War & War (34 page)

13.

There was just the one bed in the bedroom, a store dummy propped by the window as if looking out and in the kitchen nothing but a bare table and four chairs, one of the chairs occupied by another store dummy raising its right hand and pointing at something on the ceiling or beyond it; which left the sitting room with its TV, three armchairs, one dummy and the man, now replaced by Korin, the rest bare, practically empty, the walls alone being covered with photographs, or rather several copies of the same photograph, as was the whole apartment, one photograph in various sizes, large, middling and vast, but everywhere the same, each of them showing the same thing, a hemispherical structure clad in broken glass, and when the man, hearing a faint rustling, opened his eyes he saw Korin, fully dressed now in his overcoat, waiting, it seemed, to go, looking at the wall, examining the photographs, bowing a little to examine each of them, deeply absorbed in their contents, whereupon Korin, having noticed that the man had woken up, quickly sat down in the armchair again, next to the store dummy and fixed his eyes on the TV, not answering when the man got out of bed and asked him through the door if he wanted a cup of coffee, but kept staring at the silent TV, so the man made coffee for just one, filled himself a cup, added sugar, stirred it and sat down with it next to Korin in the vacant armchair, surprised to find that Korin was after all addressing him, asking where the woman he loved had gone, to which he replied after a long silence simply that she had gone away; and what about her? and the one in the kitchen? and the one at the bus stop? asked Korin nodding toward the various dummies, to which he answered that they all looked like her, slurped once at his coffee, stood up and took the cup out into the kitchen, and by the time he returned Korin seemed not to have noticed his absence and was absorbed in telling his story, describing the two children’s faces as they peered down at him threatening to call the ambulance, and how he had managed to slip away and took shelter in the subway for a while, though every part of him was aching, he said, especially his stomach, his chest and his neck, and his whole head buzzing so that he hardly had the strength to stand, but kept going somehow and got to another subway station, then to another and another, and so forth … but the man stopped him at this point to say, I don’t understand, what are you talking about, but rather than explain Korin stopped altogether and for a while all three of them were simply watching TV, cartoons and advertisements following close on each other’s heels, rapid, jerky, silent images, as if everything was under water, until the man repeated his advice that Korin should leave immediately because it was a tough city and you couldn’t hang around thinking that either someone would kill Korin or the cops would get him, which would be more or less the same thing, he said, and since he seemed to have vast amounts of money he should decide where to go and he, the man, would take care of it, but he needed to pull himself together now, he said, though he could see that Korin was still out of it and that nothing he said had got through, that he was simply frowning at the television, watching it for a long time as though it required all his concentration to keep track of the flickering images on the screen before eventually rising from the armchair, going over to the pictures on the wall, pointing to one of them and asking, and this? where is this?

14.

A temporary bed had been made up for him behind the armchairs in the living room, but though he lay down and pulled the covers over him Korin did not sleep, waiting instead for the man in the bedroom to breathe evenly and start snoring, then he got up, went to the bathroom, touched all the clothes drying there and gazed at the pictures on the wall again, leaning very close since they were just a faint glow in the murk, but by leaning so close he succeeded in examining every one, moving from one to the other, giving each one careful thought before moving on, and that is all he did that night, working his way through the apartment, moving from the bathroom through to the bedroom, then into the living room, returning frequently to the bathroom to check how dry the clothes were, touching them, adjusting them on the radiator, but then, quick as a shot out to examine the photographs again, admiring the strange, airy dome with its arches made of simple steel tubes bent to define a large hemisphere in space, staring at the large uneven glass panes—roughly half a meter or a meter in size—with which the hemisphere was covered, studying the fixing of the joints and trying to make out some text written in bright neon tubes, pressing his head ever closer to the pictures, straining his eyes, concentrating ever more intensely on them, until, it seemed, he had solved something and was in any case finding it easier to make out details that showed a completely empty space surrounded by white walls, and inside it a remarkably light-looking, delicate contraption, a bubble of air, possibly a dwelling of some sort, he said to himself as he moved from one image on to the next, a version of a prehistoric structure, the man later explained to him, yes, a dwelling, the skeleton made of aluminum tubes filled in with broken, irregular panes of glass, something like an igloo; and where was it? asked Korin, the man replying that it was in Schafhausen, and where was Schafhausen? in Switzerland, came the answer, near Zürich, at the point where the Rhine divides the Jura mountains, and is that far? asked Korin, is it far, this Schaffhausen, and if so, how far?

15.

He had called the taxi for two o’clock and the taxi arrived right on the dot so he advised Korin to go now but first he checked the overcoat, regretting the fact that it was still a little damp, and looked in the pockets to see that the passport and ticket were there before giving him some final advice on how to get around JFK, then they were both on their way down to the ground floor, both silent, and so they left the house, the man embracing him before ushering him into the taxi which set off for Brooklyn and the expressway, leaving the man standing in front of the house to raise his hand and wave uncertainly for a while, though Korin was unaware of him for he never turned his head, not even to look through the side windows but sat quite bent over in the back seat, his eyes staring at the road over the driver’s shoulder, it being transparently clear that he was not in the least interested in the view but only in what lay ahead, meaning in what lay ahead over the driver’s shoulder.

1.

There are four of them in it, said Korin, turning to the elderly man in the rabbit-fur hat sitting next to him on the bench beside the lake at Zurich, four people most dear to his heart, and they have been traveling with him, so they’ve been to America but have now returned, not precisely where they had set out from, it was true, but not too far away, and now before their pursuers caught up with them, because they were being constantly pursued, he said, he was seeking a place—a
place
, he said in English—that was just right, some specific point, so that they should not have to keep running for ever and ever, because they could not accompany him where he was going since he was going on to Schaffhausen, but had to go alone, so the others had to get off, and in any case he felt it was possible for them to get off now, while he went on to Schaffhausen—at which the old gentleman’s face brightened and, ah, he said, having understood barely a word of what Korin had been saying, ah, he twisted his moustache, now he understood, and using his walking stick he drew two symbols in the slushy snow at their feet and pointed to one, saying America, then, smiling broadly, began to draw a line between it and the other symbol, saying,
und Schaffhausen
, prodding the other symbol, then, signaling that all was clear at last, pointed to Korin and moved his stick between the two marks in the snow, pronouncing with great satisfaction,
Sie-Amerika-Schaffhausen, this is wonderful
and
Grüβ Gott
, yes, nodded Korin, from America to Schaffhausen but what to do with the four of them, where to leave them, because this is where he should leave them, then he glanced up at the lake, and stared at it with a sudden intensity, shouting,
ah, perhaps the Lake
, in English, delighted to have found a solution, and was immediately on his feet, leaving the startled old gentleman who gazed for a while uncomprehendingly at the two points by his feet in the slushy snow then scratched them away with his stick, stood up, cleared his throat and putting a cheerful face on again strolled off between the trees toward the bridge, looking now right and now left.

2.

The town was smaller, much smaller than the one he had left, yet it was the problem of finding his way around it that worried him most, for despite his anxiety to prevent his pursuers catching up with him he had got lost time and again at the airport, and then, after some kind people had helped him onto the express for Zürich, he had got off the train two stops too early, and so it went on, constantly going the wrong way, getting lost, having to ask people, and the citizens of Zürich were on the whole perfectly prepared to answer his queries, insofar as they understood what he wanted, but even after having arrived by tram at central Bellevue Platz he kept asking passersby where the city center was, and when they replied, go no further, this is the city center, he clearly did not believe them but went round and round in a high state of tension, rubbing his neck, turning his head this way and that, unable to decide on a direction, before finally taking the plunge and choosing one direction, constantly looking back over his shoulder to see if there was anyone following him, then ducked into a park, confronting people and asking them, where gun? where center? most of them not understanding the first enquiry but putting him right as regards the second, saying, this is it, right here, in answer to which Korin would give an irritated wave and walk on, until at the end of the park he spotted a a few figures wearing ragged clothes who were looking at him rather darkly, and seeing them he clearly relaxed, thinking yes, perhaps it’s them, quickly made his way over, stopped and said in English,
I want to buy a revolver
, to which they made no answer for a good while but examined him uncertainly, until eventually one shrugged, saying OK, OK and gestured for him to follow, but he was so nervous and walked so quickly that Korin found it hard to keep up, though he kept repeating
come
,
come
, practically running before him, then eventually stopped at a bench among some hedges where two people were sitting, or rather sitting on its back with their feet up on the seat, one of them about twenty, the other about thirty years of age, the pair of them wearing identical leather jackets, leather trousers, boots and earrings, looking for all the earth like twins, both of them extraordinarily nervous, their feet constantly tapping on the seat of the bench and their fingers constantly drumming on their knees, the pair of them discusssing something in German of which Korin did not understand a word, until eventually the younger one turned to him and said very slowly, in English,
two hours here again
, pointing at the bench, Korin repeating in English,
two hours? here?
, and OK, he said, it’s OK,
aber cash
, said the elder one leaning into his face,
dollar, OK?
and Korin took a step back while the other grinned,
three hundred dollar
, you get it,
three hundred dollar
, and Korin nodded to say that was all right,
it’s all right
, in
two hours, here
, and he too pointed at the bench, then left them and set off back through the park, soon to be joined by the man who had escorted him so far, constantly whispering
pot, pot, pot, pot
into his ear and drawing some mysterious diagram on his palm with his finger until they reached the end of the park where the escort gave up and left him, Korin still repeating to himself, two hours, as he walked down to the Bellevue Platz where, with great difficulty, he persuaded a vendor to sell him a sandwich and a cola for U.S. dollars, and he ate and drank and waited for a while, watching the trams as they arrived over the bridge, turned down a narrow side street and, still clanking and ringing, disappeared; so Korin set off along the bridge to the lake, walking for ages, occasionally looking back over his shoulder, the water on one side of him with a single boat on it, a row of trees on the other and behind them the houses of Bellerivestrasse as he read on a sign, though he came across fewer and fewer people as he walked out of town, arriving eventually at a kind of carnival full of colorful booths, tents, and a Big Wheel, but the place was closed up, so he turned back and retraced his steps, the water with the single boat on it now on his other side, and then again the trees, the houses and ever more people, and ever stronger gusts of wind as he neared Bellevue Platz, and soon he was back in the park receiving the gun and some ammunition packed into a plastic bag, and was shown how to load up, to operate the safety catch and to pull the trigger, and this brief course of instruction being completed the elder man grinned at him once, put the money away and the pair of them vanished as if by magic, as if the ground had swallowed them, thought Korin as he continued to Bellevue Platz, crossed the bridge and found a sheltered place on the other side of the lake where he sat down, feeling quite drained, as he told the elderly gentleman sitting at the other end of the bench, for he had no strength left in him, but he had to be strong because the four of them were still with him, he said, and he could not go on like this, while the old gentleman nodded and hummed to himself and gazed at the solitary boat on the lake directly opposite their bench with a cheerful expression on his face.

3.

He was walking by the Limmat, then down the Mythen Quay toward the dock, for being the harbor master he was obliged to review the situation when the freezing shore presented a possible hazard, particularly to check that the service craft provided in the dock around boats anchored on the lake for the winter were doing their duty by breaking up the thin but potentially dangerous ice, in other words, he said to old cronies at the butcher’s near his home, he was going along on foot, seeing it was nice weather, when in the middle of the Arboretum he suddenly notices that someone is following him, not that he bothers about this, because he thinks it’s probably coincidence, or that the man has some business down there, who knows, it’s perfectly possible, let him dog his steps if he wants, soon enough he’ll turn off somewhere and disappear, but the man did not turn off or disappear, the harbor master raised his voice, nor did he fall behind, no, on the contrary, once they reached the steps down to the dock he comes up to him, addresses him as Mister Captain, and pointing at something on the coat of his uniform begins to gabble in a foreign language, Danish he reckoned, and when he tries to push him aside telling him to spit it out, to speak so he can understand or to leave him alone, the man, with considerable difficulty, manages to put a sentence together, a sentence he takes to mean that he wants to take a boat out, the dope, and when he answers that that is out of the question, it’s winter and there is no water traffic in winter, the man simply keeps on, saying he absolutely must go out, not giving up but taking a load of dollars from his pocket, pressing him to take it, to which he can only answer that it’s not a matter of money, it’s winter and no amount of dollars will alter that, come back in spring, in spring it will be fine—well said, Gusti, one remarked, and how they laughed there at the butcher’s—but wait, the harbor master gestured to his listeners, because by this time he had started to get a little curious himself, and asked the man what on earth he wanted with a boat on the lake, and then the guy—and here he looked around to make a proper effect and told them all to listen closely, hesitating a moment—this guy says
he wants to write something on the water
, well, he thought he had misheard or misunderstood him, but no, just imagine, it seemed the guy really did want to do all that, to take a boat out and use it to write something on the water, on the water, for godssake! he clapped his hands together as the laughter once again rose around him, well, naturally, he should have realized immediately that the man was some kind of nut, the way he was gesturing and explaining and waving his hands about, his eyes like some crazy terrorist’s flashing all the time, indeed, well of course, this should have been enough to give him a clue, but, there it was, now he saw him for what he was, and for sheer entertainment, the harbor master winked at his growing audience, he decided to get to the bottom of this and to ask him what could be so very important,
very important
, he said in English, that it had to be written on water, what, he asked him, and then he started babbling again but he couldn’t understand a word of it despite the fact that the man was trying everything to communicate something with him, trying to make
Herr Kapitan
, as the man insisted on calling him, understand; and then he drew a diagram in the snow with his foot, with here the boat, here how it leaves the dock, here showing it in the middle of the lake, the boat moving like pencil on paper,
like a pencil on the paper
, he had said in English, which was the way of writing on water, the message, in English again, being
way that goes out
—this at least was how he tried to get his message across at first, keeping his anxious eyes on the harbor master’s face, looking for signs of understanding, and when he saw he was getting no reaction, he said,
outgoing-way,
without any more success than before, finally suggesting that they should agree on the formula,
way out
, that the boat would write these words on the water, all right? he asked hopefully, and grabbed hold of the other man’s coat, but the man shook him off and set off down the steps to the dock leaving him, Korin, standing there, out of ideas and utterly helpless, finally seeing the melancholy truth of the situation, before shouting after the man,
no traffic on the lake?
on hearing which the harbor master took a few steps then stopped, turned and shouted back, as any reasonable man might, having finally understood, replying, yes, this was indeed the situation that there was, quite right,
no traffic on the lake
, repeating it,
no traffic on the lake
, and this clearly registered and continued reverberating in Korin’s brain as he turned away from the lake and started walking back, his progress very slow, as if he were weighed down by a terrible burden, his back quite bent over, his head hanging as he passed along Mythen Quay, saying to himself aloud, well, all right, but now you all have to come with me, the whole lot of you, to Schaffhausen.