Zen and the Art of Murder Read online

  He seemed really pleased to see her, relieved too. Shocked and relieved. Only in his eyes did she detect a strange exhaustion.

  “Unbelievable,” he said.

  She stroked his hair. “What?”

  “No idea. Just unbelievable.”

  They both laughed awkwardly.

  His eyes drifted to the bandage around her shoulder. “I mean, what the hell?” he said.

  “Come on, let’s drink to it.”

  That night one nightmare followed hot on the heels of another. Anatol and Enni featured in most of them. They were naked and ten years old at most, lying on sofas, beds, floors and letting her do whatever she pleased with them. At one point Landen came and said, “You shouldn’t do that.” She replied, “It’s good for them. They want it. Believe me. They’re safe with me. They don’t get ill here. They don’t have to live on the streets. They get enough to eat. They’re loved. Do you want a go too?” “No,” Landen said and left.

  15

  Lederle woke her early the next morning. His hand rested on her uninjured shoulder. He seemed to have taken pleasure in touching her. “Get dressed,” he said.

  They had found Steiner. He lived in a secluded valley in the Vosges, to the southwest of Strasbourg. His wife and at least one man were with him. A man who drove a red Audi and had arrived a few days ago, according to eyewitnesses.

  The raid was scheduled for 8:00 a.m. The Germans had permission to observe. But they weren’t allowed to take their weapons across the border or interrogate anyone. In fact, they weren’t allowed to do anything. As ever. Lederle shrugged.

  Chervel, Justin Muller and Bermann had moved into a village near the valley the evening before. Which meant that Lederle must have known yesterday afternoon. She resisted the urge to comment. At least he was making sure she’d be involved.

  He stood at the window while she got dressed. It was still dark outside. His head was in the middle of a snowstorm. “What about the children?” she said, slipping on Anatol’s sweater.

  He shrugged.

  “Do the French know I’m coming?”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s it looking like on, um, the diplomatic front?”

  Lederle giggled. “Bad. Almenbroich’s going to have to go crawling to Paris to stop them throwing you in the Bastille.”

  She asked him to fasten the belt in her jeans, which he did. “Will you help me put my shoes on?”

  Lederle held on to the table while he kneeled. His hands were cold and trembling. He eased her feet into her winter boots, then said, “Could you help me up?”

  She placed her right hand under his armpit and he struggled to his feet. In the past he had been quicker to get going in the mornings. She linked arms with him. When they were in the corridor she asked, “What sort of a doctor is Steiner?”

  “An eye doctor,” Lederle said.

  The snow on the ground had frozen. February had begun with a Siberian chill, and for a week now the temperature had not risen above forty-one degrees in the daytime. She longed for her hospital bed. For Anatol. For Provence.

  And for Landen. For the thousandth time she wondered why he hadn’t come to visit her. She’d call him today and ask. Explain why she hadn’t been able to stay for lunch.

  As they drove along Matsuyamaallee she thought of Enni. Of the center of the universe, of the roshi. As soon as she could, she wanted to go to the Kanzan-an and ask the roshi how you found own-nature. It might help her in the abyss.

  Later they spoke about Taro. Lederle didn’t hold out much hope either. The three Frenchmen hadn’t shied away from killing a policeman so why would they have spared Taro’s life? He had seen, heard, known something that might be dangerous for Asile d’enfants. He needed to be silenced. “He can’t still be alive,” Lederle said, sounding dispassionate again.

  She nodded. Niksch and Taro. Two people she hadn’t known for more than thirty-six hours. And yet they’d left traces in her life. The world felt different without them. She pledged to ensure it would remain that way. Her encounters with the roshi had made her realize how important it was for people to leave traces in another person’s life. Even if you had known them only fleetingly.

  At Bad Kronzingen they took the B31. There was scarcely any traffic, but Lederle kept to thirty-seven mph. Louise thought of the sheer thrill Niksch had got from driving. His glee when he let the back of the car swing out and then brought it under control again.

  Niksch had been buried while she was in the hospital. Almenbroich and Bermann were present, but not Lederle. In his situation nobody could expect him to attend a funeral, but he was the only one she’d have wanted to ask about Niksch’s final journey.

  They crossed the border at Breisach, then took the fast road between Colmar and Strasbourg, exiting at Sélestat. With almost no warning the mountains now loomed before them. They turned off to the north before St. Dié. To the left of them it was pitch black, to the right it was beginning to get light.

  Louise’s father’s family came from the Vosges. Friendly teachers, priests and grocers from Gérardmer, humble Catholics who slaved away in small, cramped rooms. For the first time she tried to imagine the seismic shock when her father brought a Protestant German woman through the narrow doorframe of the house in which he had been born. Had he known what he was doing? Had he only married outside the family tradition to afford himself some distance—peacefully, but definitively?

  At any rate he was only successful to a certain extent. The Catholics from Gérardmer had opened their arms wide and welcomed to their bosom the girl twice punished by destiny.

  A short time later Lederle took a deep breath and said, “Fifty-eight children since 1997. Where are they, Louise? What’s happened to them? Do they live somewhere near here? For how many of them is life one big martyrdom? How many of those fifty-eight children were sold to parents who didn’t want children, but a sex object? All the slightly older ones? That’s twenty-one of them. Twenty-one of the fifty-eight children are older than six. Have these twenty-one children all been victims of sexual abuse, Louise? Were they sold? Or were they hired out on demand for a few days or weeks to child molesters or people who produce porn? These are the questions I’ve been asking myself for days. But do you know why I can’t sleep anymore?”

  She did not reply.

  “I can’t sleep because I can’t answer the question as to whether you can pass moral judgment on someone who’s so desperate for a child that they’ll pay to adopt one illicitly, because it can’t be done through legal channels. That’s my question, Louise. Can you pass moral judgment on these people? Yes, I know, it means children are degraded, they become goods; the welfare of the adoptive parents is given precedence over that of the children, the demand determines the supply, et cetera. All that is right. But I wonder: how can we humans be expected to have the maturity to cope with our desire for a child when we can just get our wallets out? If we know that we can give a newborn baby from Asia or eastern Europe or South America a better life than in their orphanage back home? We buy everything, Louise, we buy animals, health, land, leisure, beauty, love—how the hell are we as consumers supposed to understand that there’s a line we must not cross? Where do we find the inner strength to place abstract values above what is possibly our greatest desire of all?”

  Lederle broke off, exhausted, breathing rapidly. Louise could not tell if he was expecting an answer. And she certainly didn’t know what sort of an answer she could have given him. She knew of only two people she could rely on to answer these questions: Barbara Franke and the roshi. Barbara might have said that the purchase of a child given up for adoption and child abuse were two sides of the same coin. The status of the child was the same: a commodity. The roshi might have said that you had to be at peace with yourself to muster the inner strength Lederle was talking about.

  For the rest of the journey she wondered how she might find answers to those and other questions so long as she still relied on alcohol to make life bearable. And that
the same thing lay behind the need for alcohol and the fatal longing to have an adoptive child: human desire, the root of all suffering according to Landen.

  In a tiny village that still lay in total darkness they came across a convoy of French cars. Chervel, Muller and Bermann were with them. Bermann gave a grunt of surprise when he saw Bonì. Chervel and Muller shook her hand.

  She got into a Citroën with Lederle. Two black, uniformed officers sat in the front.

  “Didn’t you tell him?”

  “He doesn’t have to know everything.”

  She looked at Lederle. He’d changed over the past few weeks, he seemed more defiant and more stoical. She wondered how Antonia’s chemotherapy was going, but she didn’t dare ask. And if his expression—the half-closed eyes and downturned corners of his mouth—was anything to go by, she didn’t need to.

  The convoy set off. One of the French policemen offered them a cigarette. They declined. He lit up and opened the passenger window slightly. The sun flashed between bare rock faces. Louise slumped in her seat. Her shoulder was aching, the smoke irritated her throat and ice-cold air lashed the right side of her head. She closed her eyes and opened them straight away. She felt a stir of excitement. They had Steiner! The first concrete lead to Asile d’enfants. To Natchaya, to Pham. Maybe there was hope.

  But the excitement vanished as quickly as it had appeared. For Niksch and probably Taro too, the hope came too late.

  The two French policemen took them to a low hill on the left-hand slope of the valley. Hugo Chervel and Bermann were waiting in an unmarked Peugeot. They looked over. Chervel gave her a cursory wave.

  When they got into the Peugeot the Citroën turned and disappeared. The first rays of sun arrived in the valley. They were a little way from the top of the hill and could not see the house in the valley. “Fifteen minutes,” Chervel said.

  They listened over the radio as the French officers took up their positions. Bermann couldn’t understand everything; Bonì translated individual words. Lederle said nothing, it was as if his thoughts were elsewhere. He was right: when all this was over they had to talk. But she was beginning to worry about what he would say.

  At 8:00 a.m. on the dot the order to launch the raid came over the radio. Chervel nodded to them and they got out. They walked side by side to the summit. It was freezing, but at least there was no wind. Chervel peered through some binoculars.

  The snowy valley lay about 160 feet below, while Steiner’s house was a hundred yards away as the crow flies. A simple, faceless, gray house, not particularly large with a pointed roof. The Venetian blinds at the windows were closed. Plain-clothes police officers crouched close to the outside walls like huge black insects. About halfway up the hill, three or four snipers squatted in the snow behind rocks. Twenty yards off to the side of the house was another large building, probably a stable or a barn.

  Now the patrol cars approached. Uniformed officers leaped out and used their vehicles as cover. Via megaphone the people inside the house were ordered to give themselves up. Nothing happened.

  Chervel lowered his binoculars and lit a cigarette.

  “You might have thought to bring some chairs,” Bermann said in German.

  All of a sudden there was movement by the stable. Two officers brought a girl out and walked her to the nearest patrol car. Bonì’s eyes followed them. The girl was wearing a skirt, and she was small and slim. Black hair, dark complexion. From the Far East? It was hard to tell her age from this distance. Not a child anymore, but not a grown-up woman either.

  “Teresa, the maid,” Chervel said. “A Filipina. Catholic, twenty years old. She’s been working for Steiner for three years. Two abortions, and now she’s been sterilized. It’s more practical.”

  Teresa, Bonì thought. Niksch and Theres. Theres and Niksch. “You’re well informed,” she said, taking the binoculars from him. She held them up to her eyes with her right hand.

  “I always thought you flics had fewer powers than us,” Bermann said. “We don’t know if someone’s been sterilized, or how many abortions they’ve had.”

  Chervel didn’t respond.

  By the time Bonì had focused the binoculars the girl was already in the police car. Her hands were in front of her face and her head bowed. The car reversed then drove off.

  She gave the binoculars back to Chervel. The house was still quiet. The voice over the megaphone reiterated its order, and then a third time shortly afterward.

  Nothing.

  “Shit!” Chervel said. He lifted his radio. “Are you going in?”

  “Yes,” a man’s voice said.

  Louise looked over at the French officers. None of them had a radio to their ear. Seconds passed without anything happening. Nobody seemed to be moving in the valley.

  “I can’t believe you didn’t think of chairs,” Bermann said.

  One of the insects peeled away from the wall, raised his pistol and shot at the lock. Other insects snuck into the building. Panicked female screams.

  No other shots.

  “Everything under control,” the unknown man’s voice said shortly afterward.

  Chervel tossed away his cigarette and looked at Bermann. “Standing room only here,” he said.

  A few minutes later the police officers led a woman and two men out of the house. The woman and one of the men wore coats, the second man only jeans and a sweater. The woman was wailing loudly and seemed to be in shock. Two policewomen supported her.

  Bonì took the binoculars from Chervel’s hand and focused on the man in jeans. Even though she hadn’t got a clear sight of the driver of the red Audi, she was sure it was him. “What about the injured one?”

  Chervel repeated her question into the radio.

  “We don’t know yet,” the voice of the invisible officer said.

  The three people under arrest were put in different cars. More officers entered the house. The sunlight had crept a little further into the valley. A narrow strip of brightness lay on the side of the hill where the snipers were still in position.

  “Can we have a brief chat with Steiner?” Bermann said.

  “Not without official authorization,” Chervel said.

  “Oh, come on, seeing as we’re here.”

  “You’re not here, Bermann. At some point there has to be an end to all these exceptions and favors.”

  Chervel took the binoculars that Bonì was holding out. “What about the children, Hugo? If we don’t find out soon where the Asile lot are we’ll never see the children again.”

  Chervel looked at her. His husky eyes didn’t move. She knew what he was thinking. That the Asile people had disappeared a week ago. That in all likelihood the children weren’t even with them anymore. “You’ll get transcripts of the interrogations,” was all he said.

  “Hugo?” the man’s voice from the radio asked.

  “Yes?”

  “Steiner says he’s dead.”

  “Shit!”

  Lederle, who’d been standing motionless beside Louise, placed a hand on her forearm. She didn’t know if he was trying to comfort her or stop her from running away. “It’s OK,” she said.

  The second person to die because of her. But there were differences. Serious differences.

  They returned to the car. Bermann sat in the passenger seat, while Lederle and she got in the back. Chervel put the key in the ignition, then turned around and said, “I’ve got to take you to the office.”

  Before she could respond, Bermann said, “Who have you got to take to the office? There’s nobody here apart from you.”

  Chervel snorted and started the engine.

  “No problem,” Bonì said.

  Chervel shrugged.

  When they reached the road leading to Steiner’s farmhouse the Citroën was already waiting for them. Chervel got out too. He came round to Louise and said, “Have you got a lawyer?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is he any good at this stuff?”

  “He’s good at divorces.” />
  Chervel smiled and kissed her on both cheeks. “I know someone in Kehl. I’ll tell him to call you.”

  A day when everyone was looking after her. “Thanks.”

  They got in. Bermann opened the window on his side and said, “It was lovely not being here.”

  Chervel opened his arms. “How amusing you Germans can be. You’re almost bearable this early in the morning.”

  *

  On the way to Freiburg the excitement returned. They had Steiner, his wife and the driver of the Audi. They had the Filipino girl. Someone would tell them where Annegret Schelling, Natchaya and the children were. Where Pham was.

  It struck Bonì that for her this was the most important thing. She needed to see Pham again, to know that he was in good hands. As he was the only one she’d met, he had become the face of all fifty-eight children on the Asile d’enfants lists.

  But it was more than that, she felt. He was important for another reason. A bizarre reason connected to family, to a terraced house and a garden. To Landen.

  “Try not to worry,” Lederle said.

  “I’m not.” Louise blinked at the sun. Her shoulder ached, she was tired, she needed something to drink and she was afraid for Pham. There was nothing else worrying her. Apart from the fact that she was suddenly thinking about family, a terraced house and a garden. A 1970s role she was already too old for.

  Lederle said, “These guys killed Niksch and shot Hollerer—Chervel knows that.”

  They arrived at the Rhine Plain. The sun vanished briefly behind winter clouds, before breaking through again. Family, a terraced house and a garden. Soft, cuddly dreams she’d had as a teenager while her parents were screaming at each other. Rose-tinted desires. Worse than that: Mick-desires. Not a week had passed without him urging her to give up her career.

  “Besides, it was self-defense.”

  “It’s all right, Reiner,” Louise said, giving Lederle a reassuring pat on the thigh and wondering how she’d been able to communicate with this man for so long without touching him. “I’m going to have a little doze.”