The Truth and Other Lies

14

The guy’s not a cop, Henry decided, as the elevator door closed behind him. He’s not a private detective either. He’s a perfectly normal man with a bee in his bonnet. An amateur. He must have been after Henry for quite some time. Why had he put on an act, pretended not to know him? If he were just a fan who had made a clumsy attempt to get close to his idol, he would have owned up to it in the hospital, if not sooner. Maybe he just wanted to make his mark and write a biography of him. Perhaps during his research he’d come across the gap in Henry’s past and smelled blood.

Whoever uncovers me will undoubtedly become famous, Henry thought, and pressed the button for the ground floor. On his way down it occurred to him that Fasch hadn’t asked about the briefcase. Of course, he would have given himself away then, but how could he not miss it? Gathering all that stuff would have cost time, effort, and money. He would surely set great store on getting it back.

So much was clear to Henry: this fellow had come perilously close to uncovering his secret and wanted to do him harm, but didn’t know how. Now he has a problem because he owes me. Maybe he’ll never walk again, thought Henry with a flicker of compassion. Nevertheless, Henry had to keep ahead of him, find out his plan, which wouldn’t be so difficult — anyone looking for clues invariably leaves his own clues along the way. Deep down inside, Henry had the feeling he’d met Fasch before. Sometime and somewhere.

He strolled through the little park in front of the hospital to the parking lot. It was hot. Flakes of blossom floated between the lime trees, a gardener was mowing the lawn, a sprinkler was soaking a stray newspaper. People in dressing gowns sat on benches. A bald woman on crutches was with her family. She’d obviously survived chemo and was glad to be alive. Congratulations are in order, thought Henry, feeling moved.

He stopped and turned around. His gaze wandered up the façade to the open window on the fourth floor. Fasch waved to him from his bed. Henry waved back. You can buy silence; but you can’t buy goodwill. No one knew that better than Henry.

He took the Maserati to Car Wash Royale to have the congealed blood removed from the seat leather. A troop of cleaners in silly paper caps hurled themselves at the job. Henry explained to the suspicious boss’s son that a wounded deer was responsible.

While the troop set to work, Henry sauntered out of pure curiosity into the nearest multistory parking garage, where he rummaged through the trash can next to the ticket machine for the red telephone. He ignored the camera diagonally above him; after all, he wasn’t doing anything illegal. The phone was of course long gone — crushed to pulp when the can was emptied, or in Africa.

An hour later the car was sparkling clean and the interior once more smelled of leather. The boss’s son came running out from his little glass cabin where his father had sat before him for forty years. He didn’t like the way Henry was distributing generous tips to the cleaning slaves, but he couldn’t do anything about it. Henry saw his suspenders straining over his belly.

“Mr. Hayden,” he murmured in respectfully low tones, “I didn’t recognize you straightaway, but I saw your book in the trunk. My wife is a big fan of yours and I wanted to ask you…”

“Would you like an autograph?”

“My wife would be delighted, and so would I, of course.”

Henry took the book out of the trunk and thumbed the pages. “It’s a little the worse for wear, but of course I’ll sign it for you. Was it you who came up with the name ‘Car Wash Royale’?”

The boss’s son already had a pen to hand. “Oh no, that was my father.” He watched, curious what Henry would write.

“What’s your wife’s name?”

“Sarah. She’s… um, yes. Sarah with an ‘h.’ ”

He wrote Best wishes to Sarah from Henry Hayden.

“May I ask you another thing?” the boss’s son blurted out as Henry gave him the book. “My wife writes, you see.”

“How funny,” Henry replied. “So does mine.”

“Just to amuse herself — for the drawer, you know, but she’s gifted. I’m not just saying that because she’s my… um, yes. Well now, I’m to ask you what’s the most important thing a writer should remember.”

“That’s a complicated question to spring on someone in the afternoon. The most important thing”—Henry scratched himself under his right eyebrow with a little finger—“the most important thing is to write only about things you know.”

“Things you know. Ah-ha.”

“And to allow plenty of time for leaving things out. Leaving things out makes for more work than anything else.”

“Leaving things out?”

“Everything you don’t write, everything you leave out on purpose or delete — that’s what gives you the most trouble and takes the longest. Don’t tell anyone you got that from me.”

Then Henry drove to his favorite fast-food stand behind the station and ate a meatball. It was time for a good plan. And it was here he had the best ideas.

Where to begin? That amiable idiot, Detective Jenssen, wasn’t a threat just yet, because he believed in Martha’s swimming accident. The homicide squad wouldn’t stir themselves while the corpse hadn’t surfaced. But that was just the point. The corpse could surface — in every sense — at any moment. It’s well known that it takes ages for human bones to disintegrate in seawater. Algae hinder the process; unfavorable temperatures slow decomposition; the low concentration of oxygen also plays a part. Only depth is any help. The deep sea is a gratifyingly uncharted place.

Then there was Betty. She was so angry and disappointed, she would leave him in peace for a little while. But sooner or later the baby would be born. Henry wasn’t sure whether the explanatory lecture in the Oyster Bar on the topic of What Really Happened on the Cliffs would prevent her from running to the police and blurting it all out. She was afraid. Fear is a truth drug. You should never frighten anyone who could snitch on you — Henry knew that. One word from Betty about their meeting place on the cliffs, and even the most useless policeman would put two and two together.

And then there was Sonja. He didn’t want to disappoint her. Henry had searched his heart and decided that his desire for her was as physical as it was spiritual, a stroke of pure luck at his age. During their dramatic encounter on the beach and later on the millstone in his garden, they hadn’t touched once, but the invisible current of libido between them and the union of their shadows had been sheer magic. And she liked his dog. It was all going swimmingly. Which took Henry back to point number two: Betty. He had to compensate her in some way, placate her, reassure her — in other words, she must be gotten rid of.

He opened the glove compartment and took out the receipt for a certain Surveillance Manual, which he had found in Fasch’s brown briefcase. “Office” had been noted on the receipt in red pen, presumably for tax purposes. Next to his address was the date of purchase. Fasch had bought this undoubtedly useful book on May third of the previous year. Just look at that, Henry thought — my birthday.

His GPS took him straight to the right street. Cobbled and with a slight downhill slope, it ran parallel to a busy main road. The noise of the traffic splashed over the roofs and broke between the house walls. Henry turned off and parked the gleaming Maserati on a side street. It stood out in this neighborhood among all the small cars, but he needed only a quarter of an hour.

The crumbling façade and front door were smeared with graffiti. The door was open. FASCH was scrawled in pen on the little nameplate next to the bell. Henry put on disposable gloves and rang the bell — you never know. Then he stepped into the dark hallway. Fasch’s mailbox was overflowing with mail. Henry went up to the third floor.

The door wasn’t deadbolted, and it was child’s play to push back the latch with a penknife. Opening it didn’t take five seconds. He noted with satisfaction that he had not yet forgotten the time-honored motions — but you don’t forget how to ski either. The door opened only a crack, then it met with an obstacle. The gap was just big enough to squeeze through. Henry was met by a strong smell of drains. Entering the apartment, he had the absurd feeling he was conducting an endoscopic tour through the body of a stranger, beginning in the musty rectum of the hall.

Henry had never stolen more cash or jewelry than he needed to live. Because he respected people’s privacy, he always left personal effects untouched, which made the theft more tolerable. He never went near art on principle; that kind of thing is hard to turn into money. Ideally, the theft would go unnoticed, but that rarely happened. Once, many years earlier, he’d broken into a dental practice and stolen dental gold. When, days later, he read about the doomed special units who had forced open the mouths of the dead and quarried gold out of them behind the gas chambers of Auschwitz-Birkenau, he returned the gold immediately and left two opera tickets by way of apology. Thrilled, the dentist and his wife watched La Traviata from the best seats. When they got home, their diamond jewelry had vanished. But that was a long time ago.

Printed paper was piled up to the ceiling on both sides of the hall. Newspapers, magazines, books, photocopies by the ton. The dust had strung threads, and clouds of disintegrating cellulose snowed down on him. The paper was elaborately held together with string, and shored up with broom handles and all manner of laths and slats, so that the hall resembled a mineshaft. Between the mountains of paper ran a path less than six inches wide. It was only thanks to his early participation in Boy Scout field trips that Henry was able to negotiate it.

Silverfish scuttled under the shower tray, shunning the light, when Henry looked into the bathroom. The vile smell was coming from there. Henry closed the door. The bedroom floor was covered with semi-disemboweled appliances, rotten fruit, and dirty laundry. In the bed lay an almond-eyed creature with her thighs spread and her mouth open wide. Her perfectly proportioned body and expressionless face were turned a little to one side. Curling irons were lodged in her hairless vagina. Out of sheer curiosity Henry lifted the doll and discovered that she weighed the same as a living woman; he put her at over one hundred pounds. Her name was stamped on the sole of her dainty foot: “Miss Wong.” The doll couldn’t have been cheap. The flesh color was convincing, but the silicon skin felt cold to the touch, which would explain the irons to heat her vinyl vagina. This still life with curling irons seemed to Henry like a joke in poor taste.

A telephone was ringing somewhere. Henry felt his way back along the paper bowels of the hall and followed the sound until he came to Gisbert Fasch’s surprisingly tidy, spartan study. On a big double-sided corkboard Henry saw himself. His life in the form of a flowchart, with pictures, dates, and hundreds of different-colored circles. Henry was touched. It was as if he’d just entered a lost-and-found office for vanished memories. There were Polaroids of buildings and places, press photos, pictures of him at readings, and, in the top third of the chart, an old postcard showing a photo of an arched gateway. On the arch in cast-iron letters it said: SAINT RENATA. In this instant Henry knew where he’d met Fasch.

The almost antique answering machine started up. A cassette began to whir. This is Gisbert Fasch speaking. I can’t take your call right now. I’ll get back to you. Beep!

Mr. Fasch, this is Honor Eisendraht from Moreany Publishing House. As we have already communicated to you, we do not release personal information about the life of Mr. Hayden. Furthermore I must point out to you that an unauthorized biography of Mr. Hayden could have legal consequences for you. I would ask you not to address any further written inquiries concerning the matter to the publishing house. I wish you a pleasant day.

Henry barely heard the end of the message. He had already stepped back into the bedroom and switched on the curling irons in the doll’s plastic vulva. He left the apartment in silence. No one saw him drive away.

The black smoke alerted the neighbors. It rose through the cracked bedroom window and up the front of the building. A little later, the windows in the living room shattered. The firemen came with three large engines and put out the fire with foam. Anxious tenants rescued their children, animals, and most valuable possessions, and assisted the firefighting operations with their silent prayers. Outside the cordoned-off area a number of onlookers recorded the event on their phones. Some of the videos appeared the same day on YouTube. The one to get the most hits was by a thirteen-year-old elementary-school girl who filmed the rescue of two burned cats from the third floor and set it to music she’d composed herself. After the smoke had dispersed and the static equilibrium of the building had been tested, the majority of the tenants returned to their apartments. The arson squad set to work in the charred apartment. They came across what was left of a melted silicon doll; the foot had survived and belonged to the “Miss Wong” model. Her remains were salvaged. The forensic investigation into the cause of the fire dragged on in the usual way.

——

The friendly gentleman from the insurance company waited patiently while Betty hunted for the car key. She had gone to the door in wooden sandals and a robe, assuming it was the courier service bringing her typeset pages to proofread. The man waited in the hallway outside the door. He had put down his bag and folded his arms over his belly. He enjoyed contemplative moments such as this.

Betty knew perfectly well that she wouldn’t find the key, because it was rusting away in the Subaru at the bottom of the sea. For a long time she’d driven the Subaru with the spare key, because the original key had gotten lost at some point. Nevertheless she rummaged around in the drawer of her desk, theatrically pushing it open and shut.

“I can’t find the key just now,” she explained in embarrassment as she handed the car’s papers to the friendly gentleman at the door. “Does it matter?”

“What about the spare?”

“The spare? Lost that ages ago.”

“That’s bad,” the insurance expert said with regret. “Because without the key to the vehicle we can’t accept liability for the loss.”

“Never mind,” Betty let slip far too quickly, “I didn’t report it because I wanted money from you.”

“Then why?” he asked, clearly surprised.

“Well, because I thought it’s what you have to do when your car’s stolen. Isn’t that right?”

“No. You just have to cancel the car’s registration, because you no longer drive it or because you’ve sold it.”

“I haven’t sold it!” she protested, and immediately lowered her voice. “It was stolen.”

“That”—he bent down lithely to open his bag—“is why your vehicle is being searched for. The police are looking for it all over Europe.” He took out his documents and a questionnaire, put the papers from the Subaru into a transparent folder, and slipped it into his bag. Then he licked his index finger, opened up the questionnaire, suddenly and inexplicably had a pen to hand, and clicked the doodad.

“Now then. Where was your vehicle stolen?”

“Right outside my front door.” Betty tried to remain polite. “Listen, I don’t have any time; I have to drive to work in a second.”

“In which car?”

The fellow was getting more impertinent by the minute. “I’m driving a rental car at the moment.”

“We undertake to pay part of the cost of that if your vehicle has been stolen.”

“No need. The company pays for the car.”

“That is”—he looked in his documents—“Moreany Publishing House?”

She wanted to poke the pen in his eye, but left it at a dry “Correct.”

“You’re renting the car from Avis.”

He smiled when he saw her surprise. “The rental car is insured with us as well. Your company”—he looked in his documents again—“Moreany Publishing House, has not received a rental agreement.”

Betty felt the blood shoot up her throat. He noticed that too, but stuck to the facts.

“I’ve spoken to accounts. Ms.”—he looked at his cursed documents for the third time.

“Eisendraht?”

“That’s right. She knows of no rental agreement in your name. But Ms. Eisendraht knows a Mr. Henry Hayden.”

Henry’s name fell like a sword. She felt suddenly dizzy. How on earth had this guy gotten onto Henry? The friendly gentleman from the insurance company studied her face, registered the increased frequency of her pulse, her twitching eyelid, the way she turned down the corner of her mouth and shifted the position of her feet. With increasing experience, he got more and more pleasure out of his job.

“You showed a Visa partner card as security. The amount will be debited from Mr. Hayden’s account.”

Betty tore the questionnaire out of the man’s hand. “OK. I’ll fill this in and send it to you. You don’t have to pay a thing. Oh and by the way, I’m going to terminate my insurance agreement.” Then she shut the door and leaned up against it. Her heart was pounding. She felt her hot cheeks with the back of her hand.

She hadn’t thought of that. Henry had given her the card for emergencies, so she could make transactions and purchases for him when they went on business journeys abroad together. Because she had of course presumed that Henry would pay for the rental car, she had used his card. Just the once. Now her connection with Henry was documented. She dressed hastily. In her hurry she tore a run in her tights. It was only in the mirrored wall of the elevator on the way up to Moreany’s office that she noticed that the rip had risen from calf to thigh like blood poisoning.