Deadly Communion

‘Yes.’

‘Ahh,’ said Rainmayr. ‘I see. Run off, has she? Now that wouldn’t surprise me.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘I think she was getting tired of her situation. At home, I mean. She used to complain about it. She was supporting her family — more or less. You know how it is, inspector: an attractive young woman can always make money.’

‘She didn’t run away, Herr Rainmayr. Adele Zeiler was murdered.’

The artist smiled, as if Rheinhardt was joking.

‘What are you talking about? Murdered!’

‘On Sunday night. Her body was found in the Volksgarten. She’d been stabbed.’

Rainmayr touched the table to steady himself.

‘My God … Poor Adele. Murdered …’

‘Well, did she say where she was going?’

Rainmayr looked up.

‘Yes, she said she was going to meet someone at a coffee house.’

‘Who?’

‘I don’t know. I presumed a man.’

‘Which coffee house?’

‘She mentioned Honniger’s — by the Ulrichskirche.’

10

THEY WERE NEARING THE end of their music-making and Liebermann found himself reflecting on Rheinhardt’s choice of songs. His friend had demonstrated a distinctly morbid bias, favouring lyrics about gravediggers, sadness, partings and the moon. At one point, the inspector had been quite insistent that they should attempt an infrequently performed Schubert song titled ‘To Death’ and when Rheinhardt sang the opening line — Death, you horror of nature, Ever-moving runs your clock — Liebermann detected troubled nuances which made him suspect that his friend had recently paid a visit to the morgue. Years of service in the security office had not inured Rheinhardt to the sight of a corpse: the dead might decompose in the soil but in the medium of his memory they were preserved indefinitely.

‘Before we finish,’ said Liebermann, ‘I would very much like to hear this.’ He picked up another volume of Schubert and set it on the music stand.

‘“Der Doppelganger.”’

Rheinhardt wasn’t entirely sure that his tired vocal cords would be able to deliver a creditable performance. ‘I’ll do my best,’ he assented. ‘But you cannot expect very much from me. My voice is beginning to go.’

Liebermann paused, allowing a respectful silence to precede Schubert’s mysterious introduction. He let his fingers descend and the keys surrendered under the weight of his hands. The contact produced dense harmonies, played softly like the tolling of a distant bell, evocative of darkness and the ominous approach of something strange. Rheinhardt began to sing:

‘Still ist die Nacht’

Still is the night …

The narrator returns to the house where a woman he loved once lived. Outside, he sees a man, wringing his hands, racked by grief.

A dissonant note in the melody: a stab of anguish.

Rheinhardt’s voice filled with horror:

‘Mir

graust es, wenn ich sein Antlitz sehe

—

Der

Mond

zeigt

mir meine eigne Gestalt.’

I shudder when I see his face —

The moon shows me my own form.

The inspector’s rich baritone became powerfully resonant as he sang: ‘You ghostly double, pale companion! Why do you ape the pain of love?’

For a few seconds the music seemed to find release from despair, but the insistent chords of the piano, fateful and benighted, guided the song to its desolate conclusion.

Liebermann did not lift his hands from the keyboard. He was deep in thought.

An interesting lyric …

The narrator sees his doppelganger; however, his double is not a supernatural being but a vision of himself suffering the agonies of unrequited love. Liebermann wondered how such a hallucination might arise and what purpose it might serve in the psychic economy? Perhaps the narrator’s inner torment was too much to bear, threatening his sanity, and some protective mechanism had been triggered? His grief — or the overwhelming part of it — had been displaced. If this was the case, then the doppelganger might be construed as an elaborate defence: the custodian of memories and emotions that would otherwise cause mental disintegration. Liebermann thought of Herr Erstweiler and how he had spoken affectionately of Frau Milena, the young wife of his landlord, Kolinsky. As these ideas accumulated, the young doctor became dimly aware of something impinging on his consciousness, a sound which carried with it a note of frustration. It had originated in the vicinity of his friend.

‘God in heaven, Max. Pay attention! You’ve gone into a trance!’

Liebermann turned. He had still not fully extricated himself from his cogitations.

‘You haven’t heard a single word I’ve been saying!’

Liebermann lifted his hands from the keyboard.

‘I’m afraid not, Oskar. The music inspired a train of thought and I became utterly lost in a fog of my own speculations.’ He closed the lid of the piano and stroked the glossy black lacquer. ‘I’m sorry, what were you saying?’

Rheinhardt heaved a prodigious sigh.

‘It hardly matters now.’

‘Come, Oskar,’ said Liebermann, standing. ‘Let us retire. If I am not mistaken, we will have much to discuss this evening.’

The two men entered the smoking room and sat in chairs that faced a modest fire. Liebermann poured brandy and offered his friend a cigar. When they were both settled, Rheinhardt produced an envelope from his jacket pocket and handed it to his friend.

‘As I expected,’ said Liebermann, taking out the contents. The envelope contained photographs.

A young woman, lying on grass.

Coat open, striped stockings, ankle boots …

‘Her name is Adele Zeiler,’ said Rheinhardt. ‘Age nineteen. She was discovered in the Volksgarten by a constable early on Monday morning. Her underwear had been removed and traces of dried semen were found on her dress. There were no signs to suggest that a struggle had taken place. Her fingernails were unbroken, there was no bruising, and no tearing of clothes. Moreover, Professor Mathias did not find any significant’ — Rheinhardt coughed into his hand — ‘internal indications of injury.’

A close-up of her face.

Another of her right hand — the long nails intact.

‘She consented to intercourse?’