Guilt by Ferdinand von Schirach

Author:Ferdinand von Schirach
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780701186487
Publisher: Chatto & Windus
Published: 2010-01-02T05:00:00+00:00

Snow

The old man stood in the kitchen and smoked. It was August, the day was warm, and he’d opened the window wide. He looked at the ashtray: a naked mermaid with a green fishtail and underneath, in script, “Welcome to the Reeperbahn.” He didn’t know where he’d got it. The color on the girl had faded and the “R” of Reeperbahn had disappeared. The drops of water splashed into the metal sink, slow and hard. It calmed him. He would remain at the window, smoking and doing nothing.

The special task force had assembled in front of the building. The policemen were wearing uniforms that looked too big, and black helmets; they carried transparent shields. They were brought in when things got too difficult for the others, and armed resistance was anticipated. They were hard men with a hard code. Their task force had also suffered deaths and injuries, and the adrenaline was building up in them too. They had their orders: “Drug den, suspects thought to be armed, arrest.” They were now standing silently by the garbage cans in the courtyard and waiting both on the staircase and in front of the apartment. It was too hot under their helmets and their riot masks. They were waiting for the word from the leader of the task force; everyone was eager to hear it now. At some point he would yell “Go, go, go” and then they’d do what they had been trained to do.

The old man at the window thought about Hassan and his friends. They had the key to his apartment and when they came during the night they made up the little packages in his kitchen, “stretching,” they called it, two-thirds heroin, one-third Lidocaine. They compressed it into rectangular lumps with a jack. Each lump weighed a kilo. Hassan paid the old man a thousand euros every month, and he did it punctually.

Of course it was too much for one and a half rooms in the back of a building, fourth floor, too dark. But they wanted the old man’s apartment; nothing served them better as their “bunker,” as they called it. The kitchen was big enough and that was all they needed. The old man slept in the room and when they came he switched on the television so that he didn’t have to listen to them. The only thing was, he couldn’t cook any more: the kitchen was crammed with plastic wrappers, precision balances, spatulas, and rolls of adhesive tape. The worst thing was the white dust that settled in a film on everything. Hassan had explained the risk to the old man, but he didn’t care. He had nothing to lose. It was a good business arrangement, and he’d never cooked anyway. He drew on his cigarette and looked up at the sky: not a cloud to be seen; it would get even hotter before evening.

——

He first heard the policemen when they broke down the door. It all went fast, and there was no point in fighting back.

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