Peschkalek nudged me. “What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same thing.”
“Then I guess we're both doing the same thing.”
After the priest, a senior doctor from the psychiatric hospital spoke. He talked about his young colleague with respect and warmth, about his care for the patients, and about his dedication to research. Then the squash instructor from Eppelheim stepped forward and praised Rolf Wendt as having been the heart and soul of the squash courts. We were singing the final hymn when the door opened a crack and a young woman entered. She hesitated, looked around, and then marched determinedly up to the first row and stood next to Frau Wendt. Rolf's sister?
At the grave I stood a ways to the side. Nägelsbach, too, decided to keep his distance so he could observe everyone carefully. Peschkalek circled the mourners in a wide arc, taking pictures. When the last of Herr Wendt's employees had thrown their spadeful of earth into the grave, the mourners all made a quick getaway. I heard the motor start up on one of those small power shovels that today's gravediggers use to make their jobs easier for themselves.
Peschkalek came and stood next to me. “That's that, I guess.”
“I was just thinking the same thing.”
“You knew Wendt personally?”
“Yes.” I saw no reason not to tell him. “His father has commissioned me to investigate.”
“Then we really are on the same track. Not that I'm investigating for his father—I'm investigating for myself. But you and I are aiming to get to the bottom of this. Want to grab some lunch? You can leave your car here; I'll bring you back afterward.”
We drove over to Ladenburg. In Zwiwwel they were serving chervil soup followed by lamb with potatoes au gratin. Peschkalek had the waiter bring us a bottle of Forster Blauer Portugieser. For dessert we had fresh strawberries. Needless to say, I wanted to know why Peschkalek was investigating, what he was looking for, and what, if anything, he had managed to unearth. But I was in no hurry. Again our get-together was short and pleasant. He told me of his travels as a photojournalist all over Europe, America, Africa, and Asia, and quite nonchalantly touched on a colorful hodgepodge of wars, conferences, artwork, crime, famines, and celebrity weddings that he had covered. I was amazed. Wanderlust or no, I was happy enough to be the provincial that I am. Much as I like to head off to faraway places, my travels have been pretty much limited to a short trip to America, a few Aegean jaunts on a yacht with an old Greek girlfriend from my student days, and a few trips to Rimini, Carinthia, and Langeoog with Klara. I don't think I want to see a civil war, regardless of how photogenic it is, or Elizabeth Taylor marrying Boris Becker with the Taj Mahal as backdrop.
Over an espresso and a sambuca, his pipe and my cigarette lit, Peschkalek began of his own accord: “I bet you're wondering what I'm doing photographing all these things to do with Wendt. I'm not sure yet. But I have a nose for hot stories. And when there's a hot story somewhere, I take hot pictures. It's not the text that's the issue. If push comes to shove I even throw something together myself. Probing—that's what counts, and probing means photographing. If it isn't in the camera, it doesn't exist. Do you know what I mean?”
He had expounded his journalistic credo with passion, and I was happy to nod my assent.
“What did your nose get wind of?” I asked.
He reached into the inside pocket of his denim jacket and took out a piece of paper. “All you have to do is put two and two together. A week ago yesterday, Wendt was murdered. He had hidden a young terrorist, Leonore Salger, in the State Psychiatric Hospital. The police are looking for this terrorist because of an attack on an American military installation. The official search is initiated on the evening of the murder—Monday evening I saw it on TV, and Tuesday morning I read it in the papers. You're not going to tell me that's a coincidence, are you? Did Leonore Salger kill him? Or someone from the CIA, FBI, or DEA? Since the Achille Lauro incident, the Americans aren't too pleased about attacks on their installations or people of theirs being taken hostage or murdered. They retaliate. And from what I hear, there were some casualties during the attack on their installation.”
I pointed at the piece of paper in his hand. “What's that?”
“Now we're getting to the mystery. I'm not sure how carefully you've been following things. So the police aren't saying anything about the circumstances of Wendt's death or about motives and suspects? Fine, I can understand that. I guess they don't know enough. But can you explain why not a word has been said about the exact time or place of the terrorist attack, or how the attack was perpetrated, and what came of it all? There's been nothing specific, not a single specific thing! Not on TV and not in the papers. I even went so far as to take a look at some of the old articles about Baader, Meinhof, and Schleyer. What they wrote back then was often wishy-washy, but still more precise than what we're reading and hearing now. Do you see what I'm saying?”
“I certainly do. And it's not just the media. The police, too, are pussyfooting more than they usually do.”
“I said to myself, something's got to be wrong. You can't trumpet an attack like that to all the world on one hand, and keep your lips tightly sealed on the other. If such an attack had passed unnoticed…But I can't imagine that either. Perhaps people just didn't realize what was going on. But somebody must have noticed that something happened. And then that somebody wouldn't have kept it to himself. But I can't cover the whole area questioning everyone and his mother. However, I did look through all the newspapers, the local news. The Mannheimer Morgen, the Rhein-Neckar-Zeitung, the Rheinpfalz, and all their offshoots. I sifted through the local items, looking for something like, 'Last night Mr. L, a farmer, was shaken out of deep sleep by a blast that shattered the windows and rattled the plates in the cupboards. The incident remains a mystery …' Do you know what I mean?”
“Did you come up with anything?”
With a broad, proud smile he handed me the paper. Over the article he had written “Viernheimer Tageblatt” and a date in March.
“Go on, read it.”
Explosions at the Munitions Depot?
“Have there been any explosions in the past few years at the American Forces Munitions Depot near Viernheim? Why has the guard detail for the last few months been issued special protective clothing?”
In the District Council yesterday, the Green Party put this question to the council chief, Dr. S. Kannenguth, in his function as the head of the Emergency Management Agency of the Bergstrasse District. The speaker of the Green Party, J. Altmann, did not clarify the background of the question.
As was to be expected, the council chief could not provide an immediate reply, but promised an investigation and an official written response by the next session.
In fact, in January of this year, I happened to be driving through the woods one evening when I observed the glow of a fire above the munitions depot. The Viernheim police at the depot gates were not authorized to provide me with any information, and repeated queries to the press office of the American Forces have remained unanswered.
H. Walters
5
Gas needn't stink
I read the piece twice. And then a third time. Was I missing something? Was I slow on the uptake? The attack had taken place in January at a munitions depot near Viernheim, and had caught the attention of Walters. I could not gather more from the article than a confirmation of Leo's account. Peschkalek couldn't even do that. What did he find so exciting about it?
I kept to the matter at hand. “What were the district council chief's findings?”
“What do you think? Inquiries made to both German and American agencies indicated no explosions at the munitions depot. As for the guards at the depot, they're periodically issued protective clothing for training purposes. The safety of the people of Viernheim has at no time been compromised through activities at the munitions depot.”
“Did you speak to Altmann? Or to Walters?”
“It was Altmann
who provided me with the district chief's reply. Otherwise, he was a bit of a disappointment.” Peschkalek grinned at me. “And I admit I'm a bit of a disappointment as a pipe smoker. I think I'd rather go for one of your cigarettes.” He put away his pipe, which hadn't lit despite his desperate attempts, reached for my yellow pack of Sweet Aftons, and began smoking with relish. “Altmann doesn't have any insider information worth mentioning. Everything he knows comes from Walters. But what Walters happened to see that night was all Altmann needed to take a little swipe at the district council chief. I don't know if Walters knows more. I didn't manage to catch him yesterday.” Peschkalek looked at his watch, out the window, and then at me. “What if we head over to Viernheim and have a chat with him? He should be in his office now.”
It was three thirty already. I would rather have sent myself and the alcoholized lamb in my stomach for a nice long siesta.
As we drove through Heddesheim to Viernheim, I remembered an old case of mine, the Viernheim denominational wars. An altar painting of Saint Catherine had disappeared from the Catholic church, and the chaplain, suspecting the Protestants, fulminated from his pulpit against thieving heretics. The Evangelical church was sprayed with graffiti, then the Catholic church, then church windows were broken. That was all a long, long time ago. A presbyter with an ecumenical bent had hired me to get the painting back. I found it in the room of the chaplain's pubescent altar server, who happened to be a fan of the actress Michelle Pfeiffer. And Michelle Pfeiffer happened to be the spitting image of Saint Catherine.
Walters studied engineering in Darmstadt but had been born and raised in Viernheim and had deep roots there. He was a member of the male choir, the carnival association, the chess club, the shooting club, and the marching band. “That makes me the ideal local reporter, wouldn't you say? I'm not partial to any political group. I was happy to give Altmann the information about the munitions depot, but I'd just as readily tip off the CDU about the planned collectivization of the Rhein-Neckar Center, or the SPD about child labor at the Willi Jung company. That's how I work. So you read the little piece I wrote about the question Altmann put to the District Council—and I take it you want to know more, right? Well, I'd like to know more myself.” His office was tiny. There was barely enough space for a desk, a swivel chair, and an extra chair for visitors. Walters had offered me the chair and Peschkalek a corner of his desk. The narrow window looked out on the Rathausstrasse. “Unfortunately I can't get it to open, so I'd be grateful if you didn't smoke.”
Peschkalek put away his pipe and sighed as if he were forfeiting a true pleasure and not just another of his futile battles with tobacco, matches, and pipe paraphernalia. “Journalists never know enough,” Peschkalek said. “We're all in the same boat, regardless of whether we're working for Spiegel, Paris Match, The New York Times, or the Viernheimer Tageblatt. I liked your article. It pinpoints the problem, it's written in a clean style, and you appeal to the reader by the fresh and direct way you introduce yourself into the article. One can see right away that the writer has solid background information and knowledge of the area. I'm impressed, Herr Walters.”
At first I thought Peschkalek was laying it on too thick, but I was quick to see that Walters was lapping it all up. He leaned back in his swivel chair. “I like the way you put it. I see what I do as grassroots journalism, and myself as a grassroots journalist. I'd be happy to write an article for your paper about the situation here in Viernheim. You're with Spiegel, did you say? Or was it Paris Match or The New York Times? If I'm to do something in English or French for you, somebody will have to go over it and clean it up.”
“I'll definitely keep you in mind. If Viernheim becomes a story, I could see to it that you get a column or a box in the coverage. But is Viernheim a story? A glow in the night is not necessarily a catastrophe. When did that actually happen?”
Peschkalek had roped him in. We found out that Walters had been driving from Hüttenfeld, where his girlfriend lived, to Viernheim at around midnight on January 6, when he saw three police cars in front of the gate to the munitions depot. He asked the officers what was going on but was brushed off. He drove on and saw the glow of a fire above the depot. “I didn't actually see the fire. But hey, my interest had been roused. So right away I headed onto the autobahn and took the turnoff to Lorsch. The depot is between Route 6 and the L 3111. But the glow was gone.”
“That's all?” Peschkalek was disappointed and didn't hide it.
“I stopped, got out of the car, and sniffed the air. Later I sniffed it again, as I drove through the Lampertheim Forest. You see, I had to stay on the autobahn all the way to Lorsch, where I took a back road and returned to Viernheim by way of Hüttenfeld. I couldn't smell anything. But what I've found out is that poison gas doesn't necessarily stink.”
“Poison gas?” Peschkalek and I burst out simultaneously.
“The rumor's been going around for years. Fischbach, Hanau, and Viernheim—after the war, the Americans are supposed to have set up depots there. Some people even say that the Germans stored and buried their poison gas there. Word has it that everything's been removed from Fischbach, and perhaps from Viernheim, too. Or that there was never anything there. Or that it's still there, and that all the commotion about its being removed from Fischbach was only a diversion from the poison gas stored in Viernheim. Be that as it may, I developed an interest in all of this after January sixth.” He shook his head. “A real devil's brew. Phosgene, tabun, sarin, VE, VX—have you read up on what that stuff can do? Even when you read about that stuff, it's enough to turn your stomach.”
“Were the police cars still at the gate?”
“No. But an American fire truck came out and drove away.”
Peschkalek sat up. “Where did it go? And how come you didn't put that in your article?”
“I was going to disclose things bit by bit. But then my editor didn't think the fire truck was exciting enough to warrant a sequel. The truck had headed down the Nibelungenstrasse and the Entlastungsstrasse, I think over to the American barracks.”
We thanked him. When we came out of Walters's cell, Peschkalek was ebullient. “What did I tell you? It's even better than I thought! The attack wasn't on any old American military installation, but specifically on an American poison-gas depot. You can bet your life that the Americans wouldn't turn a blind eye on such an attack. I wonder if Wendt orchestrated it all, and then had to pay for it with his life? Or did the Americans buy him off? Did he switch sides, and Leonore Sal-ger assassinated him? Mark my word, Wendt wasn't murdered just like that.”
6
A summer idyll
Nobody gets murdered just like that. The map in Wendt's briefcase showed the Viernheim triangle. When I stopped in front of the big map on the wall of the editorial office I recognized the Frankfurt-Mannheim autobahn and, leading straight down from it, the autobahn to Kaiserslautern.
Peschkalek stopped, too. “What's our next step, Herr Self? Shall we go take a look for ourselves?”
We drove along the Lorsch Road through the woods. A high fence ran alongside the road to our left, and just beyond it ran an asphalt path. Signs in German and English warned of explosives, of military and security patrols, of watchdogs, and that firearms were in use. The gate, which we passed half a kilometer down the road, was secured with iron bars and orange and blue warning lights and was plastered with signs that along with all the other warnings also cautioned against smoking. Then the fence veered to the left, and the road continued straight on. At the next left we made a big detour back to Viernheim, over and under the autobahn, but we no longer saw the fence.
“You ought to have a word with some of the local people, Herr Self.” Peschkalek had not said much during our reconnaissance, but he became talkative once we reached Viern-heim. “Poison gas. You heard it yourself. You'd think it would worry the people around here. But it doesn't. What surprises me is that our wild young reporter”—he pointed in the direction where he imagined the offices of the Viern-h
eimer Tageblatt to be—”even managed to get his little article printed. Nobody here wants to read that kind of stuff.” He headed along the road to Heddesheim, but soon took a right. “Just one more small detour, Herr Self.”
We drove past long rows of fruit trees and rapeseed fields beneath a blue sky. In the distance mountains rose and quarries shone. A water tower and a small church with a roof turret appeared before us, surrounded by a few farms, cottages, and old meadows—the perfect summer idyll.
“Have you ever been to Strassenheim?” Peschkalek asked me. I nodded. He drove slowly. “You're wondering why I brought you here? Take a good look.”
I was struck by the stately building next to the church. According to a sign, it housed the mounted detachment and the canine unit of the Mannheim police headquarters. “No, take a good look. There, that truck to the left, and those two to the right. Do you know what they are? They're tanker trucks, each carrying thousands of liters of water. Water for drinking and cooking, and also for the animals. Why do you think these trucks are here? Well?” He enjoyed the suspense. “It looks like the regular water isn't drinkable, wouldn't you say? I suppose that though Strassenheim belongs to Mannheim, it is not connected to Mannheim's water supply, nor to that of Viernheim or Heddesheim. Strassenheim must have its own wells. Can they have dried up? With all the rain we've had in the past few weeks? No, there's plenty of water around here, and the water looks perfectly clear. It might smell a little, but then again it might not. It might taste a little weird, but then again it might not. I'm not saying that you drop dead if you drink it. Perhaps you'll feel a bit queasy, or maybe even get sick as a dog; maybe you'll shit or retch your guts out.”