A Guardian Angel Recalls by Willem Frederik Hermans

Author:Willem Frederik Hermans [Hermans, Willem Frederik]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Steerforth Press
Published: 2021-10-12T00:00:00+00:00

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Beumer carried on down the corridor; Alberegt went to his own office. Sitting at his desk, he said to himself, Countless possibilities, but all uncertain, premature. He popped a peppermint into his mouth and let it rest on his tongue. He now turned to the yellow oil stains on his blotting pad and thought, Has nobody wondered how those stains got into that blotting paper? It’s not as if I ever sit down to a meal of fried herring or smoked eel at my desk.

In the blotting pad there were three sheets of blotting paper one on top of the other. He removed them and saw that the oil had penetrated through to the second, yes, even the third sheet, but the stains in those were much smaller, though more noticeable because the sheets were otherwise clean. Give them to Rense to frame.

Then he screwed the top two sheets up into a ball and pulled his top left-hand drawer open. Holding the crumpled blotting paper, he looked at the Swiss army knife and the disassembled pistol. If nothing succeeds, if there’s nothing else, I’ll have to find someone to fix it for me. I’ve never shot at a person, only at a target. It’s sad to have a pistol for so many years and then only end up killing yourself with it, nobody else. He took the Swiss army knife, put it in his pocket, then crammed the blotting paper into the drawer, closed and locked it.

It was approaching half past ten when he left the building again. He couldn’t concentrate on anything except Beumer. Was the whole story a fabrication, perhaps? Had Leikowits reported the girl missing and had Beumer remembered seeing the letter from Ottla Lindenbaum on his desk, and was that why Beumer, in an attempt to save him, had made up that story about the wanted list? To avoid coming straight out with it and saying, Bert, I believe you’ve done something terrible, so take my advice and disappear?

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