Wonderful, Wonderful Times (31 page)

Schonberg's op. 33a plus the Berg sonata (only half of which she has committed to memory) quaver through Anna's brain in shock and then, hesitantly, reluctantly, disappear for ever. No more music, ever again.

After firing this shot, Rainer goes out into the hall, where Mother comes towards him, not speaking or making any kind of utterance at all. He knows he has to kill the whole family now so that there will be no witnesses to betray him to the police. Instantly Rainer shoots his mother, also in the head. She collapses without a sound. Her upper jaw is completely smashed but she is not yet dead. Mother lies in a heap on the hall linoleum, her death rattle gurgling. One can't tell if her brain is still functioning or not, probably not. The pistol is now no longer loaded and Rainer puts it aside and fetches the axe from the toilet. It is honed razor-sharp and weighs 1.095 kg. The blade is 11.2 cm long. Oddly enough, Father has been sitting quietly in the living room throughout the murders, wearing a cardigan over his pyjamas. Rainer goes in to his father, with the axe. Father expresses silent astonishment. Rainer wields the axe and strikes out without thinking anything at all. Aiming at the head. Rainer's progenitor instantly caves in beneath the fearful axe blows, bleeding heavily. Bones break, knuckles splinter, tendons tear, veins are severed beyond repair. Rainer aims mainly at the head and neck, which is quite enough. He keeps on wielding his blows till Father has been totally cut to pieces. Then Rainer picks up the axe and goes over to his mother. A parcel of humanity lying gurgling and frothing in the hall. He strikes at her too. He is still not weighing up the pros and cons, or anything at all. He wants to inflict mortal injury, and he does. When he fired that last shot he knew already that he'd go over to the axe to finish the job. Nobody says anything or screams. Mother is lying on her stomach, and in that position she is dealt the death blow. She dies. The whole time, Rainer does not budge a single millimetre. Things lie where they have fallen.

Once she's dead, Rainer goes over to his sister, whom he has already shot in the head (because that was the only part of her body exposed above the blanket), and hacks away at Anna's head just as he hacked at Father's and Mother's heads. Anna's head is smashed to a pulp of bones, blood, tendons and brain matter, with stray teeth showing up palely out of it and a single eye, almost detached. Some time, soon, Anna will die too. And then all three will be dead.

Most of the cuts have been dealt to their heads and necks. Now Rainer goes to the cardboard suitcase and fetches the bayonet out from amongst the heap of toys, the slide projector and the felt. With this bayonet he quite needlessly jabs at the three corpses. In doing so he is methodical, taking one body after another. First Father is stabbed in the neck, chest and navel with the bayonet. Then his dead mother is stabbed violently, mainly in the abdomen. Next he stabs his dead sister with all his might. Now, at last, he is through. The bleeding heaps of humanity are not making a sound. Nor can they be told apart any more. After all, Death the Leveller annihilates all distinctions. The sexes of the bodies can still be just about made out, but nothing else. You have to take your bearings from that if you want to decide which corpse is whose.

Through this absurd action, Rainer is out to preserve his narcissistic belief that he has achieved something extraordinary.

Now he tries to hide his father's body so that it won't be spotted the moment people come in. Panting, he drags the parcel of flesh, dribbling blood, across to the big farmhouse chest, from which he has first had to remove a load of useless junk so that the corpse will fit. There is such a terrible lot of blood that he is unable to hide the other carcasses. His nerves won't take it any more. And Rainer fails in his task.

He takes off his blood-soaked pyjamas and takes a shower. Then he stows the weapons in a briefcase

and leaves the house at an early hour, to establish an alibi. He takes his pyjamas along too. He drives over to a schoolmate's to revise for the exams together and borrow money for petrol from him. He is planning to throw the murder weapons off a bridge, into the Danube, but doesn't dare because there are so many passers-by near the river, quite pointlessly so early in the day. So the arsenal ends up in the boot, together with his pyjamas, which go under the spare tyre.

After revising for the exams and borrowing 500 schillings out of a cigar box, he drives off with his schoolmate to Ketlassbrunn in Lower Austria. There they call on a priest who used to be the school catechist.

Here they are, already in Ketlassbrunn. The priest is surprised and pleased to see them. He invites the two young students to lunch at an inn, where they eat roast pork and dumplings. Afterwards at the Catholic youth hostel there is a seminar with a professor from Vienna, on the subject 'Man as Cosmos', and 'Crime and Punishment'. As always, Rainer tries to show off by asking questions on these subjects. When they take their leave, the priest shakes their hands and gives them some pastries. Then the schoolmate is taken home. It's been an eventful day, he says, and he enters his flat, which smells of vanilla sauce.

Once again Rainer drives out to the mighty Danube, that great symbol. It is now 7 p.m. He drops the murder weapons into the river near Berger's, the seafood restaurant. The bloody pyjamas are left in the car.

Then, from a public call-box, Rainer phones a girl he hasn't seen for months. She works as an au-pair for a couple who are both doctors, downtown. Their parents met in her home town out in the woods. Renate, the girl, is invited to go dancing at the Picasso Bar. She does in fact dance with Rainer at the Picasso Bar. Rainer drinks two Campari and sodas, Renate drinks a Martini and a Fanta lemonade. Rainer gives a rambling explanation of the structure of the modern music which

is coming from the loudspeakers. Then he stops explaining and takes Renate home.

Next, Rainer drives to the parental flat, where his mother (with forty serious and countless lesser injuries), his sister (with twenty-six sharp-edged deadly injuries, not counting the smaller ones) and also his father (completely pulped, in the carved farmhouse chest) have been decaying the whole time. The three bodies received way over eighty axe wounds, all told, not counting the stab wounds. The heads have been totally smashed in. He used both hands to strike, so the blows would be forceful. Rainer can't spend the night along with this frightful carrion. It gives him the creeps.

He enters his home, which is no longer a home, and switches on the light for a moment, so that people will think the terrible sight is a shock to him. He switches the light off again right away and goes to the police station, where he announces that his mother is lying in the hall, murdered, come and help me find the killer. One policeman runs back with him immediately. Such indescribable amazement, to find two corpses, which you can't tell apart at first, so mutilated that you don't know which is the mother and which the daughter.

The policemen are staggered. Rainer is lying on a stretcher, pale and half unconscious. The doctor gives him a sedative. But his pulse is astoundingly regular, considering the shock, thinks the doctor.

Where are your pyjamas, and where is your father? asks the inspector. My pyjamas must be around somewhere, 1 took them off this morning and left the house early. I've no idea where my father is.

The bodies are totally unrecognisable with brutal injuries like these, says the policeman, nauseated, although he has seen a thing or two in his line of business. The corpses of the mother and the sister have not been moved. Now the sight of

them moves the soul.

But soon the question is raised: where are Rainer's pyjamas and where is Herr Witkowski. Both of these bodies are female.

Was the father the one who did it, maybe? But presently the bloodstained fatherremains are retrieved from the chest. Remnants of his brain that weren't put in the chest are on the floor beside it.

Now the only mystery left is the pyjamas. The question is asked again. This time with a hard-edged suspicion behind it.

When the inspector asks where are your pyjamas for the hundredth time, they must be some-where, Herr Witkowski, Rainer finally answers: They're stained with blood and you'll find them under the spare tyre in the boot of the car.

Now you know everything. I am at your disposal.