More Beer by Jakob Arjouni Page B

an intelligent one. He had no charm, he was a bore, almost a simpleton. Friedrich was something else. He was smart, witty, always ahead of the game. He was able to insult people and then placate them with a single gesture. He took them by storm. Besides, he was young, good-looking, and rich. He enjoyed life. For his father, the factory was everything—I think I was the only luxury he ever permitted himself in his whole life. Friedrich did well, until his father died. He was approaching thirty and realizing that charm and youth would soon be over. And there was this factory, and it wasn’t in Munich or Düsseldorf, it was in Doppenburg, and someone had to run it. From then on, the factory became his life. At first he tried to keep up his old lifestyle: nights in Frankfurt or Cologne, days at the factory, but at some point he realized that the factory wouldlose out under this arrangement. And then he made the biggest mistake of his life. He married his nineteen-year-old secretary, believing that he could hold on to his youth that way! And she was a pretty little thing. Not only that—she knew exactly what she wanted.”
    She crossed her arms and looked at me.
    “I don’t say that out of jealousy. I admire women who have no illusions. But this girl was a champion of cunning. Friedrich had fallen in love with her, and he believed everything she said, just as I had once believed my American sergeant. She forced the philanderer to his knees. Somehow he then managed to convince himself that he had come out ahead in the deal. After all, he was a successful businessman with a pretty wife, and so on …”
    She laughed bitterly. It was time for me to ask a couple of questions. It was also time to admit to myself that I was drunk. I tried to marshal my thoughts, but didn’t come up with anything better than “So you loved him until the end?” And the drama rolled on.
    “Call me crazy, go ahead—but, yes. Even after he had turned into an evil person.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “All kinds of things. Ask his mother what she thought of her son. She did not show up at his funeral.”
    “Oh, I didn’t know …”
    “Yes. Herta Böllig, Otto Böllig’s widow, is still alive. When you drive up to the plant, you’ll pass a refreshment kiosk where an old woman sells cigarettes and beer.”
    The female Hunchback of Notre-Dame. Slowly I closed my mouth again. The Polish woman understood.
    “So you’ve met her? Right. Soon after Friedrich got married to Brigitte, the latter decided that the old lady was an encumbrance to the household. Friedrich resisted at first, but she was soon relocated to an outbuilding that had been used as a storage space. Her next and final stop would have been the old folks’ home. Without consulting anybody, Herta Böllig fired the man who was running the kiosk, furnished the back room, and moved in. You can imagine what a scandal that was, here in Doppenburg. Friedrich tried everything to get her out of there, but she wouldn’t leave. Finally he let his wife convince him that it was the best arrangement for all concerned. People got used to it. Among the employees it became a taboo subject. I am the only person she still talks to. I, the former mistress of her husband.”
    Such a story, such vodka. God, the stories I would be able to tell when I was sixty … But maybe I was more like one of those plays without a plot, I told myself; and besides, who would want to drop in on me?
    “Now that we’ve opened this can of worms—tell me, what happened to Friedrich Böllig’s son? I’m told he is in an institution?”
    She had another hefty slug of vodka, leaned against the window bench, held her glass with both hands. Eastern Europeans have a special wooden leg for the stuff.
    “That’s all I know. I’ve never seen the child. He lives in a closed ward. Meningitis, right after he was born.”
    “You know the name of the institution?”
    “Sorry, I don’t even know the boy’s name. All I