Knives, Forks, Scissors, Flames Read online

  “Enjoying yourself?” Friedrich grinned broadly.

  “Yeah, sure.” Benno said. “But I’m not a great dancer.”

  “Me neither. I swear I have too many feet not to stumble and fall. But Corinna is fabulous out there. Ask her to dance!”

  “I really can’t do that to her.”

  Martina Friedrich smiled encouragingly. “Corinna turns everyone into a better dancer. Try it!”

  There was no way to refuse without offending Friedrich and his wife, and although he felt like a silly curmudgeon, he grabbed Corinna’s hand and walked with her to the dance floor. “I apologize in advance,” he said. “You will regret this.”

  The girl did not laugh at his joke, and soon adapted to his rhythm. “Please don’t tell my father that you saw us in the parking lot.”

  “Us?” asked Benno.

  “Harald and me. Have you met Harald?”

  Benno shook his head. “I don’t have the correct sequence of steps, right? Harald is from Strathleven?”

  “That doesn’t matter. It’s quite good.” She smiled a little bit. “Harald is Mr. Wehrke’s son.”

  “And why should I not have seen you? Because you were smoking?”

  “That too.”

  The dance ended, but Corinna made no effort to move away from him. When the band started playing a more upbeat number, Benno tried as best as he could to avoid bumping into other couples.

  “Move your upper body a little more, then no one notices what you’re doing with your feet.”

  “Rhythmic standing?”

  “Something like that.” Her smile grew wider. Corinna was built stronger than her mother, she was broad-shouldered and had larger, clearer features. The more he danced with her, or at least pretended to, the more her pale face looked beautiful to him. Perhaps Carolin was right, and he was truly a dirty old man. At that thought, he looked around for his wife, but could not locate her.

  “Why shouldn’t your father know about Harald?”

  “He’s too old.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Twenty. And he’s going to college. My father thinks that he just wants to fuck my ass and then get rid of me.”

  Benno tried not to appear shocked at the girl’s language. “And what do you think?”

  “You’re the guy who found the dead woman, right?”

  Benno nodded. “Actually, it was the pastor.” He looked once again for Carolin.

  “Your wife is not on the dance floor.” Corinna’s face was oddly expressionless.

  “Oh.” He grinned, ashamed. “Why?”

  “Why what?”

  “Why did you ask about the dead woman?” Benno preferred talking about the corpse to talking about Carolin.

  “Sybille told me everything.”

  “Sybille? Sybille who? What did she tell you?”

  “Sybille Antler.”

  By a hair’s breadth he avoided stepping on Corinna’s left foot.

  The girl laughed. “Her father’s got a repair shop in Grevenhorst. She and a few friends found the body. I think one of them played around with the corpse. And I think one of the boys took a souvenir.”

  “A souvenir?” Benno paused, and a moment later received an elbow to his left kidney.

  “Dance on,” the girl said.

  Benno obeyed. “What kind of souvenir?” he asked.

  “She didn’t know. Or didn’t want to say.”

  The song was over, and now the guitarist of the group tried his hand at a Roland Kaiser imitation and belted out “Santa Maria.”

  “Oh, that’s awful,” Benno said.

  “That he took a souvenir?”

  “That too.”

  “It’s okay for dancing, but you have to hold me more closely.”

  Benno did as he was told. He fervently hoped that Carolin would see him like that, with a young woman in his arms, and without committing any major blunder. Yes, he could have fun. He could dance if he wanted to.

  “The miracle boy,” Corinna said. “That’s your son?”

  “Yes,” Benno said. “But he is not a miracle.”

  “You can’t really hurt him, right? Like Siegfried.”

  “Who said that?”

  “People,” the girl answered vaguely.

  “He can get hurt very easily,” Benno said firmly, and to divert attention from Tim, he asked, “What is going to happen with Harald?”

  Corinna looked directly at him, as if to make sure he had no ulterior motives, or wouldn’t tell her father everything.

  “It’s not like he can do anything he’s not already done. It’s not as if I want to get pregnant and have his child.”

  Benno couldn’t think of anything to say. “Patchouli,” he finally blurted out.

  “What?”

  “Your perfume. That’s what it is, right?”

  She nodded. “Do I have your word of honor?”

  “Where does Sybille live?”

  “You can’t say that I told you.”

  “Santa Maria” was over, and in the short break before the next number, Benno led Corinna to the edge of the dance floor. “Would you like something to drink?” he asked.

  “Nah, that’s okay. I should get back to my parents.”

  “Right.” Benno hoped that he had not danced an inappropriately long time with the girl. “And about Sybille—I’m not going to rat her out to the police.”

  “That wouldn’t get you anywhere.”

  Benno looked at her puzzled. “Why?”

  “Oh, nothing,” Corinna said quickly. “The Antlers live on Enge Straße. But don’t tell her how you found out about the corpse.”

  “Word of honor.” Benno took her hand and bowed slightly. “It’s been fun to dance with you.”

  The girl wiped off her hand on her dress, and before turning away she said, “Your hands are all wet.”

  7

  The bad weather continued. The leaves that had survived the fall until now landed on the ground and gummed up the streets. In Berlin, Benno had always felt melancholic and cozy during this time. Even when driving his taxi, the cold and rain hadn’t been able to get to him, but in Strathleven he felt defenseless and soggy during the day until the early onset of darkness covered the puddles and rivulets.

  At dinner, Tim was very silent, until he suddenly asked, “Is there anybody else like me?” His lips were smeared with grease and stood open. His third slice of pizza sat in front of him.

  It was not the first time that he had asked that question. Benno and Carolin had done research, interviewed doctors, and scoured scientific journals and books for instances of Tim’s illness, but they had never found an answer.

  “No,” Benno said. “You’re a monster!”

  Tim laughed, raised his greasy hands and curled his fingers into claws. His face was contorted, his tongue was stuck out. Rasmus barked, and Carolin laughed when the whole table began to shake. She was happy to watch her son’s antics.

  When the plate broke from the impact of Tim’s elbow, Carolin screamed. Benno grabbed the boy and pulled him into his arms. All three were suddenly very quiet. Benno turned Tim’s arm into the light. Together they stared at the narrow cut. The thin red line darkened quickly and disappeared, and in its place appeared a several millimeter wide bulge. There would be no scab, Tim had never had any. Benno and Carolin called them scars, but they looked just like slightly thicker, tougher, darker skin.

  “Shit,” Benno said. Tim wriggled from his grip and shrugged his shoulders a bit too calmly to convince his parents.

  “We must be careful,” said Benno. The spectacle of Tim’s healing process still frightened him.

  “You monster,” Carolin repeated the joke, but her voice was shrill. Tim’s mouth twisted and he began to cry.

  He made it a habit to sit down at his desk every night, put on a record and read stories and articles about the region. He read of small creatures that were strong enough to move and arrange even the largest boulders. These beings could also turn thems
elves invisible or transform into all sorts of animals.

  Benno had no idea how witches and superstition could help him with his article, but on cold autumn nights these tales made for good reading, and he also learned that the Goblins favored the shape of fat toads and sat under elderberry bushes, wearing small gold crowns on their heads.

  Actually, he was more interested in finding out what Sybille Antler knew and what the boy had taken from the murder scene. But how could he find out about it? The girl didn’t attend church, and he couldn’t lie in wait in front of her house and then interrogate her. Even if the girl should talk to him, he was not the police.

  Benno still hadn’t found a hook for his story when he looked at the clock. It was after midnight. Tim had gone to bed at nine, and Carolin had said good night soon afterward. He had listened to the same Anne Clark album three times already, and finally he stood up to put on one last record and to drink one more glass of wine. His back and shoulders felt all stiff and when he went into the kitchen to open a new bottle, two cockroaches scurried toward opposite corners of the linoleum floor.

  Armed with a bottle of Cahors, Benno made his way back to his office. The bushes outside were scratching at the windows. Perhaps it was this scraping noise that reminded him of the young pastor’s sermon, or perhaps the stories of pagan gods he’d been reading all night were to blame, but Benno suddenly felt the need to listen to “Dark Side of the Moon” by Pink Floyd. What devil would he unleash on humanity?

  He had never ordered his record collection, which consisted of maybe 150 albums and filled two long shelves. Benno’s fingers slid over the backs of the sleeves, his eyes were tired and blurred the titles and band names. Again he went through his records, but no, even this time he couldn’t find Pink Floyd. It had been a birthday gift from a former girlfriend, a girl with long fingers and a large nose. She had never removed her leather bracelets, not even in the shower.

  Again, nothing. Benno took out every single sleeve, looked at each and every cover. No, it wasn’t there.

  Slowly he sat down on the floor and rubbed his eyes. The scratching of the bushes no longer sounded cozy. Spindly fingers asked to be let in, dark figures flitted around the house and looked for a gap, a small opening to squeeze through.

  His fingers reached for the wine glass, and for a moment Benno remained completely silent in thought, thinking back to that little apartment in Wedding district, recalling friends and long winter nights with heat coming from the ancient tiled coal oven.

  Then he sat up with a jerk. He had gone through his entire record collection, but had he seen his two Kiss albums? Once again, he went searching through them, but this time he was sure that the Eagles and Led Zeppelin were missing too. Benno drank his wine and looked outside the window to the shadows, as they turned and writhed. And all of a sudden he got the sinking feeling that they were rejoicing and applauding with their withered hands.

  “Pink Floyd?”

  “What Thomas played in church sounded really horrible. It scared me. And that can’t be good for Tim.” Carolin’s face looked drawn.

  Benno was still wearing his shirt and pants, he had slept on the sofa in the living room. “You’re scared? That the devil is going to take over our lives?” He was tired and his lower back and sides were stiff and hurt.

  Carolin put the toothbrush on the edge of the sink and turned her head to face him. “You don’t take me seriously, you don’t even try.”

  “You didn’t ask me. Those were my albums. What did you do with them?”

  “We’re married. Your albums?”

  Benno gasped in disbelief. “Where are they?” His voice was hoarse.

  “I threw them in the trash.” And as Benno was about to storm out of the bathroom, she added, “It was picked up yesterday. I didn’t want to sell them and let them fall into other hands.”

  “Let them fall into other hands?” Benno’s voice cracked. “That is complete nonsense. That pastor has a screw loose.”

  Carolin stared at him and then slowly lowered her head. But before he could continue to rant about the pastor, she began to cry. “Sorry,” she sobbed, turned to him and grabbed his shirt. “I should’ve talked to you.”

  Her sudden change of mind let the air out of his rage. “Yes, you should’ve,” he said in a low voice.

  “I know. But I was alone in the house and I suddenly couldn’t breathe. Thomas didn’t make that up, and I don’t want to have such things around me.” She held on to Benno and pressed her face against his chest.

  “It’s just music,” he said, trying to sound reassuring. “It won’t harm us.”

  “Don’t leave such things in the house. The pastor says you have to commit to the good, and that also means that you have to make sacrifices.”

  “And you sacrificed my records?”

  “Not everybody understands this, and those who don’t are the ones who tempt the true believers.” Carolin was still crying. While he was stroking her hair and trying to soothe her, he wondered whether she considered him among the people who tried to tempt ‘true believers.’

  After Carolin had left the bathroom, Benno stood at the window and pressed his face against the cold glass. The driveway was full of puddles, and the old sand pit looked like a swimming pool. He saw Rasmus run out into the garden, pee on a rock in disgust and immediately trot back to the house. Even the dog despised the weather.

  Benno slowly undressed, turned on the water in the shower. But when he reached down and grabbed a new towel from the small closet, a thought struck him, and he raised his head so fast that he caught the edge of the sink. The pain made him scream and fall to the ground. Cursing, he got up again and was greeted by his cheese-colored face in the cabinet’s mirror. He opened the door and checked the contents. As much as he tried to locate them between Band-Aids and eye drops, he couldn’t find Carolin’s pill bottles.

  The Miracle Oak stood in a meadow near the village exit, between Dorfstraße and Kambek. Benno had seen it every day on his way to work and never recognized what it was. The tree was near a small forest, and no cows were grazing in its vicinity. There couldn’t be any doubt—branches and trunk were so severely knotted that two meters off the ground a nearly circular opening had been created, through which a person could squeeze with some effort. That’s what Heintz and the librarian had been talking about.

  Despite the rain, Benno stopped the car and decided to walk across the meadow. He tried to dodge the biggest puddles, but by the time he was halfway to the tree his shoes were soaked. Nevertheless, he hurried on. The oak’s trunk was massive, the branches still wore a few brown leaves. If he got up on his tiptoes, he could reach the hole with his hands, but without climbing up he couldn’t see through the opening. Benno walked around the oak and inspected it. Strangely, there were no nicks, no evidence of carved hearts, no lovers’ names immortalized. At a miracle tree, he would have expected to find them in abundance. But the tree seemed untouched. Benno braved the rain for a minute or two longer. He hoped for an inspiration, a sign, or any special feeling of grandeur and awe, but he felt only wet. The tree didn’t give up its secret.

  In the evening he left the office early and walked over to the library. He looked for the librarian from the previous week and finally found her on the third floor behind a cart with books. She was taller than he remembered, and was wearing tight jeans and a sweater that made her look even bigger than on his first visit. Her many bracelets jingled, and Benno watched her as she took one book after another and placed it on the shelves. He had never seen anything special in this activity.

  “Certainly an oak,” he said as a greeting.

  “Are you suffering from rheumatism?” She laughed, revealing coffee-stained teeth. “The opening. If you have rheumatism or asthma, you have to climb through in order to become healthy again. How did you end up in Strathleven?”

  “It was cheap, I think. My wife found it. Short drive to town. Large apartment. Garden.”

  She nodded. Today she was
wearing a nametag on her cardigan. Hanne Stein. She came up to Benno and put a hand on his arm. “Do you want to know more about your new home? More than soccer?”

  Benno’s face turned red, her hand was still on his arm, motionless and alive, like a small animal. Then he nodded and grinned sheepishly.

  On the second floor, the library had a small reading room, and the built-in, wooden shelves were lined with books on regional architecture, old sailing ships, the Hanseatic League, Lübeck and its churches, and local cuisine.

  “So what shall it be?” She turned to look at him and spread her arms wide. “Klabautermänner? Störtebeker? Pentecostal rites or Ghost Rider? Miracle Oak?”

  Benno sighed. “Is there really something about the Miracle Oak?”

  “Oh, of course.” She rolled her eyes. “It’s our specialty.”

  “I mean, I still need a hook, a specific angle. Something like ‘Strathleven Throughout the Ages’ or ‘Miracle Oak Cures Frail Old Man.’ What I have found so far makes no sense at all. A deity with four heads, witch hunts, shipwrecks and gold ducats—it’s terrible nonsense.”

  The librarian furrowed her brow. She had a stronger chin than he did, Benno noticed, but this didn’t make her face look harsh. To avoid being caught staring at her, he eagerly looked at the books around him.

  “Wasn’t Strathleven in the headlines recently? A month or two ago?”

  “Yes,” Benno said. “A woman was murdered.”

  “Do they have any suspects yet?”

  Benno shook his head. “They don’t even know who she was or why she was found in Strathleven. She wasn’t murdered where she was found, but that’s all they know. She was pregnant and was horribly disfigured, as if someone had stabbed her with dull knives and scissors.”

  For a moment there was silence in the paneled room, and Benno could now hear the rain beating against the window.

  “That would be a good hook,” the librarian said cautiously.

  “But I want to endear myself to the village,” sighed Benno.

  “Then let’s go back to the Miracle Oak. Or you can publish the article under a pseudonym.”