A Shroud for Jesso

Chapter Twenty-four

“You haven’t changed since yesterday. Since then.” Renette looked at his spurs.

“No,” said Helmut. “I’ve been too busy.”

“I know. They came very fast.”

“I was on the phone when it happened, my dear. I was not standing there, being sentimental.”

“No. You were clever, for once.”

“And now you, dear Renette. Now you must be clever. The crime was murder, first degree. Remember, Renette. First degree, and Johannes fired in self-defense.”

“You know that is false.”

“What was it, my dear? A crime passionnel?”

“You know what it was, Helmut.”

“Yes, and what will happen if you say so?”

“Maybe he will go free. Soon.”

“And come back, like a leech and a disease. Is that what you want?”

“You should talk of disease.”

“Ah! So you admire it, all of it.”

“It was useless and ugly. And it killed Johannes.”

“How sentimental of you! Johannes left us everything.”

“Not us, Helmut. Me.”

“And you don’t resent the gift, do you? The wealth, the freedom.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Then be clever, Renette. Cold-blooded murder, you understand? Anything else and it might take years. Years in litigation, from one court to the next-“

“And you couldn’t wait that long, could you, Helmut?”

“So you love him.”

“I do not despise him, as I despise you.”

“Be clever, Renette. I want nothing from you. I don’t interfere with you one way or the other.”

“You won’t.”

“But I will, if you don’t share with me what he left.”

“Helmut, listen to me-”

“I might even get it all, if you do not act as I say.”

“Listen to me, Helmut. Have you thought of this? You killed Johannes. You attacked him, Johannes fired, and Jesso, trying to pull you apart, got shot.”

“You’re being absurd!”

“Jesso will say the same thing. We had just a moment before they took him. He explained it to me.”

“You must be insane, Renette!”

“So don’t threaten me, Helmut. Nobody threatens me any more.”

“No. Johannes is dead. But Jesso isn’t.”

“He doesn’t threaten me.”

“I forget. You love him. Do you love him enough to go to prison, too? Not in the same one, my dear, not with him, but just a prison?”

“Now you’re absurd.”

“Perhaps, but it’s worth a try. Like your trying to implicate me. I could say you engineered the whole thing, the murder, the passport. Even-“

“None of this would stand up in court. And I would never murder my brother.”

“Of course. But it might take years. We would lose everything in the meantime. My name, which means nothing to you. Your money, which means a great deal to you. And your freedom, Renette. For a long time-your freedom.”

“You are clever, Helmut.”

“Of course.”

“But you’re wasting your time.”

“You don’t believe what I said?”

“What I believe I believed before you came.”

“Three o’clock,” said Helmut, and he got out of his chair. “The police Prafekt will be waiting.”

Jesso looked at the bars in the window, and at their shadows, stretching big across the wall. When he stood up they reached across his face. He sat down, facing the wall where the washbasin stood, because that corner looked least like a prison. He wasn’t trying to get used to the bars. There was no point in that. Ten minutes, five minutes, maybe, and she would be here. In five minutes the testimony, and then he would be free. Kator was dead and he was free. Renette was outside and he was free. Five minutes perhaps.

He got up and moved carefully. His arm was in a sling and the wound where the bullet had cut through felt hot. When he got out he would go to a real doctor, he would pay a real doctor and not leave it the way some underpaid prison quack fixed it up, with iodine and some stinking ointment. Jesso could smell the reek of it through the bandage. Or perhaps it was the reek of the prison. The whole place stank, and if he were staying he would go crazy. He’d go out of his mind without trying to stop it. He walked the length of the room a few times, walking as if he were crossing a street. It wasn’t impatience and he didn’t feel he was waiting. He was hardly there any more. Then the door opened.

The guard waved and showed him the way. It was behind the bend in the corridor. The door was paneled wood and inside he saw wallpaper and curtains on the windows. He saw Renette. He saw also the guard, a stenographer, the Prafekt with his gray mustache, and Helmut. Behind the curtains on the windows there were bars. But for Jesso there was only Renette.

“Please be seated,” said the Prafekt.

“Hello, Renette.”

She didn’t say, “Jesso.” She nodded and they sat down.

“This need not take long,” said the Prafekt, and he swiveled his mustache around. “Baron Helmut von Lohe, you have given your formal statement?”

“I have.”

“Premeditated murder, you stated,” and the Prafekt shuffled papers. “Now then, the corroborating testimony. Frau Baronin?”

Renette was looking at Jesso and once she smiled at him. He needed no more. There would be more, but right now…

“Frau Baronin?”

She turned toward the old man behind the desk but she looked out the window. Jesso saw how the sun lit her face. She was looking through the bars, past the wall where the head of a green tree was showing. Jesso sat back, crossed his legs. He had forgotten his arm, so when it touched the back of his chair it made him wince. Renette looked back to him.

“Does it hurt?”

“Hell, no.”

But the cigarette had dropped out of his hand and Renette got up, gave it back to him. When she had straightened she put out her hand. Just a short gesture. She ran her hand quickly over his hair, where it looked like velvet.

“Frau Baronin,” said the Prafekt again. “Your testimony.”

“Yes,” she said, and Jesso saw she was not hesitating. She looked at Jesso, and her eyes were clear and almost far away. “He killed my brother,” she said.

The cell was black and the sky was black, so Jesso couldn’t see the bars any more. It was as if there weren’t any. As if it didn’t matter. His good hand felt the pocket and the fine chain with the pearl. He couldn’t see it in his hand and only remembered how it was. Then his fingers clamped and the delicate shell made a sound. The broken pearl cut his finger. He knew it had cut, but there was no pain. Because he felt he was dead already.