Chapter 6

That did it. She turned a deathly pale, made some funny little fluttery movements with her hands and, her face a close copy of Edvard Munch's 'Scream', crumpled senseless on the ground before I could even stir to catch her.

The commotion was enormous. Nobody had paid any attention to us while we were talking. Now, all came running, Elvira and Charlotte reaching us first, Helmut in the midst of the throng. Like a proper cad, I had to compound my misdeeds. When both girls stooped to assist their mother, I shifted the time-phase for a few moments and applied my sensors behind their ears.

With the time flow normal again I managed to tell Helmut that I suspected some circulatory disturbance. She should be taken to the hospital. Helmut was most upset and in a big quandary. He could not leave with more and more people coming to the site, wanting to view the houses. And he did not want to create more unrest by calling an ambulance.

"Berthold, please, will you take her? Together with the girls, of course. They must be with her. I could not possibly leave here now. You must understand."

"Sure, Helmut. But it should be Elise going with her. It may be a woman thing, where I would be totally lost and Karla might be embarrassed."

Elise agreed readily. Her accusing stare told me of trouble to come. I would have to bear it, I earned it. Plenty of time on my hands now, to ponder the huge mess I created.

When everybody had calmed down and Helmut had taken over his duties again, I made myself mostly invisible amongst the crowd in the catering tent. I even helped there, cleaning glasses and collecting empties, pouring drinks and serving snacks. An anonymous busybody and nobody complained. Alfred, of course, had to choose this time to call me.

"Bert, what happened? I have been monitoring you all day. Even though Jake put the fear of God into me. I do not understand enough German yet to follow your talks. The dialect she uses is a total enigma. This session must have been quite nasty and dramatic to end like this."

"Alfred, do you mind? I will speak with you later today. In fact, I do need your help. It's Elise's third degree I got to survive first. One thing I know. We all must stop interfering with people in the future. Good intentions notwithstanding. We are inviting disaster every time we do."

Alfred agreed to wait and I kept myself busy till the crowd thinned out and, eventually, disappeared. As the caterers were busy closing down their tent, collecting trash and empty glasses, Helmut joined me after salvaging a bottle of cognac and two glasses. I wondered aloud whether it wouldn't be better to lay off the drinks and rather go to the hospital, but he had other things on his mind.

"Look, Berthold, I spoke with Elvira. Karla seems to be in shock, but is recovering slowly. They are still doing tests on her. On a Sunday things are slow. They will phone me when ready. But I need to talk to someone before I crack up too.

"What you two chatted about I don't know of course, hadn't even known that you had been working together for quite a few years. Even so, you may have gathered, or she might have told you, that our marriage is not going well. This is a hell of a thing to drop onto you and you can tell me to go take a jump if you like. Yet I do feel that you are a man with empathy and integrity. I need both, please."

He waved away my protests. "Don't worry. Your house will be taken good care of, should you decide to sign with us. You will get the best possible services, from all of us at the firm. Nothing we mention here will endanger that. But right now, can we talk man to man? Like friends perhaps?"

My initial concerns notwithstanding, I took a hefty sip of excellent cognac. Nodded for him to proceed since my voice might have betrayed me.

"If you had seen Karla just a few weeks ago you would not have recognised her today. I don't know how she recovered her health, her looks, to such an extent and so fast. Berthold, I mistreated her terribly, beat her up, practically raped her on more than one occasion. I could not cope with her at all.

"When I came home from work, there would be barely a word of welcome. She might endure a kiss on her cheek. She often refused sex with a look of contempt in her eyes and a sneering mouth. Once in a while she would suffer it silently if I insisted and get up without a word to take a shower immediately afterwards. I can't remember when we last cuddled together, shared a friendly word. And finally I broke. I could not bear it any longer, tried to break her by force. My God, what a pig I have become.

"Still, her behaviour would not have mattered all that much, really, if she hadn't incited the girls against me. I couldn't take that. You told me that you have daughters yourself. You know that as their father we are the first male friend for them, during their giggly-girl days. They come to us with their small problems, secure in their trust, and we dare not disappoint them. Now, this trust is ruined. Elvira is a trembling mess, Charlotte behaves like a harlot. I don't know what Karla told them, don't know how to approach them and, even less, how to make things right again."

He paused, dropped his head in shame and took a big sip from his so far untouched drink.

"Yes, I got the impression that Karla was under great strain. Occasionally you were sending out the same vibes. Both Elise and I were puzzled about that, since we could not find fault in your dealings with us.

"Your daughters I don't know yet. As much as I understand what you are saying, Helmut, – and I share your opinions about our daughters –, one thing I have to know. Answer me, please. Did you ever grope Elvira or Charlotte inappropriately? Feel them up to arouse them, arouse you?"

He looked at me aghast, his whole face suffused with a dark red tint, the veins at his temples throbbing like overloaded power cables.

"Berthold, you..."

"For God's sake, just tell me yes or no!"

"No, never! I cherish them both more than anything. – Do you realise how incredibly crude you sound? I am not a goddamn paedophile, you creep."

"Calm down, Helmut. There's no need to get angry. I just had to know."

He took a long time to settle down. "Sorry, Berthold. – I love and like my daughters. As I used to love and like Karla. But, since we are being direct and open here. Yes, I did get aroused by Elvira once. We were horsing around in the swimming pool and she flung herself at me, I caught her and held her close. To my everlasting shame, I got erect and had to push her away immediately. She reacted confused and hurt. I can't blame her. But then again, only a totally ignorant hypocrite would deny that a young girl's body, any girl's, can be disturbingly erotic. There you have it, Berthold. Condemn me, if you must."

His words shook me badly. The bio-feedback worked extremely well in this close situation. I knew that he had been honest with me, did not hold anything back. And I also saw Karla's accusations about his behaviour, especially about the anal rape, as the lies they were. However, the beatings he handed out to her spoke against him.

"Helmut, it is not for me to condemn you, or anybody else for that matter. I carry my own glasshouse around with me. I don't chuck stones at anyone!

"Still, you must have realised that hurting Karla cannot be an answer to your problems. There must be other, better, ways to guide or even control your woman. You did claim to love her, if not now then in the earlier days of your relationship. You chose her after all, didn't you?"

He heaved an enormous sigh, shook his head a few times and waited so long that I was afraid he would not answer me at all.

"Berthold, what is love? When we met the first time, I felt attracted to her, very strongly. I liked her looks, her bearing, everything. But it was she who pushed us into a relationship. Don't get me wrong, she was not brazen about it, but let me know immediately that she was interested for us to become better acquainted. Those eyes of her can be very compelling. The same eyes she uses now to show her scorn and contempt. I can't handle that. Sometimes I am almost certain that she likes to stir my rages. How could that be? She knows by now what they make me do.