The Vanishing of Katharina Linden

clinging to him. She cried for what seemed like a long time, until the last sob turned into a cough and she started trying to wipe her nose with her fingers. She raised her head at last, and her face was only inches from my father’s. For a moment they stared at each other.

Then my mother said, softly, “I’m sorry, Wolfgang,” and putting up her hands she very gently pushed him away.

I could hardly bear to look at my father’s face.

“Kate,” he said, and there was a question in his voice.

Slowly my mother shook her head. She stood there for a moment, not looking at him, her head turned to one side. Then she said rather too loudly, “One of us should stay here. Why don’t you get the bag from the car?” The last few words were tremulous.

My father came up to the bed and took my hand for a moment, pressing it with his strong fingers. Then he turned and went out of the room. He must have come back sometime later with my mother’s bag, but by then I was asleep.

I was in Mechernich Hospital for two days, and it would have been longer had my mother not broken me out of there. If you are admitted to a hospital in Germany you can expect to be there for a full seven days-or, at least, you could when I was a child and the health insurance was still paying for anything you cared to have. My mother, however, was having none of it. She packed up my things and buttoned me into a new fur-lined jacket. Then she dragged me downstairs to the car.

“Oma Warner’s arriving this afternoon,” she informed me as she reversed out of the parking space, so rapidly that I feared for the cars parked on the other side.

“Are we going to get her?” I asked.

“No.” My mother rammed the car into gear and gunned the engine. “She’s taking a taxi from the airport this time. I said we’d pay.”

“Oh.” I supposed this was for my benefit; the invalid had to be rushed home and kept there.

The mention of Oma Warner made me uncomfortable: there was still the matter of the telephone bill, though I hoped it might somehow have been forgotten among the recent dramas. I looked out of the window at Mechernich speeding past. It was as bad as Middlesex: gray streets and rain-slicked pavements. The weather was never so severe here as it was in Bad Munstereifel for some reason, and the snow that had fallen had quickly thawed. Brown mush clogged the gutters. I leaned my forehead on the cool glass and sighed.

Chapter Fifty-five

I saw Herr Duster only once more in my life. I wouldn’t have seen him at all, but for my father’s insistence. My mother was adamant that I should not have anything more to do with him. Even when it was clear that he was completely innocent of any kidnapping or killing, now or ever, she was still furious with him for taking me to the Eschweiler Tal, where I might have died of hypothermia-or worse.

In fact, in her mind the entire town was guilty by association. It was typical, she said, that every person in the whole place could spend all their spare time discussing other people’s business and still miss what was really going on under their very noses. The sooner she, Sebastian, and I were out of the place forever, the better.

Oma Warner didn’t add anything to this, but she pursed her lips and went about the place silently, folding things and shelving things and packing things up for the move. She and my father behaved as though they were ambassadors from hostile countries, too polite to indulge in open warfare, yet unable to be warm to each other, even at Christmas. Unexpectedly, however, she came out on my father’s side when I raised the question of whether I might see Herr Duster.

My mother said I was visiting him over her dead body, but both my father and Oma Warner thought it would be a good idea. Nowadays people like to use that American word closure, but Oma Warner just said she thought it would help me to put the whole thing behind me for good.

I wasn’t allowed to go to Herr Duster’s house. Instead he was permitted to come to our house, where my mother (who opened the door) eyed him suspiciously. She let him stand on the doorstep for a few seconds too long before she stepped back to let him in. Herr Duster doffed his hat and stepped somewhat gingerly into the hallway.

“Guten Tag, Herr Duster,” said my mother; she was unable to keep the chill out of her voice.

“Guten Tag, Frau Kolvenbach,” said Herr Duster politely. He didn’t try to win her over with smiles and compliments; charm was never his strong point, and anyway, my mother was distinctly unreceptive. She hardly said another word to him before she ushered him into the living room, where I was waiting.

“Pia? If you want anything, just… yell,” she said with heavy emphasis as she closed the door. I didn’t reply. I imagine if Herr Duster had lived in the town for much longer he would have had to become inured to innuendo-since Herr Schiller was not there, he was the only possible target for gossip and speculation. Where there’s smoke, there’s fire is the town motto: they should have engraved it on a crest and stuck it on the front of the Rathaus. I doubt Herr Duster’s reputation as town reprobate would have improved even if it had become known that he had grappled with half a dozen murderers single-handed and brought the lot of them to justice.

Herr Duster put his hat on the coffee table and sat on an armchair a little distance from me. He did not seem inclined to say anything.

“Herr Duster-thank you,” I blurted out in a rush.

A faint smile sketched itself on his gaunt features. “I hope you have fully recovered?”

“Yes-thank you.” I fell silent for a moment. There were so many things I wanted to ask him, but I could not think of any way to introduce the topics. If I had been a little older, as I am now, I might have known the way to do it. But at that time the tremendous age gap yawned between us.

“I’m very sorry,” said Herr Duster at last. I looked at him, wondering why he was sorry.

“Herr Duster?” I couldn’t help it; my voice was trembling. “Why do you think he did it?”

“My brother, Heinrich, was sick,” he replied gently. “I think he had been sick for a long time.”

“Yes, but why did he do it?”

Herr Duster sighed. “I don’t really think it is a suitable topic for a young lady…”

My heart sank; he was going to pull that favorite stunt of adults on me, and tell me that I was too young to understand.

“But I think all the same you have a right to know,” he finished. He gazed past me for a moment at a blank spot on the wall. I knew he was seeing things that had happened a long time ago.

“Did you know that Heinrich was married?” he asked.

I nodded. “Yes, and he had a daughter. Frau Kessel said I looked a bit like her,” I added, and saw a shadow pass across Herr Duster’s face.

“A little, yes,” he said. “Gertrud was perhaps slightly thinner than you are. But that was the war, of course…” He paused, remembering. “Heinrich was never an easy person, not as a young man. He had a hardness in his heart somehow. Once he made up his mind to do something… he could be very hard on other people, too, if he made a judgment.”

I said nothing to this; none of it sounded like my Herr Schiller. But on the other hand my Herr Schiller would not have been in the Eschweiler Tal on a freezing night, trying to splash gasoline on the corpse of a young girl. I shivered.

“Hannelore-Heinrich’s wife-she was very beautiful, you know,” went on Herr Duster.

I thought of Frau Kessel, spitting venom in her kitchen: Both brothers were mad about the girl, but she chose Heinrich. Who can blame her?

“Is that a picture of her in your house?” I blurted without thinking.

Herr Duster looked at me. “No. I don’t believe there is a photograph of her anywhere in existence.” He did not