Fear by Dirk Kurbjuweit

Author:Dirk Kurbjuweit
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: The Text Publishing Company
Published: 2016-12-16T16:00:00+00:00

19

WHEN I GOT UP, the first thing I did was to check in the entryway to see if there was a letter on the windowsill, but there was nothing. I left the house at nine and went to a laundry and drycleaners near the train station. It’s not a small business, not somewhere you’d take the odd skirt or shirt, but more like a factory, catering to professional customers: local restaurants or bed and breakfasts. The manager, a man named Thomas Walther, let the basement to Dieter Tiberius.

The woman at the counter sent me to the back of the building through a heavy steel door. I found myself in a kind of small hangar dotted with machinery, including what looked like enormous washing machines. It was hot; damp gathered on my skin. I saw steam and heard a rumbling and a hissing. People in white overalls stood between the machines. Because of the steam I did not immediately recognise Walther. I asked around and found him standing by a machine from which a young woman was pulling white sheets. The two of them were laughing as I approached.

I had thought he would remember me, just as I remembered him from the conversation we’d had with the other homeowners in our building, but he did not. I told him who I was and asked whether I could speak to him in private. The woman was from Moldova and didn’t understand a word of German, said Walther. She hadn’t let herself be put off by my arrival and carried on pulling sheets from the machine.

His tenant, I said, was seriously harassing my wife—could he, as the man’s landlord, not give him notice? It was impossible for us to continue living under the same roof. I was prepared to find a new tenant for the basement and would bear all resulting costs. I had to talk loudly to make myself heard above the rumble and hiss of the machines.

‘What’s old Dieter been up to then?’ asked Walther.

It worried me that he referred to him so familiarly.

‘He writes my wife obscene letters,’ I said. I could tell from Walther’s face that he was not at all perturbed.

‘Love letters?’ he asked.

‘No, obscene letters,’ I said. ‘About sex, perverted sex.’

He nodded knowingly and then said: ‘I’ve never had any trouble with Dieter.’

‘He claims that we are sexually abusing our children,’ I said.

The woman from Moldova looked at me. She had pulled all the sheets out of the washing machine and stowed them in a trolley.

‘That you’re sexually abusing your children,’ said Walther, in a semi-questioning tone.

‘We don’t abuse our children,’ I said, and immediately realised that it made me sound guilty as hell. You shouldn’t have to tell anyone that you don’t abuse your children—it should go without saying. Sweat was pouring down my face. It was hot between the machines, and my shirt and suit trousers were sticking to my skin.

Now Walther looked at me with interest, almost searchingly. ‘And what makes Dieter think that?’ he asked.

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