stabbed with rigid fingers as though poking out a row of eyes. Occasionally he’d stop and swear, re-prime the paper, cross out some letters, and correct the word. Whenever he completed an entry, he would look up and grin at her, retrieve his cigarette, indulge in a long, much-savoured drag. They had been at it for some twenty minutes. There was no end in sight.
Throughout this long stutter of an interrogation Anna was distracted by a sound drifting through the propped-open door at the back of the office: the quiet drone of a voice, strangely muffled, as though coming through a pillow, and at the same time slow, methodical, and patient,the speaker first offering consolation, then asking precise, gently worded questions and pausing to listen with a strange air of solemnity. As the man in front of her kept stabbing away at his typewriter, Anna found herself increasingly drawn to the sound of this voice, even bending forward a little on her stool the better to make out the words. Slowly an image formed in her mind of a man sitting in an office, or else leaning, half perched, on his desk, and speaking with that quiet assurance, never correcting himself or finding himself lost for words, as though he were reading a part from a script. Anna could not hear the other half of the conversation and concluded that the man must be on the telephone. But this too struck her as peculiar, because the more she heard of the man’s voice, the more she became convinced that he was speaking to a child, perhaps even quite a young child; that this child was in pain, or at any rate weepy; and that the man’s aim was to draw the child into a conversation about ordinary things and thus distract its attention from its hurt or fear. Just now he was asking the child what it thought about police horses (were they better than cars? what colour was best?), then quickly moved on to dogs. “German shepherds?” the voice said thoughtfully. “Why, yes, they are good dogs. How about schnauzers, though? The large kind? Yes, you may be right, they tend to be naughty. Though I knew a schnauzer once that dragged a man out of the river. He was drowning, you see—Oh, no, he didn’t jump. I suppose he just slipped and fell. The dog, in any case….” And so on, telling the whole of the little story in that quiet, solemn, droning voice that would have suited a lecture hall, or a pulpit.
At long last the man wished the child a good day and hung the receiver on its cradle (she could hear the telltale click). A moment later he emerged, walked up behind the sergeant, read the form over his shoulder. He was a plump man of middling height; wore his trousers high upon his waist, had white, soft hands. The hair was neatly parted, the face dominated by a pair of steel-framed glasses that gave an eerie prominence to his watery eyes and light, soft lashes. It was hard to guess his age. He might have been no more than thirty-five or forty but had the movements of an older man.A watch chain hung in a fastidious arc between waistcoat pocket and buttonhole. He was not wearing a uniform.
“You misspelled ‘prisoner of war,’” he said laconically. Again she noted his voice, pedantic and muffled. Perhaps he had a cold. “Never mind, Haselböck, just cross it out by hand.”
He shifted his eyes to Anna. His lenses were so thick they gave the impression his eyes had been worked into the glass: when he took off the spectacles, she mused, the eyes too would peel off and leave behind the long blank of his face. His words were polite, even gentle, but he wasted no time on a greeting.
“Your husband is missing, Frau Beer. Have you called the hospitals?”
“Yes. This morning.”
“Can you name them? The hospitals you called.”
“I suppose.”
“Please do.”
She counted them off, watched him blink with every mention of a name and commit them to his memory.
“Very good,” he said, though it was unclear to her what exactly he was lauding, her thoroughness in
Throughout this long stutter of an interrogation Anna was distracted by a sound drifting through the propped-open door at the back of the office: the quiet drone of a voice, strangely muffled, as though coming through a pillow, and at the same time slow, methodical, and patient,the speaker first offering consolation, then asking precise, gently worded questions and pausing to listen with a strange air of solemnity. As the man in front of her kept stabbing away at his typewriter, Anna found herself increasingly drawn to the sound of this voice, even bending forward a little on her stool the better to make out the words. Slowly an image formed in her mind of a man sitting in an office, or else leaning, half perched, on his desk, and speaking with that quiet assurance, never correcting himself or finding himself lost for words, as though he were reading a part from a script. Anna could not hear the other half of the conversation and concluded that the man must be on the telephone. But this too struck her as peculiar, because the more she heard of the man’s voice, the more she became convinced that he was speaking to a child, perhaps even quite a young child; that this child was in pain, or at any rate weepy; and that the man’s aim was to draw the child into a conversation about ordinary things and thus distract its attention from its hurt or fear. Just now he was asking the child what it thought about police horses (were they better than cars? what colour was best?), then quickly moved on to dogs. “German shepherds?” the voice said thoughtfully. “Why, yes, they are good dogs. How about schnauzers, though? The large kind? Yes, you may be right, they tend to be naughty. Though I knew a schnauzer once that dragged a man out of the river. He was drowning, you see—Oh, no, he didn’t jump. I suppose he just slipped and fell. The dog, in any case….” And so on, telling the whole of the little story in that quiet, solemn, droning voice that would have suited a lecture hall, or a pulpit.
At long last the man wished the child a good day and hung the receiver on its cradle (she could hear the telltale click). A moment later he emerged, walked up behind the sergeant, read the form over his shoulder. He was a plump man of middling height; wore his trousers high upon his waist, had white, soft hands. The hair was neatly parted, the face dominated by a pair of steel-framed glasses that gave an eerie prominence to his watery eyes and light, soft lashes. It was hard to guess his age. He might have been no more than thirty-five or forty but had the movements of an older man.A watch chain hung in a fastidious arc between waistcoat pocket and buttonhole. He was not wearing a uniform.
“You misspelled ‘prisoner of war,’” he said laconically. Again she noted his voice, pedantic and muffled. Perhaps he had a cold. “Never mind, Haselböck, just cross it out by hand.”
He shifted his eyes to Anna. His lenses were so thick they gave the impression his eyes had been worked into the glass: when he took off the spectacles, she mused, the eyes too would peel off and leave behind the long blank of his face. His words were polite, even gentle, but he wasted no time on a greeting.
“Your husband is missing, Frau Beer. Have you called the hospitals?”
“Yes. This morning.”
“Can you name them? The hospitals you called.”
“I suppose.”
“Please do.”
She counted them off, watched him blink with every mention of a name and commit them to his memory.
“Very good,” he said, though it was unclear to her what exactly he was lauding, her thoroughness in
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