In the Evil Day

Alex laughed. Some of the wariness was leaving her, he felt that.

The drinks arrived. She sipped.

‘Wonderful. I haven’t had one of these in years. Not since Vienna.’

‘Does research like this have a use?’ said Anselm.

‘That’s a journalist’s question,’ she said. ‘Academics hate questions like that. It might have a use one day. Everything has a use one day, doesn’t it?’

‘That’s not a very academic answer,’ said Anselm. ‘I thought the idea was to present your research as vital to the survival of the universe?’

She held up her hands, the long fingers, no rings. ‘I know, I should say that. Vital to the survival of my career would be more like it. Let’s say my project is part of the giant mosaic of research, we can’t quite see the pattern in it yet. But…’ ‘You’re not very German,’ he said. ‘You don’t take yourself seriously enough.’

‘If I’m not very German it’s because I’m Austrian-Italian. A quarter Italian. My mother is half Italian. Her family is Italian-Jewish. Jewish-Italian. Atheists until they think they’re dying. How do you describe yourself?’

‘Once I thought I was American. American-German. But I don’t know now. My mother was American but her father was British.’

There was silence. She looked away.

‘Not being sure about what you are, that wouldn’t be a trauma symptom, would it?’

Alex looked at him impassively, she had a judge’s face, and then she smiled. ‘Everything’s a symptom of something,’ she said.

She finished her drink, a pale collar of froth left around the glass. Anselm drained his.

‘I could drink many of these,’ she said. ‘But I have to see a doctoral student, a frighteningly earnest young man. How did you travel here?’

He told her he was parked off Ohlsdorferstrasse.

‘I’m near there. We can walk together.’

He paid and they walked back, light failing fast, shadow pools around the trees, streams of shadow under the hedges, the planetarium brooding, like a monument to something. He sometimes thought that everything old in Germany was a monument. The past had suckers, it attached itself to everything. There was no need to visit the sites or the denkmaler. Places spoke, whispered, smoked of what had been. The old railway lines held in their steel the weight of death trains, the city streets knew black boots, the songs, the slogans, the jeering and the tears. And lost hamlets and dripping cowpatted country lanes held voices, not always the voices of murderers and haters but of simple men and boys dead for the Fuhrer in frozen landscapes far away, the tanks bogged in mud set like concrete, the soldiers’ last thin intakes of air not reaching their lungs, going back into the huge grey world, then the rattle and then nothing. Just snow and ice and useless metal and human innards cooling, cooling, freezing. And over it all the sky of lead.

‘It’s a little menacing,’ she said.

‘Yes.’

They talked, it was easier now, leaves playing about their feet, they talked about the city, the traffic, the weather, the coming of winter, of Winterangst, of the need for sunlight, for Vitamin D, about where she lived. She lived in Eppendorf. She volunteered that she had been married. Her ex-husband was in America.

At their parting, she ran a hand over her hair and he thought he heard the sound it made.

‘So,’ she said. ‘Will you talk to me?’

He put his hands in his pockets. He was reluctant to part from her. ‘If you think it’ll help you get better. Come to terms with your life.’

She bit her bottom lip, looked down, smiling, shook her head.

‘It might,’ she said. ‘There is the possibility also that it could save the universe.’

‘Just added value, a bonus.’

Anselm drove back to Schone Aussicht, met Baader on the stairs.

‘I saw you smile,’ said Baader, pointing at the lobby below. ‘Down there. At the door. Feeling okay?’

‘Facial tic,’ said Anselm. ‘That’s what you saw.’

27

…LONDON…

‘Hear me?’ the voice asked.

Niemand opened his eyes, raised his head, didn’t know where he was.

He was still on the motorcycle, leaning against the rider, who was talking to him, head turned, mouth close, inside the helmet.

He looked around. Rubbish bins, cardboard boxes, walls close.

‘Yes,’ said Niemand. ‘I hear.’

He straightened up, lost his balance and fell sideways and backwards off the motorcycle. It didn’t hurt when he hit the ground, it was like being very drunk, nothing hurt.

Where was the bag?

‘The bag?’ said Niemand.

The yellow helmet was standing over him, holding the bag. ‘Got it. You need a doctor, I’m ringing for an ambulance, okay?’

‘No,’ said Niemand. He was trying to concentrate, it was difficult, he didn’t want to go to a hospital, they would find him there, they had no trouble finding him anywhere.

‘No, hold on,’ he said. ‘Just a sec…’ He put his hand into his jacket and found the harness, found the nylon wallet in his armpit. There was a card in it with numbers, five numbers, Tandy’s number was there, Tandy was a pethidine addict but he was a good doctor, for a mercenary he was a good doctor, he knew a gunshot wound when he saw one.

He wasn’t going to be able to unzip the wallet, find the card, his fingers were too fat, he’d developed fat fingers, no feeling in them.

‘Listen,’ he said to the yellow helmet. ‘Inquiries. Ring and ask for a Doctor Colin David Tandy, T-A-N-D-Y, Colin, that’s the one. Tandy. Tell him Con from Chevron Two…needs a favour.’

‘Tandy? Chevron Two?’

‘Colin Tandy. Tell him Con from Chevron Two. A favour. I’ve got a phone here in my pocket, you can…’ ‘Just lie there,’ said the helmet. ‘I’ll ring from inside. I live here.’

‘Listen,’ Niemand said. ‘Tell him…tell him Con says blood’s a…a bit short. Might need some blood.’

‘Jesus,’ said the helmet. ‘Don’t die.’

He lay there. It wasn’t uncomfortable. A bit cold, but not uncomfortable. He knew what uncomfortable felt like. This was easy. His neck was cold and his hands and feet but it wasn’t bad. He thought about getting up. The car was in the parking garage, wasting money. Money. Shit, the bag? Where’s the bag?

He felt for it, both hands, both sides, but his fingers were too fat and his arms were fat too, heavy, fat arms and fat fingers, it was very difficult to… When he woke, he was on a bed and someone was standing over him, doing something to his arm, two people there, he wanted to speak but his lips felt numb.

‘…fucking lucky prick…’ said a voice, he knew the voice. Tandy. Tandy had taken shrapnel out of him.

He woke again and he was alone, on a bed, naked, tape on his chest. He raised his head, and he could see a railing, like a railing on a ship. He was on some kind of platform, it wasn’t daytime, there was light coming from below, white light, artificial light. Banging, he heard bangs, not loud, chopping?

The bag, where was the bag? But he was too tired to keep his head up and he went back to sleep.

The third time he woke, he was clearer in the mind. He was on a big bed, a sheet over his legs, a black sheet. The bed was on a platform, a platform at one end of a huge room. He could see the tops of windows to his right, five windows, he counted them. Steel-framed windows. Big.

‘Awake?’

He looked left and saw half of a woman, cropped white hair, spiky, a black T-shirt. More of her came into