27
Moreno had got in touch with Krystyna Gravenstein via the secretary at Doggers grammar school, where she had worked until she retired three years ago.
Gravenstein welcomed the detective into her little two-roomed flat in Palitzerstraat, at the top of the building with a view over the river and Megsje Bois. When she entered the flat Moreno wondered if everybody had such splendid views from their homes nowadays, and recalled Ruth Leverkuhn’s picture window. It seemed to be the case, at least for home-owners on the distaff side. Froken Gravenstein was a slim little woman with a haycock of chalk-white hair and owl-eyes behind thick spectacles. Tweed suit and crocheted shawl over her shoulders. She moved a pile of books from a tubular steel armchair and urged the inspector to sit down, sat down herself on a swivel chair in front of a desk, and spun round. Of the two rooms, one evidently served as a bedroom and the other as a study. Moreno guessed that nothing else was required. The desk, with a view of rooftops and open sky, was covered in papers, books, dictionaries and a computer. Bookshelves covered the walls from floor to ceiling, and were chock-a-block with books.
‘I’ve started to do a bit of translating since I finished at the school,’ Gravenstein explained, with a faint suggestion of a smile. ‘You have to find something to do. Italian and French. It helps to make the pension go a bit further as well.’
Moreno nodded in agreement.
‘Literature, I assume?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ said Gravenstein. ‘Mostly poetry, but I’ve done the occasional novel as well.’
‘So you used to teach at Doggers, right? Romance languages?’
‘For thirty-seven years… Thirty-seven…’
She shrugged and looked somewhat apologetic. Moreno gathered that she didn’t exactly long to be back in the classroom again. And that it was time to come to the point.
‘You were a colleague of Else Van Eck’s, I understand,’ she began. ‘That’s why I want to talk to you. Are you aware of what has happened?’
‘She’s vanished,’ said Gravenstein, adjusting her spectacles.
‘Exactly,’ said Moreno. ‘She’s been missing for nearly seven weeks now, and we still haven’t a clue where she is. There are good reasons for suspecting she is no longer with us. Were you close to her as a colleague?’
Her hostess shook her head and looked worried.
‘No,’ she said. ‘Certainly not. Nobody was – I’m sorry to have to say that, but it’s the way it was. We never met in our free time – apart from the odd occasion when the French Society had something interesting in its programme.’
‘How long did you work together?’
Gravenstein worked it out.
‘Nearly twenty years,’ she said. ‘Else Van Eck is a… a remarkable woman. Or was.’
‘In what way?’ wondered Moreno.
Froken Gravenstein adjusted her shawl while she thought that over.
‘Unsociable,’ she said in the end. ‘She had no desire to associate with or even to talk to the rest of us teachers. She wasn’t unpleasant, but she didn’t bother about other people. She was self-sufficient, if you see what I mean.’
‘What was she like as a teacher?’
Gravenstein gave a hint of a smile.
‘Excellent,’ she said. ‘That might sound unlikely, but it’s a fact. Once the pupils had got to grips with her, they liked her. Maybe young people find it easier to get on with weirdos – I think so. And she loved French. She never taught any other subject, and – well, she was a walking dictionary. And grammar book as well, come to that. Obviously she would never have been able to stay on as a member of staff if she hadn’t had those qualities. Not in view of the way she was.’
Moreno thought for a moment.
‘And why was she the way she was?’
‘I haven’t the slightest idea. I never got to know her, and know nothing about her private life.’
‘What about her professional life?’ Moreno asked. ‘Do you know why she became a French teacher?’
Gravenstein hesitated.
‘There is a story,’ she said.
‘A story?’ Moreno repeated.
Froken Gravenstein bit her lip and contemplated her hands. Seemed to be discussing something with herself.
‘One of those myths,’ she said. ‘The kind that circulate among pupils about almost every teacher. Sometimes there’s a grain of truth in them, sometimes there isn’t. But you can’t put too much faith in them.’
‘And what was the mythology surrounding Else Van Eck?’ Moreno asked.
‘A love story.’
Moreno nodded encouragingly.
‘Young and unhappy love,’ explained Gravenstein. ‘A Frenchman. They were engaged and were going to get married, but then he left her for someone else.’
Moreno said nothing, waited for a while.
‘Not especially imaginative,’ she said eventually.
‘There’s more to come,’ said froken Gravenstein. ‘According to legend, she started reading French for his sake, and she continued doing so for his sake. His name is said to be Albert, and after a while he regretted what he’d done. Tried to win her back. But Else refused to forgive him. When it finally got through to him what he’d done, he hurled himself in front of a train and died. Gare du Nord. Hmm…’
‘Hmm,’ Moreno agreed. ‘And when was this supposed to have happened?’
Gravenstein threw her arms out wide.
‘I don’t know. When she was young, of course. Shortly after the war, I assume.’
Moreno sighed. Krystyna Gravenstein suddenly smiled broadly.
‘Everybody must have a story,’ she said. ‘For those who don’t, we need to invent one.’
She glanced up at the rows of books as she said that, and Moreno realized that it was a quotation. And that the words had a certain relevance to Gravenstein’s life as well.
What’s my story? she thought in the lift on the way down. Claus? My police work? Or do I have to invent one?
She shuddered when she remembered that there were less than seven days to go to Christmas, and she had no idea how she was going to spend the holiday.
Perhaps I might as well volunteer to work over the whole time, she thought. If I could make things easier for a colleague, why not?
Then she thought for a while about Albert.
A Frenchman who had taken his own life fifty years ago or more? For the sake of Else Van Eck. Would it still be possible to identify him?
And could it have anything at all to do with this case that Intendent Munster insisted on persevering with and poking about in?
No, nothing at all, she decided. Could anything possibly be more far-fetched? Nevertheless she decided to report the matter. To tell the story. The myth. If nothing else it would be nice to sit and talk about it for a while with Munster. Surely she could grant herself that much?
That apart, Krystyna Gravenstein seemed to have sorted out quite a pleasant way of spending her old age, Moreno thought. Sitting up under the roof beams among lots of books high above the town, and doing nothing but read and write… Not a bad existence.
But before you got that far, of course, you had a life to find your way through.
She sighed and started walking back to the police station.
Munster checked his watch. Then counted the Christmas presents on the back seat.
Twelve in an hour and a half. Not bad. That gave him plenty of time for his visit to Pampas, and he gathered that the widowed fru de Grooit didn’t like being rushed. Peace and quiet, and there’s a time for everything – that’s
