Или: Како насилството се развива и кон што
води
7.
Let us proceed at once from this lowest of all levels to
higher planes. Away with the blood. Let the excitement in the press be
forgotten. Katharina Blum’s apartment has meanwhile been cleaned up, the ruined
rugs have landed on the garbage dump, and the furniture has been wiped and put
back in place: all this at the expense and on the instructions of Blorna as
empowered by his friend Hach, although it is far from certain whether Blorna
will be appointed official custodian.
When all is said and done, in five years this Katharina Blum
has invested seventy thousand marks in cash in a self-owned apartment worth
altogether a hundred thousand marks. Hence – to quote her brother, who is at
present serving a minor jail sentence – “there’s lots of goodies worth
sweeping.” But then who would be responsible for interest and amortization on
the remaining thirty thousand marks, even if not inconsiderable increase in
value is taken into account? There would be liabilities as well as assets.
Be that as it may, by now Totges has been buried (with
disproportionate pomp and ceremony, in the opinion of many). Strangely enough,
Schonner’s death and funeral were accorded less display and attention. Why, one
may ask? Because he was not the victim of a crime
passionnel? The sheikh costume is in the police vaults, likewise the pistol
(an 8mm); only Blorna knows the origin of a pistol, whereas the attempts of the
police and the public prosecutor’s office to find this out have been fruitless.
8.
Inquiries into Blum’s activities during the four days in
question progressed nicely enough at first, and it was only when attempts were
made to gather information about the Sunday that they were brought up short.
On the Wednesday afternoon Blorna personally paid Katharina
Blum two full weeks’ wages at 280 marks per week, one for the current week, the
other for the week to come, since he was leaving that same afternoon for a
skiing vacation with his wife. Katharina had not only promised the Blornas, she
had positively sworn that she really would take a vacation this time and enjoy
herself during Carnival instead picking up extra work, the way she had in every
previous year during the festive season. She had delightedly told the Blornas
that she had been invited that evening to a small private dance at the home of
her godmother, friend, and confidante, Else Woltersheim, and that she was
looking forward to it very much, it had been such a long time since she had had
an opportunity to dance. And Mrs. Blorna said: “Never mind Katie, when we come
back, we’ll give another party, than you can dance again.” For as long as she
had been living in the city, i.e., for the past five or six years, Katharina
has frequently complain the lack of opportunity “just to go dancing somewhere.”
There were, she told the Blornas, those dumps where sex-starved students went
looking for a free pickup, then there were those Bohemian-type places that were
too wild for her tastes, and as for those church dances, nothing would induce
her to go to those.
There was no difficulty in establishing that on Wednesday
afternoon Katharina had worked for a further two hours at the home of Mr. and
Mrs. Hiepertz, where she sometimes helped out at their request. Since the
Hiepertzes were also leaving town during the carnival and going to see their
daughter in Lemgo, Katharina had driven the elderly couple to the station in
her Volkswagen. Despite the parking problem she had insisted on accompanying them
to the platform and carrying their bags. (“Not for the money, oh no, we can’t
offer a thing for a kindness like that, she would be very hurt.” Mrs. Hiepertz
explained.)
It was confirmed that the train left at 5:30 P.M. If one was prepared to allow Katharina
from five to ten minutes to find her car in the midst of the early Carnival
crowds, and further twenty to twenty-five minutes to reach her suburban
apartment, so she could not have entered it until 6:00 and 6:15 P.M., not a single minute remained unaccounted
for, provided one was fair enough to grant that she must have washed, changed,
and bite to eat, for by 7:26 P.M.
she had already turned up at Mrs. Woltershaim’s party, not in her own car, but
by the streetcar, and she was dressed neither as a Bedouin nor as an Andalusian
but merely wore a red carnation in her hair, red stockings and shoes, a
high-necked blouse of honey-colored raw silk, and a plain tweed skirt of the
same color. It may appear unimportant whether Katharina went to the party in
her car or by streetcar, but it must be mentioned here because in the course of
the investigation it turned out to be of considerable significance.
9.
From the moment she entered the Woltershaim apartment the
investigation was facilitate because from 7:25 P.M. onward Katharina was, without realizing it, under police
observation. Throughout the entire evening, from 7:30 to 10:00 P.M., before leaving the apartment with
him, she had danced “exclusively and fervently,” as she later stated, with one
Ludwig Gotten.
10.
We must not forget to pay tribute at this point to Peter
Hach, the public prosecutor, for it is he alone whom we have to thank for
information – bordering on police-court gossip – that Commissioner Erwin
Bezimenne had the Woltershaim and Blum telephones tapped from the moment Blum
left the Woltershaim apartment with Gotten. This was done im a manner that may
be worth mentioning: in such cases Bezimenne would call up the appropriate
superior and say: “I need my little plugs again. Two of them this time.”
11.
Gotten, it seems, made no calls from Katharina’s apartment.
At least, Hach knew of none. One thing is certain: Katharina’s apartment was
under strict observation, and when by 10:30 Thursday morning there had been no
phone calls and Gotten had not left the apartment, Bezimenne was beginning to
lose both his patience and his nerves, and a detachment of eight heavily armed
police officers broke into the apartment, storming it with the most intensive
precautionary measures, searched in, but found no traces of Gotten, all they
found being Katharina. “looking extremely relaxed, almost happy,” standing at
her kitchen counter drinking coffee from a large mug and taking a bite from a
slice of white bread and butter and honey. She aroused suspicion in that she did
not appear surprised but rather quite composed, “not to say triumphant”. She
was wearing a green cotton house-coat embroidered with daisies, with nothing
underneath, and when she was asked by Commissioner Bezimenne (“quite roughly,”
she said after) what had happened to Gotten, she said she didn’t know when
Ludwig had left the apartment: she had woken up at 9:30 A.M. and he was already gone. “Without saying good-bye?” “Yes”.
12.
Here we should inquire into a hotly disputed question put by
Bezimenne, a question repeated by Hach, withdrawn, repeated again, and again
withdrawn. Blorna considers this question important because he believes that,
if it was in fact asked, it was from this and only from this that Katharina’s
bitterness, sense of humiliation, and fury may have stemmed. Since Blorna and
his wife describe Katharina as being extremely sensitive, almost prudish, in
sexual matters, the mere possibility
must be considered that Bezimenne might – in fury, too, over the disappearance
of Gotten, whom he thought he had in his grasp – have asked the controversial
question. Bezimenne allegedly asked
the maddeningly composed Katharina as she leaned against her counter: “Well,
did he fuck you?”...
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