The Stronger Sex Read online

  I was ready to believe the man capable of anything by now. But I didn’t know what to make of Katharina Fuchs. After all, she’d been in a relationship with him for ten whole years. Just for what she could get out of him? I had no idea what sort of person she was.

  And above all I didn’t know what surprise revelations she might spring on me in court.

  10

  The weekend was unexpectedly peaceful. While I looked through the files and signed them, I had begun wondering whether to call Frauke and indeed whether it would be tactically wise to do so at the moment. She hadn’t been in touch since the event at Frau Novotna’s gallery, which had ended with the two of us going our separate ways, and I could easily believe that she wanted to let me stew in my own juice.

  Or it was also possible that she herself, if I showed I wasn’t impressed by such conduct, would begin feeling insecure if not even jealous, and would unexpectedly turn up maybe on Sunday morning, maybe on Monday evening, perfectly casual, carefree and at her ease, apparently without any recollection of our quarrel and the icy silence that had followed it.

  I was even wondering whether there was any point in bothering about the tactical wisdom of making overtures to Frauke again. Did I know how our relationship was going to turn out in the long run? I wasn’t sure.

  However, I did know that I didn’t want to spend the weekend on my own. Waiting for the phone call that Cilly Klofft said she’d give me? Imagining the surprises that Frau Fuchs’s lawyer might come up with in his bill of complaint?

  While I was feeling increasingly gloomy over that prospect, the phone rang. It was Frauke – yes, perfectly casual, carefree and at her ease. She said an engagement she’d had for the evening had fallen through quite unexpectedly, she could leave the office now, and how was I fixed?

  We met outside the cinema. That was Frauke’s idea, and we’d agreed on Live Free, Die Hard, although I didn’t much like the hunk with the thuggish bald patch and childish nose, and definitely not the way he kept dying without ever ending up in his well-earned grave. During the shoot-out I was wondering how Frauke would react if Cilly Klofft’s call came late that evening. I forgot the question when Frauke began massaging my thigh.

  After the film we went to the restaurant next door for some pasta and then back to my place. It was a pleasant night; Frauke obviously thought so too, and I enjoyed it not least because my fears that my sexual inclinations might have shifted dramatically and alarmingly proved unfounded in practice.

  Saturday morning was sunny and a little windy. A few small white clouds chased over the deep blue sky. I got up, taking care not to wake Frauke, who had thrown off the duvet but covered her face with one corner of it, and made breakfast. It was ready by the time Frauke came out of the bedroom, yawning and rubbing her eyes. While she was in the bathroom, I went down to the newspaper kiosk and bought the Süddeutsche Zeitung. I didn’t subscribe and take a regular copy, but I knew that at her own place it was the first thing Frauke reached for, particularly on a Saturday morning for the arts section.

  We spent almost an hour and a half over breakfast, reading the papers. In the end I saw, in the local paper, a comment about the flea market this Saturday at the big car park of the industrial estate in the Alte Chaussee, and I asked Frauke if she’d like to wander around there for a bit and see what was on offer. She was all for it. While she was getting dressed, I cleared away the breakfast things. I was just putting the cutlery in the dishwasher when the phone rang.

  I was alarmed. Cilly Klofft could have called me any other time, she’d have been very welcome, but not right at this moment. Frauke appeared in the bedroom doorway, brushing her hair, and looked enquiringly at me. I picked up the phone.

  It wasn’t Cilly Klofft. It was her husband. “Good morning, Dr Zabel,” he said. “Herbert Klofft here. Am I disturbing you?”

  I said, “No, no… I…” I was totally baffled, and couldn’t even finish the sentence on which I’d embarked. He left me searching for words for a while, but not too long, before helping me out.

  “It’s nothing important,” he said. After clearing his throat hard, he went on. “Just wanted to ask if you had the time and inclination for a game of chess. It doesn’t have to last a long time. Maybe we could set the clock to two halves of thirty minutes each?” He paused, but while I was still searching for an answer, he added quickly, “Or any other timing, just what you like, it’s up to you.”

  I saw at once that I wouldn’t get another opportunity to come a little closer to this client in a hurry. But I sensed Frauke’s eyes on me. She was still standing at the bedroom doorway, brushing her hair rather more slowly, listening in.

  I said, “Yes… yes, I would like that, only… the fact is, I have something fixed for today.”

  “Oh. Yes, of course. That comes first, naturally.” I wouldn’t have expected this usually rough-mannered oaf to show disappointment so clearly. After a little pause during which I tried in vain to think of some comment to mollify my No, he said, “Well, maybe some other time. Anyway, I wish you a pleasant weekend, Dr Zabel.”

  I said quickly, “Just a minute, if you would.”

  Frauke lowered her hairbrush. Klofft said, intently, “Yes?”

  I cleared my throat and said, “I’ll call you back later.”

  When I’d ended the call, Frauke said, “Who was that? Oh, sorry! None of my business, I expect!”

  “It was Herbert Klofft.”

  “Oh yes?” She made a small artificial throat-clearing sound. “Herbert, you said?”

  “Yes, Herbert! My client!”

  “Oh, really?” She passed the brush once more, slowly, over her hair. “And his business is so urgent that he calls you at home on a Saturday morning?”

  I was beginning to lose my temper. “He was asking whether I’d like a game of chess with him.”

  Lowering the brush, she stared at me. “On a Saturday morning?”

  “So? Not the worst time in the world for playing chess!”

  “Really? So why aren’t you accepting?”

  “Because I want to go to the flea market with you!” My tone of voice was sharper than I meant it to be.

  “I tell you what, why not call – er, him straight away?” She paused and then added, “That’s what you promised her, didn’t you? I’ll call you back later.” She wasn’t going to much trouble to imitate my voice, but it was clear that she was parodying me. “And tell her you’re already on your way. She can put the champagne on ice.”

  I could hardly believe my ears. “She? What do you mean, she? I told you it was Herbert Klofft calling!”

  “So you said. But I understood all right, don’t you worry!”

  She turned away and disappeared from sight. I heard her moving about the bedroom, turning the bedclothes upside down. I was about to go in after her, but before I could bring myself to do it she reappeared with the bag in which she brings her night things, walked through the living room without deigning to glance at me, and disappeared into the bathroom.

  My mind elsewhere, I closed the dishwasher and turned on the programme. In the bathroom I heard the clink of Frauke’s jars and little bottles that stood on the shelf above the basin. As I switched the dishwasher on, she came out of the bathroom again, carrying her bag, her cheeks flushed.

  She took a step closer and looked at me. I opened my mouth, but before I could say anything she said, “Have a nice weekend. And thanks for the hospitality.” She went to the front door of the apartment, turned back once more and said, “Oh, and my regards to Herbert – I mean Cilly Klofft. Your client!” With that she opened the door and walked out.

  11

  When I was standing at the front door of the villa, under the overhanging roof, listening to the chime of bells that I had just set going, I could almost see Cilly Klofft before me. I was expecting her to open the door, maybe in her painter’s smock again, with those eyes of hers that shone in a dim light. But it wasn’t her. It was a blonde, handsome woman in her mid-forti
es wearing jeans and a striped kitchen apron. She examined me briefly through the crack in the doorway before letting me in.

  She gave me no chance to show my good manners, but climbed the stairs ahead of me, slippers on her bare feet, went to Klofft’s door and knocked. I heard Klofft’s voice. “Come in!”

  The woman opened the door and said, “Young person is here.” Klofft’s voice replied, “He’s no young person to you, he’s a gentleman. A gentleman with a doctorate as well!” In spite of the reproof his voice was quite mild. “And how often do I have to tell you not to open the door to strangers in your apron?”

  “OK, OK,” said the woman. She stood back to let me go past her into the room. “Want me bring up sandwiches now?” She spoke with a distinct accent. I thought she might be Russian.

  “No, not yet! I said I’d tell you when we wanted them!”

  “OK, OK!” As I appeared in the doorway beside her, Klofft waved me in. “Come on in, please!”

  The woman closed the door behind me. Klofft laughed. “That’s Olga! Wonderful woman. As I expect you saw for yourself. And a good soul too. Lacks a little refinement, that’s all.”

  “But you’re making up for that.”

  He raised his eyebrows, but abandoned the pose again at once and laughed. “Ah, well, one does what one can!”

  He had put out a board on the table at the balcony door where he worked and set up the chessmen. The black pieces on his side of the board were drawn up neatly in their ranks, the heads of the two knights facing forward. Beside the board stood a digital tournament clock, an elegant item in a black-and-white design. He had also prepared two boards to support the forms on which to record our moves, with pencils lying on them. And finally there were two bottles of mineral water with glasses, and behind them a bottle in a wine cooler with two wineglasses. All the glasses were crystal, as I had noticed on my first visit.

  He had cleared away his employer’s reference library, including the Civil Code and the Personnel Book, and put them on the table beyond the balcony door, along with the stack of papers. A packet of today’s weekend newspapers lay there too. He had obviously looked through them already; a few pages were out of line here and there. If his wife hadn’t helped him tidy the room, he had been very industrious this morning. Or maybe Olga the wonderful woman had lent a hand.

  I pulled out a chair and sat down. “A glass of white wine?” he asked, pointing to the wine cooler. “I have a very fine Garganega there, from Lake Garda.”

  “No, thank you. Normally I’d have liked to, but I came by car.”

  “Yes, I didn’t think you’d come on foot.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Well, of course the guardian of the law isn’t going to drink and drive.”

  “That’s right.” I put out my hand to the wine cooler. “But can I pour you a glass?”

  “Are you out of your mind? You think you can stay sober and get me drunk! No, no, my dear fellow, no dirty tricks! Not with me! By the way, what class did you play in? I never got around to asking last time you were here, you were so obsessed with the brochure of that… that quacks’ hotel.”

  I looked at him in silence. He knew the answer to this barefaced provocation that was on the tip of my tongue. He was even brazen enough to grin at me. I said, “In my club I usually played in the provincial league. But in my university team I sometimes came up against stronger opponents.” I pointed to the board. “We ought to draw lots for colours. Or do you prefer to play with black?”

  “Makes no difference at all to me. Just trying to be polite.” He took a white pawn off the board, put his hands behind his back, brought them out in front of him again clenched into fists and held them out for me to choose. I tapped his right fist; when he opened it, it was empty. He immediately opened his left fist, as if to prove that there was nothing fishy going on, and showed me the white pawn he was holding in it.

  “I wouldn’t have suspected you of tricking me anyway.”

  “Oh, don’t try that on! You think me capable of any kind of underhand dealing!”

  Once again I looked at him in silence. And once again he grinned back.

  I took the board by two of its sides and slowly turned it until the white pieces were in front of him and the black pieces in front of me. He half-raised his hands as if to keep the chessmen from falling over and getting out of line as I performed this manoeuvre. In that position his hands began shaking slightly; he put them firmly down on the table and said, “I set the clock to thirty minutes. Agreed?”

  “Yes, OK. How are you this morning, by the way?”

  I sensed him glaring at me. Then he said, “Very well, thank you. Or do you see any cause for concern?”

  “No, no! I was only asking out of interest.” After a moment’s pause I asked, “And how is your wife?”

  “Very well too. As far as I know.” He hesitated only briefly before adding, “Why do you ask?”

  I looked at him. “Again, because I’m interested to know. And because I haven’t seen her here today.”

  He seemed to be wondering whether to let himself in for discussing the subject at all. But finally he said, “She’s gone off to her studio.”

  “Ah. I thought she only worked here now?”

  “Then you thought wrong. You see,” he added, leaning slightly forward and smiling, “she does just as the mood takes her, like all females – sorry, women.” Another brief pause, and he asked, “Or isn’t that your own experience?”

  I thought of Frauke, but I wasn’t inclined to discuss her with Herr Klofft. I said, “I don’t really know. Shall we start?”

  “By all means.” He smiled at me, then settled into his armchair, shook hands with me, moved the pawn on square d two spaces forward and pressed the clock. I thought for a moment. The Dutch defence occurred to me – I had liked using it for quite a long time – and I responded with f5. He had not noted down his first move and, assuming that notation would be too much of an effort for him, I did not make a note of mine either.

  Not that he seemed to fear making an effort. He continued with the aggressive e4 pawn move, and sacrificed his pawn on f to me to get his pieces into the game. From the tenth move on, when he made a sham sacrifice by moving his white bishop to h7, I was fighting for survival. At the fourteenth move I gave up.

  He seemed very pleased. He leaned back in his chair, raised his hands and placed them together as if to rub them, but refrained and said, “Well, now I think we could have a drink. Good heavens, you can really get an opponent going!”

  “Oh, don’t say that. Sure you still don’t want a little wine?”

  He drew down the corners of his mouth, nodded his head back and forth, and then said, “Ah, well – yes, playing you I think I can allow myself a glass of wine.”

  “We’ll see about that.” I poured him a glass of wine, some mineral water for myself, and began rearranging the pieces on the board, this time with the black ones on his side. As I did that, I said, “I know the variant you were playing, but I couldn’t remember the best defence against it.”

  “No, so I noticed. Well, your good health!” He raised the glass, put it to his lips, drank a few sips, put it down and seemed to think for a moment, raised it again and drained it. He looked at me and smiled. As he drank, his eyes had begun to water.

  “Another?” I asked.

  After a hesitation he said, “Yes, why not? The wine is really excellent. You don’t know what you’re missing.”

  As I refilled his glass, he lit one of his thin black cigars. I stood the last pieces in place. He watched me, puffing the cigar a couple of times, then laid the cigar down on the rim of his ashtray and said. “Right, off we go, Alekhine!”

  I suppressed a moment’s annoyance at this silly jibe and moved e4. He responded with e5. I used my opportunity to try the king’s gambit. He accepted the sacrifice and embarked on a dogged defence of his extra pawn. I was sure that I would be able to mount a decisive attack in this way, but after I had positioned my black bishop poorly in a mo
ment of haste, he suddenly took the initiative. Move by move, he was getting the upper hand. I could see how, with the majority of surviving pawns flanking the king, he was going to have me in serious difficulties.

  Before his eleventh move, which he really had to make in view of the strategy he had adopted, I suddenly noticed him hesitating. Looking up, I saw that his face had gone very red. His forehead and upper lip were damp with sweat. His right hand, which he had placed over his left hand on the table in front of him, was twitching back and forth with small, convulsive movements.

  I was alarmed. Then I remembered that he had been in a similar condition when he was telling me about Katharina Fuchs and the holiday she had taken without permission. When I’d asked if he was all right, he had been furious. And by then his fit of weakness had indeed been over.

  However, his hand hadn’t been twitching in this odd way. Was he having a more serious attack this time?

  Should I summon Olga?

  Suddenly he raised his right hand, let it hover above the board for a moment, shaking, then lowered it too fast and tried to pick up a knight. He missed, knocked the piece over and began groping blindly for it.

  I picked up the knight and handed it to him. His face twisted with annoyance, but he took the piece and put it down two rows back. Luckily he managed to stand it up. Then he took out a handkerchief and rubbed his face dry. He blew out air through his lips.

  The knight had been in a strong position. I could have taken it, but that would only have improved my opponent’s position, because his queen would have taken the knight’s place, making a series of acute threats available. Instead of using his advantage, Klofft had now made a weak retreat. He seemed not to have noticed the advantage he was giving me. I could move a rook into the attack on a square previously dominated by his knight.