Berlin Noir by Thomas Wörtche

Author:Thomas Wörtche
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Akashic Books
Published: 2015-05-06T16:00:00+00:00

Valverde

by Ute Cohen

Grunewald

He sat behind the rhododendron shrub and waited for the shrill echo of her voice to fade. It went right through him and he couldn’t bear it anymore. The only comforting part was that she trembled at the sight of him; he awakened something archaic in her, which she herself had no idea was there. Madame was the ringleader: she was affected, babbling with a terrible accent in what she imagined to be French. Her blue-marbled bare feet tested the temperature of the wet grass before she sat down in the covered wicker beach chair. An import from Sylt, just like the bubbly, which she deposited on a wooden table in a bucket filled with ice. With crossed arms, she squinted at the sun, seeming to have forgotten him for a moment. The wind blew the smell of fried chicken over to him. He wondered how she could eat that disgusting food. Putrid meat pumped with chemicals that her Thai housekeeper fried in peanut oil, dabbed with a paper towel, and drizzled with a disgustingly sweet soy sauce. One morning, when Madame was still asleep, the housekeeper had given him a piece to taste. Somehow, in her esoteric-Asian simplicity, she believed that doing him good would bring her happiness. But if he now had to take care of the domestics as well, he wouldn’t get a thing done. He had set himself clear priorities. At the top of the list were the Big Five, and this Asian chow wasn’t going to get in his way. He lay in the grass, hidden by the leathery leaves of the shrub.

Madame unfolded the footrest of the beach chair and looked at her toenails, which were painted the same garish pink as the rhododendron flowers. Back to nature, she probably thought to herself, feeling proud that she was so in touch with the living world. He hated himself for being able to smell her thoughts like a damned dog that would lick her ass for a fucking treat. He was careful not to make the slightest sound. He wouldn’t be able to take her voice a second time.

Valverde. He wondered how she’d come up with that stupid name. Here they were, in the middle of snobbish Grunewald, beside Charlottengrad, Little Russia, and there was nothing even remotely fucking valley-like about it. He squinted and forced himself to think clearly again and, above all, to expel from his mind the fake proletarian slang used by spoiled Grunewald brats and their champagne-sipping tennis moms. Valverde. Maybe they were thinking of that character Valmont, who had at least managed to pull off a halfway decent deflowering and had driven that aristocratic mishpachah to the brink of madness with his intrigues. This lot certainly didn’t underestimate his intelligence, and the fact that he was still considered eligible for liaisons dangereuses even flattered him a little. He had to be disciplined—after all, he knew his weaknesses. As much as he liked to seduce others, he wasn’t immune to sweet talk and flattery.

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