Free Eternal Life by Wolf Haas

that his head doesn’t come back up. And that’sthe precise moment when he’d sweep his blond curls off his forehead—or were they more white? Right in the middle, you couldn’t really say.
    Interesting, though. The next time he does this, he nods just like before and leaves his head down again. So, somehow he has to get his head surreptitiously back up, because how else can he start the next downward nod if not from the up-beat again.
    “What’re we having?” Erni the waitress asks.
    Lorenz already had a glass of club soda sitting on the table, so it was clear that the “we” only applied to Brenner. It was always when Erni didn’t quite know how she should address a customer that she talked to them like this.
    A few days earlier she’d addressed Brenner with this “we” for the first time. And Brenner seized the opportunity right away, because he played dumb and asked the waitress, does that mean you’ll be joining me for a drink. So, she had to knock back a glass on Brenner’s dime. And maybe that’s why she was grinning so cheekily now when she said:
    “What’re we having?”
    “A beer,” Brenner says, even though, normally he wouldn’t drink beer this time of day.
    “Thanks for taking the time,” he says to Lorenz, and Lorenz does his half nod again, sweeps his curls off his forehead and takes a drag on his cigarette.
    “You know why I want to speak with you.”
    Lorenz, again, with the half-nod.
    “Did you know the victims very well?”
    “No thanks,” Lorenz says.
    “And with your uncle, you don’t have the best relationship, either.”
    Pause. Then Lorenz says slowly:
    “Why are you asking? If you already know.”
    “But why were you with him, then, on the night of December twenty-first?”
    Pause. Now it was slowly dawning on Brenner that the medication from the psychiatric clinic hadn’t exactly made Lorenz any quicker.
    “How often am I supposed to explain this exactly?”
    “One more time,” Brenner says.
    “Every year I go to my uncle’s on December twenty-first. That’s my Christmas.”
    “On the twenty-first?”
    “Yes. Because the twenty-third’s my uncle’s company Christmas, ski school, I mean. Gondolas on the twenty-second. And family on the twenty-fourth.”
    “When did your father die?”
    “That was when he was exactly as old as I am now, that’s when he died.”
    Lorenz appeared completely emotionless to Brenner—that, too, must’ve been the meds, and that’s why, without giving it a second thought, Brenner asked him:
    “And what did he die of?”
    “Don’t know.”
    “You don’t want to talk about it?”
    Lorenz gave another half-nod and fished the next cigarette out of his pack. Then he says:
    “Lung cancer.”
    Says Brenner:
    “How old were you at the time?”
    Says Lorenz:
    “Thirteen.”
    Says Brenner:
    “And who was your guardian, then?”
    Says Lorenz: “My uncle.”
    Says Brenner:
    “So, is Vergolder your uncle on your father’s side or your mother’s side?”
    Says Lorenz:
    “Both sides. He’s my uncle on both sides.”
    Says Brenner:
    “Now, that you’re going to have to explain to me.”
    Says Lorenz:
    “My father wasn’t my biological father. Because I never knew my biological father. And my mother disappeared. After my birth, I mean. Probably in the lake, people say. That’s why I don’t swim. I’ve never gone swimming in the lake. That’s why people think I’m crazy. One time I did go swimming. At night. In the winter, though. Nearly drowned. But my father was still alive at the time. I caused him a lot of worry. My father died of worry, you know.”
    Says Brenner:
    “Your adoptive father.”
    Says Lorenz:
    “If you like, sure, my adoptive father.”
    Says Brenner:
    “Why did he take you in?”
    Says Lorenz:
    “He was my uncle. I had two uncles. Two brothers of my mother’s. One of them took me in.”
    Says Brenner:
    “But the two brothers didn’t get along very well.”
    Says Lorenz:
    “Hated, you might