that eventually penetrates the hard membrane of one's own view of things in general. Life looks better in an Alpine meadow, especially when the accommodation is Pullman class.
One day I was wheeling Gruen along a path cut into the mountain side, when I noticed him staring at my hand on the handle of his wheelchair.
'I've only just noticed,' he said.
'Noticed what?' I asked.
'Your little finger. You don't have one.'
'Actually, I do,' I said. 'But there was a time when I had two. One on each hand.'
'And you a detective, too,' he scolded, and held up his own left hand to reveal that half of his little finger was missing. Just like mine. 'So much for your powers of observation. Actually, I'm beginning to doubt you were ever a detective at all, my friend. And if you were, you can't have been a very good one. What is it that Sherlock Holmes says to Dr. Watson? You see but you do not observe.' He grinned and twisted the end of one of his mustaches, apparently enjoying my surprise and momentary discomfiture.
'That's crap and you know it,' I said. 'The whole idea of my coming here was so that I could switch off for a while. And that's what I've been trying to do.'
'You're making excuses, Gunther. Next thing you'll be saying is that you've been ill, or some nonsense like that. That you didn't notice my missing finger because the beating detached your retina. Which is also why you haven't noticed that Engelbertina is a little in love with you.'
'What?' I stopped the wheelchair, kicked on the brake, and came around the front.
'Yes, really, it's quite noticeable.' He smiled. 'And you call yourself a detective.'
'What do you mean, a little in love with me?'
'I don't say that she's madly in love with you,' he said. 'I say a little bit.' He got out his pipe and started to fill it. 'Oh, she hasn't said as much. But after all, I happen to know her quite well. Well enough to know that being a little in love is all she's probably capable of, the poor lamb.' He patted his pockets. 'I seem to have left my matches back at the house. Do you have a strike?'
'What's your evidence?' I tossed him a box of matches.
'It's too late to sound like a proper detective now,' he said. 'The damage is already done.' He used two matches to get his smoke going and then threw the box back. 'Evidence? Oh, I don't know. The way she looks at you. The girl's a proper Rembrandt where you're concerned, old boy. Her eyes follow you all the way around the room. The way she touches her hair all the time when she's speaking to you. The way she bites her lip when you leave the room, as if she was already missing you. Take it from me, Bernie. I know the signs. There are two things in life that I have a feel for. Rubber tires and romance. Believe it or not, I used to be quite a ladies' man. I may be in a wheelchair, but I haven't lost my understanding of women.' He puffed his pipe and grinned at me. 'Yes, she's a little in love with you. Astounding, isn't it? Matter of fact, I'm a little surprised myself. Surprised and a little jealous, I don't mind confessing. Still, it's a common enough mistake, I suppose, to assume that just because a girl is very good-looking she also has good taste in her choice of men.'
I laughed. 'She might have fallen for you if you didn't have all that wire wool on your face,' I said.
He touched his beard self-consciously. 'You think I should get rid of it?'
'If I were you I'd drop it in a sack with a couple of heavy stones and then look for a nice deep river. You would only be putting the poor creature out of its misery.'
'But I like this beard,' he said. 'It took a long time to grow.'
'So does a prize pumpkin. But you wouldn't want to take one to bed with you.'
'I expect you're right,' he said, good-humored as always. 'Although I can think of better reasons than a beard for her not being interested in me. It wasn't just the use of my legs I lost in the war, you know.'
'How did it happen?'
'Really, there's not much to tell. You might just as well explain how an armor-piercing round works. A solid manganese round encased in a strong steel shell. There's no explosive charge. The manganese round depends on kinetic energy to penetrate the tank armor, and then just bounces around inside the tank like a rubber ball, killing and maiming everything it hits until it runs out of steam. Simple but very effective. I was the only one inside my tank to survive. Although not so as you would have noticed at the time. It was Heinrich who saved my life. If he hadn't been a doctor, then I wouldn't be here now.'
'How did you two meet?'
'We know each other from before the war,' he said. 'We met at medical school, in Frankfurt. In 1928. I would have studied in Vienna, where I was born, but for the fact that I had to leave in rather a hurry. There was a girl I left in a bit of a clamp. You know the kind of thing. Rather an inglorious moment, I'm afraid. Still, these things happen, eh? After med school I got a job at a hospital in West Africa for a while. Then Bremen. When the war started neither Heinrich nor I was much interested in saving lives, I'm afraid. So we joined the Waffen-SS. Heinrich was interested in tanks--the way he's interested in nearly everything with an engine. I went along for the ride, so to speak. My parents were not very pleased with my choice of military service. They didn't like Hitler or the Nazis. My father is dead now, but my mother hasn't spoken to me since the war. Anyway, things went all right for us until the last weeks of the war. Then I got hit. That's it. That's my story. No medals. No glory. And definitely no pity, if you don't mind. Frankly, I had it coming. I did something wrong, once. And I don't mean that poor girl I left bumped up. I mean in the SS. The way we went through France and Holland just killing people whenever the idea took us.'
'We all did things we're not proud of,' I said.
'Perhaps,' he said. 'Sometimes I find it very hard to believe that any of it happened at all.'
'It's the difference between war and peace, that's all,' I told him. 'War makes killing seem feasible and matter-of-fact. In peacetime, it isn't. Not in the same way. In peacetime everyone just worries that if you kill someone it will leave a dreadful mess on the carpet. Worrying about the mess on the carpet and whether it matters is the only real difference between war and peace.' I took a hit on my cigarette. 'It's not Tolstoy, but I'm working on it.'
'No, I like it,' he said. 'For one thing it's a lot shorter than Tolstoy. These days I fall asleep when I read anything longer than a bus ticket. I like you, Bernie. Enough to give you some good advice about Engelbertina.'
'I like you, too, Eric. But there's no need to tell me to lay off her because you think of her like a sister. Believe it or not, I'm not the kind to take advantage.'
'That's just it,' he said. 'You couldn't take advantage of Engelbertina if your middle name was Svengali and she wanted to sing at the Regina Palace Hotel. No, if anyone takes advantage it will be her. Believe me. It's you who needs to be careful. She'll play you like a Steinway if you let her onto your piano stool. Sometimes it's fun to be played. But only if you know it and you don't mind it. I'm just telling you so that you don't fall all the way for her. Specifically this: She isn't the marrying kind.' He removed the pipe from his mouth and studied the bowl judiciously. I tossed him the matches again. 'The plain fact of the matter is, she's married already.'
'I get it,' I said. 'The husband disappeared in a camp.'
'No. Not at all. He's an American soldier who was stationed over at Oberammergau. She married him and then he disappeared. Most likely deserted. Her and the army. It would be a shame if you let her sucker you into taking her on as client, to look for the guy. He's no good, and it would be best if he stayed disappeared.'
'That's kind of up to her, isn't it? She's a big girl.'
'Yes, I saw you noticing that,' he said. 'Have it your own way, shamus. Just don't say I didn't warn you.'
I flicked my cigarette away and then kicked off the brake on his chair. 'Keep your seat,' I told him. 'I'm all through with blondes and missing husbands. It was looking for a missing husband that cost me my damned finger. I'm real easy to educate that way. Like Pavlov's dog. Some housewife so much as hints that her old man is late back from a card game and could I maybe go look for him, and I'm going to be looking for a pair of concrete gardening gloves. That or a suit of armor.' I shook my head. 'I'm getting old, Eric. I don't bounce as high as I used to when I take a beating.'
I wheeled Gruen back to the house. He was feeling tired, so he went to lie down, and I went to my room. After a moment or two there was a knock at the door. It was Engelbertina. She had a gun in her hand. A Mauser. It was made for shooting bigger things than mice. Fortunately it wasn't pointed at me.
'I wonder if I might ask you to look after this for me,' she said.
'Don't tell me you've killed someone.'
'No, but I'm afraid Eric might kill himself with it. You see, it's his gun. And, well, sometimes he gets depressed. Depressed enough to use this on himself. I thought that it might be best if it was somewhere
