Knives, Forks, Scissors, Flames Read online

  The young people now looked intimidated, but their parents nodded, as if Thomas had only confirmed their own suspicions. “I recently received a letter from a good friend—an American Baptist. This friend had an encounter with a young woman possessed by demons. She was a skilled witch, took cocaine and heroin, drank large amounts of alcohol and was involved in ghastly sexual practices. This young woman asked my friend to help her drive Satan from her life, and my friend agreed. The demons that tried to oppose him made the same noise as rock musicians on stage. Adolescents who watched this battle were so shocked that they threw away their rock ’n roll records.” Thomas took a second before stepping closer toward the congregation and said in a soft, caressing voice, “Anyone who wants to escape the shackles of rock music must break his records and destroy the tapes.”

  Benno didn’t join in the applause that followed. The albums the pastor had mentioned stood on a shelf in his office next door.

  The subsequent presentation of the choir was accompanied by three guitars and sounded neither dark nor satanic, only Manfred’s dull voice had something uncanny about it. And yet, after Thomas’ sermon, the hymns sounded strangely altered. He had heard Carolin practice all week, but now the songs didn’t sound all that harmless anymore.

  He craned his neck to catch a glimpse of his wife and spied her to his left, half hidden by Elfi, the soloist. He had rarely seen her so radiant.

  Afterward, Thomas was surrounded by young people who asked him questions about their favorite bands. Were A-ha and Duran Duran of the devil? Were Depeche Mode and Spandau Ballet hand in glove with demons?

  “Well, have you reconsidered my offer? About your singing career?” Pastor Cornelius came up to Benno. “Wasn’t that something,” he added with his usual enthusiasm. “You should write an article about it.”

  “I’m only responsible for the Sports section,” Benno said defensively. “If you want to organize a football tournament, I’m happy to help.”

  “But this message about rock music must get out. Maybe one of your colleagues might be interested.”

  “Yes, of course. I can ask around.”

  “Oh, that would be great.” The pastor’s red face shone just as brightly as the teenagers.’ “Could also be about Strathleven. What we are doing here. The good work our church is doing. Would be a nice task for you, a gift to your new community. Some kind of portrait of our town. What do you say?”

  “Nobody’s interested in what we’re doing here. And nobody needs to poke his nose in our affairs.” A scowling Gustav Heintz joined them. “People don’t like it when outsiders come along and ask questions.” He turned to Benno. “I don’t have anything against you personally. I’m just saying. The dead woman was all the press we needed.”

  The pastor’s blush intensified and he stammered, “Look, that’s exactly why Mr. Diedrich should write an article about us, so that Strathleven is known for more than murder.”

  “We’ll see,” Benno said noncommittally. “But I cannot promise you anything. I’m still learning the ropes at the Strandkurier.”

  In the evening, when Benno mentioned the pastor’s idea, Carolin just said, “Sure. It’s quite easy for you to do.”

  “But what am I supposed to write about?”

  “About our singing group and about me, my wonderful voice.”

  “Which didn’t croak at all.”

  “About the good air and Tim and his dog and the youth group, and how engaging the pastor is, and the good air . . . you think about it! Why should I do your work for you? You could also score some brownie points in the village.”

  “Brownie points? What for?”

  Carolin’s face suddenly became serious. “For Tim.”

  “Why? Are Jens and Daniel after him again?”

  “Not really. No, they’re totally changed. Awfully nice. But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “Do you promise not to laugh?”

  “Promise.”

  Carolin’s eyes behind her glasses seemed even bigger than usual. “They’re all . . . too nice. They look at him strangely.”

  “Who are ‘they’?”

  “People in town. The other customers in the store. Even when we run into somebody on the street.”

  “The miracle boy.”

  “Maybe this article isn’t a bad thing. You can interview people, and if they have any questions . . . about us, about Tim . . . I don’t know.” She trailed off. “Maybe I’m just imagining things.” After a pause she said, “By the way, I found a new doctor for Tim. In Lübeck. Dr. Warthmann recommended him. Specializes in skin diseases. He doesn’t have a practice, only does research at the university. I made an appointment for next month.”

  Benno nodded. They both knew that it was hopeless, but that even so, Carolin would never give up. Benno was more and more convinced that her efforts at finding a cure for Tim’s illness were about herself, not about her son. If they should ever find the right doctor, maybe a higher power would forgive her missteps during the pregnancy. Otherwise, she would never be able to forgive herself.

  It was a rainy evening, and the wind was noticeable even in the narrow streets of the old town. Benno stood in the doorway to the Strandkurier offices and hesitated. His car was not far away, he could just go home and postpone his research a few days. He fumbled for his cigarettes, lit one and watched people hurrying past. Bank employees, school children, an old man with a fisherman’s cap on his head and an extinguished pipe in his mouth. This last one didn’t seem to mind the rain. Although he held an umbrella in one hand, he hadn’t bothered to open it. Benno spread a copy of the Kurier over his head and walked to the public library.

  In the reading room, he hung his sodden coat over a chair and rummaged through the catalog. His feet had gotten wet on his short walk over, but the rooms were well heated, the light thick and warm, and the bad weather had probably deterred most people from coming. Benno was nearly alone on the first floor of the building.

  Since his graduation, he hadn’t set foot in a library, and now as he pulled open drawer after drawer, looking for books about the area, he noticed just how much he had missed the atmosphere. Perhaps he missed the hours spent in university libraries even more than his bachelor life in Berlin. The eagerly bent backs, the slightly smudged glasses of students and their pale, serious faces. The smoking room at the Institute for Comparative Literature.

  Benno wrote down the identification numbers of several books on Lübeck and the region, although he wasn’t even certain what exactly he was going to write about. Did Strathleven really have a history? What could be an interesting hook for a small village with an eager Baptist congregation? Strathleven’s church was pictured in some books, and its pagan origins were also noted, but the place itself seemed to have aroused little interest in amateur and professional historians alike. Shortly before the library closed, Benno selected six or seven books on the legends and mysteries of the Baltic Sea coast and made his way to the checkout.

  “Oh,” said the librarian when she looked at the first title. “Looking for something special about the area?” Her voice was a little scratchy. She was maybe in her early forties, very large, and had short brown hair with light-red streaks. Her face was finely cut, and her long earrings sparkled in the light of the desk lamp. She smiled, took out his loan slips, and asked Benno for his card.

  “I don’t have one, yet,” he said.

  She asked for his ID, but he still had the special, green Berlin one. And no, he had not thought of bringing a registration form with his new address. “I work for the Strandkurier. I’m still very new here.”

  “And you want to find out about Strathleven?” she asked.

  Benno smiled, embarrassed. “Yes, it’s supposed to be a kind of portrait. I moved there recently.”

  “The Wonder Beech. Is it still there?”

  “Oak. Miracle Oak. And yes, I think it’s still there. But I haven’t seen it yet.”

  “If you have a disability, you need to cli
mb through it.” The librarian laughed, and her voice seemed to drop an octave. Benno wasn’t sure if she was laughing at him. “Well then,” she said, and laminated a card for him.

  The rain didn’t let up for Strathleven’s Autumn Ball. The night before, Carolin had surprised Benno with a new dress. “I ordered it from a catalog. That makes me feel really old,” she said laughing, turning this way and that. It was a simple, dark blue dress; her skin looked very white.

  “Now only my stupid suit has to fit.” But as much as he sucked in his belly, he wasn’t able to button his pants. “But I haven’t put on that much weight,” he protested.

  “You’ve widened,” laughed Carolin. “And you’re getting older. You’re becoming a dirty old man.”

  When they arrived at the ballroom, which was located near the concrete plant and rather resembled a modern barn, half the village seemed to have already gathered. Benno was surprised to find that most of the faces he had never seen. On his walks with Tim and Rasmus, he had only spotted an occasional farmer on his tractor, or an old woman on her bike. He knew the store owner Johannsen and, of course, Otto Friedrich, plus a few people from the church. But who were all these men in dark suits, these decked-out women? Where had they been up until now? Benno himself had gone to Lübeck in the morning to buy a new suit for the event. He felt too old to wear jeans to a ball.

  Otto Friedrich led them to a half-empty table. “Well, look at you,” he said in a loud voice that could be heard over the music coming from the speakers near the stage. He introduced them to the other guests at the table, a couple called Wiesenknecht, and then excused himself. “I’ve got to take care of some business.”

  After ten minutes, the music stopped, and a man in a green suit and a large silver necklace made from coins carried a microphone onto the stage. He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket and began his introductory remarks. He was the treasurer of the shooting club, Henning Buhr.

  “We shouldn’t have come,” Benno whispered into Carolin’s ear.

  “Why? It’s quite nice here.”

  The first speaker was the president, and as it turned out, it was the Sparmarkt owner, Johannsen. His wet, thinning hair was neatly parted, and instead of his dirty apron he wore a black suit. “We had a good year,” he said loudly. The whole shooting club burst into cheers and applause. “And tonight, we want to say thanks. Let us hope that the next year will be an even better one.”

  The Wiesenknechts looked rather sheepishly at each other. Somebody in the crowd shouted, “Are you going to be king?”

  But Johannsen was not to be deterred. “Tonight we will celebrate and dance and have a great time!” When this found only lukewarm approval, he also pulled a note from his pocket and read the agenda. Finally, he asked the champion marksman, Andreas Wehrke, to join him on stage.

  Benno hadn’t seen the John Deere dealer before. He was a tall, thin man with a clear-cut face and a long nose that made him look like a bird. He wore a green fedora with several feathers stuck inside the band, and a gold chain over his suit jacket. “Tonight, we won’t think of tomorrow,” he said in a soft voice that didn’t fit his appearance. The audience clapped eagerly.

  “Dear President, distinguished guests, dear fellow shooters. I am not a born orator, so I’ll be brief. And,” he added with a grin, pointing to the instruments behind him, “the musicians are getting impatient.” Then he began to talk about the history and tradition of shooting clubs. All the visitors at least pretended to listen with great interest.

  “Train eye and hand for the Fatherland! This thoughtful saying was previously on our club banner and graced our clubhouse. Yet it has become rare nowadays. We have been in a phase of cutbacks and regression for years. We are misunderstood by the world. We have a reputation for being ridiculous and dangerous hillbillies. But shooters like ourselves don’t cling to the old ways unconditionally. No, we are open to new ideas. But we demand that these new ideas be better than the old.”

  Applause could be heard, a few guests slapped the tables with their open hands.

  “Strathleven has changed, but are the new things really better? There are those who want to leave our old ways of living, who want to forget who we were and who we are.”

  Silence spread after these words. Everyone was looking at Wehrke now.

  “Yes, just like everyone else, we have become wealthy, we go to Italy on vacation, and our children attend university, but can we really forget our traditions? Do they really belong on the trash heap? Our village is faced with difficult decisions. Some people are no longer sure that we shooters have a place in society. Some say that we have nothing left to protect, and must give up our weapons. What will we decide?”

  Wehrke had spoken very seriously, and now, while he was pausing briefly, no one dared to stand up or even cough. Benno looked at the worried faces around him. It seemed as though everyone in the audience knew exactly what the champion marksman was alluding to, and that only he could make no sense of the speech.

  Then Wehrke grinned again, someone in the audience gave a sign, and seconds later somebody carried a glass of beer to the podium. Amid general laughter, the speaker took a long sip.

  “Dear guests. I regret that I didn’t live in the Middle Ages, because then I wouldn’t have to pay any taxes for a whole year. Yet another custom has remained—the king invites his subjects for a drink. Shooters have always held their liquor, and I sincerely hope that this is still the case tonight. A word to the wives of our shooters: Ladies! Consider how important the maintenance of old customs is. Therefore, forgive our exuberance tonight, and merrily join us shooters on the dance floor. Let us raise our glasses to a long life of our fraternity and a beautiful, harmonious evening! Cheers!”

  After the speech, the stage was cleared and within minutes, three musicians started to play “Fiesta Mexicana.” Benno groaned, but Carolin laughed at him. “Come on, old man. You can dance with me.”

  But soon Carolin began to complain about his awkward steps. “You have to lead,” she shouted in his ear. “The man must lead.”

  Painful memories of dance school lessons in the Hessian province awoke in Benno’s mind. The next dance was too quick for him, and while all the other couples whirled around him, he stepped so hard on Carolin’s feet that she almost fell over. While he was still apologizing, someone tapped him on the shoulder.

  “May I?” It was Hubert Witte, the postman, almost unrecognizable in a dark blue suit and a red bow tie. In an instant he swept Carolin onto the dance floor. Benno returned to his table.

  After ten minutes, he was still sitting alone in front of his beer. Carolin was now in the arms of a large, balding man, who seemed to have swallowed a broomstick, but she seemed to be enjoying herself tremendously.

  “How do you like it in Strathleven?” Wehrke sat down next to him, without his felt hat and chain. “Otto told me that he had invited you. New in town, right?”

  “It’s very nice,” Benno said and tried not to look for Carolin.

  “Your wife seems to like it, too,” said the champion marksman.

  Benno wasn’t sure how this last remark was meant. He just nodded. “The pastor is probably not a shooter?”

  Wehrke laughed. “No, he’s not from here.”

  “Do you have to be from here to join the club?”

  “Oh no.” Wehrke grinned. “But you have to appreciate your home country.”

  “And the pastor doesn’t appreciate his home country?”

  “Not the way we do,” replied Wehrke and looked across the dance floor. “Your wife can dance. You should mingle with our people, have a little fun.” He stood up and held out his hand. “Nice to have you with us.”

  Benno found his way to the bar, ordered a beer and then left the ballroom. It was still raining, but at least he could breathe some air that wasn’t rank with hairspray and aftershave. After a few minutes a giggle came from one of the parked cars, and Benno wondered how and where teens could buy marijuana in Strathleven.


  The chuckle grew louder, car doors were slammed, and a young man and a girl walked across the wet gravel toward Benno. The boy he didn’t know, but the girl’s pale face looked familiar. Yet they were not looking in his direction, and seconds later they had disappeared into the ballroom.

  When he returned to his table his clothes were slightly soggy, and Carolin sat with the mailman and another man he had never seen. An almost empty bottle of champagne stood in front of them.

  “There you are,” Carolin said, laughing. “What happened to you?”

  “It’s raining outside,” Benno said.

  “And what were you doing out there?” She shook her head. “This is Bruno. Bruno is a club member.”

  “Bruno Maier. Allianz Insurance,” the man said, extending his hand.

  “Oh.” Benno shook the very dry, very firm hand. “Have I seen you in church?”

  Carolin whooped, “No, but he will come. He promised.”

  Maier gave an embarrassed laugh. “Maybe.”

  “No, for sure.”

  The man grinned good-naturedly. “Well then, for sure.”

  “But now I want to dance,” she said and led the insurance agent onto the dance floor. Hubert Witte drained his glass of champagne, nodded at Benno, grinned, and excused himself.

  “May I introduce you to my women?” Otto Friedrich had appeared behind him. Benno got up immediately. Friedrich’s wife Martina was slightly taller than her husband, and not just because of her red, high-heeled pumps. Her face was very round, with slightly turned-down eyes. Her hair was shoulder length and straight, her hands small and neat.

  “And my daughter Corinna. My eldest.”

  It was the girl he had seen at the entrance. Whether she recognized him, he couldn’t tell. She smiled gently, but remained silent. She seemed embarrassed to be introduced to a stranger.