The Inspector and Silence

9

Despite the massive influx of tourists seeking fresh air and good walking country – at this time of year the town probably housed twice as many people as during the winter, Van Veeteren would have thought – Sorbinowo had it limits. The number of respectable eating places (to qualify as such in his opinion you needed to be able to sit down and eat at a proper table, and be spared having to listen to canned music at more or less unbearable sound levels) was precisely five. Including Florian’s, where he had taken lunch with Kluuge, and Grimm’s Hotel, where he was staying.

This second evening the chief inspector chose number four: a simple, quasi-Italian establishment in one of the little alleys leading from Kleinmarckt up the hill to the church and the railway station. The pasta turned out to be a bit sticky and the beer lukewarm, but it was peaceful and quiet, and he could sit there alone with his thoughts.

Something which rarely happened, in fact.

Prayers? he thought.

Self-denial? Purity?

He had been thinking about such things in the car as well, while listening to the fugues.

And the image of the tranquil bodies of the little girls at the water’s edge came back to him. And the pale women wrapped in their lengths of bleached cotton cloth.

What the devil was going on?

A justified question, no doubt about that. There were voices inside him – loud voices – stubbornly demanding that he should sort them out. Return to Waldingen without a second’s delay – preferably together with Kluuge in his uniform – and bring the lot of them to book.

Give Oscar Yellinek a good dressing-down and set about all that sanctimoniousness with a sledgehammer. Find out the name of every single girl and send them off home at the first opportunity.

Very loud voices.

But there was something else as well. He took another swig of beer and tried to pin it down.

Something to do with freedom and rights, presumably.

With the right to practise one’s religion in peace and without interference. Not to have the police lurking round every corner, ready to come storming in the moment anything happened that didn’t conform with convention.

With defending, or at least not squashing, a minority.

Yes, something of that sort. Definitely.

Despite his instinctive dislike of Yellinek, he couldn’t help agreeing with him when it came down to basics. What right had he, the unbeliever, to stand in judgement over these members of a drop-out sect?

Two anonymous telephone calls. Little girl missing? Was that sufficient reason?

It could no doubt be argued that one should have rather firmer ground on which to stand. Somewhere a bit drier for one’s feet.

The fair-haired waitress came with his coffee and cognac. He lit a cigarette.

Not to mention the inconvenience!

He took a sip of cognac. Perhaps that was what put him off the most. The inconvenience. In the other half of the scales, comfort and warmth – for if he really did make up his mind to move in now, wasn’t it likely that Yellinek and the female troika would make him take the consequences as well? Force him to take responsibility for the whole group of girls and make sure each of them got back home safely?

And there was no reason to think that the girls’ parents would have a more benevolent attitude towards the police than their spiritual leader had displayed. After all, they had sent their offspring to this camp, and whether or not they were completely naive, they were hardly likely to be pleased to receive their half-confirmed teenagers three weeks earlier than expected. Anybody would be able to understand that. Even Kluuge. Even an agnostic detective chief inspector on his last legs.

Hell and damnation, Van Veeteren thought as he gestured for the bill. I’m sitting here like a donkey in two minds, thinking rubbish.

About a case that doesn’t even exist!

Or at least, probably doesn’t, he added. It must be the weather.

He paid, and left El Pino. It occurred to him that perhaps a decent glass of wine might help to get his mind back on track. White, of course, in view of the temperature; it was a few minutes short of half past eight, and the heat of the day was still lingering around Kleinmarckt, where the occasional tourist (and perhaps one or two locals) were strolling around in the gathering dusk.

Mersault, perhaps? Or just a simple glass of Riesling? That would probably be easier to find.

He could feel his mood improving already.

After all, the only reason he’d come here in the first place was to fill in time until Crete. Christos Hotel, the source of youth and that chestnut brown hair.

No other reason at all.

The cinema was called Rymont, and the mere existence of such an establishment in Sorbinowo was just as surprising as the films it was showing. Evidently something called a ‘Quality Film Festival’ was on offer during the summer, and when he discovered that a showing of the Taviani brothers’ Kaos was due to start in about two minutes, there was not a lot of time to hesitate.

He entered the auditorium just as the lights were being dimmed, but that gave him ample time to greet the rest of the evening’s audience. It comprised five people comfortably spread over the back few rows: four gentlemen and a lady – all of them past the first flush of youth, but with the kind of features characteristic of genuine cinema enthusiasts, Van Veeteren was pleased to note.

With a satisfied sigh he slumped down a few rows further forward – his satisfaction being intensified when it transpired that there would be no advertisements, and that the main film would begin at the exact time stated on the billboards.

So there is still a grain of quality left in this world of ours, he thought. Even a blind chicken can sometimes discover that fact occasionally.

Afterwards none of the audience was in much of a hurry to leave the premises. Two of the gentlemen launched into an animated discussion of the film. Comparisons were suggested with Pirandello’s texts and with other films by the Italian brothers, and it was clear to Van Veeteren that this was no ordinary group of people he’d found himself a part of. When he eventually stood up, another member of the audience came up to greet him – a short grey-haired gentleman exuding an aura of energy.

‘A new face! It’s a pleasure to welcome you!’

He held out his hand, and Van Veeteren shook it.

‘Przebuda. Andrej Przebuda. Chairman of the Sorbinowo Film Society.’

Van Veeteren. I just happen to be passing through…’

He searched his memory.

‘Life is a series of coincidences.’

‘Yes indeed,’ said the chief inspector. Very true. Hmm… I’m delighted to see that the cinematographic arts are still alive and kicking even outside the metropolitan centres.’

‘Well,’ said Przebuda, ‘we do our best – but as you can see, there aren’t all that many of us.’

He gestured towards the others.

‘And we’re not exactly spring chickens either.’

He smiled broadly and ran his hand apologetically over his almost bald head.

‘Andrej Przebuda?’ said the chief inspector – the penny had dropped at last.

‘Yes.’

‘I think we have a mutual friend.’

‘You don’t say? Who?’

‘W.F. Mahler.’

‘The poet?’

Van Veeteren nodded.

‘He claimed that you appreciated his poems.’

Przebuda burst out laughing and nodded enthusiastically. He was certainly closer to seventy than anything else, Van Veeteren thought. But the intensity in those eyes of his suggested the timeless twenties; and when the chief inspector looked more closely it seemed to him that the man’s face was distinctly Jewish. He realized – or suspected at least – that he was talking to one of those rare people who had been ennobled by suffering. Who had passed through fire and brimstone and been hardened rather than cracked.

But that was only a guess, of course. One of those sudden surges of speculation that demanded to be considered, and he was old enough to do so.

‘A damned fine poet, that Mahler,’ said Przebuda. ‘Fastidious, and as clear as a mountain tarn. I think I’ve reviewed every collection he’s published, right from the start. But how…’

It was another ten minutes before Van Veeteren was able to leave the Rymont cinema, armed with an insistent invitation from Andrej Przebuda to meet again and get to know each other better in the very near future – either in the editorial offices of his magazine, or at his home, which was nearby.

If the fact of the matter was that the chief inspector had come to Sorbinowo on official business, rather than as a tourist, then it could well be – not to overstate the matter – that he, Andrej Przebuda, might well be able to supply appropriate information.

If that should prove to be necessary. He’d been living here for forty-four years, after all.

If nothing else, perhaps they could exchange a few words about films and poetry.

Why not? Van Veeteren thought, having eventually taken leave of Przebuda and the other members of the Sorbinowo Film Society. It could be rewarding, from various points of view.

On the whole, not a wasted evening by any means, he decided as he made his way back to Grimm’s. But even so, once he had gone to bed what dominated his consciousness were the images from the morning. They kept him awake until the small hours.

Those young, naked little girls.

Those pale women.

The prophet’s beard.