The Zurich Conspiracy by Bernadette Calonego Page A

windows. The Frohmatt school was in a district of Zurich where a huge number of foreigners lived because housing was cheap. There were only two native Swiss children in Frau Yilmaz’s class; her own parents were Turkish, but she’d been raised in Switzerland.
    After talking with her on the phone Josefa expected her to be a much more matronly, strong-minded lady. Instead she was surprised to see such a gorgeous young woman in such a dilapidated old school building. The teacher was even willing to meet her in the middle of summer vacation. The fact that Josefa was here in the first place was rather surprising. She had no desire to be in a classroom talking with a teacher about a child she had nothing to do with; but in spite of it Josefa had promised to look in on the family from Kosovo even before Stefan came over. She had resolved to make it clear once and for all that she was not authorized to negotiate their problems with the school psychologist or whoever. But in the end the little boy she called “Sali,” because that’s how he greeted everybody, brought her around. Those dark, wide-open eyes got to her, and she just couldn’t muster up the firmness of voice that his obstinate father would ultimately have understood to say that she would turn down his request to meet with his son’s teacher.
    “You obviously have the family’s trust,” Elif Yilmaz said. “That’s important, and it can help Sali.”
    Josefa was taken aback. “His name’s Sali? That’s his real name?”
    “Yes, Sali Emini.”
    The teacher stood up, took a stack of drawings out of a drawer, and picked one out.
    “This is one of his drawings.”
    In the upper corner were some hills, leaves whirled through the air, and bizarre tree trunks grew out of huge pots.
    “Nice autumn scene, isn’t it?”
    Something strange in her voice made Josefa take a second look. Suddenly she realized that the tree trunks were tank guns pointing to the sky. What she had thought were branches were actually lines depicting explosions. The leaves flying around were human body parts—hands and feet. And what she had assumed was a large chestnut on the ground, turned out to be a disembodied head.
    “Oh my God!” Josefa whispered.
    “God’s not in that picture, he’s on holiday somewhere,” Frau Yilmaz muttered. “But the school psychologist, she might be able to help. With some therapy. Since the boy can hardly speak German, maybe music or art therapy. But I need the parents’ permission.”
    “Have you spoken to them?”
    The teacher put the sketches away. She had a small tattoo on her finger that looked like an ornate ring. “His father refuses to talk to me because I’m Turkish. Maybe he had a fight with a Turk once, what do I know. Isn’t it crazy?” The young woman traced a finger along her perfectly plucked eyebrows. “People run away from war and take their conflicts with them, bring them here.”
    Josefa reflected for a minute or two. “What can I do?”
    “Fill out the form, tell the family it’s from the school doctor, and have his father sign it.”
    She didn’t wait for an answer but offered Josefa her hand with a friendly smile. “Great that you’re looking after this. These kids need all the help they can get. Sali’s a dear boy, you know, not as aggressive as many of the kids from Kosovo, but that’s what worries me. He doesn’t get his fear out.”
    As Josefa left the school building, the roar of the nearby highway was overwhelming. The air must be very dirty here, she thought. Summer smog. Josefa had only one day of vacation left and still didn’t know what to do about Schulmann.
    Some boys and girls were playing soccer in the schoolyard, and a man by the fence was watching them. He looked familiar. Passing him on her way to the car, she got a closer look. He was about forty and well dressed. When she looked again in the rearview mirror he’d disappeared. It struck her that she knew where she’d seen him before: he’d been