Read The Tunnel and the Cave Page 2

Rudolph grunted and was obviously eager to start, but I wanted to explain the principle in detail. “For the moment, we can only take one letter at the time. I understood your way of saying 'yes' and 'no' and before I express each letter, you must say if it is the left column with yes or no and the first, second or third line, again with 'yes' or 'no'. Is that clear?”

  Perhaps it was not clear, since Rudolph made the sound for no. I pondered about this small setback but then I suddenly realized that he might already have started: “OK, right column, is the letter in the first [no], second [no] or third [yes] column — is it 'Y' [yes].” I shall not abuse the limited patience of the reader, so I might as well betray that the next letters were E and S. An appropriate answer to my question and in itself proving that it was all clear, even if I had no time to explain what the simultaneous use of 2 or three letters at some positions meant.

  Then I asked Rudolph the daring question, “And what do you think about Miss Florence?” Florence turned quite pale and was about to escape the answer but I held her arm firmly so that she had to stay. That proved to be fortunate, since Rudolph answered:

  'F - I - N - E'

  I was utterly relieved, but he wanted to say something else:

  'G - I - R - L'.

  Florence was excessively pleased and gave Rudolph a long kiss on the face. If there was not much else to envy in Rudolph's place, this was perhaps a good reason.

  “I wonder how he, I mean I wonder how Rudolph learned all these letters,” Florence commented.

  “He may tell you about that later,” I said. “The TV is not making all people as stupid as they say.”

  “This is really an extremely important event. We have got to inform Dr. Harewell about it,” I said.

  [No!] Rudolph resolutely protested.

  “But why not, he will know about it sooner or later,” I said.

  Rudolph used the alphabet and spelled 'L - A - T - E - R'.

  “But how can we go on without doing it? Why don't you want this done?” I responded. I forgot that I could make long and sophisticated sentences while Rudolph had an enormous work in creating a single word.

  His answer was in accordance to that fact: 'K - O - M - P - L - E - S'. Thereby, Rudolph also showed the ability to utilize letters of almost common sound like k for this c and s for x. The matter was obviously too complex to explain by this method.

  “It is no big problem for today,” Florence started, “Dr. Harewell will soon leave and only be back tomorrow morning. However, then you will have to tell him about it or he shall hear it from someone else.”

  I looked at Rudolph and raised my hands, so expressing my regrets. Fortunately, his answer was clear and appropriate, if [yes] means that he accepted it.

  “Rudolph, I shall find out how we can refine this communication system and I believe you have had a laborious time. Anyhow, this is an important day; the ice of your isolation has become broken and we are looking forward to the future. I shall have to leave you now but will return tomorrow.” This was in order to pretend that I had other important tasks at the hospital. I turned to Ms. Florence and asked her to come to my office, but she said that she would find time only after the end of her duty and I was not certain if I would then be there. So I left the department in high spirits, not a bad achievement for the second day on a new job.

  Working with a computer has a catch. You will soon realize that there is nothing which can be done in just 10 minutes, once you have turned it on, you are caught. Most people working with these malicious instruments would suddenly notice that it was the middle of the night and their merciless conventional watches would soon wake them up to prepare for the job which they were actually being paid for. I had also suffered from these nightly occupations but now sworn that I would turn it on only during daytime. With a computer present only in my office, my night rest was secured and I was at St. John’s the next morning ten minutes to eight in a brilliant mood.

  Dr. Harewell must also have rested fine at home, at least was the morning conference very cosy. He had learned a lot of interesting local news at yesterday’s golf match. The patients were not discussed.

  I was back in my office at 8:30 a.m. Shortly after, there was a knock on the door. I let Florence in.

  “Pray sit down,” I said. It was not difficult to decide where, there was only extra chair in my office.

  Ms. Florence was at the same time upset and exhausted. She had probably talked a lot to Rudolph after I left the day before. What I could understand as sort of a victory after so short time in the department (and please avoid considering all the coincidences which had made it possible) was for Florence almost the opposite. I noticed already yesterday that she had been pushed into an acute depression and I was very happy that Rudolph had helped ameliorate that, although the shock had not completely disappeared by now. And she was not the only one with bad feelings. According to her statement, the mood among all the staff was depressed, you were feeling observed when being there, even during your coffee break. Then there were some who meant there were more such cases, just waiting for being ‘discovered’ by me.

  I asked for her advice, how to deal with this case towards Dr. Harewell. Initially she thought as Rudolph, just postpone it as far as possible. I argued that such a crucial event could and should not be kept secret towards the medical chief, whether you liked him or not.

  Slowly, Florence came to accept the need for reporting the incident. In the five years she had been at the department, she had only seen Dr. Harewell a few times, and then always in the morning. The question remained open, how to address the chief. An apparent coincidence helped us: for the first time, somebody called my telephone. It was Dr. Harewell.

  “It is told in the house that a patient of yours has started talking.”

  “Oh, that is a forceful superstition, I should say. The patient cannot express a single word but I believe, at a deeper level, to have obtained some contact with him. I thought I would present the case on the next morning conference and ask for your advice, but I haven’t put the case together yet.”

  Dr. Harewell seemed relieved. “All right, if the case is not exactly alarming and the patient has not run away before tomorrow …”

  I interrupted: “It is Rudolph Rednose, he is not running anywhere.”

  The chief laughed. “Yes, I was told that it is him. I am looking forward to your report tomorrow.” I felt a string of irony in the last sentence. Without further discussion, the connection was cut.

  I looked at Florence: ”Where communication is most miserable, rumours are running fastest. But still, I’m amazed how fast they can run here.”

  She just laughed. “It is probably Ann’s deed, you know, the somewhat broad, elder nurse-assistant. She loves to disclose secrets.”

  Please feel free to replace ‘somewhat broad’ with ‘excessively fat.’ I decided upon the first occasion to trust her completely insane secret above fat peoples perverse habits, making her mercilessly delivered to common ridicule when she disclosed that. But now, we only had one day left for my official report and that time span should be used appropriately. “I wonder what made Rudolph so sour towards the chief.“

  “I asked Rudolph exactly that yesterday after you had left,” Florence answered. “He told that he had been received by Dr. Harewell shortly after the arrival here, 6 years ago. He was transferred from another institution on occasion of the death of his parents. Dr. Harewell had calculated loudly, which financial means had been placed at Rudolph's disposition and how these most elegantly could be transferred to his own private account. He did not consider the possibility that Rudolph could understand anything and even mentioned a ‘usual procedure.’ Afterwards, I chequed the journal which said that Rudolph was taken care of on expenditure of the state while he had no financial background. It may not differ much to Rudolph but it certainly does to Dr. Harewell.”

  “Oh, that was worse. That explains his curiosity for this particular case. Could there be any chance that he has
forgotten these circumstances within six years?”

  Florence looked surprised at me. “But aren’t you going to collect evidences for the crime? If it is not limited to Rudolph, the treachery may reach immense dimensions – as you may assume it does according to the chief’s style of life.”

  “I don’t know much about his lifestyle. Playing golf is not criminal. Besides, you just mentioned yourself that Rudolph’s care does not differ much, whoever pay for it. Yesterday, we have discovered a phenomenal event and I am thinking about, how to organize it better. In that connection, Harewell’s hoax is unimportant, as long as it poses no threat to the development. Therefore, it is our job to cover up that aspect. Besides, I am not employed as assistant sheriff by the local police.

  This was too complex to Florence but she promised to consider it and not talk to anybody about her new recognitions.

  When I turned up at the ward, one hour later – still too early for the coffee break, we had already gotten an unusual visit. After all, Dr. Harewell had not been convinced from my statements and decided to look for himself. He came out from Rudolph’s place where he had gone all by himself. He was always carrying the white coat with a big sign indicating his name and profession when making a rare visit to the wards. Evil tongues would know that it was in order not to be thrown out since hardly anybody knew him there.

  “I decided to throw a glance to this case right away, so I am better prepared for your report tomorrow. Let us test if you are right in your exceptional claim that Rudolph 'Rednose' is able to read and express himself”.

  I had much preferred to prepare Rudolph and myself in advance. However, there was nothing doing than to hope for the best. We entered the room through the always opened door – it had actually been removed – while the nurse assistants pushed Quasimodo and Frankenstein apart.

  The chief was not accustomed to great patients, a phenomenon which is not much better at a general hospital, so I started: “Good morning, Rudolph, the chief of our hospital, Dr. Harewell, has come to convince himself that you can understand us and express yourself ...” Rudolph interrupted me, he was eager to say something. I took the big alphabet we had created yesterday and spelled through with him: C - H - I - E - F - D - O - C - B - A. He said something else but I refused to understand. I could not simply express 'chief doc bad' and it was highly unwise of Rudolph to say so. Febrile thoughts went through my head how I could alter the message. Doing so in a hurry did not bring the best result: “Ah, now I understand, Rudolph says 'chief doc big', he means that compared to him you are very big,” and with a strained laugh I said to Rudolph, who had been making the high and short repeated sounds meaning [no], and afterwards he was so silent as no tranquillizing drugs had ever made him.

  Nervously, I stated: “Well done, but we must find another way of communication, I see that this is straining you considerably.”

  I sent my chief a stolen glance and realized that he had understood the insult: “I am not convinced that this is not a coincidence. Perhaps we can try again another day if you find better means of communication. However, take my words as a senior colleague who has been taking care of these patients for so many years, do not waste much time, don't forget that you have many other things to do and the remaining work should not suffer because you invest your energy in a single and not very promising case. With your hopeful and well-meant initiative, you have upset the calm rhythm of this ward in only two days. Make sure to restore the harmony as soon as possible. That will be worth a report at tomorrow’s conference.”

  It was not a discussion he opened there, it was a clear order which I had to obey. I could only hope that he would disappear as soon as possible – which he then also did.

  I still do not know which ‘many other things’ might have stolen my time, except the work on my thesis which was absolutely irrelevant to St. John's Hospital. Perhaps this was a thread that such occupation could be found if I was abusing my liberties here.

  I decided to leave the culprit alone at first and deal with the damage done to the staff. The most important issue relating to harmony was connected to the coffee break, which we then took immediately after the chief had made his own contribution (in disappearing).

  “Please excuse that I in this short time have destroyed the harmony of the ward,” I started sarcastically.

  Liz, the young nurse assistant, protested. “Finally was it getting interestingly to work here.”

  “If I have made some mistakes toward my attitude to some patients, I am to blame and not the one who has made me aware of these mistakes,” Florence concluded.

  Ann said nothing, so I tried to provoke a statement out of her: “What’s your opinion, Ann?”

  Normally, Ann was the most talkative of the three women. Normally, her saying was in accordance with her audience’s expectations and sympathy. As she now stated, “I have no opinion,” that could not possibly be true. She who had at least one opinion about all matters, how ridiculously small they might ever be. It could only mean that her deepest felt sentiments were in opposition to what could be expected from her colleagues, if not counting me, too.

  “Whatever you think about his motivations, Dr. Harewell was right in stating that the harmony of our ward has been disturbed,” I suddenly repeated, much to the surprise of Florence and Liz. But to Ann, it was the trigger she had needed, somebody to agree with.

  The box was opened and words evaded about how the job had given her pleasure previously, when she had helped the poor individuals, whereas she now had the feeling of being observed, of a hostile attitude from the patients towards the staff, everything was now more difficult and – yes, the word was well selected, void of harmony. And slowly she realized that she was standing alone with these sentiments, her voice suddenly became low and then Florence closed the box with the statement: “An illusion is not harmonious when you know you are cheating yourself, when you are cheating others even more. Then, harmony is not the first thing to go for.”

  I tried to make a bridge over the troubled waters with a statement, worthy a politician, that there should be room for all desired working conditions, but the hostility among the women did not disappear and the coffee stopped tasting good. The meeting was closed, everybody disappeared in various directions. For my part, I went back to my office.

  In less than 10 minutes, Florence came, too. “I can’t understand you. Are you in fact supporting that old crook? What is all that nonsense about harmony?”

  “I’m glad you came. First, you should avoid freezing Liz out of the company, as you indicated during the coffee break. Not that I find her sympathetic but in general, I have something against mobbing. She makes an important work and the patients seem to be happy with her. So give her that stupid harmony and talk with her about unimportant issues, as long as it does not prevent us from dealing with Rudolph.”

  Florence was relieved. Then I had not given up yet. To that I continued: “The second problem is more difficult: how can we do exactly what the chief has forbidden?”

  “Perhaps my limiting it to the time where Ann is not present,” Florence suggested.

  “No, that won’t last long, and it will, after all, be a provocation to her, disclosing what we try to hide. You must admit her as a master in creating and distributing rumours.”

  “Yes, whatever qualities I may possess, this is an issue where she beats me.”

  “Does anybody else know about the chief’s financial transactions?”

  “Not from my lips,” Florence claimed.

  “And what is your impression of, how Dr. Harewell conceived our failed demonstration?”

  “I don’t think he got any suspicion, or he wouldn’t have stopped you.”

  “Oh yes, he would have stopped me under all circumstances. He was uncomfortable in spite of my telephoned message, as you also heard in the morning. He is concerned that Rudolph may communicate observations that could damage him – by the way, exactly what has happened. He was so concerned that he even left h
is office. Could somebody else have read what you wrote from your ‘conversation’ with Rudolph yesterday?”

  “N-no, I don’t believe.”

  “Then please get those papers, it is best if I keep these papers at home.”

  “Florence hurried back to the ward, yielding me a couple of minutes for considering, which way to go. At first, I would try to gain time but soon, there was bound to be a conflict. Either I would try to blackmail him for permitting me to continue or I would have to risk an open strive. Was I prepared for that? Would Florence witness in my favour? Her risk was bigger since I was anyhow going to spend but a few months here, she was living here for good. I wondered if she was married, I had previously not given private matters any consideration, my fiancée would not have liked it if I did.

  Florence disappeared from my dreams while the real one rushed back without knocking the door. “The papers are gone! I had placed them in Rudolph’s book and neither Ann, nor Liz has been there.

  “How sad. It can only imply that Dr. Harewell has taken them. He knows about Rudolph and he knows that we know about the old story. I wonder how he will react now.”

  We both wondered, and that in a pressing silence. Pressing and unproductive. Since we were unable to cook up anything in my office, Florence suddenly rose: “I better get back to the ward. There I can at least do something.”

  “I am also not successful in the thinking business,” and so we left together, a circumstance that later prompted Ann to set up new rumours. I went directly to Rudolph, the cause of yesterday’s success and today’s misery.

  “It was very stupid of you to insult the chief. I tried to modify your expression but obviously in vain. Why are you so angry at him?”

  “H - E - C - A - U - S - E - D - M - Y - I - S - O - L - A - T - I - O - N”

  “He can prolong your isolation much more. You heard what he told me. Fortunately, he may be too lazy to care much about it, but when he comes again, you must be polite to him, if you know what 'polite' is ...

  “P - O - L - I - T - E - B - U - T - S - T - I - L”

  “OK, you know what it means to be polite but still it is difficult for you to be friendly to those whom you hold responsible for this isolation. I can certainly understand that but we must think of the future and how we can improve your ability to make contact.”

  “You know,” Florence suddenly interrupted with a smile, “it sounds like a telegraph when Rudolph is searching his way through his letters.”

  “Florence, please don't interrupt when we men are speaking, it is difficult enough without ... what did you say, telegraph?” She nodded and I continued: “That may be the idea.”

  It was really somewhat laborious to spell through this alphabet with Rudolph. All right, it had broken the ice but now we needed a better alternative. How much may this poor guy have observed through his life in this prison? Besides, we were still rather unaware about how intelligent Rudolph was, although it had cost him much skill and energy just to learn spelling words and establish the first contact. No wonder that he was unable to demonstrate any diplomacy under these circumstances, when you cannot express anything you can also not be corrected. I was already then certain that Rudolph was very intelligent, now I know it for sure.

  The old telegraph has almost ceased to exist, modern telecommunication made it superfluous many years ago. When I was a child, it was the way to forward messages fast, possibly over a large distance. Like Florence, I recall the sound of telegraphed messages from many films and occasionally also from short-wave radio channels. There was nothing new to invent, it had been created long time ago. All I had to do was to open the dictionary. I got hold of an Encyclopaedia Britannica:

  'Morse code, a system of signals in which dots and dashes are combined to represent letters of the alphabet, invented about 1838 by Samuel F. B. Morse of the U.S., for use in wire telegraphy ...'

  I had no doubt that Rudolph could learn the Morse code. The problem was that anyone communicating with him would have to learn it, too. I started to write up the Morse alphabet in big letters and went to Rudolph with it.

  Rudolph immediately understood the idea and started to exercise the new and faster method of expression. I told him that I would come back in the afternoon and communicate with him by this mean. I did not want to show anyone that I in my office was doing the same thing as Rudolph was studying in his open room.

  It proved to be another success, as I went back to the ward after dinner. Rudolph grunted short and long and I spoke out which letters I had got out of that. It was Rudolph's idea to make a particularly long sound when I had misunderstood the letter. My amazement that this was at all possible was soon replaced by astonishment how Rudolph spelled nearly all words correctly. The sentences were not quite correct, but that was due to the fact that this was still a laborious method and Rudolph economized by leaving unnecessary words out — in itself a very intelligent act. I wrote the letters and finally spoke out the sentences afterwards. I wanted to pose some pressing questions but Rudolph simply wanted to make a long statement. I thought that since he had waited long enough for that, it was his turn first. This is what I wrote down without intruding filling words that Rudolph had omitted:

  “LONG TIME NO SPEAK, THANKS FOR POSSIBILITY. BEEN KEPT HERE VERY MANY YEARS, NO PRISONER WORSE CONDITIONS. CHIEF DOC GUILTY, VERY BAD, NOT FORGET HOW HE WAS TO ME SEVEN YEARS AGO. TAKE ME AWAY FROM HERE”

  Then it was my turn to make some questions. Obviously, Rudolph had got his knowledge largely from the television and newspapers. He was blind on the right eye but had a very sharp vision on the left, through which he had been able to read even the small types in the newspapers. He had started to learn reading by looking at certain television programs which were under texted and simultaneously spoken out in English. He knew that he was in England, which date it was, which conflicts were currently fought in the world and many other details.

  His ability to learn the Morse code so rapidly was another proof of Rudolph's intelligence. I soon got anxious that if he grunted too fast, it might be difficult for us to follow all he was going to tell. At the moment, he was stopping for each letter but he had a lot to say and I was not certain that he would be satisfied with this speed for a longer time.

  It was essential that I should not stay too long time at the ward. In the afternoon, I came back with my cassette recorder and an empty tape. Liz immediately baptised it ‘the gruntophone.’ Ann was occupied in the other end of the ward and the gruntophone was kept hidden, so nobody noticed any suspicious action. Even the two nurses who started working at 2 p.m. did not notice any particularity – Rudolph was always grunting and it was indeed difficult to establish that he was now behaving differently. I should have sacrificed one of the Brahms Symphonies but thought I would anyhow buy some empty tapes after the work. In the end, I brought home the first tape but did not add another one. Moreover, I had no possibility to decipher it, but Liz promised to bring me another one the following morning.

  I arrived early at what was my third day at the job, so that I could give Rudolph the new tape, one of 120 min. duration. I told Rudolf to consider what he wanted to say, because it would take at least as long time for me to decipher it. Liz borrowed me an old tape-recorder and I asked myself, why I had left the first tape at home, here I would have ample time to decipher it. But what was done, was done.

  Florence and Liz were working for three today, because Ann was reported ill (Florence called it an acute attack of disharmony). It implied that only selected patients would be washed today. Normally, there would be a buffer capacity for such cases but today, no replacement was sent. I took the tape-recorder to my office and went to the morning conference.

  It had been felt by everybody that this was going to concern the Patients (now with capital P). My two resident colleagues started reporting from their wards – not very interesting, perhaps, but in this way they proved that they had been there at all. And then it was my turn.

  To give the im
pression that my time was not dominated by the case Rudolph, I started to report about a difficult epileptic attack in another patient and how the nurses had dealt with it (successfully by my arrival, I was actually myself just the admiring audience). But then I had to approach the main theme, which the other three had heard a lot about but were acting as if it was new to them.

  “In this case, my lacking experience with these patients let me assume – or shall we say hope – that a considerable intelligence was hid behind an abhorrent façade. I had gone so far to develop an alphabet through which the patient was indicating the right letter. This was a laborious way and, in the presence of Dr. Harewell, it was not reproducible. Unfortunately, my theories had the negative effect that the staff felt disturbed in their work. Just the theoretical possibility that one of their chronically brain damaged patients could have perceived and later reported something, caused an extremely nervous and completely unjustified overreaction.”

  “May I in that connection add that exactly on that ward, one of our elder nurse-assistants has reported ill today,” mentioned the well-informed chief.

  “On the other side, I cannot avoid mentioning that there appears to be some reporting capacity from this patient, much depending upon our means to adapt to it, to catch the signals, so to speak.”

  The chief’s face stiffened. With an icy voice he said: “I thought I had made it clear to you that this case does not justify any further action.”

  “That is the reason why we discuss this case among colleagues,” I argued stupidly, as if there still was something to discuss. The other, more cleaver residents wisely kept silent. “It would be really sensational if it would succeed to establish some sort of a contact to an individual, in whom such brain activity could not be expected.”

  “We are dealing with patients here, not with sensations, and that is all there is to say to it,” responded Dr. Harewell in a bitter tune.

  “Yes, Sir!” I responded in military fashion with a bent head. I had intended to make it clear that whatever recognitions would appear, these recognitions should not be used against anybody. The alternative position won, no recognitions should be made.

  I had considered staying in the office after the so-called conference, which more seemed like a confessional declaration. Now I realized that I could obtain nothing more under four eyes than had resulted under eight, there would even be a risk of further deterioration in my working conditions. I was therefore satisfied to leave the office shortly afterwards, and none of us missed any reports from the golf lane; understandably, Dr. Harewell were not in the mood for granting such.

  I returned in a good time for the coffee break, which was good since it gave me the opportunity to make the coffee myself – and the working load on the remaining staff also forced me to drink most of it myself. I learned that Dr. Harewell had been there early in the morning and Liz had just managed to store the gruntophone away. The chief seemed even a bit amused as he learned that Ann had not appeared at work.

  I just signalized a ‘hello’ to Rudolph, who sat and grunted in the best telegram-style, then I hurried to my other words where I gave out some ordinations as occupational therapy, without quite breaking the harmony. Around noon, I sneaked myself to the first ward where Liz secretly handed me the tape as if it was an act of espionage – what it indeed also was.

  I left St. John’s at 2 p.m. sharp with the borrowed tape-recorder and went to my small apartment at the second floor in a big house belonging to the hospital but situated outside it, perhaps 200 meter in direction of the centre. I had rented the small apartment for the three months I was expected to stay at St. John’s. There I started to listen to the tape, but just to make sure that it was of an excellent quality. Then I left home again to buy some provisions.

  When I returned, perhaps only half an hour later, there had been burglars in the house. I had not placed many things yet on the shelves but now, with everything lying around at the floor, it was quite impressing. Everything except yesterday’s ‘telegram’ and also the one from today, which had been kept in Liz’ cassette-recorder, was gone. Except for that, nothing was missing. There was no violence at the door, it had obviously been opened with a key.

  I guess, Rudolph had an alibi, so I suspected Dr. Harewell. It was difficult to imagine the old aristocratic gentlemen acting as a burglar, but he knew what he was looking for and the risk of involving other persons seemed unreasonable. Besides, how would the nice gentleman get contact to primitive characters so fast? It was easier to imagine him getting hold of a general key to the house at the hospital’s administration.

  What do you feel when you come home and there have been burglars, destroying more than they stole? Anger, disappointment, sadness. It would be natural to call the police. I was just about to do so, as I suddenly realized that this could add to my troubles, rather than relieve them. Imagine the questions, “what has been stolen?” “How could the burglar get in without destroying the door or its frame?” “Do you suspect anybody?” Better accept the defeat when everything is gone.

  I had reached this conclusion as the doorbell rang: my second visitor after the burglar. It was Liz: “Hi, I have to tell you that …” she stopped while she saw the surroundings.

  “Yes, it is a bit of a mess here,” I admitted, “but it doesn’t always look like that. I have returned 5 minutes ago and found that there have been burglars – or rather just one burglar, I guess, a comparatively old guy for this profession.”

  “Then my message comes too late. Just half an hour ago, around the time when you left, Dr. Harewell turned up again and found the gruntophone, which he then confiscated, including the new tape, Rudolph was preparing. He just took it and left without a word. I came directly here after the replacement came, but the chief seems to have been faster. What has been stolen?”

  “Just two quite inexpensive tapes with a strange noise.”

  Liz wanted to sit down and found a chair in the kitchen. “Have you called the police?”

  “What would you suggest that I tell the police?”

  “But you can’t just accept this. We live in a democracy, in a state of law and order.”

  “Ask Rudolph about his opinion of the society. I have seen other people lose a fortune and all respect and self-respect in claiming what they thought was their right. The best I can hope for when calling the police is just to waste some time, the worst is related to accusing one of the city’s most prominent persons and best golf players.”

  “Florence told me that he has taken money from the patients and that is the reason why you are not allowed to talk to Rudolph.”

  “Did she also tell Ann about it?”

  Liz understood the insult about spreading rumours: “Really … by the way, did you hear any of the tapes?”

  “Just a bit and I did not make any notes. Harewell’s victory is a complete one. You better take your recorder with you, I shall probably not be able to see you tomorrow. Thanks for a short, most exciting time and tell Rudolph about how sad it is for me that I couldn’t proceed. By the way, he has opened the door with a key.”

  “Perhaps the general key to the hospital also fits here”, Liz suggested. In that case, he could have come here directly and waited for my departure to the shops. “But he could have left a lot of fingerprints.”

  “What should they prove? He had been here on a visit, his words against mine. Besides, a doctor, even a psychiatrist, has easy access to operation gloves. But please excuse me, I have a lot to clean up here and my harmony has been shaken.”

  Liz wanted to help me but I was not in the mood for company. Rudolph had telegraphed in vain, and personally, I could expect the worst.

  “You could actually help me for once,” I said. “I must empty my office as long as it is still accessible.”

  We went there together and collected all my records and the computer. It did not help Rudolph, but it was probably my only occasion to take my things without begging for them, and I used it.

&nbs
p; The next morning, when I arrived at ten to eight, one of the tough guys, St. John’s Hospital had employed for fighting the patients at whatever ward who would just scream for help, was posted in front of my office. “I have the order not to let you go to the office or any of the wards. You are expected at the administration office.”

  With exception of the waste basket, I had emptied my office, so I was quite calm, this was what I had expected.

  The hospital’s civil director and Dr. Harewell were expecting my arrival – the morning conference had therefore been cancelled. The director informed me that I was fired after only three full days but would receive payment for one full week. I asked for the explanation, to which Dr. Harewell interrupted that he had given me some clear instructions twice, but obviously in vain. We did not talk about Rudolph.

  You may find me a coward, but I considered myself as beaten on behalf of Rudolph and was now following purely egoistically options, seeing how far a slight pressure could bring me:

  “I am not aware of having broken your rules, Dr. Harewell. Are you referring to any special patient?” Now it would be interesting to see, if he was prepared to talk about Rudolph, if not, there was more hope for me to gain something personal out of the situation.

  “No, it is a general matter of confidence,” he answered. In clear text: the director was not involved.

  “Under certain preconditions, I can imagine a foreshortened interruption of my employment here. I need a certification for three months of psychiatry. That could open the way for a peaceful agreement.”

  The director was surprised to see that the chief immediately agreed. But then I added:

  “And of course, these three months are paid as foreseen.”

  “Young man, that goes too far. Three months wage for three days work …” the director started but was interrupted by Dr. Harewell:

  “If that is the last condition, I think we can agree to that. It won’t cost the hospital anything, I shall personally fill out the vacant job.”

  It was a pity that I had not prepared further conditions, I guess I could have achieved more. To a certain extent, I even got it: I was not allowed to enter further employment in the country for those three months (but I added my income by working abroad), and I was not going to pay any rent for the apartment. When I finally closed the door to the office from outside, I heard the two men discussing loudly behind me. Their problem, I had the signed agreement in my pocket.

  I was not allowed to return to the wards and I had no need to go back to the office. I returned to my fiancée the same day.

  Somewhat later, perhaps two weeks after I left the hospital, Liz wrote me that Rudolph suddenly had died, presumably due to a heart attack. His death was certified by Dr. Harewell himself – anyhow also directly in charge of the ward – and thus not subject to any criticism in the area. A strange thing is that Dr. Harewell had not cared for dead patients for decades but now he was obviously disturbed by a living one.

  Justice in Lawainia

  Lawainia is regarded the most lawful country of the world. Compared to the number of inhabitants, there are more lawyers and judges than anywhere else. Moreover, the majority of our parliament members have an education in law, thus ensuring that justice will prevail in our country. Against this background it might appear strange that there are so few well-defined laws but it is argued that the abundance of law-officials makes it possible to judge on the basis of superior principles, adapted to the individual case.

  Having chosen another direction for my occupation, I was happily indifferent to any legal problems as long as they did not influence my medical profession. Unfortunately, exactly this happened. It occurred surreptitiously and there was a lot of murmuring in the dark but nothing that really threatened further development of this process. Worse, quite a lot of doctors actually assisted it, knowingly or not as shall be shown.

  At first, there was the case Lawrence vs. Lawful City Hospital. No, upon closer look, it was not really the first damage claim, but certainly the first spectacular one considering the sum awarded to Mr. Lawrence, an amount to be surpassed just a few years later. The effects were dramatic: doctors‘ insurance fees went up, in turn causing their salaries and hospital costs to increase; doctors were forbidden to work without signed consent from the patients, covering all possibilities and thus implying that the patients would have to sign something almost similar to their own execution before they could receive medical aid; and in order to evade lawful prosecution, any emergency help was to be provided by laypeople who should not know too much in order to prevent their prosecution for having neglected something. Still, the Lawrence verdict stimulated hope for sudden wealth in many hearts; it also altered attitudes toward fate, accident and crime. Accidents did not just happen, they were caused by somebody and even then, there was a medical failure to blame if people did not rapidly regain complete health; the same expectations also applied to other disorders. Death was never the natural end of life as it had often been before, it was now an inevitable medical failure. So court cases with astronomical damage claims were mounting but, in the vast majority of cases, only the lawyers won. They always won, provided a case was carried through, so calls for modest settlements were not to be expected from their counsel. Health service became more expensive and simultaneously deteriorated rapidly in quality.

  I had noticed this development sceptically but passively, as had almost all the other physicians. Activity could be found only among some physicians, usually in superior positions, who made common cause with the lawyers in defining what a just medical practise would be. As the words ‚standards‘ and ‚guidelines‘ became stigmatized by the dogma they represented, a new concept was found which should replace all, that of ‘quality assurance.‘ Formally, this should guarantee that all patients received the currently preferred therapy – not necessarily the best, since the preconditions of quality assurances were themselves of an older age. In reality, it proved quite difficult always to follow these rules, making doctors vulnerable to more ‚violations‘ than had previously been the case. But the arguments for this development had nothing to do with lawyers and seemed beyond any dispute: improve the care for all patients and get rid of ‘unnecessary’ therapeutic attempts. For that reason, I remained as passive as all my colleagues and accepted the awkward development. Two coincidences, the first completely unrelated to medicine, altered this attitude.

  I had bought a device for editing my video films, produced by a prominent Japanese firm. It did not work. The shop where I had bought it made some alterations, though completely in vain. Slowly almost six months passed, the limit for my rejection of the sale. It seemed that the shop was playing on time, so I contacted a lawyer to put strength to my arguments. He did so in opening a court case. Without really understanding the problem, he wrote some formally impressive letters, to be exchanged with the lawyer of the shop who understood as little. At the court proceedings, he managed to keep me away while the shopkeeper was there as a witness. All court decisions are some kind of a game, but here I had the odds against me, in that there was only one person present who understood what it was all about, and that was not me. In response to the inevitable decision against me, costing as much in court costs as the useless device itself, the shop offered me substantial economic compensation, probably feeling pity for me having such a lousy lawyer.

  I paid the bills and thought I had learned a lesson. Almost immediately after, John Smokey was ordered an immense damage claim from a tobacco company because he had developed pulmonary cancer. Mr. Smokey claimed that he had never thought that smoking might be dangerous for his health. I was not directly involved in the case but more than 10 years before, I had read a ‘black mass’ (as we used to call it when telling a patient thoroughly of the danger of smoking once symptoms were already present) to Mr. Smokey following his heart attack, when other signs of arteriosclerosis were also present. Wrong again, one might say, he was not going to die from that. It affected me how such an outri
ght lie could be awarded with an impressive sum, permitting Mr. Smokey more than luxury for the short remainder of his life.

  I did not interfere in this legal case. What I had said to a patient was not open for spontaneous disclosure by me. But I wrote an angry letter to the editor of our regional newspaper. In this letter, I listed arguments about how the legal circus itself damaged our society by rewarding idiots and liars and how it undermined our system in various ways. I also wrote how lawyers enriched themselves through their positions, and only seldom by their deeds, how they agreed about the outcome of a court case long before the judges had spoken, and I concluded with the report that so many rockets had been sent to the moon, but never had there been a lawyer upon any of them.

  The day after, the newspaper reported that a person had been fired for not having critically edited the letters that were printed. Only a small minority of these were actually published, and then in an abbreviated form, they stated. My letter was not directly mentioned, that would have raised an undesirable announcement effect, but I guess this was the reason for the mentioned action. However, I found it had been cut out from the newspaper and was being kept and shown, or even displayed, by many of the people with whom I was in touch.

  I had been active and this fact alone appeased me, although the earth continued its usual rotation and it was impossible to identify any other reactions to my initiative. Just some days later, I discovered that my wallet had been stolen – at least that was what I thought, but shortly afterwards I found it in one of the twenty pockets I believed already to have touched several times. I looked into it: All the money was there, the credit cards, the driver’s license, only my membership card to the local sports club was missing and I could not recall having taken it out. Apparently, however, I must have done it sometime before, because who would steal such an unimportant item?

  It was more than two weeks later when I was called to the harbour area of our town. Normally, I would not go there by night at all, but I was on call as a doctor and I was persuaded to go to an exact address there: one of my friends was reportedly there and had asked me to come. That is how I arrived at 24, Ocean Street. Quite a lot of cars and people had arrived before me but, it seemed, not associated with any personal danger: the street was blocked by police cars. Could something have happened to my friend? I pressed ahead, explaining that “I am a doctor!” as if one might be needed. Before reaching the apartment where there was a lot of excitement, I was kept back by a senior police officer: “What did you say that your name was?” I responded openly. “That’s him! So you returned to pick up something you had lost?” I denied but was nevertheless arrested, suspected of having murdered a person I had never heard of in a place where I had never been.

  There was no way of avoiding an attorney now, even if I had wanted to. The one who was appointed to me – certainly not any from the video mixer-case – was very sympathetic to my case, very understanding and really made the impression as if he was going to fight my case. I soon learned that the sole reason for suspecting me was that before my arrival, my membership card from the sports club had been found, and then I was even appearing at this place, which was certainly not typical for me. No relationship between the victim and me could be established and thus no motive found, but this was found to be of minor importance. The gun with which the man had been killed was presented at court; unfortunately, it had been cleaned of fingerprints, a matter which again was held against me. Probably, my anonymous enemies had simply waited for a murder to occur before deciding to make use of my identification and to get me there with a telephone call. The rest transpired automatically. I was sentenced to death for a crime which I had not committed. I tried to appeal this verdict – thereby getting the impression that such appeals cases added to the lawyer’s income more than they did to justice; at least the result was identical. What now followed was an unprecedented attempt to speed up my execution, by then a public entertainment in Lawainia. It was a very close race. Only coincidences made it possible for these lines to appear for you to read them: the real murderer was arrested and admitted to this crime while confessing a lot of similar ones; and a friend of mine – I still have friends, it seems – demanded that my execution be stopped because I was obviously innocent. The first precondition alone had not sufficed.

  Although charging everybody else for irresponsible behaviour, neither lawyers nor judges were ever associated with any responsibility themselves when erroneous verdicts resulted, whether economical ones, or these resulting in imprisonment or even the loss of life. Here in Lawainia, it seems that there is a strong difference between justice and the law; while lawyers mostly seem to be occupied with increasing their own wealth, their strong presence in our government prevents any changes from occurring.

  Jack-the-Ripper’s Last Notes

  The entire World knows that Jack the Ripper as a cruel murderer. Even his identity was obscure to the World at his own life-time (and thereby the end-time of his victims), the British police never caught him. Indeed, only the late discovery of his last notes clarified his motives. It was a mere coincidence that these came into my hands. Therefore, I see an obligation here to make public the content of these notes, whereas the exact text (and the revelation of the murderer himself) should only occur in connection with “Jack the Ripper’s Poems.”

  It is, indeed, a painful recognition that what the World remembers as the worst outcast of primitivism was, in fact, a person of high-standing culture - yes, if I may say so as a colleague, even an author. Worse, an early understanding of these qualities might have prevented worse. Instead, the reaction of his contemporises (not much different than mine) formerly drove him into what he is now known for.

  Jack was, indeed, a very shy person, always standing in the shadow of his sisters and strong mother, in particular after the early death of the father. His phantasy was blooming and another attitude towards him could have changed everything. Of course, his “Ode to the Roses in Spring” can be considered a juvenile expression, as little ripe as most of what appears in the spring. However, it is already with his next collection of poems, “Ode to the Roses in Summer” that Jack reveals what could have been a highly adored ability - instead, it resulted by a blunt decline from several publishers. Probably, Jack suffered similar answers to other publication issues which are now lost, because now he had understood that, unless you are discovered by coincidence, it is only possible to publish when you have been known for something else. In order to be discovered, Jack realized that he would have to write poems, which were largely in accordance and only slightly deviating from the critic’s expectations (what they again felt was original, although it was based on earlier works). Refusing to succumb the prostitution it would be to adhere to literature-critics old-fashioned expectations, he decided to win reputation in another way, fighting another kind of prostitution.

  Already in his small poem, “Silent You Lie with Purple Blood on the White Skin,” Jack indicates what might happen, if the World continued to ignore his existence. This is a masterly description of his first victim, so masterly that some literary experts find it must have been written only after the crime took place. Without the shadow of a doubt, his keen observations and descriptive art is found in “A Strangled Body does not Resist.” At this time, he already had got the nickname “the Ripper” and the police was desperately looking for him. Had his poems by then been printed, they would have revealed to all readers where to look for the murderer (but policemen anyhow rarely read poems). Another masterpiece, “Rest in Pieces,” offers further painful details to the consequences of Jack’s frustration.

  Such observations were manifold in his masterful collection of poems, “Ode to the Roses in Autumn,” which do not hesitate to reveal the smallest details. From this you can deduct that Jack gave his authorship the highest priority, a deed that only few of these artists can claim for themselves. His unselfishness was further underlined in his last collection, “Ode to the Roses in Winter,” in which Ja
ck’s problem is characterized: He was now a famous (or rather infamous) person and it would have been no problem to get any publisher to accept his works. Unfortunately, that would also have betrayed his identity, making it impossible for him to write any more poems. He therefore decided to continue his artistic career, which included a number of immortal observations on mortal person’s last strive. Jack hoped for a later recognition of his literary supremacy. Unfortunately, as this time finally came, his poems were no longer outstanding.

  Hannah’s Sudden Death

  Some years ago, in 1998, I met a young girl, Hannah, in Jericho. As everyone could see, I was a stranger, but she was also only incidentally there. She lived in a Palestinian refugee camp – which, I’ll better not tell. She told me a lot of interesting things about life there (and, as usual, I talked too much as well), and we kept contact by mail. And now, less than four years later, she has suddenly died. Suddenly means violently, and she did not die alone. Other persons died with her – through her – and several were seriously wounded, some of them crippled for life. How could this humorous and vital girl, apart from committing suicide, spread so much misery?

  She died anonymosly, and I did not notice her identity in the newspaper, just another nameless terrorist had died and taken other lives with her. Actually, it was herself who told me what had happened. No, not as you may think, she was silent by then, but I received a letter from her with the classical beginning, “when you receive this, I shall be dead.” Then, she gave me the details, the day and place (in Jerusalem) where it was going to happen. I looked at the letter again. Already the stamp had told me that it was sent from Rome, and I had wondered who might write me, since I do not know anybody there. Now I realized that the letter had been sent several weeks after Hannah’s death, if the date she wrote was true. The next thing was to find out what had occurred, since Hannah could only describe her intensions, not what actually happened at the moment of her death and shortly after. I described it already, but in reality I found these details only two days later when I managed to get hold of some older newspapers reporting the incident.

  The newspapers roughly confirmed that a young Palestinian woman had blown herself to death (no more telling about her identity), that six humans had lost their life by the explosion while many others had been seriously wounded. To the families concerned, which had probably no part in the atrocities going on in the Palestinian cities, villages and refugee camps, Hannah was a terrorist, there can be no doubt about that, and at that point I do not agree in the slightest degree to her action. But the blood toll did not end there: in the Stone Age mentality prevailing, a revenge action was carried out in the camp where she lived, taking the life of at least double as many Palestinians along with further destruction. Nobody knew exactly what had happened there, it was easier to experience the events in Jerusalem, where journalists are present, than at other battle fields, where any neutral observation is banned.

  “I know that I shall be condemned for terrorism,” she wrote. “They [she never used any other word for the Israeli authorities] will suppress my identity, never try to let themselves or others understand my action and even create further actions, which are much worse the thing I have done.” Indeed, that was what had happened. At least, I was getting curious to know the motives, transferring a peaceful human into a terrorist. I slowly realized that my contact with her had never shown any depth and that both her and my mind might have changed a lot during the preceding four years, without necessarily having shown this change in our letters.

  Hannah knew this, and it was indeed difficult for me to accept her new attitude. In fact, this was what she wrote next: “I know that you do not understand my actions and I do not demand your accept. Still, I want to explain to you, what has driven me to this final action. Some of the facts, you know already.”

  She was probably referring to the two atrocities, I had been told already in Jericho: Her father had been in an Israeli prison for several years; how long he should be there was not known, because there was no judgement and every six month the imprisonment was summarily prolonged – why it was prolonged was equally obscure, since there were no official charges as well. In a civilized country, it is impossible to keep anyone in jail for more than a few days without at least meeting a judge, so just for that reason, this area seems not to be civilized. Some months ago, after the new figthings had begun, Hannah wrote another short letter, telling me that her father had died in jail – how and why he died was not reported. The other fact was also spectacular: the family had lived near Jerusalem and Hannah was even borne there in 1978, when the area was already occupied by the Israeli for more than a decade. Then, when she was still a small girl, their houses were suddenly bulldozed flat and they were expelled to a refugee camp while their property was sold – only, in order to buy it, you had to be a Jew. Hannah’s family was given some small economical ‘compensation,’ showing how cheap it could be to buy the best land near Jerusalem, once the racial preconditions were met. The new suburb was protected by a high fence, so that the original inhabitants were unable to approach their previous living area.

  This alone had not turned Hannah into a terrorist, but there was not much sympathy found in her towards the people of the occupying forces. Even then, she told me repetitively that she knew that not all Jews were bad people, although the majority seemed to be – their last election gave them the choice between two aggressive generals, and the more aggressive one, the one who had precipitated the uproar, was the one to win. She was kept up by the obligation now to take care of the remaining family, the mother and a much younger sister, Miriam, now 16 years old. The crucial events happened just a few weeks before Hannah’s death.

  “They came by night – they practically always do – but not by surprise. Their arrival was announced by a terribly loud air-surveillance. The reason was that one of the desperate young people, who had participated in a suicidal mission in their country, came from our village. I said, their country, but it seems that they want to take the remaining part of the West-Bank as well. They have gradually built a lot of villages, now they want to throw the rest of us out, while they in Jerusalem finally are going to build their temple at whatever cost. Sometimes, foreign politicians arrive and talk about peace and negotiations, which their hosts gladly appreciate since it gives them time to proceed with their plans. They have no real intention to enter any agreement.” Generals may be good for leading a war, but they are incompetent for, or simply unwilling to participate in any peace process.

  “After having caused a sleepless night from their noise-producing aircrafts, the attack came shortly before dawn, they drove many of us out on the streets, also me and my family. Behind us, bulldozers destroyed our house, along with some houses of the neighbours. And then, from the other end of the camp, they had posted snipers who, all of a sudden, shot into the crowd. I managed to get back in shelter of a ruined car, but both my mother and sister were hit. My sister must have died instantaneously, my mother was still moving for a long time, but each time I tried to near her, I was driven back by new shots. Outside the camp, some ambulances were waiting, but the invaders did not permit any of them to approach the wounded lying in the streets, and before the sun stood high on the sky, my mother must have died. Then, suddenly, some soldiers approached me and I thought they would kill me, too. Slowly I was wondering why I was keeping in shelter when I was anyhow deprived of anything which might justify a continued life. Perhaps the new soldiers belonged to another regiment, perhaps they just kill by night, and at least I was escorted out on safe ground. They even gave me something to eat, just as the witch fed Hans in the German fairy tell, in order to eat him at a later time. After that, I was taken to Ramallah without being permitted to bury or even see my slain family.

  It took some days for me to understand how I had lost everything. I was feeling desperate for being the survivor, should there be a choice, it would have been better for Miriam to live through this time. Through an immense
terrorrism, they had blown out the life in all my relatives and were about to extinct my people in their long-planned action to take our land. Strangely enough, they call their military suppression a “fight against terrorism,” although it is difficult to imagine a more massive terrorism than the one which is exerted upon us.

  Having lost everything, you can perhaps understand that I have nothing else to loose and I am investing my life in an action, to revenge my slain family and in all to the losses carried by my people. I guess that you can follow me so far. Where you may not be able to understand my action is perhaps that I am assaulting innocent civilians. You can still stop reading here, if you do not want to understand it at all.”

  Hannah had really stopped in the middle of the paper and continued only on another page. This was indeed helping me to reconsider her letter and I stopped reading it, at least for a while. Yes indeed, should there even be a partly understandable background for her deeds, I did not really want to learn about them. You cannot fight terrorism with terrorism, but exactly that is what both sides in this conflict are trying to do. It should be more interesting, what drives young people into a suicide than it is to know, what turns them to murderers as well, but there is little official interest in any of these questions – but isn’t it the officials who keep talking about the ‘fight against terrorism?’ What the first suicidal issue concerned, Hannah’s letter had given full answer. I do not want to understand a murderer and therefore put the letter away.

  It was a strange evening. I was alone for the moment and decided to memorise Hannah appropriately. I found the four photos I had made of her in Jericho and supplied them with the two, she had sent and which I was keeping in another place. I wondered how it was possible to find them at all, since I keep photos in different drawers and boxes and seldom use an album. Then I went early to bed, but I did not sleep. I could not help comparing my secure position to the one found in Palestine. When I closed my eyes, I saw smoking ruins or bulldozed houses, I heard children cry for hunger while the adults had lost all illusions and were sitting speechless in the misery. Suddenly I heard the noise of an aircraft but it was gone within a minute. In Palestine, the noise would stay for hours and perhaps signalize an attack by dawn, perhaps it would come a day or two later but it would come. Under these circumstances, it could not be difficult to find members of suicidal missions. Perhaps the Israeli government needed such a reaction to continue their ugly offenses. Their willingness to accept own victims for the benefit of other of their compatriots seems to have an old tradition and can hardly be understood by others. Was it a trap, turning the suiciders into murderers as well? The frustrated youngsters would thus give the Israeli an alibi for continuing their actions and even be supported by the big brother who used to pay for everything. After all, this kamikaze-strategy has only been known for some months.

  I considered the other side of this misery. At this time, I had not yet found the newspapers confirming Hannah’s letter, but it was probable that the explosion had taken place in a public area like a store or a bus station, not where the rich people spent their free time. Without having any defined, I thought about the relatives to the new victims. How to sleep if such thoughts are tormenting your soul? Finally, I wanted to know why Hannah had done it, without any preparedness of approving her action.

  No, there was no danger, her letter did not convince me in this issue, although it may affect somebody else, which is my reason for not producing it here. There was a lot of talk about religious matters, obviously Hannah had sought comfort in Islam. I am not competent in evaluating these aspects and prefer to leave them totally out of consideration. The letter did, however, further confirm her utter despair. To break up the vicious circle in the Holy Land, a precondition is to stop this process of causing frustration and despair, although that will hardly work for a considerable time. Hannah had totally given up any vision about peace – and that was, what turned her a murderer along with the suicide, keeping the cycle of terror and frustration rolling on.

  An Uninvited Visitor

  I

  It was in the middle of August in 2003 and the summer had been exceptionally hot. Even in our house in a small North-Italian town between Milan and Aosta, it was difficult to stand the heat before 7 p.m., at which time I inspected what remained of the vegetation in the garden. Apart from some brief thunderstorms, it had not rained for several weeks and it was forbidden to irrigate the garden, which I then did secretly though only at a few spots and early in the morning when the neighbours still slept. That explained the apparent miracle of flourishing red roses in burned out surroundings. At least, it had not been necessary cut the lawn for nearly two months and now there was no grass remaining to cut. Although our garden was adjacent to the forest, there was hardly any coolness to get from it. The forest could stand in flames at any time. It was simply excessively hot with temperatures exceeding 40°C in the afternoon. At least, that is what the neighbours told me, because at that time I was enjoying the air-conditioner at the office. Tomorrow, on Saturday, I would leave for the Alps with Luciano, a colleague and friend at the work. We would not be alone, many would escape for higher altitudes in the hot season and many again would try to avoid the inevitable traffic jam, in turn creating other traffic events at unusual times and places. In my case, I would pick up my friend around 5 a.m., planning to be back on Monday morning. We would drive with our small car since my family had tried to escape the heat some week ago in the big car in what proved to be the wrong direction – going west – but that is another story. The result was that I was alone at home. The car was now parked in the garage under the house.

  Now, at about half past eight, came the daily relief, the heat slowly resolved with a slight fresh wind. Not much wind, perhaps, but you learned to appreciate shallow movements when none were felt before. The sun would set in about one hour. Behind me, the house was waiting for being opened; all shutters were closed during the day, preventing any ray of sunshine to enter. This is the old way to deal with hot climate in Southern regions and in the absence of an air-conditioner, I was forced to adapt to that. Not bad, by the way, my friend had an air-conditioner as almost everybody else and therefore, electricity was constantly breaking down. At the job, they had gone one step further, generating electricity themselves. Thus, we were all making our contributions to let the climate deteriorate even further during the next few years, and so there would be an even greater need for air-conditioners and electricity generators in the future.

  Suddenly a man appeared from the wood. We have a door in the fence, but it was locked, and this guy simply jumped over. I was startled but just said, “Buona Sera,” waiting to hear an explanation of the man’s unusual behaviour.

  “Excuse me, do you speak English?”

  I nodded, unprepared to give any speech-samples for proving my claim. The man’s six words had already betrayed that he was an American.

  “I am sorry for intruding in this peculiar way, but have you got some water – in the house?”

  Again, I was surprised of the small addition but decided it was proper to exercise some English, which I might as well do within the house. “Please come along. I am afraid that the tap-water is not very cold, but I can offer you a beer from the refrigerator.”

  “In that case, I should prefer just a litre of water, and if you would then still offer me a cold beer, I would probably not be able to say no.”

  We went into the house, immediately closing the garden-door behind us, thus keeping the heat outside. I turned on the electric light, just a naked bulb in the ceiling of our large sitting room, so that we could find our way. It was rather comfortable inside with at least 10°C less at this time and more in the middle of the day, should anybody ask. I wondered about the stranger’s appearance. He had a grey jacket suit, carried the jacket itself over an arm and wore a somewhat dirty shirt with short sleeves. The clothes betrayed that he had slept in them for some days. His otherwise clean-shaved head indicated that he had not
shaved for at least two days. His black, shiny and rather short bright hair was gluing to the head, indicating that it had not been washed for some days and was being combed regularly. From a pocket of his jacket, a tip of a blue tie was seen. If the rest of the tie looked like his shirt, there was no decorating purpose in having it on, apart from the crazy idea of wearing a tie under the tropic circumstances. My visitor was probably somewhere at the end of in his thirties, although the last days may have added another decade. I asked him to sit down in the sofa in the middle of the room, while I went to the kitchen to fetch some supplies.

  I put first a glass of water and a full can at the table beside him, as a kind of emergency aid. Then I went back and got two cold bottles of beer and some snacks. I cannot explain what made me so generous towards this stranger, but it must have been a mixture of pity and curiosity. As I returned, he had emptied the water and greedily threw himself over the snacks. Again, I excused his bad manners, not only was he an American, he was also extremely hungry.

  “Perhaps you should really proceed with water for some time. The evening will be short if you empty beer bottles at the same express rate.”

  He nodded but kept silent. As I then asked, if he would like to eat some ravioli, he was enthusiastically approving, but without opening his mouth to let out a word. Perhaps he thought that I, an Italian, would anyhow not understand him? Perhaps my first speech had not encouraged him to proceed? Or he had forgotten to speak English himself? Since my decision to feed him also arose from the egoistic purpose of practising some English and perhaps not really as an act of mercy, he should better get started in a conversation. Nevertheless, I decided to make us something to eat and let him rest a bit in the meantime.

  It was not a big gastronomic effort, I must admit, and anyhow these efforts would profit from my guest’s immense hunger that let nearly everything taste marvellously. As I returned with the dishes some 20 minutes later, my guest was sleeping. As I silently spoke to him, he awoke with a sudden jerk, looking scared but then suddenly realizing that where he was now, there was no imminent danger.

  He ate, as I had predicted, with a big appetite but now I thought the time had come for him to be more talkative. “Don’t you think that you owe me kind of an explanation for your somewhat strange appearance?”

  “Yes and no. Yes because it was indeed strange and because you are very kind to me; and no because I do not want to endanger you by knowing too much. But since I am obviously afraid of someone else, you should know that somebody who is going to kill me chases me. And I fear to carry danger to anybody who is supporting me. As soon as I have finished the meal, I shall leave, and I can only recommend that you deny any possible request ever to have seen me.”

  “But shouldn’t we call the police for your protection?” I asked as a good citizen.

  “Oh no, that would even expose me to the snipers, it is better when they do not know where I am. Besides, I am not so certain that your police are really a help for me.” His words where reaching a prepared ground, the police was merciless when dealing with harmless citizens but I had myself doubts about where to expect them when greater criminal organizations where involved.

  “I am ready to take the risk of knowing something about you,” I started. “Let me expect you to have left the USA not long time ago, to have been on the run for at least two days, probably from Milano as the nearest large international airport, and you have trouble with the mafia.”

  “Well deduced, Sherlock Holmes. Yes, it is all true, and I understand how you reach all the conclusions. By the way, you can call me Frank and I’ll call you Jack, understanding these names as mere synonyms.”

  I might have protested since first name is Giaccomo but I decided to keep this secret away from Frank. “So, would you like to know what people are discussing the last two days?”

  “Oh yes, that would be interesting!”

  “There is only one topic of greater concern, and it has been the same for weeks: how long will the heats last, where will new fires ignite in the forests, what caused the altered climate and has it altered permanently so that we should expect this condition for the coming years.”

  “Is that really all?” asked Frank surprised.

  “Strictly speaking, I can’t say. I stopped reading newspapers someone and a half year ago but I am, of course, exposed to the so-called news at the job that is repeated each hour in the radio in a propagandistic fashion. From time to time, I also look at the news in the television. I am myself most interested in the weather report which may be unreliable but at least not censured.”

  “What made you cancel your newspaper?”

  “I suddenly realized that I was being made subject to a strong censorship, what certain events were concerned. There may be only a few such blind spots but then, these are transferred by all news media in a completely indifferent way. Besides, it started from the part of the World where you come from: the World Trade Centre attack. Of course, all rationally thinking humans were shocked of this brutal terrorism but after three weeks, I started to ask myself if there was nothing else happening in the World. Then, after about half a year, I started to wonder how the press could be so reluctant to the obvious failure of the investigations. And the absence of any investigative results, combined with considerations of who were really profiting from that man-made disaster, made me slowly suspect that we were all being made subject to an immense propaganda. But I shall save you the details. For some time, we did not even have a television connection, until the children protested – in Italy you cannot live without a television.”

  “In America even less,” chuckled Frank and finished the meal.

  I rose and went towards the garden door. “It is about time for me to open the shutters.”

  “No, please don’t do that,” shouted Frank nervously. “I told you about the men who are persecuting me. They might see me in the house. It is also a great danger to you.”

  “I think it is a greater danger suddenly to leave the house dark at a time where all neighbours have opened theirs, apart from those who are boasting of their air-conditioner and are keeping their windows closed and shutters open all the time.”

  Obviously, Frank understood this argument, but he turned the light off and retired to a dark corner, where he would probably remain unidentified if somebody looked through the windows from a distance. I then opened the door and started to open the shutters. Within a couple of minutes, two strangers appeared by the fence to the forest. The elder of them was perhaps around 55, with silvery hair, a short moustache and a sun-tainted face-skin full of rinks. He asked:

  “Hey you there, do you speak English?”

  I decided that it would suffice to admit that once daily, besides the tune in the newcomer’s voice was not exactly polite. “Scusi, non capisco,” said I and indicated that I was also not exactly interested in understanding the man.

  Now, his younger companion, a dark-haired person of about 30 years, started to speak in a fair Spanish, as this is spoken in New York. He was at least not offensive in his behaviour and let the older man understand that he should remain in the background. “Excuse us, have you seen a man coming around here from the woods perhaps an hour ago?”

  Spanish and Italian are sufficiently closely related to lead a superficial communication, so I replied in my tongue, “No, I have just returned from work and am now opening the house for the night.”

  “Where have you been before, I mean, why do you come home so late?”

  “Who are you asking?” No reply. “Well, why should I tell a nameless stranger where I have been? It is anyhow none of your concern that we have a functioning acclimatiser in the office while I haven’t got any here.” And without bidding then farewell, I turned around and proceeded toward the house. It was now slowly getting dark but I decided not to turn on the light. It was more of a problem not to leave the door and windows open for a while. I continued to open the old-fashioned wooden shutters at the other side of the house and
leave the forest-side unguarded – at least, Frank was alerted if anybody would enter, and he later confirmed that the new visitors rapidly disappeared, probably searching for other trails of the fugitive. Then I returned to the open garden door, closed it from the inside and left all the windows partially opened.

  “Wait here for a little while, I shall get us some new cold beers and then we can go upstairs for a chat where we cannot be seen from outside.”

  Visually covered from the window by the sofa, Frank sneaked out like a shameful dog. Only beside the darkened staircase did he stand up. We went up to my studio, which lies on the other side of the house with a brilliant view of the valley and a door to a terrace where it would now have been suitable to sit, if we could have talked in privacy. In this case, we should be satisfied that nobody was able to look into the room from below. I went out on the terrace and had a look down to the street. Far away, two persons were standing, possibly the couple from before, but I was not able to decide it.

  I went back to my study, closed the door, turned the light on and sat down. “Who were the two nice gentlemen,” I asked ironically.

  “Captain Heresford of the CIA and lieutenant Weiss of the Mossad. And when those two are here, there are definitely many more agents looking for me.”

  “And what would happen if they got you?”

  “I would be drugged unconscious and then an accident would happen. A fatal accident, of course.”

  “How big are your chances not to be caught?”

  “Frankly spoken, they are minimal. I was rushing away towards Europe, taking the first the best airplane. I shall try to reach for Zurich to talk to a journalist with whom I have an appointment. They are trying to kill me before I can reveal any secrets. And as it seems, they will have success.”

  “Then what is at stake, if you reveal me a bit before, so that it is not totally wasted when they get you?”

  “The problem is that you will enjoy the same fate if you know too much.”

  “And who is going to decide if I know too much? Just having been together with you is apparently already too much. I think, Frank, that damage has been done already and that you and I have nothing to lose by informing me of which secrets these scoundrels want to protect. Besides, it seems to be utterly interesting.”

  “It is indeed,” concluded Frank. “Yes, I fear you are right. I have let you enter my rowing boat in the Atlantic Storm, so you have some right to experience this fantastic story. Then I shall also inform you where to deliver it, in case I am exposed before I can do it.”

  “And perhaps I can really help you to escape in the morning. But more to that after I hear what you have got to tell.”

  “I guess that you don’t want to help me then, after you hear what kind of human I am. But that’s for you to decide. Even if you despise me personally for my deeds, it might seem worthwhile to help me getting this story out.”

  “You’d better take another beer, before I start despising you.” It was meant as a joke but it was good of me to make the offer now, before Frank started to talk. What a confession!

  II

  “After having tried the most different kinds of jobs for some years, including not having any at periods, I was happy to receive an employment at the Central Intelligence of America at Langley, Virginia, in 1998. It was really a rather boring occupation and not particularly well paid, but it provided a degree of certainty after the restless years. In September 2000, I was promoted for external services, for which I moved to Orlando in Florida. My new chief wanted to test my loyalty, so after some trivial investigative job, I was appointed to an election committee where I secretly worked for manipulating the election machines. We just wanted them to give a slight favour of our candidate. If we had done a better job, the result would have been impressing but as you know, Florida’s vote was for a long time undetermined and eventually determined by justice, not by voters. But that shall not happen again, we can now programme the results completely in advance.”

  “So that was the last free election in USA,” I concluded.

  “Perhaps not, we have not transferred the result to all states. But probably sufficient to decide all future elections.”

  I was amazed how Frank still referred to ‘we’ after the same ‘we’ were chasing and would probably ‘eliminate’ him. It was not easy for him to lay off the habits of preceding years. But time was pressing and he had a long story to tell so I decided not to interrupt, except for occasionally proving that I was still awake and attentive.

  “This election occurrence caused a phase of instability in our country, and although this was not just decided in Orlando, my chief did not miss the occasion to give me part of the guilt. After some months, I received a strange order: I was going to shadow an Arab person and protect him without his knowledge. He had a lot of alibis and I don’t know which his correct name was. Let us just select one of them and simply call him Ali.

  Ali must have felt the ‘divine’ protection, since he seemed to attract the attention of the sheriff of each county where he rested for some time. Generally this required that I turned up at the sheriff’s office, identified myself and officially demanded that running investigations would not be disturbed, but once I even had to free him from jail – still without letting him know. He had driven too fast and the officer serving the radar didn’t like foreigners. In this case, I had to pay a fine of 50$ but that was a small expense in relation to the whole operation. My work ended on September 10th when I was called back to Langley; anyhow I was in Washington on occasion of my supportive mission.

  You can guess that my ‘client’ was killed the following day, and perhaps he took a large number of lives with him. But the quarrel stopped, nobody now challenged the authority of our president. The people of America wanted revenge and were ready to follow in the fight against – well, that was the problem, we did not know whom to fight, but we would follow our leader against just anybody, whom he decided to be our enemy.”

  “Sorry for interrupting but was CIA protecting or even projecting the attack?”

  “I have no idea. But it was a welcome occasion to end the political uncertainty and we knew it, I mean to CIA, as signified by my job half a year before the combined attack. Unfortunately, others also knew it and they nearly toppled the whole thing by the precautions they took. The Israeli intelligence organization Mossad had bugged a lot of administrative offices, even the Oval Office in the White House. For that reason, there were obviously many who avoided their office at the day of the WTC-crash and the occasion was used for cleaning money in a large scale. And if you want another indication of the Israeli knowledge, just have a look at how the Israeli have blackmailed us since. A few weeks ago, our president thought he had stood out the pressure and invited the Israeli prime minister for a 30 minutes talk. Previously, he had promised the Palestine colleague to put the Israeli oppression to an end. I can just imagine how he talked for 5 minutes, posing his demands, not to be discussed; whence his counterparts also used 5 minutes, serving another blackmail-issue, and 2 minutes for his suggestion for a mutual declaration, equally not to be discussed. And then the two Supermen were spending another quarter of an hour, sitting and looking hatefully at another, until our president finally agreed to agree to the statement, to which no choice was given. And that was the end to American involvement in the Israel and Palestine, the Israeli hardliners have become free hands for any future suppression – after all, nobody intervened for the Indian population of America in the 18th and 19th century.”

  “I guess you can use a more recent comparison for the terrible suppression that happens there.”

  “Possibly, but do not forget that I am – eh, I mean I was – only a small fish. I just obeyed orders.”

  “Yes, and I am most eager to hear about your next orders.” I regretted again to have interrupted him but it was getting increasingly difficult to play the sympathetically listener.

  “It was kind of a police investigation, searching for the
clues to the WTC attack. The only thing was that all the written material collected was carefully destroyed in Langley. Since I had been following Ali for 6 months, I was taking care of destroying all evidence relating to our protecting him for so long a time, e.g. in paying the speed ticket. That is, it was okay to approve that he had stayed here and there, such evidence was handed over to the FBI. But no written statement should exist in various books at the sheriff’s offices that this guy was enjoying special protection. It was a fairly easy job – I knew when I had been where, I just had to search the offices again and requiring their logbooks handed out – also the FBI had given me corresponding authority. I was even provided with three assistants. Afterwards, we returned the books, but not quite the same books. In most of them, some pages were now missing.

  Other of my colleagues was working on other traces and we were, I should say, so successful at our job that the FBI in their outstanding large action had gathered no substantial evidence that was not known to them – largely through our cautious donation – within 2 days after the attack.”

  “But how does a successful evidence-destroyer suddenly get uneven with his employer?”

  “I told you, I was a small fish but I was as such also part of the evidence. At some time, I had been in New York, where Mossad operates quite openly. I thought we were working closely together with them and I must have disclosed some facts improperly, once I was talking to lieutenant Weiss there. It was nothing he did not know about, perhaps he was himself involved in the particular protecting action in the days before Sept. 11. It was clear that you do not talk about such things with anybody, even if they knew about it. In New York, I was involved in a car accident, but disregarding the material damage, nothing really happened. However, as a producer of accidents myself, I wondered if this was purely incidental.

  When I came back to Washington, another serious accident should have happened, but I was alerted now and prepared for the worst. A big dark truck was about to overtake my car, which I was driving alone home towards Langley. I saw him coming in the mirror and managed to avoid a collision. When he was out of sight, I escaped down a small road to the right. I believe that the truck driver might have waited further along for me to pass by again. Fortunately, I had left no family behind me in Langley; I was divorced some years ago. I drove strictly back to Washington where I took a plane to Buffalo, from there I took the bus to Canada, which was a better way to travel without being tracked by any international flight or rented car. From Ottawa, I took the first airplane towards Europe, which happened to be an Al Italia flight bringing me to Milan. I telephoned a German journalist, whom I knew was collecting evidence to the WTC-business, and I agreed to meet him in Zürich. Then I slept in a hotel just one night. I don’t know how, but the next morning I just caught a glimpse of my previous chief, Captain Heresford, fortunately without him seeing me. I escaped from the hotel without paying the bill – I still had enough money but I didn’t want to risk being held back on that occasion. Since then, I have been on the run. I am trying to cross the Alps and meet the journalist the day after tomorrow.”

  “Don’t you think that the CIA somehow knows that you are heading for Zürich?”

  “Yes, I hope so, since I am going to meet him in Brig. I managed to call him yesterday from Novarra to tell about the danger.”

  “But are you certain that he is also not on the pay-roll of the CIA?”

  Frank silenced. Obviously, he had not considered that possibility. “Of course, there is this possibility. Anybody criticizing the CIA and surviving doing so, can be suspected of cooperation. However, in this case, I have a god feeling and besides, I also have no alternative. Still, my contact to him may have been fatal. Of course, this person is utterly surveyed by the CIA and whomever they cite for their cooperation. You just met one example, I am sure that also other national intelligences are bowing their heads to America’s demand.”

  “Now, you better continue to hope that I am also not on their payroll – my statement doesn’t matter much for you, I can imagine. Have a sleep at the sofa there, and tomorrow we shall drive towards the North. I shall work out the details in the meantime.”

  I do not know if Frank really trusted me. Anyhow, when I came over to my study at a quarter to five next morning to wake him up, he was still there.

  III

  In the morning, I had an espresso; I better not tell what Frank had for breakfast but I guess he had not eaten much in the preceding days. I let him use my razor to get shaved and even presented him a new shirt and a small bag for storing his jacket and some small things, including some biscuits I also provided him with. Then I showed him down to the garage through the cellar-door, invisible from outside. I asked him to crumble down on the back seat. Then I went up again and out through the garden door. It was perhaps getting lighter but sunset was still more than an hour away. I closed the house with all the shudders. If anybody were observing, they might hear me sing a popular Italian song, not as loud as to wake up the neighbours but to maintain the impression of an unconcerned person. Later, they could see me go down and open the garage from the outside, then enter the car, drive it out and close the garage before driving to the city centre to get my friend. I was not being followed and it seemed an unnecessary precaution to let Frank rest at the bottom between the front and rear seat with a presenting from a tent over him.

  Still, I had decided not to tell Luciano that we had a passenger. He was waiting at the street and mentioned that I was 10 minutes late, as I usually was and he usually would complain about. It was comparatively fresh now, but in reality, the temperature had hardly climbed below 20°C. So we discussed the heat wave, which everybody talked about without doing anything to improve it, but perhaps doing something to make it worse.

  We had just left the outskirts of the city and then there was a police-control. No way to avoid it, so we stopped. There were at least 6 carabinieri and only one car after us, a Dutch family with a big caravan behind a small car.

  “What’s the matter, officer,” did I ask the younger carabiniero who approached us.

  “We are looking for someone trying to escape.”

  “I think that description suits us,” interrupted Luciano, “we are trying to escape the heat.”

  “Oh, shut up, Saddam, and don’t forget to look young.” I was referring to my friend’s moustache and black hair, the only characteristics he had in common with the fugitive and much elder former Iraqi dictator.

  The Carabiniero was a bit confused but an elder colleague of his, himself showing a better resemblance with Saddam Hussein, laughed. “The man we are looking for today has no moustache,” and then he curled the ends of his own.

  I am sure they would have searched the car more keenly, but we were saved by a mistake. The Dutch driver misunderstood the request to stop and just continued, at least a hundred meters, until two motorbikes that had kept ready unmistakably stopped him. This suspect behaviour was going to be rewarded with a thorough search. Simultaneously, another car approached from behind. So we local people obeyed to the command to proceed.

  Should I now tell Luciano about Frank? No, there might be another checkpoint coming up later on, and without knowing what we were carrying, he behaved wonderfully natural, as he had proven already.

  We were approaching Domodossola, the last Italian city before the Simplon-Pass. I had given Frank a card so that he might try to cross the border in the mountains without exposing himself. They would definitely be looking for him there now.

  Luciano never learned about Frank. Somewhere, offside the road, he demanded to stop. He had already drunk too much in the morning and went to a group of trees to get rid of it. This was also my occasion also to get rid of Frank. I showed him on the map where we were and then pointed at the direction where for him to proceed. At this time, Luciano came back.

  “Where did that man suddenly come from?” said he as Frank had gone.

  “I don’t know, but I started to speak to him to preven
t him from getting a shock when seeing what you were doing to nature. An Australian tourist, by the way. He asked for the way back home but I sent him in the opposite direction.”

  After another half an hour, we finally reached the alpine hut where we were about to spend the next 48 hours. It was a bright day by now, and wonderfully fresh. The other people, expected to join us here, soon gathered, so we were a full dozen, enjoying that we lived so near to the Alps.

  “Call them back at the job and say that either they give me a week holiday or I’ll quit,” said Luciano.

  “You can use your own mobile,” answered another of my friends, Rafael, as if there was any office open on this hot Saturday.

  The next morning, I got up at eight. I turned on the radio to hear the news. They told that not so far from here, an American fugitive had been killed by a mountainous accident the day before. The man had left a hotel in Milan without paying the bill and was now probably trying to get to Switzerland. According to a tip from American authorities, the man was suspected of having relations to the mafia and Al Qaida.

  I had no doubt that they finally had gotten Frank. The next thing that occurred to me was the question, whether they would also suspect me for knowing anything. I looked towards Luciano’s bed. It was empty.

  “Luciano went to the baker shop in the valley – with your car, by the way,” said Rafael. “He found the keys in your trousers.”

  Immediately after, we heard a gunshot, perhaps some miles away. The sharp sound echoed several times in the mountains. Could there be hunters here and now?

  An hour later, a police-car brought the sad news that Luciano, on his way back from the baker shop, had lost control of the car, which had then fallen deep down into a ravine. His body had not been found, but there was no hope of his survival, the car had fallen too far and had then started burning. A witness had seen and heard how one front tire had suddenly exploded in a slow curve.

  I could just imagine what had caused that explosion. You would never find out if you were not particularly looking for the bullet – and you never see anything, not even through the microscope, with the blind eye. How sad I felt for Luciano, I still had the hope that Frank’s murderers had now got enough. Soon, however, I realized that just having spent a short time in the same car, as Frank would suffice for a death sentence from his persecutors. They had undoubtedly recognized the car, as well as having recognized that the owner did not drive it. That gave me co-responsibility for the killing of Luciano – and I was certainly the next on the list.

  I considered going down with the carabinieri, but I did not trust them – perhaps I would meet Captain Heresford and Lieutenant Weiss at their office? I had no doubt about their capacities. Therefore, I left myself in the direction north, but with the papers you are now reading. I wrote down the story and hid it in the cave where you found it, just in case I shall myself not reach the appointment in Brig due to some obscure “mountainous accident.”

  IV

  It took just a couple of days for Maria to return with the kids. They had planned to stay for another two weeks, but as Giaccomo failed to answer the phone even on Tuesday morning, she called at his work. There they confirmed that he had somehow been involved in an accident in the Alps at Monte Rosa, near to the Simplon Pass. No further details could be obtained through the telephone but that was also enough for Maria to decide to cancel her holiday plans and return straight home.

  Maria was a woman of 31 years, this year with a noble chestnut-coloured hair – at the least in most of the head. Observant spectators would recognize that she had very dark eyebrows while her friends might just remember that she used to be blond. She was dressed in very light and bright clothes reflecting the season and the extraordinary heat once leaving the car. The dress exposed more her slim figure than it actually hid, and she had nothing to be ashamed of in that direction.

  All the time, while driving, Maria wondered what she would find at home. Strange thoughts had torn her mind, giving various explanations for her husband’s absence. Maybe he would just stand up and look at her with surprise, saying: “I thought you would stay away for another 10 days. Why did you suddenly come back?” Or he would lie wounded on the sofa, being pleasantly surprised of suddenly and unexpectedly getting help. Or he would be lying unconscious or even dead at home. Or he would not be there at all, which was most probable since they knew of nothing at the job and he had answered none of her phone-calls. What could have happened then? Not a pleasant thought, and probably therefore, she returned to her first thoughts – considering the same possibilities again and again.

  It was a beautiful evening as she arrived around 8 p.m. Sunset was still an hour away. As she left her acclimatized car, the surroundings were unpleasantly hot. Her children, a boy, Alessandro, of 8 and a girl, Rosaria, of 6 years age, stiffly left the car, not understanding why they had to return to these surroundings so soon – and Maria had so far avoided to transfer her own uncertainties to them. Alessandro (Giaccomo called him ‘Monty’) did not understand why they had returned so soon, whereas Rosa (as they both called her) was going where the others went. Maria opened the garage – yes, empty, Giaccomo’s car should have had a serious accident. Afterwards she would park her own car, once she had emptied it from the luggage. She unlocked the front door and nervously called: “Giaccomo?” No reply. Then she went into the living room – and got a shock. All books had been removed from the shelves and were piled up on the floor. The garden door was not completely closed; this was probably where the thieves had come in – and out? Or where there still someone in the house?

  In an average film, the woman would proceed and then possibly be surprised upstairs by remaining culprits. Maria had seen a lot of such films and decided that she did not fit into that scheme. She took out her children back to the street and called the police from her mobile phone.

  “Please come immediately. We have had robbers. Perhaps they are still staying in the house.” The policeman in the other end of the line assured her that they would certainly come immediately, if they only knew where they were expected. They really want to know everything in advance, don’t they? She told him that, too, and closed the phone.

  “Hi Maria, already back from holidays? Everybody here is trying to escape the heat and you come back. Where is Giaccomo?” It was one of the neighbours, Luigi, about her age. He was a rather small man with curly hair, whose family had come up to Lombardy from Sicily many years ago but still maintained their strong dialect when enjoying other southerner’s company. They had a somewhat strained relationship after having being very cordial together first when they had bought the house some years ago. Something had cooled the relations down, but Maria had forgotten what it was. Still, formally they were talking with another as if they were the best friends and Luigi and his wife, Theresa, also knew that she had left towards the West on holidays.

  “Yes, where is Giaccomo? That’s the reason why I came back already. I talked with him last Thursday and I knew that he would go to Monte Rosa with some friends in the weekend. And then I lost contact. At his work, they told me this morning that there had been an accident – I mean, his car had been involved, so I am really very scared.” She could not hold her tears back. “And then, as I came back home, I found that there had been thieves in the house. Now I am waiting for the police to come.”

  She had just spoken out these words, when they heard the siren of a police car approaching. The police did not like to surprise an armed robber and prevented this from happening through their indiscrete appearance.

  “Theresa, would you please come down instantly,” Luigi cried. A little later, still before the arrival of the police, she came down to the fence.

  “Hi Maria, what a surprise to see you already,” she said but immediately stopped as Maria solemnly answered: “There are more surprises to come.” As to emphasize these words, the police car noisily arrived and braked with singing wheels before the small group of people.

  “Theresa, wou
ld you please take care of the children? I shall explain everything later”, Luigi said.

  Later you could state that through their rapid appearance, they arrived already some 41 hours and 58 minutes after the departure of the burglars, instead of only 42 hours later. The children were quite amazed, somewhat proud of the special attention that was done to their home, and they refused to go away with Theresa. All she could achieve was to prevent them from going into their own house. And nobody could prevent Luigi from entering it.

  The police saw the mess in the living room and an even bigger mess in Giaccomo’s study at the first floor. Apart from that, hardly anything had been moved. “What has been stolen?” they asked.

  “I don’t know yet, I decided to leave everything untouched in order not to disturb your investigation – looking for fingerprints and all that sort of things,” answered Maria.

  “Your fingerprints would not surprise any in your own house,” answered the elder constable. “And if nothing exceptional has been stolen, I fear that we shall not perform any expensive investigation.”

  Maria swallowed the reply and then suddenly she concluded: “My husband has been stolen!”

  While both the policemen were taken by surprise, she told her story, which certainly was missing something important, apart from Giaccomo. She just mentioned that he had not answered her calls and not been at the work this day and the day before. Nothing about Monte Rosa, or about the car accident, of which she anyhow had very sparing information. It would be more interesting to hear a complete answer from the police, rather than to deliver them most of the answer herself.

  The younger policeman asked for the license number of Giaccomo’s car and then withdrew to the turn-out car, exchanging the new information with the Central from there. His colleague stayed in the house and looked at the slightly opened garden door without touching it, should there, after all, come a real investigation out of this matter. Then he searched all the rooms of the house without finding any looming threads.

  Shortly after, the young policeman returned. “I have some surprising news. Your husband’s car had an accident near Domodossola. Apparently, he was not in the car as it fell down into a ravine, but a friend of his was killed in it.”

  “But where is he then now?”

  “We don’t know but we would like to talk to him in connection with that accident.”

  Maria felt an icy tune in this reply, as if her husband was now suspected of having contributed to the accident himself. She strained herself to give an answer not reflecting this turn: “I shall, of course, ask him to report to the police whenever I get in touch with him – and therefore, I hope to receive any news from you, should you find him first. I am really very nervous for him – I mean, we all are! My neighbour here is taken care of our two small children.”

  The elder policeman promised to report any new recognition in Giaccomo’s whereabouts, and then they left.

  Luigi asked Maria to come to them that evening but she wanted to bring the children to bed before they slept in strange surroundings, and being also immensely tired herself, she declined the offer. Before Luigi left, she parked her car in the empty garage closed the garden door firmly. She did not dare to leave the house again. While she started piling up the books beside the shelves, Theresa came with the children. Maria exchanged some polite words with her neighbour but also let her understand that she was tired now, so that the other soon after left her alone.

  “Where is Papa,” Rosa asked. She had already told them an emergency lie that he had travelled to Switzerland on behalf of the firm. Monty had grasped it but Rosa needed it to be repeated again and again, so Maria was slowly learning this story by heart.

  She wanted to do something but had at first no idea what. While she helped the children to bed, it slowly came to her mind. Giaccomo had been in the Alps with his friends and he had not so many of them, now even one less.

  The sun had set as she started calling. Rinaldo was not answering and Giulio’s wife told that he had gone to Milano for a couple of days. But the third call was positive.

  “Maria, have you come back already? Good, I would like to talk to you,” said Rafael.

  “So would I. Is it possible for you to come here immediately?” She did not want to use the phrase, ‘not on the phone’ – if somebody really were listening, that should make them curious. Fortunately, he didn’t specify anything.

  “I’ll bring a bottle of wine.”

  “I’ve just arrived,” Maria said, “I have nothing to eat here.”

  “Never mind, I shall bring some snacks, too.” And 20 minutes later, he was there. He lived in the inner city, not so far away, but it was a rather steep hill up to Maria’s house, and travelling with a bike and some provisions, he was short of breath when he finally arrived.

  “The good thing about this hill is that I am going downwards again on my way home,” he stated when he had calmed down a little.

  Only few people would bike up a hill in this heat, Maria thought. It was getting dark but was still more than 30°C hot.

  V

  Rafael was an athletic type, devoted to any kind of sport. He did not own any motorised vehicle – not that he couldn’t afford it, it was simply a matter of principle. His short-cut black hair projected irregularly down over the eyes and contributed, along with a somewhat big, hawked nose, to the edged appearance of the face.

  “I did not want to mention it in the phone,” he started in a low voice without entering the house. Independently, he had had the same notion as Maria about public communications. “It is a phoney matter and Giaccomo told me not to trust anybody – I mean nobody else but you. Tell me, what do you know?”

  “I know that he would spend the week-end with some friends at the cottage at Monte Rosa, that he has not returned from this trip, that they have no knowledge about his whereabouts at his work, that Luciano has been killed in an accident involving Giaccomo’s car, which he seems to have driven alone – and that’s all I know.”

  They entered the house and then Rafael continued: “So you haven’t heard anything from him?”

  “How could I? I’ve just returned home, hoping to find out what has happened. And I found a terrible mess here in this room and in Giaccomo’s room – that is why it looks so bad here now, I have only stowed the books together. In Giaccomo’s small office, it’s pure devastation.”

  “A burglary? What has been stolen?”

  “I don’t know yet. I am not sure they have taken anything.”

  “Not quite typical for thieves. They must have been looking for something else; perhaps they were interrupted.” Rafael was himself interrupted by the phone. Maria hurried nervously to take it:

  “Pronto.”

  A strange man started: “Can I speak to Signor Gemelli?”

  “I am sorry, he is not here. With whom am I speaking?”

  “My name is George Brown. I am from America,” which explained the anyhow unmistaken accent. ”I have met Mr. Gemelli once and wanted to see him again.”

  “So do I.”

  Mr. Brown was perhaps just a bit too little surprised of this blunt answer, because he just proceeded with the question: “Have you any idea where he is?”

  “No.”

  “Well, if he should come back...“

  Maria interrupted, “… Then he shall have a lot to explain, among others when he has met George Brown. I am sorry being unable to help you, Mr. Brown, but I have other worries.”

  The man in the other end adopted some politeness and ended the conversation in a few words.

  “Who was that,” Rafael asked.

  “The burglar!” After a short silence, both smiled of the dedication. Then Maria continued, “after all, I am pleased of this call, because it indicates that Giaccomo is alive.”

  “It also indicates persistent danger to his life,” Rafael concluded. “I would like to hear some music, by the way.”

  Maria turned on a CD but Rafael was not satisfied, he wanted hard
rock, techno, what he would usually characterize as a sort of continuous noise. And now he seemed not to be able to get it loud enough. “Your burglars may not have stolen anything, but I am sure that they have left something,” he whispered in her ear. Maria had not given any thoughts to the room being bugged, but now she behaved accordingly. The following conversation was whispered from mouth to ear, hoping that the noise might hide the speech to strangers.

  “It is high time that you tell me about what you know about this mystery. Why hasn’t Giaccomo called me? And why haven’t you done it?”

  Rafael did not answer immediately. He fought with the old bottle-opener and finally liberated the red liquid, which he served in the two glasses. Loud he said “Chin-chin!” but then he continued, for Maria’s ears (or at least one of them) only: “Giaccomo has inadvertently entered a problem which is bigger than he can cope with. Not only that, he told me something in the hut after the police from Domodossola had brought the bad news about Luciano being killed in his car and had left again.” Maria did not interrupt him but there are times to talk, times to breath and times to taste the wine. Then Rafael continued:

  “We were now six men left in the hut. Giaccomo dragged me apart and gave me in a low tune a few, impressive instructions. It is as if he said it again and again, I woke up with these words each night and I can repeat them verbatim:

  ‘Rafael, I have come into immense trouble. Luciano died because he spent too much time with me, so don’t make any mistakes. My enemies from overseas are most powerful and our officials may obey them; keep that in mind and don’t mention anything through the phone. Maria will probably come home soon when she feel that something is wrong and she gets no contact. Tell her a few things: I love her and the children, I must go without giving notice, she must pretend not to know anything about my disappearance, even if she knows very little, and she should go to a place at the mountain where we spent a marvellous time; there, she may learn more. Yes, don’t care about the job, just let it flow away. I may have decayed in a mountainous accident.’

  ‘You and an accident?’ I asked surprised.

  ‘My new enemies are masters in creating accidents, just think of Luciano and beware of sharing his faith. But most important: tell Maria that I love her.’

  And then he was gone.”

  Maria had tears in her eyes. She tried to understand the importance in this sentence. Finally she broke the silence: “I can’t understand what Giaccomo could have to do with the Mafia.”

  “And I can’t help thinking that our Italian Mafia is a bunch of noble sportsmen in comparison to this American union.”

  “Did you say American? The guy who just called was American. He said he was and he talked like one, including beginning and ending the conversation without any words of greeting.”

  “So that makes sense. Actually, Giaccomo used the term ‘overseas,’ which opens other possibilities. But don’t forget that he is also afraid of the Italian authorities. You must expect them to cooperate with the Gringos – and just be happy if they don’t. In fact, we did not see any Americans here, but after the local police hat gone, some Carabinieri arrived and talked with everybody. They also wanted to talk to Giaccomo. They knew he should be there and were surprised to hear that he wasn’t.”

  “But he was gone then?”

  “Hardly 10 minutes out of sight. I told the carabinieri loudly that he had gone to find the wreck of his car and see if he could offer some help to Luciano. And although they had seen him leave in the opposite direction, our friends instinctively supported my claim. You know, none of us are fond of the carabinieri. Perhaps they now understood why he had left in such a hurry.”

  Maria chuckled sympathetically. “How did the carabinieri react to that?”

  “One of them left the group to forward the information through the radio. Obviously, there were enough others, so they stayed with us for almost an hour. And even then, they had not completely disappeared. As we descended from the hut in the late afternoon, they were waiting for us a few km below. They still wanted to know where Giaccomo might be and we pretended to be astonished that he was not with them. Then they carefully checked both cars as if he could be hiding somewhere.”

  They sipped the wine silently – that is, the noise of the music made them both long for silence. Finally, Maria stated, “I’ve got to go up there.”

  Rafael understood the invitation: “Can I accompany you?”

  “I don’t need to talk about the danger?”

  “Call it friendship, call it curiosity. I am ready to take the risk. When?”

  “I must find a place for the children. Say, the day after tomorrow? We shall meet at 10:30 near the central fountain – in another car, by the way. Best if you simply rent a car and wait for me there. No, better wait outside Bruno’s Café, I am going to shake off possible persecutors and I have an idea how to do it.”

  “I agree to everything, provided you play some decent music now,” Rafael concluded.

  It was a world of differences, now with Respighi’s tunes to the still aching ears. They talked in a different way now. Maria expressed her anxiety to what had happened to her husband but after a while also told how she had experienced the short vacation in France. She had been close enough to the burning forest to get smoke in the nose, the clothes and the car. The climate had indeed changed markedly this year – was it perhaps a result of the general pollution and the biggest industrial nation’s refusal to limit their contribution to it? With six percent of the World’s population already causing 25% of the CO2-emission and so on. You could hardly call it a discussion, but Rafael and Maria exchanged information and were even pleased of doing so for open microphones.

  Shortly after midnight, Rafael enjoyed the forces of gravity to reach home. From the window, Maria saw how a car started. She wanted to warn him, but it was impossible and turned out also to be unnecessary. They were after Giaccomo. The lesson they had learned by Luciano’s death was not to give any further warnings but just hope that the two might lead to the fugitive. Rafael had not exaggerated. The danger looming over Giaccomo was, for whatever reason, most imminent.

  VI

  Maria’s mother was happily surprised as her daughter called her the next morning, and having learned that Giaccomo was not at home, she was easily persuaded to come up from Milano and stay there for a couple of days. She had never had any good relation to her son-in-law and learning that he would not return this week, she did not ask where he had gone. Maria, on her behalf, decided not to mention why she suddenly needed her mother. She was afraid to mention it in the telephone and she was as afraid to speak openly to her at home, now firmly assuming that the house was bugged. All the day, she concentrated on giving her mother a nice time and still saw no occasion to mention any plans for the Thursday. Then that morning, having still not told her any news, she decided to sneak away before her mother woke up, which was not very easy with the children waking up before. She gave them breakfast, forbid them to play in the garden without their grandmother present and wrote a small letter, explaining that she would go shopping and probably be missing the whole day. Then she left, without having had any breakfast herself.

  An Italian can survive without breakfast, but not without coffee in the morning. For that purpose, however, there are numerous small bars in every city and village and to such one did Maria turn. She had parked her car in the backyard, a hot tip from a friend. There she would leave it for the day. At first, she was simply getting here what she had abstained at home, an espresso.

  When approaching 10:30, she went a few hundred meters to another café. Here, she went straight through a back entrance to another yard and from there, again, she proceeded across a backyard and went straight through Bruno’s Café, which was facing another street. Outside, a small green FIAT was waiting in which she immediately recognized Rafael. Her probable persecutors would still be waiting for her to come out of the other café, which they should certainly avoid passing.

&nbs
p; “Turn this way to the left and take the Southern exit of the city,” she demanded.

  “I thought we were going to the hut,” protested Rafael.

  “So do they, whoever ‘they’ are. Anyhow, we are going to Monte Rosa, but that is a huge mountainous area and we are taking another approach. At first, we are going to make a large detour, before they realize that we have disappeared. And then I want to assure myself that we are not being followed.”

  Indeed, they went in a slow curve towards west and then again northwards, though not returning to the main road towards Simplon. After 15 minutes, they approached a wood where Maria suddenly told Rafael to bend sharply into a narrow path into the wood after a curve.

  “Turn off the engine,” she said and went out, and so did Rafael. For the next five minutes they waited in silence, both doors opened. Then a car passed by, but it came from the North.

  “It seems we are not being followed,” said Maria. “Would you please let me drive now, I know the small roads.”

  Rafael was not immediately certain if he would obey. “I actually rented the car in my name.”

  “Except for my local knowledge, you may probably admit that I spent more time driving cars than you. Therefore, I know only little about bicycles.”

  “Okay, you win, but please drive carefully.”

  They changed places and Rafael had hardly closed the door when Maria started with a rush. And she continued following the small path through the wood.

  “I hope you know where you are driving,” remarked the passenger worried.

  “I have been here plenty of times with Giaccomo. In two km, we shall arrive in a small village and there, when turning left by the church, return to safe grounds, if that is how you bicyclists consider tarred roads.” And so it happened, Maria had proven her local knowledge.

  Now, they were again driving in direction north for about 20 minutes and obviously gaining altitude as she gave another proof of her familiarity with the surroundings: “This is the end of the normal road, we take. Some 500 meter after a strange rosé-painted house on the right hand we shall turn left, again following a small path for about five minutes.”

  “And then we are there?”

  “The car is there, but we two shall have to climb a bit.”

  The path was not only narrow but also steep and with several holes, forcing Maria to drive slowly for 10 minutes rather than 5. She excused herself by saying, “in Giaccomo’s four-wheel drive, we had another style of driving.”

  “I am sorry if the model doesn’t suit your expectations,” Rafael said stiffly, “I found it expensive enough for one day.”

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t want to insult you,” Maria answered laughing, “it is perfect, I just have to adapt to its features. By the way, I am of course going to pay for it.”

  And then they strived about that item, while the car slowly emerged till the point where the path suddenly parted into two footpaths. That was the end of motorized travel and here Maria backed the car out on the grass. There was just room for one car between some big stones.

  “We used to park the car here.”

  “How high is the altitude?”

  “Just about 2200 meters. But there are hardly any tourists here. And we are going to ascend another 100 meters by foot.”

  They followed the right footpath for a while, and then suddenly Maria left that, beginning a virtual climbing.

  Rafael wondered what kind of signs made Maria so certain of her way. “I guess you can call this place your own,” he said short of breath. Maria nodded without answering a word. After all, he was the sportsman among them both. Then they arrived at a plateau. She gave Rafael the hand and helped him up. Here they rested for a while.

  “I think I have seen the surroundings before. How far away is this from the hut?” he said as he had regained breath.

  “Perhaps some four kilometres. Actually, we found it first during a weekend at the Alpine hut, and then Giaccomo studied the local maps for finding a different approach.”

  “Well, it is a nice place but what is so special about it?”

  “Come along, just a few meters.” and she led him around to the entrance of a cave. “We even spent a few nights here before the children came.” She flushed, as if the two matters had something to do with another. And also Rafael couldn’t avoid thinking of Monty and Rosa. He knew that Maria and Giaccomo had been spending a considerable part of their time, summer and winter, in the near part of the Alps, which was dominated by the vast mountainous massive called Monte Rosa, but now this intense relationship seemed to get another dimension.

  The cave was not very deep, perhaps five meters long and two meters wide at the broadest place, where it was also possible to stand up. Rafael entered and went into the farthest corner.

  “Here is a plastic bag with a lot of papers.”

  “I almost expected that,” Maria said solemnly. “Even if you had not referred to this place, I would have come here to look for it. Shall we read the papers together, now that you have involved so deeply in the matter?”

  They read Giaccomo’s story silently. It took quite a long time. The story has already been told here initially, except that it started with “Dear Maria” and mentioned the date, 4 days ago.

  “Hard stuff and most difficult to believe if I had not witnessed some of the events,” Rafael concluded after they finished. Suddenly a noise brought them both to a halt. Somebody was coming.

  VII

  There was no escape; they just remained silent in the cave, hoping for the best while the noise of somebody climbing came nearer and nearer. The unknown alpinist finally arrived at the platform, stopped for gaining breath and then turned around the corner. The entrance to the cave was now in the shadow and only the silhouette of a man was visible. But then he was suddenly recognized:

  “Giaccomo,” Maria screamed and ran towards him, kissing him and keeping him tight. They did not say a word but kissed each other repeatedly, as if desperately.

  Suddenly, Rafael thought it was enough: “Cough, cough,” he said clumsily. The others became aware of his existence.

  “Sorry, Rafael, but how good it is to see Giaccomo again. It has been a terrible time.”

  Giaccomo was slowly getting a full beard and his face was remarkably sun-tanned. “It is not quite over, I am afraid. Did you read my story?”

  Maria and Rafael murmured something like “impressing” or “shocking.”

  “Still, it was a perfect timing. I’ve just arrived from Brig. If everything goes right, the spook will be over in a few days. Until then, I must hide. How are the children?”

  “My mother is taking care of them. By the way, I should call her – oh, I forgot my mobile phone. Rafael, have you got yours?”

  “No, it is possible to trace people if they carry a mobile phone, even if they don’t use it.”

  “How good of you to forget it then,” Giaccomo supplemented.

  “But I just left mother with the impression that I was buying something. She will be worrying about what happened to me.”

  “She happened to be my reason for worry quite a number of times, so if she should worry once now it’s all right with me.”

  “Anyhow, the mobile phone is in my bag which I left in the car.”

  Both of the men frowned. “Then let’s go,” Rafael said all of a sudden.

  “No, wait, listen to that,” Giaccomo said. Now the sound of a helicopter approaching was easy to hear. It came nearer, flew just over the mountain with the cave and was then gone all of a sudden. While still hearing it, he added: “I’ll wait here until the next morning. Tomorrow I’ll try to reach a safe area where I can stay for a week. Then I’ll call you, Rafael, and just say that Snoopy is in the doghouse. You’ll tell Maria directly. By the way, have you got some money?

  “Now I haven’t,” Rafael said and emptied his purse. Maria had also prepared for the meeting, just in case.

  “It is only a loan,” Giaccomo said.

 
; “Sure, I’ll sum up my expenses and add a suitable interest,” the first sponsor said.

  “Speaking of Snoopy, Charlie Brown – no, I think this American gentleman claimed his first name to be George – called you Tuesday evening. I told him the truth, as to what I knew then, that was nothing.”

  “I don’t know any American, in particular not any Mr. Brown,” Giaccomo said sourly.”

  “Just as expected, after I read your story. By the way, should we take it along?”

  “God heavens, no. You’ll meet the police when you descend – at best.”

  Rafael prepared to leave. “Just one last question: How are you expecting to get out of this?”

  “In making my person first invisible, then unimportant. I hope you will see how – that we all shall live to experience it. But now you must really leave! Go! Go!”

  They obeyed. The first descend was difficult, then it went more smoothly, and at the last meters they started to run, until they reached the car. Maria opened it and reached for her bag, dialled home and talked to her mother.

  “Hi mum, I’m sorry to have left you unaware but it all happened so suddenly. I’ve met Rafael, one of our old friends, and we talked so that the time simply went away.”

  The mother was not convinced that a woman can speak for so long a time with a man; and if time disappeared, it was not due to talking alone. She expressed her misbelieve.

  “I’m really very sorry,” answered Maria, “I shall tell you about it when I come home. Just now we are getting some more visitors. Ciao.” And without waiting for further remarks, she closed the telephone.

  The visitors were really coming. Four carabinieri, two of them on motorbikes, had managed the difficult ascend and were now stopping in a row on the path. Immediately afterwards, the helicopter flew over them again. Obviously, the newcomers had contact with it since one of the carabinieri stayed in the car, occupied with the radio.

  The other three men approached the motorbikes with a handgun ready, the one from the car, an elderly man, with a machine gun.

  “Ciao. May I have a look at your phone, Madam?” one of the junior officers said. He wrote the number of the last call and assured himself that no other connections had been made for the day. The senior officer indicated that he was not familiar with mobile phones.

  “What circumstances do we honour your visit here?” Rafael asked with exaggerated politeness.

  “Well,” the senior officer said. “Shall we call it a routine? May I see your driving license?”

  “Excuse me,” said Maria, “if anybody was driving too fast on this ‘road,’ it was me. Besides, I did not see the ‘Parking forbidden’ sign. Here’s my driving licence.”

  Rafael had also produced his and the chief police officer wrote down the information contained while the younger motor-bikers strained themselves to avoid laughing at Maria’s assumptions. Perhaps that was what saved them, since the fourth, as he finally approached, said something about considering the evidence, to which the elderly said, it was not suitable now. After all, this was only a mission yielding tactical support. Then they discussed something in so low a voice that Maria and Rafael couldn’t hear it.

  They came back and asked Rafael why he was driving a rented car.

  “But that is obvious, I don’t own any car.”

  “And what are you doing here at this deserted place?”

  “I was just comforting my dear friend to the loss of her husband.”

  This spread confusion among the carabinieri. They knew something about Giaccomo and did not know how to react upon the remark. They avoided asking anything about him, a symptom in itself.

  “What are you going to do now?”

  “If you don’t mind, we would like to return home.”

  “And where have you been?”

  “Here!”

  “But the helicopter reported that it did not see anybody inside or near the car.”

  “Maybe they did not see us but we couldn’t avoid noticing the helicopter, of course. If we were younger, we would probably get out of bush and wave our hands. No, they did not see us, but we were also acting more discrete,” Rafael said, to which Maria gave a shy smile. Let them think the worst of us, they both thought, as long as they do not find out where we really were.

  “Are you going in our direction?” Maria asked stupidly, as if there was any other. The two young carabinieri now laughed openly, so she added fast, “we have kind of lost our way and I am not certain if we can find back to the main street.”

  “Madam, we can adjoin you most of the way home, if you please,” the senior officer said, thereby perhaps forgetting a precaution of tactical support missions.

  Maria gave the car keys back to Rafael. The only problem was, that there now was no room to turn the police car (or they didn’t find the room themselves), so that a strange caravan started descending from this part of the Monte Rosa massive: First the two motorbikes, then the police car driving backwards and finally Rafael and Maria driving forwards. It lasted at least 500 meters before the carabinieri, roughly shaken by being unable to avoid the worst holes, could finally turn their car. Now they were driving behind, giving the two civilians the best protection they could dream of.

  “With this escort, I am not afraid to share the fate of Luciano,” Rafael said in a high mood.

  “I am still not very ascertained. Didn’t you hear them talk about ‘considering the evidence?’ I am sure they were going to plant something in our car, for which they could later arrest us.”

  “Yes, I’ve heard that such things may happen. Recently, it was committed to globalisation demonstrators in Thessaloniki recently. And although the policemen were filmed why they planted the wrong bag at the partly unconscious demonstrators, these were then arrested. Sad when our expected defenders act that way.”

  “And what were they at all doing there?” Maria continued.

  “They talked about a ‘tactical support mission.’ I wonder who they are supporting.”

  “Certainly not us, although they appear to be doing it at the moment.” Maria pointed at another car, a green Ford with Milanese licence plates, which was coming against them. It was very difficult to pass it. Rafael opened the window to make sure of the details. Also the other car was driving with an open window. In it there were two men, the driver was an elderly, suntanned and silver haired one with rink leather skin in the face, characterized also by a thin moustache, while a younger dark-haired type, who was sitting too far away for yielding any details. The two men looked sourly at the other couple while Maria smiled at them. “There is nothing like the direct human contact,” she said ironically. “I bet that one of them was Mr. Brown.”

  “And the other perhaps Luciano’s murder – and Frank’s, by the way.”

  “Am I proud of being an Italian citizen, supported by Italian carabinieri!”

  “When they are not in tactical missions, supporting gringos persecuting Italians,” concluded Rafael ironically.

  Still, their concern was not justified this time. The two motorbike carabinieri accompanied them all the way back to the city where Maria picked up her own car and Rafael then drove back to deliver the rented one; he had left his bicycle there. Maria drove to a supermarket to buy some provisions. She was anyhow too late for her mother and probably wouldn’t get another chance to leave the house. She even bought some flowers for her Mummy, whom she would anyhow tell some invented story explaining why she only returned late in the afternoon.

  Next evening, Rafael received a phone booth call from Giaccomo, whom he recognized from the voice: “Snoopy is back in his pyramid doghouse.” On Saturday morning, Rafael just passed by for a moment. He could comfort Maria with the written information that her husband had reached safe ground in Torino – somewhere near the Egyptian Museum.

  IIX

  On Tuesday, everything went wrong. Maria’s mother had a habit to mix up in all affairs and disagree in the household, even in Giaccomo’s absence. At the end of the qua
rrel, she decided to return home to Milano. Maria soon cooled her temper and regretted words that should not have been said, too late. The decision was made. She tried to make an excuse while driving her mother to the station, though with no obvious effect.

  The children were staying with Theresa and Luigi. When Maria returned, there was first a phone call from Giaccomo’s work, where his chief stated that if her husband would not return immediately, he should consider being fired.

  “I am very sorry, but he has been missed in the Alps since last Sunday and I have heard he might have been brought to a hospital in Switzerland. When I learn something else, I shall, of course, inform you.” The chief softened up a bit and asked for further information by the end of the week. Maria then thought she might not be able to utilize this prolongation.

  Then a German car turned up and a rather young man got out. With a somewhat fleshy face with thick lips and vertically standing, dark-blond hair, he was not the type by whom Maria would tend to seek comfort. Nevertheless, he was very polite and spoke a rather fluent Italian. He wanted to tell her something about Giaccomo. Maria suspected a trap. The visitor wanted to come in because he had something to tell in secret.

  “If it is really secret, it won’t stay that for a long time. I found two microphones in the house yesterday and there are probably more. But you are welcome to join me in the garden.”

  They sat down in the shadow. It was slowly getting very hot again, not a drop of rain had been seen in the last four weeks and even the decay of the roses could now be foreseen. The visitor emphasized that they should sit with their back to the forest, in case there were any directed microphones there.

  “I know who you are and I realize that you cannot trust me just upon my word. Still, I have some important news for Giaccomo. He met me a week ago in Brig.”

  “Wait, in that case, I have decided to take the risk. It is better to talk at the terrace outside Giaccomo’s office. Please follow me,” Maria suddenly said.

  It was only a short message: The visitor, who claimed that his name was Reinhold, had received the story about Frank. He was preparing to publish it, referring to an anonymous Swiss who should have got the story when meeting Frank in the Alps, shortly before the latter was killed (as usual: an accident). The only problem was that no newspaper had been ready to publish the story. However, he was still trying and would, if not successful till then, publish it in an Internet source next Saturday. Then Giaccomo could finally come out of the bush a few days afterwards, nobody would care for him anymore as long as he kept silent, and any assault on his person might simply awake further interest in the case.

  “Is it really that simple? Today they want to kill him as an unpleasant witness, tomorrow they prefer not to cause any unnecessary attention by hurting him.”

  “Yes, it is indeed so. The details of the 9-11 are so abhorrent that it is a question of its own how the official fairy-tale remains so accepted. That also explains the problem of publishing any contradiction anywhere. But if everything should fail, we still have the Internet.”

  “And if you should fail, I mean, become the victim of another fatal accident, what then?”

  “Then the story is already with my Internet-News agency. But we prefer serving it somewhere else before publishing it ourselves, that way we may reach a larger audience. Besides, the CIA has already registered me as their enemy. I hope they also avoid making me the victim of one of their famous actions.”

  “Now you are here, you may tell me what the carabinieri meant last Thursday when they were talking about a “tactical support mission.”

  “That is serious. You know that James Bond has a licence to kill?”

  “Of course.”

  “So there are a lot of agents of CIA and Mossad. The problem is, that when these, our friends and allies, are acting on the ground of so-called ‘friendly nations,’ they are supported by local military or police forces – meaning, they still have their licence to kill, provided they let it look like an accident or a suicide. They have, in addition, over decades experimented with inducing fatal diseases.”

  Maria shuddered. “It is difficult to be a small member of the society.”

  “Not if you are small enough. After all, they still need the societies and are very dependent on public opinion. Why, else, would the Americans attack themselves?”

  “Yes, that wonders me. Why didn’t they attack somebody else?”

  “They did, and they do it again and again. In fact, they have been involved in twenty-two wars all over the World since 1945. And recently, they listed a number of 60 countries still to be dealt with. That calls for stimulation. The leading forces would not be able to create such a mood from an attack in any other country. Americans are not interested in the rest of the world. Moreover, no other country would accept such an attack without demanding a full investigation, something the American government proved able to prevent or lead in the wrong direction. But you were mentioning bugging of the house, when did it happen and can I see one of them?”

  “It must have happened seven or eight days ago. Wait, I’ll go and fetch the two I found.”

  Maria came back in a minute and Reinhold inspected the two objects and dismantled them. “Just what I thought, a rather simple, battery driven type. The battery will enable them to be used in four to five weeks time. But you are right, don’t waste too much energy searching for them; you can never know when you found the last one. Check the loading status of these again, but keep the batteries in the bugs. I should imagine that after six weeks, they should not be working any more. Besides, I guess that our allied killers have got new tasks long before that time.”

  “Would you kindly give me the Internet address where I can look for your interview with the Swiss mountaineer?”

  Reinhold did so and left.

  Shortly afterwards the police arrived. They had heard from an unknown source that Giaccomo was delivered to a Swiss hospital. If she knew anything about that?

  Maria was about to refuse, then suddenly realized that this information must have come from the job and she had better not contradict it. She mentioned that she had been told from a witness to Giaccomo’s accident that he had been flown away by a rescue helicopter, either to Sion or Lausanne, and she was hoping soon to learn about further details. Yes, of course, she should report immediately when she learned anything new. No, the witness, some Swiss gentleman, had not wanted his name given to the police and she had not asked him either. Yes, he came directly without calling in advance, and he left after five minutes, unfortunately without leaving any address, and she had been too confused to care about it before it was too late.

  The policemen raised a lot of questions, to which they received no proper answers. Shaking their heads in disbelief, they left.

  The postman brought a message from the insurance that they were still considering whether they were going to pay for the accident with Giaccomo’s car, which had been reported rather late and had also been guided by somebody else. Was the car stolen? How could it then be driven with the original car keys? There were more questions of the same kind and Maria turned the letter away. Some stuff for Giaccomo to deal with when he returned. Insurances may appear excellent when you pay them, but when they are going to pay back, there are important differences.

  In the afternoon she drove to Rafael to tell him about Reinhold and his message, giving him a note with the Internet address. Then she picked up the children and went home. The tension had not yet been released.

  IX

  Thursday evening, Rafael called: “Have you seen my credit card? I haven’t used it since our excursion a week ago.”

  “Why should I have your credit card?”

  “Yes, I also wonder about that, but please check your handbag.”

  “That is almost an insult, but I shall do it,” Maria answered. A little later she changed her tune: “You were right. I have no idea how it landed there.”

  “Really?” Rafael’s voice sounded suspicious. r />
  “I’ll bring it immediately.”

  “It’s not necessary; I just wanted to know where it was.”

  “Then why did you make it an insult that it had ‘found the way’ into my handbag?”

  “Did I? Never mind, bring it along when you are anyhow going downtown.” Not the shadow of an excuse.

  “I shall bring it right away. What a vulgar claim, as if I had stolen it. You can check your account, it was untouched by me.”

  “Yes, I shall do so tomorrow.”

  “I’ll be there in a minute,” Maria screamed and slammed the telephone down.

  What then happened was not immediately easy to understand. Maria left her house, droved downtown, went with an angry face and stiff steps to the door of Rafael’s apartment, rang the doorbell and said: “Here’s your damned credit card.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry, Maria, please come in. I must explain my stupid reaction to you.” And the entrance door closed behind Maria.

  Now Maria said loudly, “I think you owe me an excuse, while Ricardo whispered, “I have a surprise to you.” And reverse Rafael loud, “Yes, you’re right, I shouldn’t have said so,” while Maria whispered, “has the article been on print?” She continued loudly, “All right, I forgive you this time, but then you should make it a bit cosier. A Campari and some music would help.” In the meantime, Rafael pointed to the closed door to his bedroom. Maria went in.

  It was quite a shock for her, she almost forgot all about the probable acoustic surveillance of the apartment, saying, “Gi …” but then rescued her flop in continuing, “how dirty is it here. Typical for a man living alone without a woman.”

  Rafael turned the music on in the sleeping room, making it rather loud, almost to his neighbour’s pain-limit. Maria and Giaccomo whispered from mouth to ear. Giaccomo had not shaved in at least 10 days and looked correspondingly.

  “Why did you come back? It is probably still dangerous.”

  “I can’t hide forever. Besides, all the money I got from you two is gone.”

  “I have some more here.”

  “There is no point in leaving now. Rafael told me that Frank’s statements would be published one of these days.”

  “Even then, it takes some time for the killers to get new orders.”

  “Rafael told me to stay here for a week.”

  “I’m also fond of having you nearby. After all, it was a strange feeling, knowing you being alone in Torino, and even there perhaps in danger. You must tell me about it.”

  “Another time. Here’s Rafael with your Campari.”

  Of course, there were three glasses but only two persons saying “Chin-chin.” And when Maria repeated, “Rafael, I forgive you,” it was Giaccomo whom she kissed. And so on. After half an hour, Maria was slowly being made convinced that she had to leave but insisted on returning on Saturday.

  Down on the street, she noticed a police car. Would they now think that she drank too much Campari? If they had such a particular knowledge, they were most certainly not going to show it. Indeed, the officers stayed in the car.

  The day after, on Friday, Maria called at Giaccomo’s job to inform that he would return to Italy the coming week and probably soon be able to return to work. Naughty as she was, she decided not to tell the police about it, they anyhow had their own direct sources of information.

  Saturday morning, she looked at the Internet address, Reinhold had given her, and found the desired article. It was both a relief and a disappointment – obviously, he had not been able to persuade anybody to print it. The question was, how the CIA and the killers could see this – but since they were going to pretend being completely unaware of Frank’s story, there was nothing she could do but hope. She printed it out and brought it along when visiting Rafael/Giaccomo.

  X

  Monday, the newspaper brought another big surprise. Two Americans had been killed in a car accident near to Rimini. There was a black-and-white picture in the paper showing a bright Ford with Milanese license plates. Possibly it was the same car that Maria and Rafael had seen at Monte Rosa. Since real accidents are rare, therefore phoney ones frequent in these circles, it might have been a very fast potential victim who had managed to turn the destinies around. It showed, however, that the agents had been drawn away, probably while the hunt on Giaccomo had been stopped. But you could, of course, never be quite certain. That, however, was a risk Giaccomo was now ready to take. He had been equipped with a cast, as if he had broken his left arm. Besides, the low beard also spoke a language of its own. The only problem was to find a doctor ready to declare him unable to work for a total of three weeks but also that succeeded.

  One of the first things, Giaccomo made when returning home was to close permanently the garden door to the forest.

  “What if somebody comes from the wood, won’t you let a visitor in from there?” asked Luigi.

  “I wouldn’t anyhow. Nothing good comes from that forest,” Giaccomo replied and continued barring that entrance. He was hardly through with this work as it finally started to rain.

  He said to himself: “My desert wandering has finally ended.”

  The Research Victim

  With this small report I am trying to illustrate which difficulties we, the practicians of medical science are meeting in large parts of the population. I have myself gained a certain reputation throughout the country and above its borders as a specialist in the treatment of certain malignant diseases. I am mentioning this in all modesty, just in order to permit the reader to understand my background. Our department is continuously occupied with the development or, shall we better say, the application of new drugs for the complicated treatment of that disease. Thereby, we have gained confidence from the pharmaceutical industry which is a precaution for their investment of large sums in the clinical test of new substances.

  Unfortunately, these diseases are still often resulting in sad outcomes, which is the justification for a continued research. For that reason, I am not only occupied with patients but also with their relatives, who have rarely grasped our dilemma. In this sense the visit of Mrs. Birthe Kragh (names altered by the author) must be seen:

  “I am sorry to disturb you with some questions, Prof. Jensen, but my husband, Troels Kragh, was one of your patients for a longer time, until he died three weeks ago. There are some uncertainties which disturb me.”

  “Of course I remember your husband and if I can assist you in any way, I should be delighted to do so,” I answered.

  “I am referring to the treatment he received here. It appears as if it did not influence the progress of his disease in any way.”

  “What that is concerned, there are two things you must remember,” I explained. “Cancer is still a disease many people are dying from; it is thus difficult to predict the course of a disease with and without treatment. Possibly, it would have proceeded more aggressively in your husband’s case, had he not received any drugs.”

  “I can hardly imagine it could have preceded any faster,” Mrs. Kragh replied. “The diagnosis was set less than six months before his decay.”

  You may understand that I do not want to discuss these matters with lay-people. Nevertheless, she continued:

  “At first, I was positively surprised so well he tolerated the drugs. I have seen other patients here in the department getting nauseated and weak for many days after a cycle. Troels did not react to the infusions at all.”

  “Yes, this impression was what you could get initially,” I said, hoping soon to get it over.

  “Troels mentioned that he participated in a clinical study.”

  So that was the problem. It is a daily challenge to inform the patients and it may take several hours in a single case, and then you may occasionally start from the beginning with the relatives. Therefore, on with the standard reply: “As practically all the patients here, your husband participated in a study with the purpose to develop drugs for further treatment of his condition. He was fully informed of the consequences of th
at and he signed the standard paper for informed consent.”

  That was obviously also known to Mrs. Kragh, since she proceeded: “I have read his copy of that ‘informed consent’ and, indeed, that is the reason for my coming. It states that it is unknown whether the new drug offers any advantages and it is thus necessary to compare it with an inert substance, so-called placebo. Therefore, there should be no certain advantages connected to being allocated to one therapy or placebo.”

  When she even used our arguments, I could only confirm it.

  “But then I have also read in our not quite new ‘Family Doctor’s Manual’ that there already exist some drugs which could influence this condition,” she continued. “If my husband received placebo, he was certainly in a worse position than if he had not participated in any study and just received what has been effective for years.”

  Now it almost sounded as a complaint so I was forced to inform Mrs. Kragh that the new test substance, ZPX, presumably was better than the old treatment, as evaluated according to animal experiments and the first singular experiences from its use in humans.”

  “Strange,” she summarized with an insulted female logic, “just before you told me that ZPX was not necessarily better than placebo and now I hear that it should be even better than the existent therapy.”

  I should have stopped the discussion there, simply referring to her husband’s signed consent; instead, I patiently tried to inform her about modern research technology: “Both are right. We do not know if ZPX is better than placebo and, simultaneously, we have some justified hopes that it is better than the previous therapy which, by the way, has not quite fulfilled the expectations we had for it previously.”

  “Then I do not understand why you do not compare the two active drugs with another.”

  I was now forced to explain her something about statistics and the importance of sample-sizes for yielding any clear result of the study. If the two treatments offer a rather similar result, enormously many patients are required for offering a clear statement that the new therapy is at all of any significance. This is not economically feasible, already sponsoring a placebo-based study is very expensive to the manufacturer of ZPX.

  “Just what I thought,” she cried explosively, “it is just a matter of money. It may be expensive for the firm, but they are not investing it for our behalf. And because of that, poor Troels had to swallow chalk tablets and die so soon.”

  “Why do you think that he received placebo? The study will proceed for another year and only then can we break the code and see, who got verum therapy, the real stuff.”

  “I am certain that Troels was receiving placebo. No effect, no adverse effects either, except for not getting any valuable therapy. Had he only never let himself persuade to participate in this study.”

  “I am sorry, Mrs. Kragh, but I am somewhat vulnerable to criticism of our aim for improving therapy. This study has been approved by the hospital’s ethical commission in which, among others, Pastor Jepsen, whom you probably know from the television, is taken part. As physicians, we are obliged to search continuously for new therapies and not blindly utilizing doubtful methods, which may appear traditionally sound but are void of any qualified, controlled study. It is in a justified confidence to the decision of the ethical commission that your husband has signed …”

  “… His own death penalty,” Mrs. Kragh interrupted.

  “I understand your bitterness but research in this country demands use of double-blind studies, as I have just described, and for the reasons given, it is only possible to investigate towards placebo.”

  “I have read that the ‘Helsinki Declaration’ has prohibited such studies when there was already some active treatment which worked,” she continued.

  “Fortunately, the American ’Food and Drug Administration,’ FDA, managed to stop this initiative, or it would have meant the end of medical science.”

  “I don’t mind if the Americans want to play research rabbits, if they are so obsessed in doing so, but what has that to do with Denmark?”

  “Science is international, and we Danes are internationally renowned for our research,” I proudly announced. “Besides, if only the Americans would perform science, then only their industry might profit from it. We would simply be forced only to adopt their results.”

  “But isn’t the manufacturer of ZXP an American company?”

  “Nowadays, all big firms are multinational.”

  Mrs. Kragh reflected my last statements for a while and muttered, “so is research, it appears.” Then she raised and said loudly, “one of my friend claimed that there are also other principles. In fact, if you were forced to search for them, other techniques would be developed or are already available. With the distribution of computers in medicine, you could be in possession of much larger comparison material from the daily therapy.” She hesitated for a while, recognizing that such a speech was pointless towards me. Then she continued “I understand that you feel in the American way that what you call research must be permitted under all circumstances, while it is unethical not to perform any research. Conversely, I should prefer that unethical research is forbidden, then you’ll see that it is still possible to find something else. Anyhow, all these considerations do not bring back my poor Troels. I must thank you for having taken the time for me. You did not manage to convince me of your arguments. I shall make my efforts for making it more difficult for you to motivate your patients for participating in your studies in the future, whatever profitable they may be to the industry.”

  I had wasted enough time on this conversation. At least, this woman was not one of those who threatened with any claims at court. By the way, here in Denmark, she would not have had any success with such claims, which would just have been tiresome to both of us and expensive to her. Fortunately, this was a solemn sceptical person. In most other cases, I succeed to convince the relatives of the importance of Danish medical science which has gained considerable recognition in international relation.

  Modern Christmas

  This year was totally different. Never before have you seen such an elegant sports car in front of our house. Instantly arose a hope in my mind that also the neighbours would see it but later this temper cooled as it was also parked in front of their houses. But back to my first vision: the car door opened and the driver went out – or rather, unfolded. Not exactly the right vehicle when you were constantly getting in (down) and out (up). That was what the driver was doing all the time, because he had the occasion to visit all small homes. It was he himself, Santa Claus.

  He saw me waiting in the open front door and commented himself upon these obvious acrobatic difficulties: “It may look somewhat curious, but at least I have stopped climbing the chimneys.”

  “What’s happened to the sledge and unique deer?”

  “My new advisers have modernised everything. I guess it was just about the time to do it. Essential reforms have been introduced at the North Pole. By the way, this new sledge was not quite cheap, but my advisors arranged the financial aspects.

  It was as if something was missing: yes, the sack with the presents. Instead, he gave me a small envelope. “Well, here we have the Christmas-present for the year. Merry Christmas!” The same was printed at the card when I finally got the letter opened.

  Probably I thanked him but the disappointment was painted in my face. I was probably not the first who reacted that way, Santa Claus immediately explained: “You see, the toy factory has been privatised. My advisers insisted on doing that, in order to rationalise the economy. But now they are very optimistic that we may soon reduce the unemployment among my former assistants.”

  I thought that at least Santa Claus’ factory at the North Pole was avoiding that fate.

  ”And I must admit that my factory could not avoid this modern trend. It was perhaps a shock for half of my assistants suddenly to work double for a smaller wage but still better than for the other half who were not working at all. But now you can see
the results: for the first time in its long history, the factory makes a profit. That offers the shareholders an increased amount of money, enabling them to buy more Christmas presents in the future, so for the next year we plan an increased production, finally causing a reemployment of my assistants.

  I asked the naïve question: „But why at all should the Christmas factory pay money to share-holders?”

  ”I must admit, that was new to me, too. But my advisers, who in the meantime hold the majority of shares, insisted that it was necessary, so that I could at least pay back some of the interests from the development credit.”

  “And what about the rest of that interest,” was my impatient comment.

  In the beginning, it will be necessary to add new credits, but I intend to pay all back when the factory is running smoothly.”

  ”In the worst case, you may go back to the old sledge and the deer.”

  Santa Claus now suddenly looked very sad, then he stuttered: ”Unfortunately, that is impossible. They were slaughtered and sold as a particular delicatesse in New York. My advisors demanded that these old-fashioned transport means should be out-sourced.

  “Mmmmerry Christististmas,” stuttered I in order to end the encounter.

  When Santa Claus commenced his journey, I noticed that the salt from our roads had already caused some spots in the otherwise precious car. But I am sure that his advisors will manage another credit, regardless which consequences that may have for his assistants.

  Good Old Days

  It knocked on the door by Brauns. An old woman opened the door and saw a soldier outside in the cold March afternoon. Also the soldier was not exactly looking as a youngster – if there was anything in common between the two of them, it was that the preceding 20 months had made them appear much older than they were. Also a permanent malnutrition seemed mutual, both were thin and skinny. Except for that, there was hardly anything shared by them. Oh yes, there was one thing, as the stranger immediately explained:

  “Are you the mother of Ernst Braun?” He had exercised this start of the crucial conversation hundreds of times and still, as the woman nodded, he failed to find the succeeding words he had planned to use.

  “Ernst and I have fought together at the Western Front for more than a year,” he said instead.

  Still, that was enough, Mrs. Braun understood: „And now you are not fighting together anymore?”

  The soldier did not answer. He was not prepared for this turn. In this case, however, no answer was also sort of an answer.

  “The fighting of Ernst has stopped,” he finally brought over the lips. He should have said that Ernst had died, he had exercised these words many times. And although he had not really confirmed it, he also failed to deny it as the woman continued:

  “When and where did he die?”

  “By Verdun, just in the end of February. We had proceeded well westwards and were then surprised by a French counterattack …”

  “Please, don’t give any details – at least, not yet.” There were tears in her eyes but otherwise she acted stout, then explained that she was not really surprised: “I have expected this message to come, sooner or later. I must tell Ernst’s father that he has lost his only remaining son. But please come in, you must be exhausted yourself. What is your name?”

  “Frederick Müller. But I shall not come in now, having brought the bad news and spread misery in your home. I am going to visit my uncle who lives in Münster, not so far away.” The young man had done his duty and delivered the bad message, which would certainly not make this house a proper stay for a soldier on his first brief leave during the terrible war, that had split Europe more thoroughly than any other strive since Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo, 101 years ago.

  “Münster is a day’s travel from here. We have prepared some delicious eating for Ernst’s return, now we shall never celebrate that occasion, so we can at least do something good for his battling companion. You do not look as if they gave you too much to eat.” The old woman was gently pressing him into entering the house, something he had not considered possible after having heard message.

  The women looked old but she was not yet fifty. Ernst had told Frederick this and other details from home. The events were drawn in her face, which was filled with rinks, pale and covered by thin, long and colourless hair. A hooked nose projected between two light blue eyes. They lived near to Köln, far enough away from the front to avoid any direct hostilities. Still, fate had been hard to them: Ernst had had a brother who died somewhere at the Eastern Front in the summer of 1915, so now Mr. and Mrs. Braun had no children left. Frederick had seen enough of misery already, he did not really want to adopt any further by staying in this house, even as a messenger of bad tidings. Still, Mrs Braun had other intentions.

  “Put your luggage here. You can wash your face and hands in that room. I shall be back in a moment.”

  In the small washing room, there was a mirror at the wall. That is, it looked like a mirror but it did not project back the picture of Frederick, not as he knew himself. His black hair was cut rather short but he had given up shaving his face and had become accustomed to a full beard. In the nest of hair, his facial structures appeared withdrawn and his brown eyes had made a wild impression, that of a lunatic with a permanent storm in his mind, a haunted animal, afraid to relax in a hostile world.

  Frederick saw this world but he had hardly any occasion to see himself – fortunately, since the repeated view might have thrown him into another depression. Already the first two nights after leaving the battle zone had been terrible, quite contrary to his expectations. On the front, there was a constant pressure and some of those, who stood up this challenge, stayed alive. With this pressure suddenly released, grief and despair was also uninhibited. Let alone the knowledge, that he was forced to go back in another week.

  His thoughts were interrupted by another manifestation of desperation. A man was crying loudly in another room. Definitely, Mr. Braun had realized the message. Frederick understood this reaction but he did not understand what he was doing here. He decided to leave without giving any notice to his hosts. He used the towel and silently opened the door, took his bag and was about to open the front door as Mrs. Braun approached.

  “No, this is the wrong way. Come and greet my husband, he is in the living room.” From there the sobbing had not quite subsided but in the moment the door was opened, it went calm. Only the fact that Mr. Braun was drying his eyes repeatedly with a handkerchief betrayed his psychic condition.

  Obviously, Mr. Braun was not really suffering from hunger the way his wife appeared to be. Perhaps there was no real hunger here back in the part of Germany not directly hit by the war, besides the host appeared to have greater deposits – but if he had once even been fat, you could not use this term now. He was partly bold, with dark-blond hairs spread over the skull as if he tried to convince himself that there was still enough to hide the tonsure. His face was void of any beard and, in utter contrast to his pale wife, reddish, perhaps also reflecting his roused sentiments.

  “I understood that you are Mr. Müller. You will understand that your news have upset us. Nevertheless, Elisabeth, my wife, has suggested that we utilize the welcome reception that we had foreseen to our sons’ return in common with you. It is a precondition that we do not talk about sad themes, at best not talk about the war at all. Who knows if any of us shall be able to enjoy such an occasion ever more? So let us just pretend to be happy, then the dinner tastes better.”

  These were strange words from a man who, minutes before, had just learned about the death of his last son, the other having died the year before. Frederick Müller had probably declined the invitation, had it not been for one matter: he was feeling hungry. Moreover, the cans of goulash were seldom varied, occasionally only in the negative direction of not being heated because they were afraid that the enemy might get any hints of the fire. Here he was suddenly invited for a great dinner, only with the precondition to pretend being happy.
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  He nodded. In order not to say something wrong, he decided not to say anything at all. Mrs. Braun said: “Please may I show you your room upstairs. You can have a rest for at least an hour while I prepare the dinner. And may I kindly ask you to dress civilian before coming down again.”

  “But it is not allowed to lay off the uniform.” Frederick would have said something else but realized that his explanation would have included mentioning the war, which was a bad start in pretending to be happy.

  “Never mind such regulations,” continued the hostess. “We are just the three of us for this dinner. Before you leave tomorrow, you can change again. By the way, you can then pack down those clothes you use in the evening and take them with you, if you please.”

  That was the closest she came of mentioning her son and Frederick immediately understood that any matter relating to Ernst would be taboo for the evening. As for the item of dressing in civilian, this was not a theme to be discussed. After all, that should also be a welcome change, and considering the probability of being killed in combat, it was worth taking the small risk of being exposed as a deserter. Perhaps there was really something tasteful to this idea, in the middle of the greatest sorrow just to pretend being happy. Had he not spend enough time mourning over dead and crippled comrades, anxiety for his own fate and the permanently changing consideration of the enemy: sometimes wild bloody beasts, sometimes victims as himself in a meaningless, bloody warfare, where any hostility was dictated by the defensive reason ‘kill or be killed’ – or both.

  Frederick noticed that he was thinking of the war again. Some scenes he tried to forget were intruding. They would reappear enough often for the rest of his life, should it become of any longer duration. Why not just follow the hosts’ suggestion, try to forget and pretend to be happy, just for this single night? He would soon enough be back, perhaps soon enough also be dead. In his 19 living years, he had not experienced such a chance before, and probably it would not recur again at all.

  As if his voice was suddenly oiled, after being largely silent while at and in the Braun Mansion, he spoke forcefully in a new tune: “Thanks for the invitation, I shall gladly accept it and respect the preconditions made. Would you kindly show me the room?”

  Mrs Braun lighted a candle and went before him up the stairs: “The electricity breaks down so often that we have chosen not to be dependent on it. That also makes it easier to recall the good old days before – oh, sorry, when we were all very happy.”

  She showed her visitor a cupboard full of clothes. “You can just take what you find appropriate. Now I wish you a calm rest. I shall call you, Mr. Müller, so that you have half an hour to dress before dinner.” Then she left him, with the candle on the table.

  The Brauns had had two sons but this was obviously the room of Ernst. A few official photographs made it possible for Frederick to recognize him, although his face on the latest, with the student’s hut, was much different from what Frederick hat known: more ‘full’ cheeks and a happy smile, celebrating what he had just obtained and looking reluctantly for the future. Then there was also a photo of a girl – Ernst’s fiancée? He had never mentioned any such in his life. Perhaps he had never wanted to drag her down into the mud, where other soldiers openly exposed their vulgar dreams about girls.

  Frederick decided not to clarify the matter any further. More important for his nerves was to get an hours sleep. Being in a strange house, he decided to let the candle burn.

  The candle was half burned down as Mrs. Braun called: “Dinner will be ready in half an hour.”

  Frederick confirmed being awake and hurried to the cupboard. There were different sets of clothes. The family had obviously been rich before the war. Maybe they were still even wealthy and his ideas about hunger were totally wrong? After all, with both of the boys at war, one of them getting killed already a year before, there might be enough reason not to eat and drink at a large scale.

  He saw a dinner jacket and a corresponding shirt and butterfly. There even were manchette buttons in the pockets. Frederick was not the owner of such elegant clothes. Then he thought, why not make it formal? They were anyhow going to pretend being happy, a kind of hypocrisy, rather than mourning the loss of the second son. So Frederick dressed so fine as never before in his life. Keeping the candle in front of him, he went down the stairs.

  He went into the living room. The room had been enlarged with a dining room, connected with opened double doors which he had not noticed before. The impressions overwhelmed him: several candles were lit on a large dinner table (he blowed out his own), the table was full of beautiful plates, glasses, fork, knife and spoon and even a carafe of some red wine. Both of the hosts were standing in the living room which now, perhaps in the candlelight, looked much larger than it had done in the afternoon. Also Mr. Braun had changed for a dinner jacket, his wife had a deep blue dress and the hair rearranged. It was still white but seemed fuller on top of the head. Suddenly the door to the kitchen opened and a young woman came in, saying “Madame, Vous-êtes serve.”

  “I thought we were only being the three of us in the house,” uttered Frederick disappointed.

  “Pardon me, I did not count the servants,” answered Mrs. Braun. “By the way, don’t be afraid of their language, it is custom here to speak French with our servants, and there is no need for you to speak with them at all.”

  “Please be seated here in the middle,” Mr. Braun said, indicating that the places at the far ends of the long table were reserved for him and his wife. “I have decanted the best wine I have, a Chateau Margaux 1898 and tested it already several times. I think it is soon at its highest.

  “First, to the fish, we shall have a German fresh white wine, a Riesling from Kaysersberg,” interrupted his wife. Then she suddenly realized that her guest might not have the experience in big dinners, so she added in a low voice: “Just take a single glass, so that you will experience the end of the dinner. If you are really thirsty, there is water in the low glass to the right.”

  Before the fish, there was a kind of a soup, or consommé, actually a small portion for each, already waiting on the plates.

  They sat down and Mr. Braun raised an absurd question, as taken out of the blue: “Have you ever been to Italy, Mr. Müller?”

  Oh yes, before the w.., I mean, some years ago I had a large trip, starting in Venice …”

  “Oh, lovely Venice,” interrupted Mrs. Braun immediately, “We use to go there every summer.” That was definitely a lie since it had been impossible in 1915, with Italy at war with Germany and Austria-Hungary, and the coming summer would hardly offer any altered conditions. Mrs. Braun was indirectly expressing that she now lived in the time before the unspeakable event.

  And so did her Husband: “We use to stay in a hotel directly at the Canal Grande, not far from the Rialto Bridge. Do you remember, Elisabeth, how we made the trip to Torcello a few years ago?”

  There may not be many fishes in Canal Grande, but suddenly there were some in front of the fine young gentlemen, until recently a dirty soldier. He had not mentioned how the dishes had been changed.

  Mrs. Braun had hardly any time to eat, so much was she talking. In fact, she did not even touch the fishes now waiting in front of her. “Yes, it really gave the feeling of, how Venice looked at the beginning of urban settlements. Have you been to Torcello, Mr. Müller?”

  Their guest was adapting very fast to the fine manners, which should preferably be associated with fine dinner and fine clothes; most regrettably, this is not always the case. “Unfortunately not, but I shall remember your recommendation when I go back to Venice again.” Still, it sang to his ears, ‘if there will be any next time.’ But in order to continue the conversation, he went on with his travel recalls, facilitated by the fact that it was his only long journey. He could have filled the evening more easily with memories of the war but exactly that was forbidden now. “I only spent three nights in Venice, then I proceeded to Ravenna.”

  Mr. Brau
n wanted to say something but his wife came in first: “The mosaics of Ravenna, how wonderful. We spent a week there, going from one place to another and back again. Do you remember the places, Karl-Heinz?”

  The school-teacher had asked her question and the poor man strained his brain: “San Vitale, the mausoleum of Galla Placidia, San Appollinare Nuovo …” he hesitated but was supplemented by the soldier:

  “San Appollinare in Classe and Arian Baptestry, just to mention the most important ones.”

  “And Theoderic’s mausoleum,” resumed the elder man.

  “There are no decorations in that,” argued his wife.

  “No, but it is an extraordinary architecture. There are also more wonderful ancient churches in the Ravenna-area which are practically void of decorations.”

  “The bathtub they set up as Theodoric’s sarcophagus is totally out of place,” she answered sourly.

  “That may just be a consequence of us Germanic people not appreciating the artful pieces of the South. Nevertheless, it was perhaps just about time for the old chieftain to visit a bathtub.”

  “Where have you else seen so wonderful mosaics,” asked Mr. Müller politely, in order to change the theme of discussion.

  Mrs. Braun opened a mental drawer of knowledge: “Nowhere as impressive, but in Italy there are many noteworthy mosaics, among others in San Marco in Venice, in several places in Rome, in San Ambrosio in Milan and in Palermo and Monreale.”

  “The Sicilian mosaics are almost modern in comparison, from the 11th and 12th century,” protested Mr. Braun.

  “And then there are several churches in Thessaloniki and Constantinople,” she added, ignoring her husband, but now she was interrupted by the appearance of the serving maid, who took out the fish plates.

  The newcomer emptied his glass and thought of continuing but then remembered his hostess’ words: only one glass of white wine, how excellent it ever was. No move was made for serving the red wine yet, and suddenly the maid appeared with small salad plates, for which water was the only feasible drink. It was also not quite the fresh salad one could get in summer in peace time, it mainly consisted of conserved cucumbers, mushrooms and tomatoes but still it had been fused together in a delicious way, neutralizing all bitter, salt and acetic taste with crème fraiche, actually an art of its own here in March.

  They ate the salad calmly, except for some laurel expressed by Mr. Müller. Mrs. Braun said nothing but kept a ‘just-wait-and-see’ visage in her face.

  With an almost holy sincerity, Mr. Braun called for bread. French baguette was brought instantly. He now started a monologue of the wine: “I am not afraid of death but I was afraid to die, leaving this bottle untouched. It has just been opened for one hour but with its 18 years, this seems an appropriate time. I cannot express how much I appreciate that you made me gain this sensational experience, Mr. Müller.”

  Not a word about the sad occasion, which the guest was also about to forget.

  “Such an old wine may be difficult to serve for dinner, since you do not strictly know when it is best to drink and it is a tragedy of its own when the time has been surpassed. Are you acquainted with the fine French wines, Mr. Müller?”

  “I am afraid this is one of my several educational shortages,” said he, knowing that the host would anyhow realize it soon.

  “Well, so much the better, since I may then have the pleasure to open a new world to you. For that, you must rediscover your smelling sense, the nose is not just there for a decoration, if it could even serve that purpose. Take a sip of water and follow the old biblical tradition, ‘breaking the bread before tasting the wine.’ And then remember, at first you are not allowed to drink any wine – just look at its colours in the body and at the range.” He kept the glass in front of a candle and gently squirrels its contents around. “And then comes the time to smell it, and you may understand that a great wine should be inhaled, not drunk.”

  Again, Frederick Müller was suddenly taken back by other unpleasant memories, the smell of powder after the explosion, the smell from the primitive toilets, the smells of infected wounds, the smell of dead bodies lying for weeks among the mines where nobody dared to fetch them, regardless whether it was friend or foe. How often did he condemn this ability to smell? And now he should suddenly adore this ability. It was not easy but the wine helped him over to the other world.

  “Great,” stuttered he, I never smelled anything like that before.”

  “A good beginning. Now, what I said had an important shortage: you cannot finish the wine soon enough if you are just sitting there and sniffing all the time. We must proceed to the next action which is tasting the wine. As an adverse effect, you cannot avoid drinking it, too, but please understand this merely as a side-effect. There are three sensations dealt with here, the taste at the tip of the tongue,” which he showed; “then the back of the tongue, while slowly pouring it down the throat,“ which he showed again; ”and finally you are oxygenating a small amount of the wine between your teeth before sipping it down,” which he again demonstrated.

  His wife started to laugh at the sound he produced while sucking air through the teeth with an open mouth. “He always enjoys this demonstration, Mr. Müller, but the last part I have never learned.”

  “That is, unfortunately, true, but in this case there is also no additional gain from the oxygenation, the wine has reach its climax and will soon be crossing the route to get sour. Time for the main dish, fast!” he almost cried and in came now two women, the maid from before and probable the cook, with a steak, potatoes and a delicious sauce.

  While they were serving the meal, Mr. Müller exercised the new technique of drinking wine. “I heard that some wine ‘connoisseurs’ do not drink the wine but spit it out after having tasted it.”

  “No ‘connoisseurs’ would ever do that to an old Margaux,” was the blunt answer.

  “May I comment on the meal, because it is also a remembrance of a travel?” asked Mrs. Braun. “We got the most splendid Chateau Briand some years ago in Narbonne, enriched by truffles. It was not easy to get these pieces of meat here in the afternoon but you see what old connections make possible. Truffles we had in the cellar in abundance. The only thing it misses is a drop of wine in the sauce, but Karl-Heinz never wanted to use one of his wine-pearls for the sauce.

  Her husband confirmed this and the guest repeatedly told that this was the most marvellous dinner he ever had enjoyed, words he was going to repeat on some later occasions. They then resumed talking about distant countries where they had been and Mr. Müller understood that the best he could offer was just to listen and from time to time make life-signs to prove that he was still listening. So they finished this part of the meal and the next part, various French cheeses with a new bacquet, joined by a small bottle of deeply yellow wine.

  “This is the finest Sauternes, a Chateau d’Yquem, which we bought while visiting the castle 10 years ago,” Mr. Braun introduced. Again a lesson in oenology, the science of making and enjoying wines.

  Their visitor started to wonder if also the fishes had been French but settled for the Rhine, since they had been quite fresh. He slowly realized that the Brauns were a very wealthy family. He was unaware of the reason of that wealth and actually not very interested, he was certainly not going to maintain any connections with them, even if he survived the war. After all, they were an unhappy couple, having lost their future hopes all of a sudden. He looked more close at his hostess – wasn’t this simply a seriously ill woman who were now enjoying a last return to something resembling previous heights? And Mr. Braun – wasn’t he just supporting his wife in playing the game? Although the dinner was a highlight for all senses, he was occasionally himself a bit sick of being part of this hypocrisy, but such flashes of bad consciousness became more rare and less deep as the evening proceeded.

  Finally, Mr. Braun declared the meal to have finished. He then suggested a real coffee – Frederick could not remember when he had tasted it the last time
– an old cognac served in big glasses and a cigar for the men in the living room. In the meantime, Mrs. Braun talked about their trip to Egypt.

  Mr. Müller felt how the alcohol suddenly started to work. And then it was probably the big cigar, which let him stretch the weapons. He thanked cordially for the excellent occasion and excused himself for retiring so soon (it was not soon at all). The maid from before showed him the way to his room. He threw off all the clothes on a chair and jumped to the bed. He just blowed out the candles and slept like a baby for the first time in 20 months.

  The next morning, he woke up by daylight. He put on his uniform and packed his bag but did not dare to take any of the clothes, as Mrs. Braun had offered – perhaps she did not recall that? Then, having collected everything, he went down to the living room. There he found a strange view: Mr. Braun was sleeping in the chair and his wife kept talking about old travel memories – now she was in India. Both were dressed as they had been the evening before, they had obviously not been to bed. The hostess stopped as she saw the soldier in uniform: “Oh, you have changed already? I thought you wanted some breakfast with us.”

  Obviously, the uniform as sign of the ongoing war excluded any further participation in the company. “No thanks, I am on my way now to Münster. I just wanted to thank for the heartily reception and the splendid dinner last night.”

  “You are most welcome. Did you take the clothes?”

  “No thanks, that is too kind of you.”

  “Not the least, I shall send up Mary to pack them for you. Ernst shall not need them anymore.”

  “Neither shall I, I’m afraid.”

  “Oh, don’t talk so sadly. But then you should please return again after the war, we can still do something good for you.”

  It was now evident to him that she would not live for long, independently of the war. Whether due to a disease was not clear, some process had consumed her physically.

  Frederick just said: “We shall meet again soon!”

  Which they possibly did, though no longer in this World.

  The Wall Beyond

  I woke up one morning and found that we were not alone. There was a tent in the back garden. I rushed out of the garden door and approached the invaders in a devastating mood. Just as I approached, a young couple went out to greet me peacefully. I say they were young but they already had three small pre-school children. Before I could say anything, the man started to speak.

  “I am sorry, Sir, but we had to find shelter somewhere. I hope you understand, with three small children you cannot simply wait in the gully, and then we saw this nice piece of land, a wonderful garden, we simply could not resist the temptation, so here we are.”

  “The garden would be more wonderful without your tent. May I ask you to leave again this morning?”

  “Of course, we should prefer so, but our small girl, Rebecca, is seriously ill. I believe she has got the flu, so I should be grateful if we could extent our visit to a couple of days.”

  They were obviously from the ‘Landless People,’ those who can only themselves speak out whom they are, anybody else who does so will be called a racist. I wanted to give them one whole day, but now the woman was called back and looked at me with her big dark eyes, simply saying “Please, Sir!”

  “This is Rebecca,” interrupted the man, who had in the meantime picked up the small girl. She laughed but he barked something incomprehensive, whereupon she started to weep and really look ill.

  “Okay, two days, nothing more, whether your children are ill or healthy. The day after tomorrow, at noon, this tent shall be gone.” I turned my back to them and went back to the house to the much more difficult task to explain to my family that we were having a kind of uninvited guests, but just for two days.

  I do not know how they managed the hygienic aspect; somehow they did without bothering us directly, so that was at least positive. When I came back from the work that evening, both of our children – after they had returned from school – had enjoyed playing with the small newcomers. I mean, all three of them, during daytime the small Rebecca seemed to do very well. ‘At least she would not spread any infection,’ I thought. Never mind, tomorrow at noon they would have left. The next morning, as we enjoyed our breakfast in the garden room, we could see that our visitors were packing.

  At two p.m., my wife called me in the office and asked me to return immediately. Yes, the guests were still there. No, I should just come and see for myself, words would not do any more. I rushed home, ready to defend my property against – well, that was the problem, against three small pre-school children and their young parents. As I came home, I saw something that was difficult to imagine: Below the apple-tree was standing a large camping car, and in the fence of the back garden, there was a tremendous hole where it had entered from the small path behind where no motorised vehicle has ever driven before. The lawn was, how could it else be, damaged by the wheels.

  Briefly overlooking the damage, I went to the camping car and knocked the door firmly. It took some time for the man to open. The delay could be explained by some religious act, since he was dressed in a peculiar way, which I should better not describe, or you may call me a racist, and I noticed something peculiar with the man’s hair – never mind, let me just say that his hair was in a different fashion – different, not inferior, by no means – from what you can usually experience in this country. I expected an explanation but he just made a questioning face, saying “yes?”

  “I told you to leave latest at noon! Why are you still here?”

  “But it is not true, you just asked me to remove the tent – which I did.”

  I was shocked and for a moment I lost my voice. Then I continued: “If you are not leaving right away, I am going to call the police!”

  “Don’t you think you should use a more conciliating tune, now that we are neighbours?”

  I do not know how I responded to that insult, but a few minutes later, back in the house, I called the police.

  “I am sorry, all our staff is gone to an urgent mission or are doing a radar control at the high street. Could you please call back tomorrow?”

  “No, it is urgent to me. We have been invaded for two days by intruders.”

  “If they have been there two days, it cannot be so urgent that they cannot stay another night. I am sorry, there is really nothing I can do, please report back tomorrow morning.”

  I decided to be absent from the office the following day, it was a Friday and not the time had come for a decision, or the police, the fire brigade, the army, the navy and all other services would be off for weekend. The next morning, I called back at 8 am – with a similar result. I tried to argue whatever I could, nobody would be expected to come. I was just about to give up calling as I suddenly heard a chain saw start in the garden.

  Our pride, the marvellous apple tree, was being torn down. And so fast, I slammed the phone and wanted to go to the garden but was kept back as the young man yelled “Timber!” and then our beautiful, broad apple tree tumbled in my direction.

  “It is not good to have the camping car under the tree,” the young man explained naughtily.

  I thought of, how I could kill him, but he was the one with the chain saw. I went back to the house where I kept an old gun, a rifle from some distant war, shortly after they stopped using swords. “Scram or I’ll shoot, there are no more warnings!”

  “Hey man, don’t react so nervously, I’ll buy you a bag of apples.” Slowly, he went backwards to the car, then slammed the car. I stood outside and pointed a bit purposeless around. In this moment it happened, that which I had not managed to provoke myself: the police arrived with three cars, including one with two wolfs disguised as dogs. Three heavily armed policemen entered the garden while a fourth was screaming into a megaphone – had he talked without, I might easily have understood him, oh, I have heard these words before in several films: “Drop that gun. Slowly raise your hands above your head. Don’t make any fast movements.” I obeyed.<
br />
  “I’m glad you came, officer …” I started, but he waved me off and turned to the young man, who was now leaving the car.

  “A great action, just in the last minute. I thought my neighbour was going to kill me. A strange way of expressing his gratitude for my doing part of his garden work.”

  “We from the police are happy when we can support the ‘Landless People,’ I hope you can confirm that we are by no means driven by racial motives, as has been stated to the police work on previous occasions.”

  “Certainly not, this time was simply perfect,” the young man answered, probably meaning: ‘the police may still be driven by racial motives.’

  “We shall, of course, put this nuisance in custody, so that you can enjoy the weekend without fears,” continued the constable. They were still not interested to hear a word from me. To the tears of my family and the surprise of our real neighbours, I was led away in handcuffs.

  On Monday, my wife picked me up at the prison’s gate; my case at court was to be dealt with much later. “Wait till you see what has happened at home,” she said, again she was unable to describe it with words.

  Even if she had told me, I would not believe it: our garden was now separated by an eight meter high concrete wall, perhaps only two meters from the house.

  “How can they erect such a wall in our property?”

  “Are you sure it is still our property? The police said that the safety of our guests, who were so often compromised by racial hostilities, has the first priority, and then we can later challenge our remaining problems at court.”

  “But the wall is so near to the house, we shall never see the sun from the garden room!”

  “Quite different, dear neighbour.” The young man was looking down to us from the top of the wall. “The house is too close to the wall. We may have to tear it down if there are more threads to the ‘landless people,’ so better keep your racial instincts under control.”

  And this was exactly what I lost. I did not need any weapons more. A small jump to my real, long-time neighbour’s garden, then another back to what had been my own. I entered the ladder and threw the young man of the haunted society drown from the wall. Then I killed him, what was left of this three-time father, with my naked hand. Yes, your honour, I would do it again, when uninvited guests invade private property and the official authorities are not in a position to defend their own people, such intruders have themselves left the basis of any law and must consider themselves free game to the original inhabitants. Do you follow me, my Lord? No? Please answer me! Hello …

  Visit from Cassandra

  I was alone that evening, working upon my internet-news to dig up some more details upon the American government’s attack upon its own citizens on Sept. 11, 2001. This activity has torn me away from many friends who do not realize what this was just the beginning of – and perhaps me on the other side who overestimates this in growing paranoia. Nevertheless, my investigations have uncovered much more evidence that, in turn, has only further deepened the cleft between my friends and me. Worse, even my family seems to have got enough, tonight they went together to the cinema, leaving me home alone to complete my research.

  I must really have been a nuisance these last months, considering which kind of weather my family was challenging on their way to the cinema. “There’s no bad weather, just bad clothing,” a neighbour once said, quoting an old German saying. There must have been a lot of bad clothing tonight, failing to keep out the cold, stormy wind and the heavy rain. I had worked for about half an hour and rose to throw another piece of wood on the fire. Suddenly, the doorbell rang. I did not expect any disturbance and considered not to answer it, but then I thought of somebody standing freezing in the rain, seeing the lights in the house and smelling the smoke which came out of the chimney. How could I not open? After all, we are living in a peaceful part of the World.

  So I opened the door, just to see a strange creature standing outside. It was an old woman – which I know now, but then I could only see a small person, really dressed for the current climate. I saw no face and no hands, no single area of human flesh. A long scarf, then some dark glasses and a hat covered her face. ‘Not the time of the day, nor that of the year to wear sunglasses,’ I thought. I decided not to open the door completely to the stranger.

  “Can I help you?” I started.

  “You are James Smith,” she said with a dark, hollow voice.

  “Thanks for this information. I believe you are right.”

  Surprisingly, these harmless words seemed to upset the old lady: “No, nobody believes me!” she almost screamed.

  “All right, I don’t want to quarrel about it. I am not James Smith, try next door, and have a nice evening further on.” I wanted to close the main entrance door but the old lady pulled herself together and continued.

  “Stop, I have something important to say to Mr. Smith, and I know you are him.”

  Fortunately, I had closed the door to the entrance, keeping the living room warm. I already longed back there but certainly felt no inspiration to invite my anonymous guest to join me. “OK, let’s get it over, I shall not comment on my identity. Please deliver your information, if it is that important.”

  In a very commanding manner, she spoke it right out: “Stop your investigation immediately, or you shall get killed.”

  “Are you the one who is going to kill me?”

  “No, I am simply warning you. Stop working against the inevitable, which shall occur whatever you small citizen is thinking and doing to affect its proceeding. You have already angered leading persons and if you continue, it shall cost you your life.

  I laughed: “So many people have raised their voice against the Worlds downward course – it would be quite manslaughter to deal with them all.”

  “Yes,” the visitor added thoughtful, “that is what they all think. Simultaneously, nobody wants to hear the warnings. It was the same in Germany in 1934, 35 and even 36: They all thought that it was just a transitional era, soon the game would be over and happy days return. I warned them then, too, and nobody would believe it.”

  “But you cannot compare 2004 with 1934; civilization has improved a lot since then. There are no mass genocides – except …,” I made a thoughtful intermission, then continued in another direction, “but at least people are not being kept in large concentration camps nowadays.”

  “No, they use a different term for it. I guess you have found a lot of other incredible things in the course of your intense study of the World. Are you politically a leftist, Mr. Smith?”

  “I do not think that opposing crime should be considered a left-wing political activity. At least, I do not consider myself anything the like.”

  “But listen to my warning, I shall not repeat it: stop working with all these various news or you shall let your life. Please believe me!” Strange that she used this word, at least I knew that I should deny.”

  “No, I don’t believe you. Was that all?”

  Although I could not see her face, her voice betrayed that she was now smiling. “Yes, that was all. Goodbye Mr. Smith.” She turned around. Her voice had not been very sad; it was as if she had just delivered a message as an item of duty, expecting my negative response from the beginning.

  “Sorry, you know my name – which is yours?”

  She did not turn, and ghostlike, a trembling voice sounded from all directions: “Cassandra.” Then she was gone.

  I went back to the fireplace and warmed my hands. Then I rewarded myself with a large glass of an old whisky – should I soon die, I did not want to leave this bottle behind. I reconsidered what had happened: Cassandra, she was the mythological figure of Troy, who was cursed by Apollo so that she would always know the future and nobody would ever believe her warnings. And after roughly 3,000 years, she should suddenly turn up at my door. Ridiculous, how many other people would then have reported that they had been warned and only later realized that Cassandra had been right? On the other hand,
I thought, if most of these people now were dead? And there may be other reasons not to report that you had been warned. Probably, thousands of people had been warned not to go to work at the World Trade Center on 9/11 and still, only a few have admitted so. Probably the others are simply ashamed of their absence that day?

  Cassandra the ghost – what a brilliant illusion! I shall recommend this whisky – but I only started drinking after returning, and my sleeves are still wet, so I must have been at the door. Even if it is a dream, it is an interesting one, so I had better write it down before the dream completely vaporizes.

  It took me an hour, and then I returned to my Internet search upon the New World Order. Now the doorbell rings again. Perhaps my wife forgot her keys? Okay, don’t chime so impatiently, I shall open the door right away.

  The police found this story on the victim’s computer but later denied having done so. However, it was mailed to his friend, who prefers to stay anonymous. Apparently, Apollo has never heard of emails.

  Axis of the Devil

  To my father, September 11th 2001 was the end. He was killed in the South Tower of the World Trade Center at Manhattan. To me, it was not quite the beginning. For more than a year, I trusted the official version, whereby some suicide hijackers had performed the incredible attack, while the officials were completely taken by surprise. Only slowly did a lot of irregularities fuse together, forming a quite different picture of the events. And what really let the card house of the official version fall was my incidental meeting with Giulietta Ford.

  We met in an escalator in San Francisco. I have met a lot of strangers in escalators without exchanging a word or ever seeing them again. This is normally not a place for getting new acquaintances. What was different now was that there were only the two of us there and the escalator suddenly stopped – with all lights turned out.

  “It seems that Enron is playing another revengeful act against California,” I said calmly, also to let the women get the feeling that I was not the most dangerous person to be entrapped with in an escalator.

  “It usually lasts just a few minutes,” she answered. “In the meantime, all the big buildings have emergency generators.” I remembered her rather short-cut black hair; now everything was black.

  For a brief time, none of us said anything. Then, to break the silence, I stated that I should, after all, have taken the stairs.

  “Pardon my manners, she answered, “but I am going to sit down now. I hope they cleaned the carpet recently.”

  “Good idea,” said I, “I’d better keep you company so that I don’t fall over you.”

  The escalator was big enough; I did not feel her presence anywhere. It lasted a couple of minutes and it still remained dark.

  “May I introduce myself? I am John Schulz, of New York.”

  “Giulietta Ford, from here.”

  “Have you experienced such an event before?”

  “Several times. If you live in California, you have to accept it as part of the game. Is it new to you?”

  “Frankly speaking, yes. In a way, I should now break out into panic – my father was probably killed in an escalator as the South Tower collapsed in the WTC-Attack.”

  “Save the panic for another occasion, it won’t help you any here,” she said dryly.

  “Thanks for the advice, it was not necessary. I am a fatalist. When the end comes, it comes, and if powerful evil forces induced it, they are even more powerful than me – perhaps also more evil. Take it as it comes.”

  “I hope that my uncle had the same sense of mind as he died the same day.”

  Obviously, this remark called for my question: “How did he die?”

  “They said that his plane was steered into Pentagon.”

  “’They said …’ – and what do you believe?”

  “I don’t know. I only know that no Boeing hit Pentagon that day.”

  “How can you be so sure? And still you believe that your uncle died on 9/11?”

  “The plane disappeared. Somebody knows where. Unfortunately, this somebody is the same who claimed that it crashed into Pentagon. And if that is hoax, they are also the ones who arranged the plane’s collapse.”

  “That is a hard accusation towards government officials,” I answered sourly. “I have heard that such rumours have been spread. Fortunately, the news channels do not spread rumours but are restricting their activity to deal with facts.”

  Giulietta laughed bitterly: “If they would even bring the facts. It should make you nervous that they are not doing so. It is high time that facts are coming into light but for that, our press is completely incompetent. So if you are really interested in knowing some more painful facts about how your father died, Mr. Schulz, you must turn to other sources.”

  “At the moment, I would be satisfied if light be thrown on the interior of this escalator.” And hardly had I spoken these words, did the light return.”

  “Typically American, Mr. Schulz, you had your will. Light was thrown on a small place which distracts you from demanding larger sinful deeds brought into light.”

  I thought that I would soon be relieved from her company. But now, in the light, she was actually a rather attractive woman. Her outer appearance was in accordance with her first name, suggesting Italian roots. We both stood up but then nothing happened. I pressed the button to the 16th floor – still, nothing happened. Then Giulietta pressed the alarm button. A female voice responded immediately “Yes?”

  “We are trapped in an escalator between the 12th and 13th floor,” Giulietta said. “The light just returned but the escalator doesn’t move.” Then she gave an impolite answer as the anonymous voice suggested her to push one of the other buttons. Hearing that the other escalators were running again was also not of great comfort to us. After an intermission of 30 seconds the voice reported again: “It seems that your escalator has stuck even with electricity available.”

  “I am glad that you also realized it,” said I.

  “Now, don’t panic, help is on its way. Just tell me your names.”

  “I would like to panic but there is no room for it here,” said I.

  “What do you need our names for?” Giulietta asked but as I reported, “One of the later victims was a certain John Schulz, of New York,” she also told her name. The young lady was a bit paranoid, I found. That would, of course, also explain her belief of a giant plot behind the 9-11 attack.

  “Pray sit down,” I offered and returned to the floor. “It seems that we are going to spend some time together here, so why don’t you tell me what you find so incredible in what we have been told about the Pentagon crash?”

  “I may, but do you really want to hear it? It will change your life, knowing that your father was killed by somebody else than you expected – because if there is something rotten in the Washington attack, there is bound to be a connection to the WTC-attack in New York.”

  “That is a risk I am ready to take,” I responded. Had I known how it could indeed change my life, I had probably not invited her so readily for this load of information. And she was ready for delivering it, certainly not for the first time.

  “I always carry these pictures with me,” she said and took a small bunch out of her handbag. “They are among the few which have been officially published by the military authorities and could, until recently, even be found on their web-sites. Now they closed these sites for unauthorized use but too late, to their taste, you can still find them on the net. I’ll give you one of the URLs, if you are interested.

  Now looking at this first picture, taken shortly after the explosion, can you identify where the plane hit? It is showing the outer ring of Pentagon, before a part of the building collapsed. Knowing that the building is about double as high as the aeroplane, there should be some impression somewhere. Then there should be some remnants of the plane but no one were able to identify any, not even the county fire-chief as he was questioned the day after. And even if the plane hit the ground before Pentagon, there shoul
d be considerable damage at the lawn but, you see on this picture, damage is restricted to the area immediately ahead of the building – but perhaps exactly this is what caused the officials to bury the healthy-looking green grass under a truck-load of sand, as seen on this picture. Except for destruction of evidence, it is difficult to see any purpose in that act.

  Even if you accept that a Boeing 757, weighing almost 100 tons and flying at the speed of several hundred miles per hour failed to damage any other part of Pentagon than a small section of the outer ring, of which only a small part collapsed later, it is impossible to accept that the wings did not hit any part of the building. Look at this picture where a plane is superimposed, and look at these other pictures, taken at the day of attack, as the firearms were still active. Do you find any hint of the plane?”

  I was startled. I had seen some of these pictures before, but I had never wondered why there were no traces of the plane to be seen. Adding to the small impact on the building, and the energy early imposed to delete the tracks, there was certainly something to be explained.

  “But what then happened to the plane?”

  “Personally, I believe that it was sunk somewhere far away over the ocean but who can tell? I mean, somebody can tell but they won’t. Besides, I am only trying to show you that there was no sign of any plane, hitting Pentagon. There are much more strange evidences against such an attack. Imagine that you wanted to hit the Pentagon and had been planning the deed for months or years, would you then chose this part of the building, which could only be reached after passing a lot of other high buildings and hitting high-voltage electric wires in advance, or would you rather take the free access over the Potomac river? But then, of course, the plane might have hit the part where Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz have their offices and not a part which is anyhow closed for renovation.”

  I was trying to defend the official version as if I was being accused myself of any crime. In a way, part of my world was crumbling together under Giulietta’s words. But she was just continuing:

  “Then there was the question about the missing jetfighters from Andrew’s Air Force Base just a small distance away, or the ones stationed at Langley at the CIA headquarter, and altogether the complete failure of NORAD to detect any plane approaching Washington, possibly the White House and Capitol, even after the first assault on the WTC. And no heads were rolling afterwards; on the contrary, some were even promoted. That I can also understand, judging their operation successful from a certain point of view.”

  “And I believe that you are not referring to Bin Laden’s viewpoints or any from the Axis of Evil”

  “No, of course not. There is a conspiracy, but you have to call it differently since this concept is occupied already. You are going to find a concept, fusing the interests of the superrich for deeds of international range. Many such interests can be identified, both in America and abroad, if only you have the courage to ask who profited from the assault. The Latin concept is ‘cui bono.’ It does not confirm any guilt but at least indicate a motive. I hope that our presence here will not be so long to permit me giving you further extensive information about what I have found out so far.”

  “But speaking about motives, what may make a hijacker prefer a landing in the ocean?”

  “Are you sure that there were any hijackers onboard?”

  Just asking such a question could be understood as naughty. The World had been focusing on some Arab-type hijackers, armed with carpet- and plastic-knifes. The press covered their participation in flying courses in different flight-schools extensively. “Are you suggesting that there were none there?”

  “Yes and no,” she replied, “I believe that there were some aboard, possibly even some ‘planted’ there who expected to play another game here at the West-Coast. Here they were as much victims as the other passengers. Do you know that at least 6 of the 19 ones who were published by the FBI were found alive after the assault?”

  “I have heard that there was some confusion about some common Arab names.”

  “It was not just names, it was also corresponding photos. You can still find them at the homepage of the FBI; they didn’t change a single name or photo. Then there was the question about the whereabouts of those who might indeed have been onboard. Double identities making theatrical appearances on one side and some precautions taken by their real counterpart, which does not fit into the concept of a suicide mission. Some had connection flights and Mohammed Atta signed up for a frequent-flyer programme one month before the attack. I guess that mass-murderers on a suicide mission do not collect miles.”

  “Perhaps he wanted to blur the track that he was really on a suicide mission?” I suggested.

  “Really? So he suspected that he was being followed? And still, he managed so far? Or what kind of stupid track was he arranging then? Whom could he impress with that? Anyhow, lots of such minor disagreements have been found – that is, found by independent journalists or revealed by some indiscretion before being sucked into the evidence-destroying black hole of FBI, NSA and CIA. Only as far as these evidence have been collected abroad can they be saved for a future examination, provided better times are coming up – which I am not so sure of.”

  “You make it sound as if Big Brother is approaching.”

  “Approaching? He is already listening – or what is your opinion, Miss?”

  “I am just guarding your well-being,” said the voice from before. “By the way, it is an interesting story, I hope it is not recorded anywhere.”

  “It is our big chance that it is not. The possibilities are there but the task of surveillance is enormous. Partly the information is just collected, so you can search the suspected culprits at a later time. Partly certain areas are searched electronically, which is very simple in emails or library lists. You know, FBI is allowed to collect lists from the library betraying which kind of naughty books the respectable Mr. Schulz is reading. Thanks to computers, Mr. Ashcroft has beaten Big Brother! And what made it possible were the 9/11 and the resulting public mood afterwards. We Americans were ready for war against anybody – I am afraid that I was no exception. In congress, they let the PATRIOT act through without considering that this offends our constitution in several ways.”

  “To that, I must agree. But don’t you think that the next president will change that?”

  “Certainly not. The last freely elected president was Clinton, whether you like him or not. I guess the CIA planted this Lewinsky and other dulls there for weakening his position. For ‘clearing’ this spectacular affair, the congress donated 60 million $. In comparison, the 9-11 investigation was carried out with 3 million bucks. But back to the president: you know that Bush was not elected, he was proclaimed by a court decision, demanding that any further count of votes in the already manipulated Florida election was stopped? With the excuse to avoid such calamities in the future, the Bush administration has demanded another type of election machines. They will provide us much faster with the result. Besides, this result can be centrally steered. The Free World will have to do without the USA – or rather, the USA is trying to lead a new coalition. Did you find a name for it?”

  “No, you served so much information that I did not really think it over. It should in some way reflect the ‘Axis of Evil’ and then the purpose, perhaps this absolutory control of public mind – but I am sure that you already have a suggestion ready?”

  “Yes, indeed I have. But I was focusing upon other qualities. I am afraid I shall have to explain it at the next escalator arrest, if you will join me then.”

  “I should be honoured to share time and space.”

  “And I’ll be keenly listening,” said the electronic voice.

  “Thanks to all the audience, including those who could not indicate their interest. Well, I was thinking of the purpose of leading a war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Something about rich men wanting to get even richer at the cost of anybody. Details given later or not at all. We are dealing with the ‘Axis of the Devil?
??. No, they are dealing with us, not the reverse.”

  “And to which mafia do we belong?”

  “Not to any of them. We are the unorganised masses of victims.”

  “Until you started talking, I was not feeling much like a victim.”

  “I warned you, didn’t I?” At the same time, the escalator started upwards. Only Giulietta was expected to leave at the 14th stock but I joined her. “I thought you were going to the 16th stock?”

  “I have had enough of the escalator. For the last two stocks, I shall climb the stairs. Besides, I want to hear the continuation of your story.”

  “I’m sorry, I really haven’t got the time now. I only wanted to make you curious.”

  “You succeeded. Now I would like to know how my father was killed. Can I invite you for dinner this week?”

  “I’m sure that my husband wouldn’t like that. If he knows that I have spent so long time in a tiny room alone with you, I am afraid that you might be in danger.”

  I understood that the conversation had ended. But Giulietta found pity: “Just three more hints: The only remaining uncensored source of information is found in the Internet. Of course, the officials can register all proxy-servers visited by Mr. Schulz but so far they have not closed the ‘dangerous sites’ – just a matter of time, I guess. And understanding how the WTC assault with the aeroplanes could occur, you should study how hijacked aeroplanes are dealt with at the ground. Finally you may question if the airplane crash into the towers was the real or just the spectacular, pretended reason for their collapse and the death of your father. I think that should give you occupation for a while. Good bye – forever.”

  She went into an office, not necessarily the one where she worked. Of course, this paranoid lady did not want to keep too heavy tracks for her identity, and now I started to respect this desire. In fact, her name was not Giulietta Ford, this is something I invented and I believe that the one she used was invented as well. But she was right, the World was not what it had seemed to be an hour ago, as certain as my name is John Schulz – or is it?

  Liberating the Free

  The plane landed smoothly in Washington-Baltimore Airport. That was the last smooth aspect of my travel to the nation, which claimed to be free. I was invited, expected and there was a reception committee in the airport, though not from the University which had invited me. I was travelling on business-class, which means that somebody else was paying the ticket, and I was leaving the plane pretty early. Just as I emerged from the plane, I was surprised to hear a man I had never seen before saying, “Welcome to America, Dr. Strange.” He did not even ask if I was the man he searched for.

  There were five men, all in plain clothes and of course all with a tie, which men appears to sleep with in North America. All had greasy, dark hair and were clean-shaven and two of the five were wearing their sunglasses in-door. They were as anonymous as taken out of a spy film. I did not need to go through the custom, another of them said, if I would just follow them – which I, of course, did while other passengers from my plane looked as were they bursting with envy to this individualised treatment. They should have known what followed, once I was out of their sights.

  “What about my luggage?” I nervously asked.

  “We are taking care of that,” the leader of the group explained.

  A modern airport has walking distances that makes you wonder if the plane landed too early. The peculiar thing was that after stretching the leg, which you could accept after staying a whole day in the transatlantic flight, we arrived to an elevator leading upwards, not down to a waiting limousine, as I had started to hope for. The elevator demanded a key, provided by a third man of the reception committee. As the door slammed behind us, I got the feeling that the broad smile on the faces of all men disappeared, and that simultaneously. Soon, my own smile would fade away for a long time to come.

  We stopped at the fifth floor, where a sign explained that we were now in the auspices of Homeland Security. Here we entered a strange office – no, interrogation room is a better designation. There was a new person present, the first one to mention his name, though not in a friendly tune and without the elsewhere obligatory handshake.

  “My name is Donald Chimey, or DC, like our capital.” Pointing to a telephone on the table he added, “Perhaps you want to call your wife and tell her that you have landed safely?” Except the telephone, there was just a lamp at the table, not a single piece of paper.

  I utilized the offered possibility. We took occasion that we talked some languages at home, a possibility not considered for an Englishman calling home somewhere in Europe. My wife is Danish, and we used to train that language, too, for the purpose of the children being multiple language-masters. I gave her a concentrated thorough message that I had landed in Baltimore and was now in custody of ‘HL sikkerhed,’ which she would definitely associate with ‘Homeland Security.’

  DC looked surprised of the unknown language and barked, “You are only supposed to speak English!” Upon this unfriendly shouting, I simply cut the connection, to which DC surprised uttered: “But you were supposed to calm down your wife!”

  “Do I have any reason to?”

  “Maybe not,” he admitted. “Can I please see your passport?”

  I gave him my Swiss passport. That, too, confused him. “But you showed your British passport in the European airport.”

  “You are well-informed, except that I have a valid visa for multiple entries stamped in this one, and I prefer to show that here.” The argument that I had entered the United States without a valid permission melted away, apart from not having had the occasion to enter the normal way.

  “This passport does not fulfil the American requirements for biometrical data.”

  “Neither does my British passport. Perhaps my next one.”

  “May I see that, too?”

  I hesitated. Some noise made me aware that the other five persons were still present and I turned my head.

  “Either you give it or we take it,” DC added in a less polite manner.

  I did not want to create any violent scenes and decided for the first alternative. DC compared the two passports briefly, then put them inside his own pocket. Surprised I demanded them both back.

  “Where you go now, you don’t need passports.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “You are under arrest – as a terrorist suspect,” he said in a low tune.

  That was a shock. “But I have been invited as a guest at the John Hopkins University Hospital.”

  “I know. We have arranged that invitation ourselves.”

  “But why?”

  “A terrorist suspect has no right to information about the ongoing court process. But ransacking your memory, you may recall some unfriendly pamphlets against our elected government – your computer hard disc is full of them.”

  “I know that the NSA has been spying on computers worldwide since we had broadband Internet connections but I doubt that you can cite that for an American judge what has been carried out in Europe and is there fully legal. But I shall gladly defend it here if you want; after all, it reflects only the truth.”

  “We did not get you into this trap to give you another occasion to spread your propaganda further but once and for all to put an end to it. The only question that remains to be solved is, if you are considered having entered the United States or not, which you undoubtedly realize can be argued about.”

  “And that means?”

  “Guantanamo or New Mexico, that is the question.”

  In this moment, the telephone rang. DC presented with his abbreviation, heard someone speaking and then, without a word ended the connection when he had heard enough. “You are lucky. New Mexico,” he grunted. “Previously, people like you had been summarily executed before a firing squad.”

  “If you had reintroduced that principle for the 200 Israeli spies in 2001, rather than summarily expelling them, I would perhaps not have been here.”

/>   DC blinked. “I don’t know what you are talking about – and I don’t want to know.”

  There was no point in losing more wind towards these stubborn men. I knew – actually, I had written about it – that the new America did not warrant any person’s justice who was labelled ‘terror-suspects.’ “Terrorism is such a vile crime that innocence is no defence,” Michael Rivero, a potential terror suspect, once said. I could only hope that Elisabeth, my wife, would sound the alarm bell after my shocking call. Perhaps she would expect another call explaining some misunderstanding in the airport but when this did not appear in a few hours, she would not hesitate. She had connections both in London and Berne, the governmental seats reflecting my two passports. The British might not be particularly important, giving their servile attitude towards their big master, once part of the British Empire; the Swiss, however, would require another kind of answer.

  In the meantime, I had to admit that I had walked into an open trap. I was clad in a blue overall and my civil clothes were stowed away together with my hand luggage. I never saw my suitcase but had no doubt that it was taken care of. “So, off to New Mexico,” I said in an undisturbed way, knowing that this was the only attitude that could shatter my counterparts.

  “You appear so self-certain, as if you had expected this outcome,” DC now said. Three of the anonymous agents had in the meantime disappeared but there were still enough if I should demonstrate resistance – I have not seen enough films to vast my energy for that purpose.

  “Be surprised!”

  “So what have you prepared?”

  “It shall be a surprise, as I just said.”

  DC roared but decided that it would be better not to ask further. A suspected terrorist should not shatter the process of American justice. “You have a single-room accommodation here in the airport arrest until a judge formally decides about where to store you for the years to come while the process against you is being prepared.”

  “So when shall I see the judge?”

  “Not this time – perhaps never. There are also no lawyers involved at this stage. Anyhow, lawyers are not permitted to see evidence that has been connected to a security risk.”

  “Then how can you know about New Mexico, if the judge did not yet decide?”

  “That was an administrative decision. The judge shall only confirm it, which is a formality. They always confirm our administrative decisions.”

  “Shouldn’t you have said something about my legal rights to remain silent?”

  “First, this is no film. Second, terrorists have no rights in the United States.”

  “What a rapid advancement: before I was only a terror-suspect, within minutes I have progressed to a fully matured terrorist; and that for a respected Doctor in Switzerland. But I always wanted to see one of your concentration camps from within.”

  DC was obviously shattered from my statements. If he had some kind of artistic features, he might enjoy the variation. Instead, he was a man of standardised expectations, getting annoyed when someone did not live up to the norm.

  “Take him away,” he snored.

  The two watchdogs suddenly regained life. They grasp me in each arm, but at first not to take me away, no, they were going to handcuff me, hands on the back. Remind me to get this measure registered as a means of torture. In itself, it may not be, but with a little clumsiness added, there is pain to the wrists and pain in the shoulders. I once had a dislocation of the right shoulder and from time to time, when I forget to be cautious, it slides out again, though less painful than the first times and I learned to put it back myself. This time, it was to me a surprise suddenly to get my arms pulled down and the shoulder dislocated right away. There was no possibility to settle the harm done and the two agents had obviously no idea, what they had caused. But even if they had, it would have filled them with pleasure.

  No, I was wrong; they knew what they had caused, because one of them said: “It seems that your shoulder hurts. Is it that shoulder?” and then he slapped on the dislocated shoulder in a way, which you would not describe as torture under normal circumstances. These circumstances were anything but normal.

  “Such things are not practised in the free World. Send them to Iraq or Afghanistan,” I wheezed to DC.

  “That’s where they learned it,” he responded, totally untouched. “Take him away, as I said,” he repeated.

  “Yes, take me away from that idiot,” I answered. I never saw him again. Unfortunately, there were many other idiots.

  The airport arrest was one stock below, so I was entitled to another elevator drive. It was a large hall split in 12 cages. As I later counted, we were 15 inmates, so in three of the cells were two prisoners, including mine. At first, however, I had only thoughts for my aching shoulder and the first thing I did, once the bracelets were removed, was to restore its integrity. Although I still felt slight pain, it was a great relief, and I enjoyed the next couple of minutes, before I looked at my cell companion and nodded as a greeting.

  He was a coloured man, probably in his twenties, with a short beard around his mouth. “Arthur Jones, speed-trap victim,” he introduced himself.

  “Jack Strange, terrorist,” I answered. My cellmate stepped back.

  “I have nothing with such persons to do,” he cried. “Hey officer, one thing is to throw me into a prison cell because I am black and drove 15 miles too fast, but take me away from that terrorist there, I did not deserve that!”

  One of the guards was apparently deeply moved and approached the cell. “You are right, that is too hard a fate.” Then he took poor Mr. Jones out and put him in another cell. “This is a comparatively harmless cell-mate for you, Jones. Bill Wright is accused of having raped twice – two men, by the way.”

  The average age among the other prisoners appeared to be around 20, so I was by far the oldest, having just completed the first half-century of my life. I had spent my second quarter in hospitals and could now look forward to spend the third one in prisons. I could hardly get started.

  “When am I finally going to New Mexico?”

  “Why are you in such a hurry to go there? It is our answer to the Devil’s Island”

  “Oh, I’d love to see an American concentration camp from the inside. I have seen pictures from the outside, showing watchtowers and barbed wire. You know, I had an uncle who died in a concentration camp in Poland.”

  “You cannot compare our prisons to the holocaust,” the guardsman said with empathy.

  “What’s the difference?” I asked but was interrupted by the rapist who claimed, “He was killed as he fell from a watchtower in a drunken state.

  The guardsman shivered from the comparisons and left us to continue reading his Torah.

  The meal they brought us would in Europe fit the description as a prisoner’s eating. It did not taste bad, it did not taste at all and thus fitted the description I had previously used for the preservative-filled eating I had received from the microwaves of leading restaurants here in the States. For the purpose of survival, I ate it all.

  The night was disturbed twice by the arrival of new loud prisoners. The next morning, we were 16 human wrecks in the 12 cages but around noon, a lawyer arrived and told the rapist, that he was now free on bail. One by one, most of the other prisoners were let away for interrogation of short or long duration. Nobody wanted to know anything from me, I was stamped as a terrorist, and they knew all what was stored on my computer, so why ask me?

  The third day in jail, I was starting to get annoyed but decided not to show it. They obviously did not want to know anything from me and I decided not to ask any questions, being certain that they would be at best ignored, at worst ... never mind.

  Suddenly, a guard I had not seen before came across to my cage and said, “The transfer to New Mexico has been postponed. It seems that the British have raised some obstacles.” I concentrated on keeping a relaxed and careless expression in my face, though I was thinking that Elisabeth was at least successful for s
tirring the gringos’ plans. I wandered if the University was totally inactive – whatever they might have done was nothing that reached my cell’s metal bars. And then there were still the Swiss government, who should react to its sovereign being held in jail.

  The fifth day proved to be crucial but the circumstances of my release are uncertain. My memory is blurred what the last hours in the airport arrest are concerned.

  I was still deeply asleep as the leading guardsman came in, pressing my hand and saying, “Congratulations, Dr. Strange, you are now a free man, though not in the States you arrived to last week. Here are your clothes, but you should better leave the country immediately. There is a plane for Zurich leaving from this airport later today; it is dangerous to go to any of the big cities at the moment. Much has changed here now. The President, his Vice-President and several of the ministers have been carried out in tar and feathers, the complete congress has been dissolved after it was proved that the vast majority of the members of both chambers have been corrupted by a foreign power, among other corrupting factors. There will be a new election in three months, only by paper votes, and both Democrats and Republicans are forbidden to participate – therefore we need some time for new parties to be formed. They are working on systems to prevent the superrich from being the only ones qualified. We the people have raised – yes, also I have my definite sympathy with the occurrences. The billionaires have driven their game too far away from realities. There will be peace in the World, our soldiers will come home – and the prison in New Mexico will be used for the corrupt party bosses until a legal process can be made. Please put on your clothes and rest for a while, we still have some arrangements to make for your departure. I shall, of course, leave the cell door open.

  So I took my own clothes on and, while it was still dark and the night as usual had been interrupted, went back to sleep.

  I was still deeply asleep as a guardsman came in, saying, “I don’t know if you had any part in it, Mr. Strange, but the prison in New Mexico will be filled up by other inmates. There has been an uprising against the legal government, but it has fortunately been crushed down and there are many casualties. Besides, your Swiss government has obtained your liberation and reserved a place on the plane leaving later today. The security people who brought you here will bring you back to the departure area of this airport – you have thus never entered the United States.”

  It was now daylight and I was slowly realising that my experience as a prisoner had come to an end. I swore never again to leave the free world in Europe on whatever occasion.

  Shortly afterwards, the same brutes, who had dislocated my shoulder arrived and brought me to the place announced – only this time, they were completely civilised and one of them even carried my hand luggage – my suitcase had been checked in already, he claimed and gave me a certificate allegedly confirming that. ‘I don’t care about my suitcase,’ I thought, ‘the main fact is that I am on the plane.’

  There were still 6 hours until take-off, so I took a nap in the lobby, to which I with my business class ticket had access. Perhaps two hours disturbed sleep later, I suddenly woke up and recalled the two events – were they experienced or simply dreams, one or both of them? Perhaps it was all a dream and simply Elisabeth who had managed to get me out of this prolonged nightmare. Elisabeth! I must call her and tell her that I am coming.

  I found a phone booth and made the call. I was cautious not to make any reference to the arrest, simply mentioning which plane I was going to take. The rest would be detailed later and not too short in the circles of the family when back on safe grounds.

  I bought a paper but it did not mention any civil uprising. Never mind, the news media in the United States are known to be fiercely controlled by the ruling class.

  Suddenly a man approached directly to me. “Dr. Strange, am I glad to meet you here. I enjoyed your lecture on amnesia in John Hopkins last Friday. Hewitt is my name, Dick Hewitt. Peculiar that you spent the weekend here – why didn’t you go back straight away? How can anybody spent a Sunday here by his own free will, if I might be so indiscrete to ask?”

  “I would gladly tell you, but my experiences are covered in amnesia. Perhaps my next lecture shall bring the revelation?”

  Mr. Hewitt laughed. “You are right; there are questions that one shouldn’t ask. Pardon me, my plane to San Francisco is leaving soon.” And he left.

  I thanked his plane for leaving precisely. I needed some solitude in trying to reconstruct the last five days.

  A Long Travel Home

  I was going home to California from Newark early in the morning. The sun was going to rise as I arrived at the airport, it looked as if it was going to be a beautiful day but some problems arose as I tried to book in for the scheduled plane.

  “I am sorry, Sir, but the plane you were supposed to take was already filled ... that is, I admit it was overbooked. However, we have another plane for San Francisco a little later and as a small compensation, I can give you a business-class seat.”

  “When will the second plane leave?”

  “It should be leaving at 8:20 a.m.”

  “All right, accepted, but don’t forget the promised upgrading, I have long legs.”

  “No problem, Sir, there is plenty of room for the legs in that plane. So far, we have just about one fifth of the seats occupied.”

  “Strange – and with another plane from the same company hopelessly overbooked?”

  She drew her shoulders up, opened her hands to each side and said, “The computer’s will is our command.”

  The computer! Always is the computer given credit to all possible errors, why not the humans who fed the computer? Never mind, I might get home an hour later but with a much more comfortable travel than squeezed down in a monkey-class seat. It was worth waiting for.

  The take-off was further delayed but when you travel much, such occurrences were not exceptional. I was enjoying the prospect of returning home today, so it was not important whether it would be an hour later. I was only feeling a bit bad that I had not called my family but I decided it was too early to wake them up. Besides, once travelling business-class, I planned to invest 2½ $ for an air-phone call once we approached Chicago. I was living with my parents and could expect them to pick me up in the airport.

  We were indeed a small company for a big air plane as we were finally asked to board the plane. While walking up the boarding ramp, I overheard how a few of my fellow passengers discussed how they had also been scheduled for the early plane. I considered asking if there were indeed anybody who was primarily intending to take this one but then I thought, ‘none of my business,’ and slowly proceeded with the rank.

  It seemed that they had seated nearly all the passengers in the first and business-class sections. There was a general satisfaction in the plane, not crudely expressed but people were talking nicely to another without stress from the late departure.

  “United Airlines welcomes you on board UA93,” one of the stewardesses began in the usual mechanical tune as stewardesses always use by the stereotypical messages and security instructions. Here in America, they always speak English, but I have noticed that abroad, they end their speeches with the same tune, regardless if it is with thank you, merci, gracias or danke.

  The weather was perfect for flying – among many other things the weather was perfect for. Not a single cloud separated us in 32,000 feet altitude from the working people at the earth-surface. It would, of course, be a great comfort to see them stroll for work in the daily traffic congestion, then later sweat during hard work while I was sitting up here and doing nothing. I knew what happened down there every morning and I knew what I was doing, or not doing, up here and my imagination was the only link between the two scenes. However, that did not make the comparison worse in my favour. Had I only been stuck in the traffic jam that morning, but that was a later recognition.

  The stewardess who gave me my breakfast was blond (the favourite hair colour among stewarde
sses) and she would have been a beauty with any other colour. She smiled at me and I figured how many men she would smile to during one month and how many of these men afterwards recalled the smile of this sole woman. Maybe that was what she was paid for. Her salary may not be enormous but it covers this enchanting smile.

  Another man of approximately 40 years age asked for the stewardess’ attention and thereby attracted also mine, possibly in addition to other men whom she had enchained with the witchcraft of her smile. This intruder was sitting in the last row of the first class and dressed in the invariable uniform of a businessman, which sole variation was the colour of the tie – his was light blue, a bit lighter than common among CEOs but he was, of course, too young for the highest rank. He handed a note to the stewardess and I could hear the word ‘captain’ in their short conversation. Then she hurried up towards the cockpit and returned immediately to continue her job – not that there was any urgency here, never had so few passengers been dealt with by a full cabin’s staff, but I figured that she preferred to be near me rather than in the same surrounding as pilots with dubious reputation. I was torn out of my dreams a few minutes later as indeed the pilot came out and asked the passenger for his identity.

  “Of course you may see it,” he said loudly and opened a small wallet that he had taken from his jacket’s inner pocket.

  The captain loudly murmured “FBI anti-hijacking team” to which the agent signalised him not to discuss anything openly. He was then invited to join the remaining pilot in the front. All passengers had followed this meeting with undisclosed curiosity.

  ‘A plain-cloth agent travelling first-class?’ I wondered. Soon he came back, however, and the plane continued its route undisturbed – at first. But suddenly it sounded:

  “Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. Due to circumstances beyond our control, we have been forced to interrupt our travel. We have been ordered to land in Cleveland. I shall give you further information when I receive it myself. There is nothing wrong with our plane, it is inconvenient for all of us but there is no danger.”

  A murmur of groans and complaints were heard in the cabin, also I was slowly getting angry. I got up early in Washington, was then booked for a later plane than the one I had planned to take. The second plane was delayed and now we were going to make an unforeseen stopover. Should I not slowly get upset? On the other hand, what to do about it? Forcè majeur, as the French say.

  “We are now starting our descent towards Cleveland,” the captain informed. “Please fasten your seatbelts.”

  Indeed, there was nothing particular about the landing, but afterwards there was an exceptionally long taxiing. From the window, I noticed that we were bypassing the main terminal. “That’s a great pilot,” I said loudly. “He has giving up flying and now tries to reach California by driving there.” The nearest passengers were laughing, even the dark-haired James Bond, who might have caused the trouble, turned around and smiled. Calm and smiling passengers were what were needed now.

  The plane finally stopped in front of some strange buildings, not looking as I had ever seen in any airport. Somewhat comforting, three other planes were already parked in front of it, another from United and two from American Airlines. Immediately, the captain explained:

  "Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to NASA Research Center in Cleveland. We have received a bomb warning and the plane must be evacuated immediately, starting in the front. Do not take any personal belongings with you and do not use any cell-phone as that may precipitate the explosives on-board. A bomb search team will enter as soon as you have left and you should not endanger their work, therefore I repeat, do not make any cell-phone calls.”

  While he spoke, the stewardesses had opened the door. I had hoped now to experience an emergency evacuation down the inflated tubes but no, a gangway had already been attached and there was nothing dramatically about our departure from the plane itself. Down there, an unusual reception committee was searching us and confiscating all the cell phones they could find, including – I am sorry to say – mine. Simultaneously, we were asked to identify ourselves and give a telephone number for our relatives and whoever might expect us in the scheduled airport.

  When all the passengers had left, two persons in company with a small fox terrier entered the plane. I had imagined something bigger for a bomb sniffing dog, but now my attention was made by another occurrence: our luggage was immediately emptied and part of it reloaded on a small white military jet. I recognized my own suitcase among the ones going into the new plane while there was no room for other part of the luggage. What was the idea of this splitting? It was only obvious that they were in a hurry, because I even saw the white jet take off before we forcibly were pushed into a large hangar, which had been furnished with benches and chairs where aeroplanes were else being checked and repaired. The passengers and crews of the other three planes had already been gathered together here. The crew’s section was farthest away from the entrance but not directly separated from the passenger’s – it was simply so that the four crews had placed themselves along the wall. The big gate had been closed.

  A man, dressed like the FBI-agent of our plane but with brown curled hair, stood up and spoke to us: “Ladies and Gentlemen, may I ask your attention. This day has seen dramatic events in our nation. An unknown number of planes have been hijacked. Because of these occurrences, we have been forced to take unusual precautions. I know that you are here subjected to various inconveniences but you can praise yourself happy not to be on-board any of the hijacked planes. All planes over the entire nation have been grounded. As soon as possible, perhaps this very evening, we shall try to bring you all to California, from where you may reach your final destination on the ground. Your relatives shall be informed according to the information you gave before entering this building.”

  Just after he finished, about a dozen young men with skin colours assuming an Arab origin entered the building. Including the crew, we were now about enough people to fill a Boeing 767, if it should be offered later – as the agent’s speech seemed to indicate. People spoke to each other, expressing understanding for the precautious efforts. To me, it was strange that my recently bought and rather expensive cell-phone had been taken away, that my suitcase had left and the hangar had been furnished in advance. Moreover, my confidence in the authorities was different to the people expressing gratitude to their excellent planning. I did not know what was being played here but soon decided that I did not want to participate.

  That decision alone did not suffice. I wanted to go out of the building but there were two men standing in front of the door.

  “What are you attempting?” one of them asked brusquely.

  “I just want some fresh air,” I replied friendly.

  “You ain’t going nowhere,” the other said and clopped on the chest where he was definitely hiding a handgun.

  The first one found that this was perhaps too rough. “Please understand that this is a landing field, not a stroll-around for wanderers.”

  I understood that any argument about being ‘a free citizen of the United States’ would not meet much understanding by these two guys and decided to express understanding for their arguments. Instead, the incident had further hardened my suspicion that we were held prisoners in some malicious game.

  Hundreds of people and only two toilets in the building. There was already a row of a dozen people in front of them, and with me, there was now one more. Not that I really needed it but I decided that it was better to recognize the possibilities – and empty the bladder simultaneously, now I was there. When my turn came, I found a small window from which a desperate prisoner might escape, but certainly not unnoticed – the row behind him would soon pose demands towards the closed door but worse, heavily armed guards on the backside of the building confirmed that this was now to be considered a prison.

  I went back into the hangar and considered my strategy. If possible, I decided to try to escape, but how? It was o
bvious that there was no chance of leaving the building, so how about staying there when the others left? I still did not know where, then another question emerged: when to hide, if I found a suitable place? I tried to answer this question first. If our guards would abduct all, for what purpose ever, they would probably do so after darkness. If I had hidden already 10 hours or more, I might be anything but fit for the strain demanded by the search. So I had better use the time for some rest. Besides, our guards would also be tired after some hours, but possibly they would be replaced at the end of the day. I decided that 7.30 p.m. was the ideal time, so it was only the question, where to hide. That question should be answered before my rest.

  There was the big hall, the small corridor and a lot of people everywhere. Before all exits of the building, brusquely looking guards were standing. They were probably armed with handguns but at least for now, they did not affect the general mood by showing them. I was confined with a lot of people who did not realize it.

  Then there was kind of an open floor in the big hangar, opposite the gate and above the offices and toilets. It was worth a glance. The problem was that there was only an open metal stair up there, not much of sight protection and even a guard near to it. I passed him without showing any interest and in that moment, something happened: A woman started to scream in the opposite end of the hangar. Some people talked loudly to her but that failed to calm her down, on the contrary, she was crying and shouting, in another sense, distracting the attention of everybody else. Even the guard in front of the stairs felt an obligation to mix himself up, and that was my chance, if ever there was one. Cautiously, I entered the stairs and nobody must have seen it.

  As soon as I was up there, I lay down and crawled. I looked back after a few yards. There was still a tumultuous chaos and a terrible acoustic in the hangar, amplifying the screaming and many voices but I could not see anybody. Nevertheless, just lying up here did not satisfy me, if there was a better disguise. There were no rooms up here but in the wall, a tremendous tube let into what was supposedly part of an air conditioner. Possibly it was required if they worked with engines in the closed hangar, currently no wind was felt from it. There was kind of a grid in front of it but the screws had been removed and it was loosely attached, invisible from the distance but apparent in a close view. The noise was getting lower and if I should produce any myself, I better hurry up. The tube was big enough for me to crawl into and it made a turn immediately, the only disguise in this hangar, it seemed. An average American would not have any chance but I was young, somewhat sporty and slim. In order to close the grid properly, I had to enter with my feet first. It was a bit difficult to turn around the corner.

  “Hey you there, scram, this is my disguise,” a voice whispered from behind.

  There was one here already; that is why the grid was loose, he had done the first part of the work.

  “I’m sorry, I am probably here for the same reason as you. I have no intention to leave. Besides, as long as I stay here, I can’t betray you,” I whispered back.

  My predecessor, if I may call him so as he was first here, was fast to understand and answered, “Okay, but then remain silent. It may be a long stay. I hope nobody else is coming.”

  Shortly afterwards, somebody indeed tried. The guard quickly returned to his post and shouted: “What are you intending to do? It is forbidden to go up there!”

  My guard whispered, “Great, I hope he will take better care now.”

  “You are an egoist,” I replied.

  “Possibly, that is a precondition for surviving in this cruel World. And now wait till the night.”

  “Right, by the way, what’s your name?”

  “I don’t have any”

  “Sounds sensible. You may call me Jack.” I could also keep my name secret.

  “To you, I am Bob. And now stay silent!”

  I realized that my plans were necessarily overthrown. This was the possibility and there would not be a second one. How good that I had just visited the toilet, and how sad that I did not take anything to eat.

  It was indeed a long wait, and I must have slept sometime during the afternoon. Suddenly I felt a grasp on one of my feet. “Stop snarling,” Bob snared.

  “I’m sorry, I must have slept.”

  “If you turn around on your side, you may sleep further without waking everybody else.”

  The survival artist was right, and the monotony helped me to kill some more hours that way. I was woken up around 10 pm East-Coast time, my wristwatch claimed, when a man from below loudly said:

  “We have a plane leaving for San Francisco soon. Does anybody care to take it?”

  The noise from the floor indicated that everybody wanted to get away from here. Even I considered doing so for a moment, but then I remembered that why I was here, that our prison was prepared and we were barred from any contact with the rest of the World.

  Perhaps they had wanted to check some sort of a passenger list, but the pressure from behind was enormous as reaction to the ill-placed humorous remark. There was a lot of loud and demanding talking, and you could hear the man from before try to ascertain the people that “there is room for everybody”. Slowly, the hangar emptied, it may have taken half an hour. A little later, a distant voice said: “The toilets are empty.” A second voice shouted, the other rooms are empty,” and quite near a third voice claimed, “the gallery is empty.”

  I believe I heard a relieved sigh from Bob. Shortly after, he whispered: “Look at your watch, Jack. We shall stay one hour after the last sound.”

  “Then I hope they are not going to clean the floor up.”

  “Wait and see.”

  I saw nothing – that is, the light was turned off and there were no sounds except the breathing of the two of us. We heard a jet start.

  “Off towards Hawaii,” Bob murmured.

  “How do you know?”

  “I don’t, it could be the North Pole or the Azores Islands in the Atlantic. I only have the feeling that they shall never arrive. Besides, the Pacific has the advantage that the plane is initially following a westward course as its partly professional passengers expect. I don’t really care. I am only satisfied that I am not on board.”

  He was not sympathetic, my fellow escape-convict, but he had a professional hold of the matters. I was looking forward to get a view of him.

  “Shouldn’t we get out of the tube and stretch the legs at first at the gallery?” I asked.

  “Nope, we shall stay here. Just imagine that there is a light turned on upon the slightest movement and everything is lost. One hour, as I said.”

  Exactly at a quarter to midnight on my watch, Bob granted freedom. “But silent, slow movements, we are still not out of danger,” he emphasized.

  I took off the grid and pushed it aside so that I could get out. I offered Bob a hand but he refused it. Our eyes had been accustomed to darkness but there was almost no light revealing anything but contours. Therefore, we had lost the ability for walking straight.

  With stiff legs and one hand supporting on the wall just beside the tube, Bob stood and urinated. “Not the fine manner,” I argued.

  “One more reason to do it,” he said. That convinced me, too, so I followed his example.

  We cautiously approached the ladder and went down. Now I realised that somebody had left the light in the corridor in front of the toilets and that the small rim of light coming under the door gave our accommodated eyes enough light to see rather detailed the scenery of the emptied hangar.

  “Bob, I think I can recognize some cookies here,” I whispered. We should both be hungry.”

  “Don’t touch them, there may be tranquillisers in them.”

  “But then some bread?”

  “There is a higher probability that it is clean, but don’t eat it now, wait till after we get out of this airport, if at all possible.”

  “All right, chief,” I said and stuffed some bread and a can of coke into my pocket but let the cookies stay
where they were. Bob did the same. There was no doubt that he was more professional in the business of escaping.

  Before we proceeded, he asked me, “Do you know that we are not in the main airport of Cleveland but in the adjacent NASA Research Center?”

  I nodded, “Our welcome committee told us so.”

  “That makes it even more difficult to get out of here. The airport is probably surrounded by a fence, this one then by a double fence with dogs in-between and armed guards patrolling around. And it may be as difficult to get out as to get in. I have no plan but we must first observe the surroundings without stirring-up any attention, least of all from belling dogs.”

  The first stage would be to get out of the hangar. However, Bob decided to get all useful objects with him, and that necessitated an inspection of the office and other small rooms under the gallery. Fortunately, they had been unlocked as they searched for hidden passengers. Bob avoided going into the toilet because he was afraid that the light might betray us, once we opened the door. In a small room in the middle, we found some high cupboards. They were locked, but it posed no big challenge for Bob to change that. Each of them contained a uniform, including a cap. Unfortunately, there were no ID cards attached, probably the owners needed them to get into the area.

  “Okay, you are now Lieutenant Jack Jackson, I am Captain Bob Franklin, should anybody ask.”

  In the office there were some car keys that Bob grasped, hoping but not knowing then if he would find the vehicle that fitted the keys.

  “Now we only need a plan of, how to get out of the area,” Bob said. That, however, was not to be found anywhere. Having searched all, my watch now showing close to 2 a.m., we made the big step and opened the door from the hangar to the outside world. No, we did not simply open it, first we found it locked but Bob easily unlocked it from the inside, then opened it to a ridge of perhaps one inch, then spotting no living soul opened enough to get his head out and then finally waived me out, too.

  “Point of no return, Lieutenant Jackson.”

  “Aye, Aye, Captain Franklin.” After having stumbled around in near total darkness for several hours, it was almost daylight here in comparison. Now I recognized that Bob was one of the Arab persons who had latest entered the hangar. He also looked at me sceptically: “Fairly young for a lieutenant, I guess.”

  “Don’t envy my youthful appearance, general.”

  Just around the corner, we found the car that fitted the keys. It was a closed-up military jeep.

  “It’s no use as long as we don’t know where to drive. We better find out first by foot. Preferably without being spotted. Nobody knows we are here, that is our sole advantage, the later they find out, the better. Best, of course, if they did not find out at all, but that is too much to hope for.”

  We could easily see that left of the hangar, if you were standing in front of it, there was nothing that looked like an entrance to the area. Three of the four planes were still standing there. Then there was probably simply open to the landing and take-off paths. To the right, there were more hangars and dark buildings, and then we spotted the tower before they spotted us.

  On the backside, already the fence was running. We saw nothing of the dogs which Bob had prophesised but we also did not want for sure to know, if they were there. But not so far away, we recognized an entrance. A car was just coming in and had stopped for check-in. A little later, another car drove out and hardly stopped.

  “That is our chance,” Bob said jubilant. They check incoming traffic but not outgoing. Let’s get out of here!”

  In the car, Bob instructed me how to salute the guard at the gate. He then drove off, approaching it and braking just before reaching the bar but even then not completely. I saluted towards the guard and this one just opened the gate before Bob collided with it – or perhaps he would have braked hard in the last second. We were out, yes, we were free! That is, not quite free, we were also haunted.

  “Is this the first car you steal?” Bob wanted to know.

  “Frankly spoken, I never thought there would be one,” I answered.

  “There will soon be a second one,” he said.

  “What do you mean?”

  “We are only driving this over to the civil airport and there steal another one.

  “But why?”

  “First, you cannot drive far in a military car, even with a key in it. Our uniforms do not suit the mark of the car and on the first occasion, we’ll land in a military jail; and second, because there is still a small hope that nobody will miss us. When they find the car nearby with the two uniforms neatly packed, they may not speculate very deep into the matter, how it got there. So far, they were perhaps responsible for a dangerous and successful mission at NASA, and they might not want to admit that something failed ...”

  “Such as letting two passengers escape?” I supplemented.

  “Exactly,” he grinned.

  “Then let us take a bus into town. That is even less conspicuously. Not that I am afraid of stealing a car, but it doesn’t seem to fit our demands right now.”

  “I hate to admit it, but you are right,” Bob replied. “Besides, we are light travellers, now our luggage has been taken away.”

  “I saw my suitcase being thrown into a small military jet.”

  “That adds to the mysteries of the day,” he said.

  We only had to wait shortly at the airport, after having redressed as the old pals Bob and Jack and leaving the uniforms in the car as Jack had said. Nobody saw us coming and the airport was strangely transformed. There were indeed many stranded passengers sitting and mostly sleeping in the chairs of the lobby, adjoined by their suitcases. Over them were timetables that in all cases said, “Flight cancelled.” What had happened? Why had the passengers of four loosely packed flights been given separate treatment? We had a tremendous lust to ask for the reason but then, they might have suspected us as coming directly from the moon. As we discovered that the shuttle-bus for Cleveland Centre was just about to leave, we decided that we had better get away from here. We got tickets from the airport lobby and entered an otherwise empty bus, whose driver looked hatefully at us as if we were disturbing his tranquillity. We never discovered if he could talk, neither had we any desire for that.

  In Cleveland, our mutual travel ended in a park with a lake. We did not want to take a hotel for a few hours sleep, and in the park, two benches could do the same. Bob told me how to manage the further case. I was taking the train or Greyhound bus, formerly American ways of travelling, and claim somebody had stolen all my luggage and flight tickets in Washington. Instead, I had taken the train all way home. He even gave me 500 $, much more than needed for the train. Then he instructed me never to talk about him. How could I have seen him if I never had taken any plane that day from Washington? I was only getting angry when I suddenly saw him take a small cellular phone from his jacket and talk for a couple of minutes in an incomprehensible tune.

  “Greetings from my father,” he said.

  “Could I just borrow that? I want to call my parents, regardless what time it is.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said, “this phone should have been confiscated in Boston or latest in the NASA airport. The man it was registered for doesn’t exist anymore.” While saying this, he turned it off and threw it out in the lake of the park.

  Dampening my anger he said, “Don’t call your parents too early. Think about your story, give it a tight appearance and take the earliest westbound train – you might as well leave for the station now.”

  “And you?”

  “As I said, I do not exist anymore and you promised to respect it. A survival artist must cease to exist from time to time in order to go on with his life.” And then he disappeared out of mine.

  I went to the station and bought a ticket home. Then I bought a newspaper – and got a shock: America was under attack and all passengers of four planes had been killed in a combined suicide mission. I even found my name under UA93 but managed lat
er to get it removed. The survival artist was later reported to have steered another of the planes into the North Tower of the WTC, which collapsed for mysterious reasons almost two hours later. I have kept the story of our rescue for nearly five years but present it now that I have moved to another country and changed my identity completely. As for Bob, he may have survived another couple of times or even not, but I figure that, if still alive, he does not mind now that I tell the story of, how we were rescued when America was attacked.

  This story tries to fuse the strange circumstances that none of the four planes of 9/11 were hijacked (certain) but about a dozen of Arabs were framed, along with some who are still alive. The planes landed peacefully (most probable), all in Cleveland (probable), where some luggage of UA93 was reloaded to a small white jet and then dispersed along 8 miles to the crater created by a missile (possible) to awake the impression that an aeroplane had crashed here (impossible). It makes use of the information, Mohammed Atta’s father gave, that his son had called him in Egypt around noon on September 12th.

  The Last Container

  ”Here we are!” Svend said joyful as he opened the main door.

  ”Welcome back home, Grandpa,” we all said, including those whose familiar binding was another.

  Grandpa – yes, he was really my Grandfather, since I was the son of his son, the previously mentioned Svend – was empathetically moved. ”I never thought I should pass the threshold of this door again. It has been a tough period of my life. Thanks everybody for the impressive reception.”

  ”Please, here are your house-shoes,” Aunt Erna, his daughter said.

  ”But these are not mine,” he protested.

  ”No, of course not. The old ones were too shabby. We have bought some new ones.”

  Grandpa seemed as happy for the new house-shoes as a ballerina receiving new ballet shoes for the premiere. ”I am certain that the old ones would have sufficed for my remaining days,” he murmured. Erik, Aunt Erna’s husband, nodded; fortunately without being seen by grandpa.

  ”Let me take your coat, Grandpa,” Lene, cousin, said. ”It has become springtime, quite suitable for your return from the hospital.”

  ”Come to the festival table, we have coffee and a cake ready,” I added.

  Grandpa was getting tears in his eyes when he saw the large cake with the many Danish flags. ”Thanks, dear children, it is really too sweet of you.”

  ”Perhaps Grandpa should first have fresh pampers,” 5-year-old Marie suggested, probably with the best intentions.

  Grandpa stalked. ”It is more than 80 years ago since I had some kind of pampers, as you call them. In your case, it is not so long ago. Even your mother had new pampers from my hand and if desired, I can change them again.”

  Lena got a red face, the other adults laughed but Marie started crying. Grandpa noticed what his remark had caused to his relative. ”Dear Marie, I did not want to insult you, come and kiss me, then we change the subject, it disturbs the appetite on the delicious cake.” Marie and Grandpa were reconciled and we could proceed to the next topic of the welcome ceremony.

  ”Please sit down in your favourite chair, father” my mother, actually his stepdaughter Stephanie, said. “We took it from the sitting room, we needed some seats for the big company. Except for the small Henrik all shall join the table.” Henrik was Marie’s small brother. He had just become two-years-old and required surveillance constantly. This is the age when parents are about to regret the pleasure they once felt when their child started to walk around.

  ”Marie, you must sit at the piano chair,” her father, my uncle Edgar, said

  ”Georg could not come, he is flying to India tonight,” Lena, his sister, said.

  Now I have introduced all my family, which on this sunny day in April received Grandpa as he came home after three months in the hospital. The reader may have some trouble to order the many names, so driven by pity for this mental weakness, so frequent in advanced age, I have inserted a pedigree below. The age of each member is enclosed in hyphens. Regarding age, my grandmother, Katrine, who died last year, always had a precise knowledge of the familiarly relations. After her death, my grandpa’s health deteriorated rapidly until he suffered a stroke just after New Year.

  It looked very badly. Instantly, of course, we hoped for a rapid recovery. As the first weeks passed without any beneficiary progress, some members of the family – I shall not mention any names – openly expressed that the best, which could happen now, was that he died soon. He did not follow the invitation. The pessimists elaborated their judgement: rather get an end to it than be transferred to an old people’s asylum with a debilitating paralysis and without being able to articulate himself, whatever might go on in his head. As if intended to contradict also that prognosis, Grandpa woke up after more than a month. He was, however, now foreseen to be discharged to the asylum, it was quite impossible to come back home with this paralysis, the doctors had said.

  Having said so, however, also the paresis slowly disappeared and Grandpa learned walking again, 82 years after he had learned it the first time. Still, the doctors insisted on the asylum, but Grandpa had also a word to include for that decision; the word was ”NO!” That had surprised us all, after we had accepted fate (his fate, by the way), but as his family we felt an obligation to support his decision so here we were.

  The pedigree of our family, with our current ages in brackets.

  * Georg, the lucky guy, was absent as Grandpa returned from the hospital.