been like that for some years.”

“What club did you play with?”

“Turm 1899.”

“Oh.” I scratched my cheek. “That was in the Supreme League?”

“For two years, in the old days, but mainly I played in the Provincial League.”

“All the same!”

He shrugged his shoulders. Then he said, “How about a game?”

I took a deep breath. “Another time.”

He grinned. “Wriggling out of it!”

“No, I'm not, but just at the moment there's something more important on my mind.”

He looked at me, frowning.

I said, “Do you have the brochure of that hotel in Switzerland, the one your detective Herr… Herr Manderscheidt brought you; did you keep it? In his report Herr Manderscheidt refers to it as if it ought to be in the file, but it isn't.”