Brenner and God by Wolf Haas

Author:Wolf Haas
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781612191140
Publisher: Melville House
Published: 2012-06-11T21:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 14

Sixty-three hours after Helena’s disappearance and just before midnight, Brenner stood in the South Tyrolean’s doorway, and immediately, she rolled her eyes. And believe it or not, Brenner rolled his eyes, too. Let’s be honest, great love stories don’t usually begin this way, but the eye rolling was warranted, and in fact, both sides were fully entitled.

Brenner rolled his eyes because he could barely make it through the door on account of all the plants—“gardening” doesn’t come close. And she rolled her eyes because Brenner still gave off a residual whiff of cesspit, even though he’d showered for fifteen minutes in the cabin’s swank bathroom and then put on a fresh set of clothes from his duffel bag. And before you ask what he did with his dirty clothes—he threw them into the Kitzbühel Ache River. But the stink must have settled somewhere deep in his pores, or else the South Tyrolean simply had an acute sense of smell. Her description of the woman at the gas station was the opposite of acute—exactly as vague as his whiff of cesspit. Approximately all the women in the world were brought under suspicion. No height, no hair color, no nothing. And as for the child, she wasn’t even a hundred percent certain whether there’d been one.

“But she wasn’t a man—that you’re sure of,” Brenner grumbled. Because he was starting to get the suspicion that she had lured him over under false pretenses, just because she was getting bored without a newspaper.

“You think I don’t have eyes in my head?”

Brenner didn’t say anything to that, because first of all, he was far too tired to argue, and second, the South Tyrolean had cooked him such good midnight spaghetti that he nearly fell blissfully asleep at the table. Because South Tyrolean women: always good cooks. And when, after three plates of pasta, Brenner felt more pregnant than any patient who’d ever shown up at the abortion clinic, the cook even offered that he could spend the night. Not what you think, though! Because the South Tyrolean made it abundantly clear to him that he shouldn’t misunderstand her.

“Woascheh,” the South Tyrolean said to Brenner, but it was in South Tyrolean and really only meant, “You know, eh?”

Brenner understood it, no problem, because a classmate of his at the police academy was from Sterzing. Ladinig was his name, always won all the executive ski championships, and an avid mountain climber in the summer, driving home every weekend and mountain climbing. Interesting though, it wasn’t in South Tyrol where he crashed, but on the Matterhorn. Two weeks after their graduation from the police academy. Ladinig had always used the catch-all “Woascheh,” too, and so Brenner was able to understand the South Tyrolean now without any trouble.

And interesting: after just that one word he knew truly everything, and she wouldn’t have to explain in any detail why the topic of sex had long been, and would always be, off-limits for her. She wouldn’t have to open up

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