The Snowman

  Jörg Fauser, born in Germany in 1944, was a novelist, essayist and journalist. Having broken his dependency on heroin at the age of thirty, he produced three successful novels, including The Snowman, and highly praised essays of literary criticism. On 16 July 1987 he had been out celebrating his forty-third birthday. At dawn, instead of going back to his home, he wandered on to a stretch of motorway, by chance or by choice, and was struck down by a heavy goods lorry. He died instantly.

  THE SNOWMAN

  Jörg Fauser

  Translated from the German by

  Anthea Bell

  BITTER LEMON PRESS

  LONDON

  BITTER LEMON PRESS

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2004 by

  Bitter Lemon Press, 37 Arundel Gardens, London W11 2LW

  www.bitterlemonpress.com

  First published in German as Der Schneemann by

  Rogner & Bernhard Verlag, Munich, 1981

  The publication of this work was supported by a grant from the Goethe-Institut.

  © Gabriele Fauser 2000

  English translation © Anthea Bell 2004

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in any form or by any means without written permission of the publisher.

  The moral right of Anthea Bell has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988.

  A CIP record for this book is available from the British Library

  ISBN 978–1–9047–3896–1

  Typeset by RefineCatch Limited, Broad Street, Bungay, Suffolk

  Contents

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  1

  Blum looked at his watch. High time to make a move. He drained his coffee cup, took a toothpick out of its plastic container and signalled to the waiter. The bill wasn’t enormous – convert it to German currency and it came to no more than five marks – but he’d definitely have to do a deal soon if he was going to afford hot lunches next week. He hated breaking into his emergency funds. He put a couple of cents in his saucer as a tip, and as he left he waved his rolled-up Times of Malta to the manager, who was sitting playing cards with the proprietor’s daughter. Bright lad. Could be a customer some time soon.

  The light was so strong that it momentarily blinded him. He felt for his sunglasses, and just as he realized that he must have left them in the hotel he saw the car that had been constantly in his vicinity for some days, parked beside the carriage pulled by the feeble old white horse. One of the two men in the car now got out and came towards him, a short man with black hair and a suede jacket. The kind of person who never forgets his sunglasses.

  “Mr Blum?”

  Although he had just had something to drink, his throat felt dry. He took the toothpick out of his mouth.

  “Yes?”

  “This won’t take a moment, sir.”

  The man opened a wallet and showed his ID, the sort of ID that looks the same all over the world. Blum felt himself breaking out in a sweat. He heard the voice of the retired English major in the newsagent’s. Yet again the Daily Mail had failed to arrive.

  “What’s it all about?”

  “Inspector Cassar will explain. A mere formality.”

  “Inspector Cassar? I don’t understand. I’m a tourist . . .”

  But Blum understood very well, and it was clear that the policeman knew he did. As usual, the major let himself be persuaded to buy the Daily Telegraph instead, and Blum threw his toothpick away and followed the police officer to the car. There didn’t seem to be anything he could do, not this early in the day.

  2

  It was a small, stuffy room, but they mostly were. There was a fan in the ceiling, but it was not switched on. Power shortage. The inspector had pushed his chair right back to the wall. His face was in shadow, but Blum had seen enough to know it was not the kind of face you’d want to remember. Neatly parted brown hair, a permanent twitch around the fish-like mouth. His dark suit was faultlessly ironed, and the fingers leafing through Blum’s passport were muscular and perfectly manicured. They put the passport aside, looked through a file, and returned to the passport. Maybe they liked its paper better.

  “You have a tourist visa valid for one month, Mr Blum.”

  Inspector Cassar spoke impeccable bureaucrat’s English. The bastard, thought Blum. He nodded.

  “It expires in three days’ time.”

  “I could have it extended.”

  “Why would you want to do that?”

  “Well, for instance, because I like it so much here on Malta.”

  “You’ve already spent a considerable amount of time in these parts, Mr Blum. Rather unusual for a tourist, wouldn’t you agree?”

  “I know tourists who’ve been on their travels for years.”

  “You mean the long-haired sort with their backpacks and guitars? Young people? Oh, come on, Mr Blum, really! If your passport isn’t a fake you were born on 29 March 1940. I don’t think you can still be regarded as one of the younger generation.”

  Blum stared at the wall. A fly was inspecting the picture of the President. The man looked more likely to inspire confidence than Inspector Cassar. Maybe that was one reason why he got to be President.

  “May I ask what your profession is, Mr Blum?” The inspector’s voice still sounded officially distanced and civil, but Blum could hear a harder note in it.

  “I’m a businessman, sir.”

  The inspector moved his chair closer and picked up the file again. “Oh yes. And what kind of business are you in?”

  “Most recently I was with an import–export company in Berlin.”

  “Most recently?”

  “Well, the firm wasn’t doing too well, so I got my partners to buy me out and then I thought I’d go on vacation for a while. A creative break, you understand.”

  Inspector Cassar was very close to the desk now, and a strip of sunlight fell over his face. His eyes were yellow. The eyes of a beast of prey. Blum felt his heart thud. He stubbed out his cigarette. His fingers were damp with perspiration.

  “For someone in the import–export business you have an unusual vocabulary, Mr Blum. Creative break – garbage! Would you like me to tell you why you fancied this ‘creative break’? Because you’re a member of an international art theft gang, and you plan to start operating in Morocco and Spain and Tunisia and here in Malta, the way you did back in Istanbul!”

  The hard edge that Cassar’s tone had assumed reminded Blum of certain particularly self-opinionated schoolteachers he’d known. The inspector lit a Benson & Hedges and blew the smoke over the desk in the direction of Blum’s blazer.

  “Istanbul? I don’t quite understand . . .”

  Cassar tapped the file.

  “You understand perfectly, Mr Blum. In 1969, according to Interpol, you were part of the organization stealing antique artworks to the tune of over two million dollars from the Izmir Archaeological Museum, including the diadem depicting the twelve labours of
Hercules . . .”

  Blum cleared his throat.

  “Inspector, please allow me to interrupt you, sir. You’re bringing up all those slanders that I was able to disprove to the Istanbul police at the time. If Interpol is still making such accusations then they’re nothing but totally outlandish rumours and suspicions, and I’d sue if it wouldn’t be just a waste of my time.”

  Cassar forced a smile. “You’d sue Interpol? I must say, Mr Blum, you have quite a nerve!”

  “I had nothing to do with it at all! Do you think the Turks would have let me go if they could have shown that I had the slightest connection with the case?”

  “Right now I’m not interested in what the Turks did or didn’t do.” The tone of Cassar’s voice was cutting. “If you’ve been hatching any plans for here, Blum, forget it. Art theft on Malta wouldn’t just be against the law of our democratic republic, it would be a direct offence to the Catholic faith of the population, and you couldn’t atone for that in a single lifetime.”

  He threw the file dismissively into the filing cabinet. The fly on the picture crapped on the President’s ear. Blum stood up.

  “I’m not an art thief, Inspector Cassar.”

  “Well, whatever your line is, Mr Blum, you won’t have much chance to pursue it here. As I said before, your visa runs out in three days’ time, and if I were you I wouldn’t be too hopeful about getting another. Maybe you can continue your ‘creative break’ in Italy. The door’s over there.”

  “I shall complain to my ambassador.”

  “Go ahead, Mr Blum, and good luck. But don’t forget, if you’re still on Malta an hour after your visa runs out, your ambassador can visit you in Kordin.”

  “Kordin?”

  “Our civil prison, Mr Blum.”

  3

  When the mosquito entered the beam of light from the bedside lamp and began zooming about right in front of the wall, Blum picked up one of the porn magazines and killed it. The wallpaper of the hotel bedroom was spattered with squashed mosquitoes. Blum wiped the magazine on the bedpost and handed it to the Pakistani, who was sitting on the coverlet watching him with eyes older than Pakistan, as old as all that goes on between man, woman and mosquito in the dusk.

  “That’s life,” said Blum. “Hard but fair.”

  “An interesting thought,” said the Pakistani.

  Blum took the packet of HB out of his blazer pocket, lit a cigarette and offered the packet to the Pakistani.

  “I don’t smoke, thanks,” he said, smiling, and tipped his head to one side. His skin looked even darker in the dim light. He was wearing a green artificial silk suit and linen shoes, no socks. His long, greasy hair, already touched with grey here and there, lay around his smooth-skinned face like a wreath.

  “You’re right,” said Blum. “Sex is healthier.” He looked at his watch. “However, I’m afraid I don’t have all day for you, Mr Waq . . .”

  “Haq,” the Pakistani corrected him. “Hassan Abdul Haq.”

  “Of course. Mr Haq. Well, what do you think? I’m not sure how much you know about these things, but there’s absolutely nothing to equal this old Danish porn.”

  The Pakistani leafed through the magazines while Blum looked round the room. Category D, he thought, spartan but clean. In summer the old palazzo would probably be quite comfortable, but now, in March, a chill still lingered. And there were mosquitoes all the year round. The Pakistani was travelling light – a small plastic suitcase under the wash-stand, two shirts drying on wire hangers, and magazines and paperbacks which didn’t look as if they came from Pakistan on the rickety bedside table. However, Mr Haq had a Remington, and he used expensive aftershave. Blum had travelled lighter himself, and he too couldn’t always afford category C.

  Mr Haq put the magazine down, looked at Blum with some disappointment, and said, “American products strike me as – how shall I put it? – more realistic.”

  Blum stubbed out his half-smoked cigarette. The tourists were beginning to sing in the inner courtyard, and he was in a hurry.

  “You mean brutal. The Americans are more brutal. Now these are from a time when people still knew how to enjoy each other, if you see what I mean.”

  Why was he bothering with this? The man probably buggered three sacred cows before breakfast every day. It was crazy anyway, trying to flog porn to Asians.

  “What’s more, there’s nothing else in this line on Malta. So if you want any you’ll have to buy mine, Mr Faq. And let me tell you one thing – the Americans will leave your lot in the shit when the Russians come over the Khyber Pass.”

  “Haq,” said the Pakistani, unmoved. “Hassan Abdul Haq. Have you ever been to my country, then?”

  No, Mr Blum never had, nor did he intend to go there, not right now. What he saw about it in the newspapers was enough for him.

  “Afghanis might get some satisfaction from these products, but in my view they have no artistic merit.”

  Quite possibly Blum agreed, but no Pakistani was going to tell him so. He picked up a magazine and showed him the best bits.

  “These are classics, my dear fellow. Denmark 1968, it’s kind of like a vintage wine, know what I mean about vintage wines? Well, no, your sort don’t drink, of course. But I can get any price I care to name in Cairo, any price.”

  However, Mr Haq was not Egyptian, he disapproved of Egyptians on both personal and political grounds, and 1968 meant nothing to him either. He said he thought the magazines were boring. “Always the same woman, always the same man.”

  “Well, it’s always the same game,” said Blum. “Maybe the Chinese know a few extra tricks – or the Amazonian Indians, but in itself, as such, it’s always the same old thing. Anyway, what do you mean, artistic merit? Who wants artistic merit?”

  “American magazines are more interesting.”

  The Pakistani was staring at a point somewhere over Blum’s shoulder. Blum heard a mosquito whining. He’s waiting for me to kill that one too, he thought. He likes to have me kill mosquitoes for him. The Paki sits on the bed running down the porn magazines while the white man chases around the room squashing mosquitoes. Some people might think that funny. Not me.

  “Maybe you want pictures of two men fisting each other? Or does watching a blonde do it with a pig bring you off? Perhaps you fancy little kids being screwed, Mr Haq?”

  Mr Haq looked at Blum as if he were giving this idea profound consideration, and then said, “I could use a man like you, Mr Blum.”

  For a brief, intriguing moment Blum thought the other man was making him a sexual proposition, but then Mr Haq began talking about Saudi Arabia. The people singing in the courtyard struck up “Guantanamera” – three hoarse male and two shrill female voices. Blum was starting to feel he needed a drink.

  “I don’t want anything to do with Saudi Arabia, Mr Haq. They jail you there for a bottle of whisky. Or give you 100 lashes on the soles of your feet. No thanks!”

  “No, no, you can earn good money with whisky. They don’t lash you unless you get caught, Mr Blum. And just think of the problem of available sex . . .” The Pakistani seemed to have taken it into his head to enlist this German to help him make his fortune in Saudi Arabia. He told him about the airport built in the middle of the desert sand by German specialists and Pakistani immigrant workers – 15,000 men living in huts, no women and no alcohol, or nothing like enough of either, now wasn’t that the kind of golden opportunity that might never come his way again?

  “Possibly,” said Blum. He stacked the magazines together again. “But I can do okay in Cairo too. Don’t you at least want these few? I can give you a good price.”

  The Pakistani seemed to be waiting for something. Blum did him the favour of killing another mosquito, but Mr Haq clearly had something else in mind. He sat on the bed with his hands folded and stared into the last of the daylight.

  “I have good contacts in Jeddah,” he said quietly. “One American made a fortune in three months there with watered whisky.”

  “
Maybe he needed it,” said Blum.

  “And you don’t, Mr Blum?”

  “Not enough to get mixed up with the Saudis.”

  “I always knew the Germans were prosperous.”

  “I must go, Mr Haq.”

  “Do forgive me for not having offered you anything . . .”

  “I’m here to offer you something.”

  “Here, have some of this chocolate. Maltese, but it doesn’t taste bad.”

  Finally Mr Haq deigned to buy two magazines, but he haggled over fifty cents so long that when Blum closed the door he had a bitter taste in his mouth, and not just because he was thirsty.

  4

  Even when business was bad or deportation threatened, Blum allowed himself a good dinner in an agreeable bar at least once a week, and in Malta he had chosen Thursdays for this purpose. On Thursdays they had a curry night in the Pegasus Bar of the Phoenicia Hotel. Blum liked the place – a hotel in the colonial British style, a bar decorated with fake medieval weapons, a sarong-clad waitress on duty specially for the curry night, Englishmen in the textiles industry who sighed and had second helpings of everything, and American tourists tearing their President to shreds after the third bourbon. The dollar was at rock bottom again.

  Mr Hackensack did not hold forth about the President. Nor was he a tourist.

  “I’m a loyal American citizen,” he said, having lit his Davidoff. “A patriot. Just so long as no one catches him selling the White House silver spoons to the Russians, the President’s above suspicion, that’s the way I see it.”

  Hackensack was a corpulent man of around sixty who squeezed his bulky body into check suits much too small for him, and planted excessively colourful hats on his massive head. The rolls of flesh on his chin and cheeks compressed his mouth so that its pursed lips made it look curiously small and delicate. There were flashy rubies set in solid gold on the middle and ring fingers of his left hand, and a matching tie-pin glittered in his spotted tie. Blum had often had a drink with Hackensack before, but only this evening did the American let slip that he himself had worked for the government.