The Snow Was Dirty Read online

  There was a time when they would have thrown a cordon around the neighbourhood and searched the buildings one by one. They don’t do that any more. They don’t take hostages either. It is as if men have grown philosophical, on both sides of the barrier. Is there even still a barrier?

  They will go through the motions.

  A fat pervert is dead. What can it possibly matter to them? They must have known what he was like. They will be more worried about the missing revolver, because whoever took it might be thinking of using it against them.

  They’re scared, too, when it comes down to it. Everyone is scared.

  Two cars, three cars pass up and down the street. There is another going from building to building.

  It is just for show. Nothing will happen.

  Unless, of course, Holst gets it into his head to talk. But Holst won’t talk. Frank trusts him.

  Yes, that’s the explanation! It may not be exactly the right word, but it gives an idea of what he was vaguely thinking last night: he trusts him.

  Holst must be asleep. No. He is up by now, he will be going downstairs, because when it is not his shift, he is the one who takes his place in the queues.

  Lotte also queues – or rather, sends one of the girls – for some items, but not for others. Even for them, there are some things it is worth putting yourself out for.

  All the inner doors are open. The kitchen stove radiates heat through all the rooms, at a pinch it might be enough; then there is the smell of real coffee spreading.

  On the other side of the kitchen, looking out on the landing, just to the left of the staircase, is the manicure salon, where the stove is permanently lit.

  And each stove, each fire, has its own smell, its own life, its own way of breathing, its more or less incongruous noises. The one in the salon smells of linoleum, evoking the room itself with its polished furniture, its upright piano, the embroidery and crochet work on the pedestal tables and on the arms of the armchairs.

  ‘The real perverts,’ Lotte claims, ‘are the middle-class men. And middle-class men like to do their nasty little business in an atmosphere that reminds them of home.’

  That is why the two manicure tables are tiny, virtually invisible. On the other hand, Lotte teaches the girls to play the piano with one finger.

  ‘Like their daughters, don’t you see?’

  The bedroom, the big bedroom, as it is called, where Lotte is sleeping right now, is stuffed with rugs and drapes and hand-made trinkets.

  Another of Lotte’s assertions is: ‘If only I could put up pictures of their fathers, mothers, wives and children, I’d be a millionaire!’

  Have they finally taken the Eunuch away? It is quite likely. The cars have stopped driving up and down.

  Gerhardt Holst, his long nose blue with cold, his string bag in his hand, must be standing motionless and dignified in some queue in the neighbourhood. Some people accept that, others don’t. Frank has never accepted it. He would never stand in a queue for anything in the world.

  ‘Other people do it,’ his mother said to him once. She thinks he is proud.

  It is hard to imagine Kromer in a queue. Or Timo, or any of the others.

  Does Lotte have coal? Won’t the first thing she talks about later, when she gets up, be food?

  ‘In my house, we eat!’ she once said in answer to a girl who had never been a prostitute before and who asked her how much she would earn.

  And it’s true. They eat. More than that, they stuff themselves. They stuff themselves from morning to night. There is always food on the kitchen table; an entire family could be fed with the leftovers.

  It has become a kind of game to look for the most difficult dishes to make, those that contain the highest fat content or use ingredients that are impossible to find. It is a sport.

  ‘Bacon? Go to see Kopotzki. Tell him I sent you and that I can get him some sugar.’

  How about adding some mushrooms?

  ‘Take the tram and stop at Blang’s. Tell him . . .’

  Every meal is a challenge. A challenge and an act of defiance, because the whole building receives the kitchen smells filtering out through the locks and under the doors. They would gladly leave the doors open. Meanwhile, the Holsts have to be content with a bone and some swedes.

  What has got into him? Why is he constantly thinking about the Holsts? He gets up. He has had enough of staying in bed. He goes into the kitchen, rubbing his bleary eyes. It is eleven o’clock. A girl he doesn’t know has arrived, a new girl. She looks quite respectable. She hasn’t yet taken off her hat and she is wearing a maidenly white blouse.

  ‘Don’t be afraid of taking sugar,’ Lotte says to her. She is sitting in her dressing gown, her elbows on the table, drinking her coffee and milk in small sips.

  That’s always the way it goes. They have to be broken in. At first, they don’t dare. They look at the pieces of sugar as if they were precious objects. Same with the milk, with everything. And after a time, you are forced to show them the door because they start ransacking the wardrobes. Of course, they would have to be shown the door anyway, even without that.

  They’re always well behaved. They press their knees together when they sit down. Most of them wear little tailored suits, like Sissy, with dark skirts and light-coloured blouses.

  ‘If only they didn’t change!’

  That is what the clients like.

  Not the morning sloppiness, for example. But then, who knows? There they all are, like a family, unwashed, sweaty, drinking coffee, eating what they like, smoking, lounging about.

  ‘Will you iron my trousers?’ Frank asks his mother.

  Since the power socket is in the salon, Lotte sets up an ironing board there, between two armchairs.

  What about the Eunuch?

  Some of the neighbours have probably started to feel scared because of him, all those who saw the body in the snow this morning and who, because of that, will have an uneasy conscience all day.

  But the only thing that has had Frank worried is the revolver. About nine, he got up for a moment, thinking he should take it out of his coat pocket and hide it somewhere.

  But hide it where? Hide it from whom?

  Bertha is too soft, too spineless, to reveal anything, unless out of stupidity.

  The other girl, the little one in the suit whose name he does not yet know, will keep quiet because she is new, because she feels at home, because she is hungry.

  As for his mother, he doesn’t care about her. He’s the boss. Whatever she does, however much she sometimes rebels, she knows she can’t say anything and that she will always end up doing what Frank wants.

  He isn’t tall. In fact, he is quite short. He has even – though not for a long time now – worn high heels, almost a woman’s heels, to look taller. He isn’t fat either, but plump, with square shoulders.

  His complexion is light, like Lotte’s, his hair is fair, his eyes blue-grey.

  Why are the girls scared of him? He is only nineteen. There are times when you would take him for a child! He would probably be capable of being gentle, if he wanted. He can’t be bothered.

  And the most surprising thing for his age is how calm he is. Even when he was little, and could barely walk, when he had a big head and curly hair, people used to say that he was like a little man.

  He doesn’t exert himself. He doesn’t gesticulate. He is seldom seen running, seldom gets angry, and even more seldom raises his voice.

  One of the girls, whom he quite often shared a bed with, would take his head in her arms and ask him why he was always so sad.

  She refused to believe him when he replied in a curt tone, pulling away from her, ‘I’m not sad. I’ve never been sad in my life.’

  Maybe it was true. He wasn’t sad, but he didn’t feel the need to laugh or joke either. He always stayed calm, and that was probably what people found disturbing.

  Even now, thinking of Holst, he is perfectly calm. He doesn’t feel the slightest bit anxious. Maybe just a lit
tle intrigued.

  Here, they drink coffee with sugar and real cream, they spread butter on bread along with jam or honey. It is almost white bread, the kind you probably wouldn’t find anywhere in the neighbourhood except at Timo’s.

  What do they eat in the apartment opposite? What does Gerhardt Holst eat? What does his daughter Sissy eat?

  ‘You’ve had hardly any breakfast,’ Lotte remarks – she, of course, has stuffed herself as usual.

  She used to be so hungry in the days when other people ate that she is always afraid he isn’t eating enough and would happily force-feed him like a goose.

  He can’t be bothered to get dressed. He has nothing to do outside at this hour anyway. He lounges about. He watches Lotte ironing his trousers, carefully scuffing away a few stains with the tips of her painted nails. Then he follows the new girl with his eyes. He sees her lay out on the little table the manicure equipment she does not know how to use.

  On the back of her still slender neck, where the skin is so thin it reminds him of a chicken’s, there are stray little strands of hair, which she tries sometimes to lift with a mechanical gesture.

  Sissy often does the same thing when she is going up or down the stairs.

  The new girl, as Lotte has already taught her, calls him Mr Frank. He asks her name, out of politeness.

  ‘Minna.’

  Her skirt is well cut, the material barely worn, and she seems clean. Has she ever made love before? It is likely, otherwise she wouldn’t have come to Lotte’s. But she has probably never done it for money, with just anybody.

  Later, when there is a client, he will climb up on the kitchen table. He is sure in advance that once she is down to her slip, she will turn to the wall and fiddle for a long time with her straps before stripping off completely.

  Sissy is just on the other side of the landing. When you emerge from the wide staircase, there is one door on the left and another on the right, before the corridor itself, off which other doors open. Some tenants occupy a whole apartment, others just a room, and there are three more floors above their heads. All the time, people can be heard going up and down. The women carry string bags and packages, and the more time passes, the harder they find the climb; one of them even fainted on the stairs a few days ago, and she is only in her thirties.

  He has never been inside the Holsts’ apartment. He does know some of the interiors, because tenants sometimes leave their doors open; some women do their washing in the corridor, even though it is forbidden by the landlord.

  Everywhere, during the day, there is a pervasive light that is too harsh, almost icy, because the windows are high and wide, the stairwell and corridors are painted white, and the snow outside is reflected throughout the building.

  ‘Have you ever learned the piano?’ Lotte asks the new girl.

  ‘I can play a little, madam.’

  ‘Then would you mind playing us a piece?’

  By tonight, Lotte will be a lot more familiar with her, but at the start she is always polite to them.

  There isn’t a trace of white in Lotte’s sandy hair; her face is still young. If she didn’t eat so much, if she didn’t let herself put on weight, she would be a beautiful woman, but she doesn’t care about her figure, on the contrary it is as if she is quite happy to gain weight; it seems to be deliberate on her part to always leave her dressing gown half open over her soft, heavy breasts, which shake every time she moves.

  ‘Your trousers are ironed. Are you going out?’

  ‘I don’t know yet.’

  He would happily sleep all day. That’s not possible, because the rooms have to be done, and sometimes clients arrive as early as midday. He rarely meets his friends before five. None of the people he knows really start living until the end of the day, so that for hours on end he just lounges about.

  He often stays in the kitchen in his dressing gown, unwashed and uncombed, his feet on the door of the stove, his feet in the stove, reading some book or other, and, if the fancy takes him, he gets on the table when he hears voices in the room.

  Today, without being too aware of it, he prowls around the new girl, who is playing the piano and doesn’t play badly. But he is not really bothered about her. His thoughts keep returning to Holst and Sissy, and that puts him in a bad mood. He doesn’t like a thought to plague him like that, like a fly on a stormy day.

  ‘Someone’s at the door, Frank.’

  The piano has almost drowned out the noise of the doorbell. Lotte puts away the ironing board and the iron, makes sure that everything is tidy, and says to Minna, ‘Carry on.’

  Then she half opens the door, recognizes the visitor and murmurs half-heartedly, ‘Oh, it’s you, Mr Hamling. Come in. Would you mind leaving us alone, Minna?’

  Holding her dressing gown with one hand, she moves a chair closer to the visitor.

  ‘Sit down. Why don’t you take off your galoshes?’

  ‘I shan’t stay long.’

  Minna has joined Frank in the kitchen. In the next room, Bertha is making the bed. The new girl is nervous and worried.

  ‘Is he a client?’ she asks.

  ‘He’s from the police, a chief inspector.’

  That puts her in even more of a panic, while Frank remains calm and slightly scornful.

  ‘Don’t worry. He’s a friend of my mother’s!’

  It’s almost true. Hamling knew Lotte in the old days, when she was a young girl. Was there something between them? It’s possible. In any case, now he is a man in his fifties, well built, with not an ounce of fat on him. He is probably not married. If he is, he never talks about his wife, and doesn’t wear a wedding ring.

  Everyone in the neighbourhood is scared of him, except Lotte.

  ‘You can come in, Frank.’

  ‘Hello, inspector.’

  ‘Hello, young man.’

  ‘Frank, why don’t you pour Mr Hamling a drink? I’d love one, too.’

  The chief inspector’s visits always follow the same pattern. It really does seem, as he enters, as if he has simply come to say hello as a neighbour, as a friend. He accepts the chair he is offered, and the little drink. He smokes his cigar, unbuttons his big black overcoat and gives a little sigh of satisfaction, like a man delighted to warm himself, to take a short break in a snug, friendly atmosphere.

  You always think he is going to say something, ask a question. In the early days, Lotte was convinced he was trying to find out what went on in her apartment.

  Even though they knew each other in the past, they lost touch for years, and he is a police inspector after all.

  ‘It’s good,’ he declares, putting his drink down on one of the pedestal tables.

  ‘It’s the best you can find these days.’

  Then silence falls, a silence that does not bother Kurt Hamling in the least. Maybe he does it deliberately, because he knows it disorientates other people, especially Lotte, who is only quiet when she has her mouth full.

  He looks calmly at the open piano, so innocent-looking, and the two little tables with the manicure set. He saw Minna as she left the room to go to the kitchen and must realize that she is new. He heard the piano from the landing.

  What does he think? Nobody knows. They have talked about it on several occasions.

  He must know what Lotte does for a living. Once he came in the afternoon – actually, it was the only time – when there was a client in the bedroom. The noises that could be heard coming from the salon would not have deceived anyone.

  On the pretext of keeping an eye on her stew, Lotte went through the kitchen and told the man not to leave until she gave him the all-clear.

  That time, exceptionally, Hamling stayed for two hours, for no reason, with no excuse, still with his air of paying a social visit.

  Could it be that he knows Minna? Could her parents have alerted the police?

  Lotte is all smiles. Frank, on the other hand, looks at him harshly, making no attempt to conceal the fact that he doesn’t like him. Hamling has hard features
and a hard body; he is a man of stone, making the contrast with his small eyes, which sparkle with irony, all the more striking. He always seems to be making fun of you.

  ‘Those gentlemen had work to do in your street today.’

  Frank doesn’t move a muscle. His mother can barely restrain herself from looking at him, as if sensing that her son had something to do with it.

  ‘A fat sergeant was killed near the tannery, a hundred metres from here. He spent the night in the snow. He’d just left Timo’s.’

  All this is said as if casually. He picks up his glass again, warms it in the hollow of his hand and slowly dips his lips in it.

  ‘I didn’t hear anything,’ Lotte says.

  ‘There were no shots, he was stabbed. They’ve already arrested someone.’

  Why does Frank immediately think Holst?

  It’s stupid. All the more stupid as it isn’t him at all.

  ‘You probably know him, Frank, he’s a boy your age, who lives with his mother in this building. On the first floor, right at the end of the corridor on the left. He’s a violinist.’

  ‘I’ve sometimes met a young man with a violin case.’

  ‘I’ve forgotten his name. He claims he didn’t leave his apartment last night, and his mother, of course, backs him up. He also states that he’s never set foot in Timo’s. It’s nothing to do with us. It’s those gentlemen who are handling the investigation. I’ve been told that his violin was just a front, that the black case he always had under his arm most often contained documents. Apparently, he belonged to a terrorist group.’

  Why should Frank flinch? He lights another cigarette. ‘I got the impression he has TB,’ he says.

  It’s true. Several times, he has passed on the stairs a tall, raw-boned young man, always dressed in black, with a coat that is too thin and a violin case under his arm. He was always pale, with red blotches under his eyes and a mouth that was too red, and he would sometimes stop on the stairs to cough himself hoarse.

  Hamling used the word terrorist, like the occupiers. Others use the word patriot. It doesn’t mean anything. Especially coming from a public official. It’s quite difficult to guess what he thinks.