When the Devil's Idle (31 page)

“
I’m
assuming he doesn’t know. He spends a great deal of time in Africa,
seems to have removed himself from the day to day life of the
family.”

“
And
the mother?”

“
The
same. I fear it will be a great shock to them.”

“
It’s
a tragedy any way you look at it. The old man is dead, and her life
is ruined.”

“
It
was ruined before. It was ruined the first time he laid a hand on
her.”

Today she was
dressed in a lacy skirt that barely covered her ass and had painted
her nails a new color, dark purple, the color of plums. She was
wearing more makeup, too, her eyes rimmed with kohl and silver
shadow, the same dark red lipstick on her mouth. The first time
he’d seen her, Patronas had thought she’d been experimenting, using
the makeup to try out different personas, but now he believed it
was a much sadder thing, a mask.

He and Papa
Michalis were sitting with her in the garden, not far from where
the body had been found. He’d chosen the site carefully, wanting to
control what happened. Gunther Bechtel had objected to the
interview, saying he wanted to sit in on it, but Patronas had
insisted on doing it alone, in part to spare him. Bechtel would
find out eventually what had transpired between the girl and his
uncle—no reason to bring such grief into his life today.

“
It’s
only a preliminary interrogation,” he’d said, “nothing formal. We
can either talk to her here or take her down to the station and
talk to her there. You can get a lawyer for her if you want. It’s
up to you.”

Choking with
rage, Bechtel had reluctantly agreed to let them interview his
daughter, Hannelore, at the house and had left them alone with
her.

Patronas
positioned Tembelos at the gate and Evangelos next to the side
entrance, the half door where Maria Georgiou had put out the trash,
thus effectively sealing everyone inside the compound. He told both
men to wrestle Hannelore Bechtel to the ground if she tried to
escape and to keep the rest of the family away—the Bauers, too,
should they wander out.

He’d already
explained the procedure to the girl, set the tape recorder out on
the table and turned it on. He’d discovered an old one at the
station and brought it with him, planning to give the MP3 player
back to Bechtel after they had copied what was on it.

The girl laughed
when she saw the tape recorder, amused by the dated
technology.

“
What’s that?” she asked, acting like the whole thing was a
joke.

“
A
tape recorder.”

“
It
looks old.”

“
It
is.” He’d installed the new batteries before coming and checked to
make sure the spools were turning.

She watched them
spin for a moment. “What do you need a tape recorder
for?”

“
To
record what you say.”

She studied her
nails. “What if I say stupid things?”

“
Then
it will record you saying stupid things.”

“
Why
do you have to do it today?” she complained. “I was going to go to
the beach with Hilda. It’s our last chance before I leave for
Stuttgart. Now there won’t be time.”

Her English was
better than Patronas’, and she was speaking rapidly. He had to
struggle to keep up with her.

“
First
of all, you are not going to Germany any time soon,” he told her,
“nor is anyone else in your family.”

“
But
my father said—”

“
Hannelore, we need to talk to you about your
Grobpapa.
Are you aware that he was in the Gestapo and served in northern
Greece?”

“
You
want to talk to me about the
war
?” She sounded
incredulous.

“
Yes,”
Patronas said. “Did your grandfather ever speak about that time
with you?”

“
No,
but I knew what he was. I knew all about him. He told me he knew
how to hurt people, that he’d learned in the war and I better be
good when he looked after me or he’d hurt me. Hurt Walter.”
Hannelore Bechtel reported all this in a bored monotone.

“
He
was also a pedophile. Do you know what that is?”

She shifted in
her chair and her features hardened. Patronas could almost hear the
door slamming shut. “What does that have to do with me?”

“
He
raped some children in Epirus during the war, worked his way
through a village called Aghios Stefanos, targeting six- and
seven-year-olds.”

Getting up
hastily, she bolted, but Patronas went after her and grabbed her by
the arm. “Sit,” he ordered first in English, then in German,
dragging her back to the table.
“Setzen Sie.”

After she’d
complied, he resumed the interrogation, speaking in a calm, steady
voice. He could feel her tension. She was like a young horse,
shying away from what he was about to tell her, desperate not to
hear it, to be gone.

“
It
was a great secret in the village. People often have secrets, don’t
they, Hannelore? A Greek boyfriend like your friend, Hilda.
Families can have secrets, too, and yours does, doesn’t
it?”

“
No,
we don’t, not my family.” She’d returned to her nails, chewing on
them pensively.

Patronas didn’t
feel good about cornering her. “You were like those children in
Epirus, weren’t you, Hannelore? He raped you, too.”

“
I
don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said, her voice rising.
“He was my grandfather and I loved him. It is disgusting what you
say.”

But her voice was
unsteady and she wouldn’t meet his eye.

“
How
old were you when it started? I’ll bet it was innocent at first.
He’d stroke your arm. Maybe run a hand under your clothes. Then one
day he did other things to you, unexpected things that
hurt.”

“
Shut
up!” She put her hands over her ears. “Leave me alone!”

“
Did
he try again on Patmos? Is that why you killed him?”

“
I
didn’t kill him.”

She wasn’t
denying the abuse now, only the murder.

“
Maybe
it was Walter he was after and you tried to stop him.” Papa
Michalis was sitting at the table between them, playing the role of
protector, as he and Patronas had discussed on their way to the
house. “That would have been an honorable thing to do, Hannelore,
to protect your little brother. No one would blame you if that’s
what you did.”

She studied him
for a moment. “It is true,” she said, her German accent becoming
more pronounced. “I saw him with Walter. The same games.
Grobpapa
was old and feeble, but he was touching him the
same way he used to touch me. He said everyone did what we did. It
was even in the Bible. ‘Where do you think all those people came
from?’ he told me once. ‘They all slept together.’ Only he didn’t
say ‘slept,’ he said,
sie fickten
einander
.” They
fucked each other.

It was
interesting to watch, the way the memory aged her, made her look
older and coarser than her years.

“
We
never did it, if that’s what you’re thinking. He couldn’t, not
unless he took those pills men take, the ones that make you hard.
But oh, how he wanted to. Every time we were together. You could
see it in his eyes.”

“
When
did it start?”

“
When
I was the same age as those kids in Epirus. My parents were away,
in Africa. I don’t really remember. There was a woman who came in
during the day, but at night it was just the two of us. Walter
wasn’t born yet and I was alone with him. He took my clothes off
and touched me all over. Night after night he’d come into my room
and grab my hands and make me rub him, poke at me with his fingers.
He was old and trembly and his hands would shake. ‘Hannelore,’ he’d
say. ‘Hannelore.’ Like I was a lover, not a child. I didn’t
understand what he was doing. All I knew was that it hurt.
Sometimes he’d unbutton his pants and make me put my mouth there.
He liked that the most.”

She stared off in
the distance. “I’d wash myself after, but it didn’t matter. I could
never get clean, never get rid of the smell of him. It was like his
hands were still on me, but invisible. No one could see them but
me. I started cutting myself when I was older. It felt good, like I
was finally getting free of him. I would have peeled my skin off if
I could. He hurt me and then I started hurting myself. Funny,
huh?”

“
The
Japanese have a custom,” the priest said with great gentleness.
“When someone wrongs them, they go before that person and cut their
own stomachs out.”

Hannelore Bechtel
contemplated this, then, nodding, made a fist and drew a circle
around her stomach. “I told him to stop. But I was only six and he
didn’t listen to me.”

“
What
happened then?” the priest asked.

“
My
parents came back and he quit for a while. Later
Grobpapa
told me it was my fault, what had happened, that I’d liked it and
wanted it. I was a slut then, he said, a little slut,
eine
kleine schlampe,
and I was a slut now. I would always be a
slut.
Schlampe, schlampe, schlampe.”

“
Did
he say this on Patmos?”

“
Oh,
yes.” Her voice rang out. “It was after Walter went back to the
house. We were in the garden and I told
Grobpapa
to leave
him alone or I’d tell my parents what he’d done. He just laughed at
me and told me I was imagining things. ‘You’re always making things
up,’ he said. ‘You don’t know what the truth is—you lie so much. I
would never do anything to Walter or you.’ ‘But you did,’ I said.
‘For a long time, you did.’ ‘Lies,’ he said. ‘Lies.’
Lügen
.
He was stroking the cat when he said it, rubbing its fur with his
fingers.”

“
Is
that when you decided to kill the cat?”

She nodded. “It
was nothing, just a dirty stray. I don’t know why he cared about
it.”

“
How
did you kill it?”

“
I
choked it. I wrapped my fingers around its neck and shook really
hard. Back and forth, back and forth.” Her eyes gleamed as she
relived the moment. “It was small and it didn’t take long. It kept
twisting and meowing, trying to get away from me.”

She dropped her
head down onto her shoulder, imitating the way the cat had looked
after she snapped its neck. Laughed out loud in an ugly
way.

“
I
wanted to hurt
Grobpapa.
Hurt him the way he hurt me. I was
big now, and he couldn’t do anything to me anymore, but it didn’t
matter. He wouldn’t leave me alone. All the time talking about it,
using his filthy words. Whenever we were by ourselves, he’d start.
‘You had such a sweet little body,’ he’d say. Like it was something
good we had shared, a happy memory.” The girl’s voice was thick
with disgust.

“
What
did you hit him with?”

“
I
didn’t. I know you think I did, but I didn’t.”

Dry eyed, she
stared at him defiantly. “I’m glad he’s dead, but it wasn’t me. I
wasn’t the one who killed him.” She repeated this several
times.

“
Who
knew about the two of you?”

“
Nobody, not for a long time.”

“
Why
didn’t you tell your parents?”

“
I
don’t know. Like I said, he told me it was my fault and I believed
him. ‘It has to be our secret,’ he said. ‘Otherwise they’ll send
you away. Girls who do these things are bad girls. You’re a bad
girl, Hannelore.’ I hated him,” she said, almost as an
afterthought. “He was always there. I couldn’t get away from him.
When I had a friend over, he’d sit and watch us and sometimes the
front of his pants would get wet. I tried to tell my mother about
him once, but she waved me off. She was in her room putting on a
dress, a ruffly dress for a party. She likes to do that, my mother.
Likes to make herself pretty. She isn’t interested in me, in what I
have to say. She never sees anybody. Only herself in the
mirror.”

Her anger had
been growing as she spoke, had taken on a life of its own. It was a
like a presence sitting with them at the table.

“
Is
that why you killed him, Hannelore? Because no one else would help
you?”

“
I
didn’t kill him,” she said again.

“
You
said no one knew for a long time. Does someone know
now?”

“
Yes.
My mother.”

“
When
did you tell her?”

“
The
day I saw him with Walter. The day he died.”

“
So
you confronted him in the garden.” Patronas was seeking to
establish a timeline for the murder. “What happened next,
Hannelore? Did you lose your temper and hit him with something?
You’re a strong girl, an athlete. It would have been easy for you.
Or did he lose his balance and fall and you finished the
job?”

“
I
didn’t touch him,” she said. “Don’t you understand? I
couldn’t.”

Suddenly, the
door of the house flew open and Gerta Bechtel came running out,
screaming her daughter’s name. Tembelos tried to stop her, but she
pushed her way past him.