A quarter to ten on a Tuesday morning in January. Still in bed. A strange feeling, to say the least. Off sick for three weeks with allergy problems. Ah well-what it really meant was that he had been suspended from teaching for dragging a cheeky fifteen-year-old out into the corridor and telling him to go to hell. Or back to the country he came from, wherever that was. And boxed the ears of another one of similar ilk.
And not regretted it for one moment.
That was the crux of the matter. He had not apologized. Refused to crawl up to the cross. Both incidents had taken place during the hectic exam period at the beginning of December, and since then the wheels had been turning.
Protests by pupils. The parents' association. A couple of articles in the newspapers. All the time there had been a door open for him, and, of course, he had been well aware of it-an escape route which would have enabled everybody concerned to draw a line under the whole business, if he would only acknowledge his guilt and beg for forgiveness.
If he would regret it, in other words.
Everybody had expected that to be what happened. Needless to say. Maasleitner would do the sensible thing, do the decent thing, and give way. If not before the Christmas holidays, then during them. Obviously… he would be filled with misgivings after due consideration, and all that.
But that was not what happened at all. He had come to a dead end instead. At quite an early stage he had known that he was not going to back down this time. He had done that before, pleaded guilty and begged to be forgiven for actions he knew deep down, and without a shadow of a doubt, were correct and justified.
This time that was more obvious than ever. In the case of both of those young thugs. They had received only a fraction of the treatment they really deserved. An ounce of justice for once. And now he was suspended, more or less. As yet they weren't calling it that, and he was still being paid, but, of course, it was only a matter of time before the whole thing was a bit more official. The sack, in other words.
Three weeks, to be precise. Rickard Maasleitner knew the rules of the game. Understood them and didn't like them. Never had. A safety net for cretins and blackguards. Hell and damnation, he thought as he kicked off the covers. Justice!
He had barely gotten out of bed when the telephone rang.
If it's somebody from school, I'll hang up on them, he decided.
But it wasn't somebody from school. It was a woman's voice. A quite low-pitched and slightly gruff voice.
“Do you recognize this tune?” it said.
That was all. Then the music started. Something instrumental. Or a long intro, perhaps. A bit long in the tooth, by the sound of it. But a nice tune.
“Hello,” he said after listening for about ten seconds. “Is this some kind of quiz?”
No answer. The music kept on playing.
He held the receiver some way from his ear and thought for a moment.
“If you think you can throw me off balance with this kind of bullshit, you're wrong!” he said, and hung up.
Scum of the earth, he thought. What the hell's this world coming to?
He put on his dressing gown and went to the kitchen to make breakfast.
During the rest of the day he received at least eight more telephone calls-he lost count sometime in the early afternoon.
The same music. No singing, just a band playing, something from the sixties, he thought-he seemed to recognize it vaguely, but couldn't remember what it was called. Or the band playing it.
Several times he considered pulling out the plug and putting a stop to it, but for some reason he didn't. Instead, each time the phone rang he broke off his reading or his work on the index of the textbook he was busy with. Answered, listened to the music, and stared out over the rooftops and the naked black trees, wondering what the hell was going on. Didn't say a word from the third call onward.
At first he had been convinced that it had something to do with school, that there was probably some pupil or other behind it; but the longer it went on, the more doubtful he became. Strangely enough his irritation seemed to drain away… drain away and change into something else, an equal mixture of curiosity and another ingredient he didn't quite want to acknowledge. He was reluctant to admit that it was probably fear.
There was something disturbing about the whole business. Something he couldn't grasp or understand. Sophistication, perhaps? The woman's voice from the first call never came back, only the music, nothing else. The same pop tune, no words… Quite well played, that had to be said, and, he thought, from the early sixties, if he wasn't much mistaken.
But even if the voice never returned, he remembered what the woman had said.
“Do you recognize this tune?”
It was something he ought to remember. Isn't that what she implied? The music meant something, and of course the point was that he should know what it meant. Surely that was what she implied?
Hell and damnation, he muttered as he replaced the receiver for the fifth or sixth time. What is it all about?
It would be some time before Rickard Maasleitner became fully aware of what it was all about. But on the other hand, by then it was all the more obvious.
12
Enso Faringer was nervous. That was beyond question. The moment they sat down at their usual table at Freddy's, he had started squirming around and scratching at the ugly rash on his neck he always had in the winter. He also gulped down his beer, and managed to smoke two cigarettes before the food was served.
The conversation was floating around in circles, and Maasleitner could see that his colleague didn't quite know what leg to stand on. Or rather, what chair to sit on. He had tried to get Faringer to eat out with him on Tuesday evening, but had been given what was obviously an excuse-an old friend was visiting, something like that.
So he was supposed to believe that Enso Faringer had friends? Maasleitner had a good mind to inquire further about the alleged visit while he had him trapped on the line; but he had swallowed the lie with a wry smile. No point in stirring things up. He played with the idea of putting his colleague on the spot now as well, but let it pass. He didn't want to be awkward. Faringer was a contact, after all. Somebody who had insight into what was going to happen at the Elementar school, even if he was hardly capable of drawing conclusions of his own. Or influencing them in any way.
Come to that, Faringer was his only contact. There was nobody else he could rely on. In a situation like the one he was in, Maasleitner would have to make do with whatever was available.
They had kebabs, as usual, and Faringer gossiped tentatively about a few pupils and teachers he knew Maasleitner didn't like. A bit about his aquarium as well, and his father, who had been in a mental hospital for several years, but never wanted to die despite the fact that he was more than ninety-five years old. Enso was in the habit of visiting him about four times a week.
That was also a sign of his nervousness, of course. The fact that he was gossiping. Faringer's mouth seemed to be ticking over in neutral, as if he were talking to his fish, or to a classroom of pupils when he didn't need to think too hard about what he was saying. Maasleitner was tired of his company after only ten minutes.
“Whose side are you on?” he asked when Faringer had been served and taken a swig of his third beer.
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I mean.”
“No… well, yes, maybe. No, you'd better explain. I'm not quite with you.”
“I'm going to get the sack three weeks from now. Or two and a half, to be precise. What do you say to that?”
Faringer swallowed.
“You can't be serious? That can't be allowed to happen. I must have a word with…”
