Eternal Life Read Online Free Page A

American that the two of them were talking about. Not the old millionairess from the lift. And this is what I’ve been trying to say this whole time. Why Brenner was in such a foul mood.
    You should know, an agent from the American insurance company was in Zell for a few weeks. And from the start, she had something to do with Brenner because he was practically employed by the insurance company, too. That was one blond young American, the likes of which we only know from the movies over here. Or if you can imagine a Barbie doll. Betty was her name. And she was in Zell practically the whole summer.
    Naturally there was gossip. Not just Mandl was after her, but more or less every character in Zell, and when it comesto something like this, there are always a couple old slack-jaws, of course. But that wasn’t the gossip. Because none of the Zellers had any success with the American. So other rumors got invented. That she was actually an American undercover agent. Sent extra by the FBI. Some said CIA, too, and a few even Scotland Yard, but then, Fürstauer over at the deli, he knew that that’s only in Scotland.
    Betty was just from the insurance company, though. She was doing some type of local visit to the scene of the crime, and from Brenner she got everything she could ever want to know about the case. He couldn’t offer her much, though. I mean, in so far as the case goes, he couldn’t offer her very much.
    And so far as that goes, I’ll only say this much. She also had a room at the Hirschenwirt. And she’d been, ever since she was
ein kleines Mädchen
, a little girl over in America, she’d been in love with Robert Redford. Now, Brenner looks nothing like Robert Redford, but something about him must’ve reminded her of Robert Redford.
    That was in August. And now the first week of September’s almost over, and Mandl’s just standing there in the Hirschenwirt lobby and asking:
    “Where exactly is the American?”
    What I’m getting at with this. I think it’s actually because of that. Why the moment for small talk was passing Brenner by. And when he noticed how disappointed and pale Mandl suddenly got, Brenner pounced again and said:
    “The American? The American’s in America.”
    It was only then that he noticed how it was doing himmore harm than it was the local reporter. But he didn’t let anything show. Simply turned around and left Mandl standing there with their two wineglasses. Then he went upstairs and finally tried to write his report. Sending it off, though, that he could always do tomorrow.

CHAPTER 3
    Nowadays when a person goes around trying to force something at all costs, there’s no way it’s going to work. Maybe that was the reason why Brenner still hadn’t wrote a single word of his report for the Meierling Detective Agency. Even though it’d been a solid hour since he’d left Mandl standing back there.
    It was the sixth of September, but still warm enough that he could sit in his room in his bare chest. The rooms on the shady side of the inn, well, another story altogether this time of year. Brenner’s room was sunnyside, though, so needless to say, it heats up something awful during the day, whew, let me tell you.
    For over an hour he’d been sitting at that small table in his room, when all of the sudden he realized—he still hadn’t written a line. Because in his thoughts, he was somewhere else completely. That was his old malady, that he couldn’t concentrate. Outwardly, Brenner gave the impression of being horribly calm. There’s that movie where the monk says—you know, an Indian, a Buddhist—he says: If I go, then I go, and if I stay, then I stay. And that’s the kind of impression a person gets of Brenner if you see him going or staying—or as far as I’m concerned, sitting—somewhere. All a facade.
    And you’d have to know him pretty well in order to know how anxious he was all the time. And focusing on the essentials, let’s say, that wasn’t his strong suit at