Happy Birthday Turk by Jakob Arjouni

Author:Jakob Arjouni
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9780880641487
Publisher: Fromm Intl
Published: 1985-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

3

The Löffs live in Nieder-Eschbach, a suburb of terraced houses on the fringe of our metropolis. The numbers on the glass or plastic lights hanging in front of the houses are the only thing that distinguishes one beige shoebox from another. In front of each one lies a manicured little lawn, four by four metres, bordered by carefully planted flowering shrubs, and these in turn are surrounded by a low picket fence, stained brown, whose sharp points serve no other purpose than to puncture the eyes of small children who may fall on them. The air of long summer evenings reeks of charcoal grill smoke, and one can see excited heads of households running about in their dark blue sweatsuits, swinging sausages and pork chops. I steered the Opel down the quiet street at a sedate pace, looking for number thirty-four. Then I spotted it on a wrought-iron coach lamp next to a door of blue corrugated glass. I parked and got out of the car. The only traffic noise was the distant buzz of a moped. Smells of half-cooked food wafted from open windows. Behind a barred basement window, a woman’s voice warbled, “Die Gedanken sind frei …”

I opened the gate, stumbled over a stupidly grinning garden gnome, and pushed the doorbell button. It responded with a high-pitched two-note chime. Mrs. Löff came to the door wearing a bright floral apron.

“Mr. Kayankaya! Come in, this way. Lunch will be ready in a minute. My husband’s in the living room.”

For a sixty-year-old, she was in fine shape. Her husband, however, was somewhat at a loss what to do with his free time once he was done tending his vegetable garden. Theobald Löff’s favourite pastime consists of regaling willing audiences with stories of heroic deeds from his law enforcement career.

I walked through the low-ceilinged light brown vestibule into the living room. When the Löffs had moved in, years ago, they had first placed a gigantic television set in the corner and then arranged the rest of the furniture around it. A living room suite upholstered in coffee-coloured corduroy faced the monstrous TV, and so did the other easy chairs in the room. Even the lamps were positioned to provide a pleasantly muted background light. On the walls were engravings of various castles and afghans with rustic motifs. Mrs. Löff must spend her long winter evenings crocheting these—at least, that was what they looked like. On two coffee tables lay seed catalogues and television magazines.

Löff sat in his easy chair, hands folded on his lap. He was looking out onto a patch of his garden. When I entered, he got up and shuffled over in his terrycloth slippers.

“Hello, Mr. Kayankaya! How nice to see you again.”

I shook his small, thin hand. Löff has an abundant head of grey hair: at first sight, it looks like a fur hat on the slightly built and now somewhat rickety fellow. His face is narrow and covered with little wrinkles like a dried-up apple. His imposing aquiline nose is its most noticeable feature.

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