The Serbian boy undid the buttons of his tunic and fumbled with his belt. His hands were shaking.
He hesitated when he reached his undergarments.
“What are you waiting for?” asked Wolf. “Get on with it!”
The boy peeled off his woolen vest and stepped out of his long johns. He stood, completely naked, in a cone of milky luminescence. He was a thin, pale boy, with alabaster skin and dark hair. His genitals were barely visible, having retreated into a luxuriant tangle of wiry pubic curls. The effect was quite disconcerting. Stojakovic looked feminine, submissive, sexually ambiguous, and the rapidity of his breathing betrayed the magnitude of his terror.
Steininger laughed. It wasn't a comfortable laugh. It had a hysterical quality—ending abruptly, and leaving a tense, uneasy silence in its wake.
“Now what?” said Drexler, snapping his book closed.
Wolf's eyes flashed at Drexler. They were filled with latent fire, an admixture of malevolence and anger. Drexler, who ordinarily experienced the world as if everything in it were somehow removed or distant, felt his sense of privileged detachment slip. It surprised him—like a jolt of electricity. The sinister cast of Wolf's lineaments had reined him in.
Wolf got up and walked purposefully toward the Serbian boy. When he reached his side, he inspected his face.
“Are you crying, Stojakovic?” Wolf asked.
The boy's head moved—a minute, almost imperceptible shake.
Wolf lifted the boy's chin with the barrel of the revolver. Stojakovic's cheeks were streaked with silver.
“Now, what did I tell you about lying, Stojakovic? If you lie to me, you will be punished. It's your own fault—you leave me no choice.”
Wolf pulled the revolver hammer back with his thumb. It clicked loudly. Then he pressed the barrel against Stojakovic's temple.
Time stopped.
Drexler tasted metal in his mouth. The silence pulsed in his ears. A seeping, vitrifying cold spread through his limbs. He could not move, and felt that if he tried to, he would shatter.
A loud hissing sound filled the room.
At first, Wolf appeared confused. He looked quizzically at the others, then downward. Urine was flowing in wide yellow rivulets down Stojakovic's legs, feeding an expanding circular puddle, the circumference of which had made contact with the soles of Wolf's shoes.
“You Serbian dog!” Wolf cried, his mouth twisting in disgust. He struck Stojakovic on the head with the butt of his gun. “You animal, you damned animal!”
The boy fell to his knees, blood streaming from a deep gash on his forehead.
Drexler ran across the room and grabbed Wolf's arm, preventing him from delivering a second blow.
“Stop it, Wolf.”
“Drexler?” Wolf was no longer angry. Rather, he seemed surprised—as though disorientated after waking from sleep.
“You've made your point,” said Drexler. “Now that's enough.” Drexler pulled the Serbian boy to his feet. “Pick up your clothes and get out. And no more loose talk in the future, you understand? Get out.”
Stojakovic scooped up his clothes and ran into the darkness. They listened to him getting dressed: ragged breathing, the clink of his belt, and, finally, the trapdoor opening and closing.
Drexler looked into Wolf's eyes. The strange light had died, and Wolf's expression was blank. His thin lips were straight again. Slowly, something like a smile began to appear on his face.
“Drexler! You idiot! I wasn't going to kill him. You're losing your nerve!”
Wolf looked over at Steininger and Freitag. It was a collusive look—an invitation. They responded with laughter: fits and starts, encouraged by Wolf's widening smile, mounting, until their lungs and vocal cords were engaged in the production of a continuous asinine braying.
“He wasn't going to kill Stojakovic, Drexler!” Steininger cried, “Whatever were you thinking?”
“Yes, Drexler,” Freitag echoed. “Whatever were you thinking?”
It was a good performance. But their relief was palpable.
15
RHEINHARDT'S HEAD WAS BURIED in his copy of the latest edition of the police journal, which contained an extremely interesting article on the work of Jean Alexandre Eugene Lacassagne—a professor of medicine at the University of Lyon who had made extraordinary advances in the identification of decayed corpses. As he read, Rheinhardt became increasingly aware of piano music: music of incomparable lightness. An innocent, profoundly beautiful melody leaped an octave, before making a modulating descent over a flowing left-hand accompaniment. It charmed him out of the dark, morbid world of mortuaries and rotting cadavers. When the melody climbed again, he lifted his head—as if watching the ascent of a songbird.
His eldest daughter, Therese, was seated at the instrument, her slim fingers negotiating the naïve geography of Mozart's Sonata in C Major. On the other side of the parlor, seated at the table, were his wife, Else, and his younger daughter, Mitzi, engaged in some needlepoint. Mitzi was humming along with the tune. None of them were conscious of Rheinhardt's benign scrutiny.
He registered the good-humored curve of Else's mouth, the thickness of Mitzi's hair, and the straightness of Therese s back—the way that something of his own likeness lingered in the lineaments of both his daughters and, by some miracle, did so without diminishing their beauty.
Thomas Zelenka was only one year older than Therese. Although Zelenka wore a uniform and had been taught to use a sabre, he was still—like Therese—a child.
To die so very young…
It was a disturbance in the order of things that Rheinhardt could not—would not—accept as natural.
The music suddenly shifted into a minor key, as if responding to his thoughts. He remembered visiting Zelenka's parents—the empty birdcage, the unoccupied bedroom, the void behind Fanousek's eyes: the four gas towers, like massive mausoleums, breaking the line of a bleak horizon, the terrible, suffocating atmosphere of desolation, misery, and loss.
How could any parent survive the loss of a child? How would Rheinhardt ever cope, if the piano playing ceased, the humming subsided, and the parlor was chilled by his daughters’ absence? The silence would be intolerable.
Yes, Liebermann was probably right—by denying juvenile mortality
