Brenner and God

CHAPTER 7

Good news now. It wasn’t the Frau Doctor who was waiting for Herr Simon outside in the hallway. She had enough to deal with, what with her nervous breakdown. Instead, Natalie was sitting out on the bench and looking at him with those serious eyes of hers that Herr Simon had liked from day one. Pay attention: Natalie was the clinic’s psychologist, because a pregnancy’s never terminated without psychological counseling. And it was the psychologist, of all people, who got to experience an unwelcome side effect of the pills in his first week on the job. You should know, the pills made him a little volatile. He’d often be serenity personified, then something small would set him off all over again. Or, he’d let a stupid joke rip that never would’ve even occurred to him before. Just so you understand. Because Natalie was very hurt at the time, even though Herr Simon hadn’t meant anything bad by it. It was just a careless moment when he’d played dumb and pretended like he thought her job was to counsel the embryos: dispensing consolation along the lines of, don’t make a big deal of it, life’s not that popular anyway, rest assured you can do without it, be glad that you can keep flying with the gnats.

Maybe you’ve already noticed how much he liked Natalie, because men don’t talk like such imbeciles otherwise. Did he get off on the wrong foot with Natalie? Don’t even ask. He tallied it up afterward, and believe it or not, she’d used the word “puberty” three times in one sentence.

And Herr Simon managed to insult her a second time within the same week. But to that I have to say, Natalie was being overly sensitive! Because she didn’t necessarily have to rebuff his compliment-that, in her case, it would have been a pity if she hadn’t been brought into this world-with such a scowl. My god, there will always be people who’ll make you want to say, it wouldn’t have been such a pity if their mothers had thought elsewise, and then for the vast majority, you’d say, it wouldn’t have made a difference one way or another whether they’re here or not-neutral, as it were. But very rarely is there a person who makes you say, it would’ve been an outright shame. See Natalie, with her black curls, with her white teeth, with her green specks in her dark-brown eyes, and with her mouth, which, in a single sentence, used the word “puberty” three times. But if you work in an area like the one Natalie works in, of course you don’t want to hear such a dubious compliment. I can understand Natalie on that. On the other hand, Herr Simon was brand new in the workplace at the time, he had yet to adopt the right conversational tone for the clinic, because-always a particular knowledge set, what you’re allowed to say where and how, and what you’re not allowed to say how and where.

But despite this minor friction, I don’t wish to say that Natalie didn’t like Herr Simon. Quite the opposite! Although she knew nothing of his police past, she’d felt right away that behind the slightly stiff and straitlaced chauffeur, an entirely different person was hiding. Because you can’t fool a skilled psychologist with the Herr Simon routine when really you’re an old Brenner.

But it was jinxed for these two, because today they were back on the rocks all over again.

“My god, look at you!” they both said at the same time.

And if it hadn’t been so sad, maybe they would have laughed and could have possibly begun a love story with this simultaneous exclamation, but alas, it was only a death story.

Well, death story only in the long run, what with all that happened the next week and the dirt that got dredged up, television, newspaper, and, and, and. Short term, as long as they were sitting there on the bench in the police station, no death story, of course, no, just an eviction story. Watch closely: Natalie had his possessions in a cheap duffel bag, and she got him to hand over his car keys and his key to the chauffeur’s apartment. Because Kressdorf had built a modest chauffeur’s quarters above the double garage in the driveway to the Hietzinger villa-quite comfortable-but not Herr Simon’s apartment anymore now because the Frau Doctor said, I never want to see that man again. You see, she was almost more afraid of him than he was of her.

Natalie handed him an envelope containing one month’s pay, and then she offered him her hand in farewell, and said something terribly nice that pained Herr Simon more than if she’d called him a murderer. Listen closely. She said, “Herr Simon, Helena always liked you.”

“I’ll find those filthy-” he said, but his voice wobbled so much on “filthy” that he couldn’t get “pigs” out.

Natalie understood him regardless, though. She gave him a disapproving look just like she used to do, and shook her head in warning, as if to say: don’t make things any worse, Herr Simon.

This treatment was preferable to him just now, though, because he’d calmed himself down enough to ask in a normal voice, “Have the kidnappers made any demands yet?”

“Herr Simon,” Natalie said, and pressed her lips so thin that a kiss would have been perilous.

“In a situation like this a private investigator can find a child much quicker.”

“Herr Simon!”

“It’ll take the police three weeks just to find someone competent, by then he’ll be out sick, and after that they’ll say: ‘Now it’s too late, statute of limitations.’ ”

“Herr Simon, listen carefully to me. You’re not to undertake anything in this case.” She looked at him so seriously with her dark eyes that everything else receded from view. “We know that you used to be on the police force.”

Naturally she felt the need to emphasize this because until recently she was the only one who didn’t know. “But you’re not on the force anymore,” the psychologist said, professional brainwashing, as it were. “You have feelings of guilt, but you’re not allowed to solve this case with your own fists.”

“I’m not talking about fists,” he said, “but-”

“We’re not talking about absolutely anything, Herr Simon. Or else, the child might be brought into only greater danger. The police have already taken the matter in hand.”

“Have the kidnappers made contact at all?”

“The detectives will take care of it.”

“Strange. Kidnappers almost always demand no police. And these are demanding exactly the opposite: just police, no Brenner.”

“No Brenner,” Natalie said, earnestly and with that certain air of superiority that only people who know they’re doing the right thing get. But one thing to jot down for your own life. Certainty: always black ice. And Natalie didn’t realize the huge mistake she’d just made. Because that was the first time she didn’t call him “Herr Simon,” but rather “Brenner.”

And it struck Brenner that, in doing so, she was authorizing him to undertake the investigation. Unconsciously, as it were.