run were below them now. Felix watched the mountains rise up again through the roof windows as the car was drawn out of the pylon again.
Peter began to hum and stroke his sideburns. Felix stayed still, only turning his head once to catch a glimpse of the tiny houses clustered around the Liebfrauenkirche far back in the town. For him, the sway and resonance of the car brought a kind of comfort.
His father had been a hiker, and a vigorous one at that, striding ahead even when he and Lisi were small, pointing out everything with a stick. There must be things the body remembers, he thought, his eyes on Giuliana’s tight form perched on the edge of her seat, eyes determinedly locked on some part of the bike there. Yes, the coming down, leaning against his father, almost sleeping, proud of his day’s hiking, a kid and as close as they ever would be.
His eyes left Giuliana then and rested several moments on Peter. The guy trained at something all year. If it wasn’t Nordic skiing, it was kayaking in someplace in the Czech Republic, and if it wasn’t mountain biking, it was taking a run at some Iron Man thing. He even skied in shorts here sometimes: “the ladies love it.”
Weights, football, water polo, city marathons. Peter was going to leave nothing to chance in his campaign to get into the Alpini. From there, he assured Felix, it would be a hell of a lot easier to have a serious chance at his final goal: Kobra Squad. Even a provincial command Kobra, he claimed, because that was good enough.
Felix eyed the tanned tree-trunk legs on his friend. He imagined their owner rappelling down from a helicopter in an avalanche, or pushing on through a blizzard towing a ridiculously huge sled of gear toward a plane crash. Or his blackened face peering down over the sights on one of the Uzis they were issued, and then leaping off a roof in those boots you could walk across a ceiling upside down with.
So, was it envy, Felix still asked himself, that made him return to wondering if Peter really was fooling himself about his Kommando prospects? Maybe no one had told him. Or maybe he was in denial, as they say: he was just too damned big. A giant really, more like the great export Arnold than the trim endurance-built acrobat types that Gebhart had heard were sought for specialist squads in the Gendarmerie.
Another pylon arrived, with the few seconds slowing, followed by the rumbling and the sharp tug as it was pulled through. He heard Giuliana catch her breath. Almost there, he wanted to say to her, but knew she wouldn’t like his pity, especially in front of Peter.
He sat forward slowly to look to the wood cut far below. He felt something move along his calf then, half guessed what it was his damned Handi and made a grab for it. It hit the floor of the gondola with a dull hollow thump.
Even Peter started.
“Jesus,” said Giuliana and flinched as the car swayed a little from her jump.
Felix picked up the phone. It was still on. There was a text message waiting.
“You are a very religious woman,” said Peter. “I like that. Is it just around Felix here?”
Giuliana did a first-class eyeball roll and returned to studying her knapsack on the floor in front of her. Felix thumbed through the menu and watched the text appear.
In a moment his mind was on a slalom, with everything almost over the edge, rushing at him. Why had he turned off the ringer?
Hansi Himmelfarb holding the kitten in the farmhouse kitchen. The way Speckbauer’s comments always had a ring of not quite sarcasm. Sitting with those two detectives in the restaurant yesterday in a weird conversation.
He sent the message scrolling again. Something fastened and closed tighter in his chest and he gasped. He had to think, but he couldn’t. He saw his own hands turn the phone over. He stared at it, and read the logos and indentations on the back. Battery, he thought, his mind skittering, serial number. Had he snapped?
“Busted?”
It was Peter. Felix looked up at him. The light, the views over the valleys and mountains, even Peter’s face all seemed to have changed.
“Is it broken?”
“No.”
Peter shrugged and half smiled. Felix looked out the window at the clearing below where they creaked and swung upwards. There were no maniacs hiking it up today, straining and sweating every step to the top of the mountain.
He looked at his feet. He didn’t know what to do.
“What’s going on in there?”
It was Giuliana. The strain on her face was easing. He was suddenly overwhelmed by gratitude that she was there, present, alive, and still trying to beat her nerves about heights and cable cars, just to humour him.
“Something’s wrong?”
Peter would find out eventually, one way or another, he decided.
“Gebi texted me,” he said and cleared his throat. “Remember the incident up at the farm, the Himmelfarb family?”
“How could I forget?” Giuliana said.
Felix saw that Peter wasn’t even pretending that he was not all ears.
“Gebi said, well, he texted that… something happened. A fire.
They’re dead.”
Volkswagen Polos Felix’s mother’s seven-year-old model Polo will top out at 180. On a good day, as Gebi might say. With the fohn behind you, that warm winter breeze, or a tornado maybe, going down the side of a wall.
Felix wavered at 150, imagining a cloud of black smoke, a serious clank and grind and one good big metallic bang, and then only the decision of what scrap yard he’d send it to.
Still he pushed it. He wanted something, anything, to seize his attention and hold it, so he could not think. He got the eye several times from drivers rolling along nicely at 130, in cars that could do twice that. He came through Schladming after he got off the A10, and he was barrelling down the A9 an hour later. The lights were on a half- hour before he got to the outskirts of Graz.
He phoned Giuliana after he got off the autobahn. She had settled into the hotel. No, she hadn’t been “checking out” the other guys, the dozen or so off-duty Gendarmerie guys who had shown up for the trekking. And no, she wasn’t really fooled by this lame humour. Peter wouldn’t put the moves, sober or wipsi, she told him.
She had her books, they had their bikes and, later, their beer. And yes, she had a lift down to the bahn tomorrow and a ticket, if she changed her mind. And no, it was no problem. She wanted at least one night up on the mountain, with Felix or without.
He picked up some buns and milk before he let himself into the apartment. He waited until he had eaten half of the buns and cheese before phoning the post. Korschak told him Gebhart had left a message at the end of his shift. Korschak’s tone conveyed something to Felix as he recited Gebhart’s home phone number. It was not resentment, Felix decided, or annoyance that Gebhart had conceded a valuable invitation to the new recruit, but perhaps the smallest trace of awe.
“So Felix,” said Korschak. “Look at you. You are hardly in the door here but you get to talk to Gebi and at the Gebhart residence too, I might add.”
“Is it really that big a deal?”
“Is the Pope Catholic? Gebi never mixes home with work.
Never. Even Dieter is scared to phone him at home. You, my friend, are special.”
Felix couldn’t remember hearing that tone of sly humour from the friendly enough but starchy, by-the-book careerist Korschak before. He had recited the phone number in a slow, portentous tone.
“So phone him,” Korschak added, “Something on account of a boy? You’ll know, he said.”
Felix put down the phone, and sat back. He decided again that he didn’t know what the hell he was doing, or should do.
He examined his hands. He had walked hand in hand with Hansi Himmelfarb, gotten the butt of half-serious jokes about it.
What would the fire that killed the Himmelfarbs have done to that hand?
