Ulrich B. Zinnemann turns up the CD. He rolls down the window of the car, shifts into fourth, and makes the tires of his Volkswagen squeal. Old, wise Scott is singing about Claretta Petacci, who demanded to die alongside her beloved Benito Mussolini. Ulrike learns, U.B.Z. makes sure, that women who fall in love with dictators are always like that. Poor Eva Braun married her Führer only a day before their double suicide. Death and love, violence and passion, sacrifice and victory—“Listen, listen carefully!” U.B.Z. says. And Ulrike listens.
Benito and Claretta were shot on April 28, 1945. The following day their bodies were carried to the Piazzale Loreto in Milan and hung upside down from the roof of an Esso petrol station. Their bodies were desecrated with much rage and rejoicing. Their bodies were mocked and abused. Their bodies were shot to pieces, BAM BAM. The tires of the Volkswagen wail a strange love song. Ulrike and Ulrich sing along with Scott Walker, their individual voices still coming through the melody. How thoroughly the nervousness has disappeared from Ulrike. She doesn’t need Anke-Marie for this. She’ll do fine. She’ll do fine, BAM BAM, she’ll do fine. Hefners, tails, and ears—BAM! Coffee cups beer glasses plates waiting above —BAM! Notebooks coins banknotes lilac white gathered checked sleeved waitress blouses, BAA-AM! If the Volkswagen drove off the road right now . . .
Auf der Alm da gibt’s ka Sünd . . .
They both know the mountain knows no sin, which is why Ulrich B. Zinnemann has the courage to make a proposition to Ulrike.
Mountain, home, ravine, conductor’s purse, flower, mother, father, elevator, Hanno, mountain, Ulrich B. Zinnemann’s glass eye, purse, home, ravine, endlessly, endlessly, endlessly.
Ulrike opens her eyes and sees the women’s expectant expressions. She rises up on her elbows and glances at the clothing she has on, gently worn corduroys and a Scott Walker T-shirt, still stiff from being new, with a young mop-headed Scott looking confidently and also very dramatically somewhere up and to one side, toward the sky, toward Ulrike. The digital display of her wristwatch stopped at 21:03. So that was how it must have been. She had died on August 15, around nine o’clock. Had she made it back home to Alpenstraße from the Kehlsteinhaus? Alone, of course alone, and on the bus. Not in the Volkswagen? No, not in the Volkswagen. No matter how hard Ulrike strains, she cannot recall Ulrich B. Zinnemann’s face or touch or kiss. Had she turned tail like a coward? Or—a terrible presentiment suddenly forms a tight lump in Ulrike’s throat, which she can still feel—had U.B.Z. changed his mind while they were at work?
Horrible shame rushes to Ulrike’s ears. Just so. Yes, yes. Ulrich B. Zinnemann had succumbed to regret. The more openly Ulrike glanced at the elevator, the more he had berated himself: what had he gone and done? She was still a little girl. Every 124-meter ascent, every 124-meter descent had confirmed the understanding that chafed and grew within U.B.Z.: No, not like this. She’s still a child.
Now Ulrike remembers the trembling of her legs, the sweat that formed in her armpits and on her back, even creating a tiny bead in the droplet-shaped cleft beneath her nose, the philtrum. Ulrich B. Zinnemann had disgraced her. At the end of his shift he came, grinning, and took up a position along her route: the corridor between the kitchen and the dining room. She had walked with a stack of dirty dishes in her hand the way one walks toward the rising sun: eyes squinting, a bewildered expression on her face. She had walked right up to U.B.Z. and smiled knowingly at him, the way people do who share a secret smile at each other. She looked him straight in the right eye, ready to accept anything. But not this. “Can we go for a drink some other day, Ulrike? Sometime when Anke-Marie can come too?”
These words hit her in the temple like a nail gun. BAM!
Ulrike had been able to read between the lines in a thousandth of a second: Ulrike, I’m really sorry, but I didn’t realize before that you have these kinds of feelings for me. You’re just a child still. I like you, and I also like Anke-Marie. Let’s keep this as a bit of fun, this friendship of ours. Let’s not mess it up with anything that doesn’t fit with that.
This was precisely what Ulrich B. Zinnemann said to her after her shift, amending his proposition from the morning, suggesting that they enjoy their drink together after work some other day, with Anke-Marie along, all three of them.
Ulrike had composed herself in a hundredth of a second. She had sung out a happy “OK!” and continued on her way as if she needed to rush. Then Ulrich had suddenly yelled to her, “Wait!” Ulrich had asked her to wait, and, heart pounding, she decided to turn to listen. “I can drive you to the bus station if you want. I can wait until your shift is done. I’m not in any rush.”
Sometimes, when forced, you can arrange shreds of joy on your face even if your heart is rotting inside. Ulrike managed to reply lightly, even with a smile, “Thanks, Ulrich, but I don’t need a ride. I think I’ll walk today. Yes, I’ll walk.” Then she turned back to the kitchen and disappeared from Ulrich B. Zinnemann’s gaze.
For the rest of the day, Ulrike remembers, she did her job without glancing around, as if any break in concentration could at any moment lay bare the feeling that pounded in her skull, protruding nastily in every direction.
Ulrike remembers, unfortunately. She shakes her head, but it doesn’t help. It forces itself into her mind: lips rubbed raw by teeth. She had started descending from the Eagle’s Nest by foot. She hadn’t lied to Ulrich. She really intended to walk. From
