Chapter 26 Back to Germany

02:31

Anton, Edward, and Kit-Kat were supposed to stay in Robert’s flat. Lena called to her school and told her boss that she was sick. Edward gave Robert a pile of banknotes for ‘journey expenses’, Anton was handed a bunch of keys to the flat. Robert and Lena packed only bare essentials and soon they were on their way to Frankfurt.

Lena grabbed her portable DVD player, which she had bought on sale when she was in London, and still kept in one of her drawers with socks and bras. While Robert was driving, she was happily showing him the details of her recent discovery.

‘I knew that they were doing something there. Publishing house is just a cover. They must be making some significant profit out of these films. Porn for people with peculiar taste. Kieliszek is having sex with almost all of the lecturers we saw on the train. But she’s not the only woman there. There are at least four.’

Robert glimpsed at the film while waiting at the red light.

‘Show me again the one with Tamka,’ he asked, taking a turn.

Lena found the film recorded in the green room.

‘Can you see a difference?’

Lena didn’t know what Robert was talking about.

‘A difference? She has sex with everybody just the same. She’s kind of good at it, if you ask me. It makes me feel bad about myself. And she looks awesome naked. Who would have thought...’

‘Look carefully. When she’s with Tamka, she smiles. Her eyes sparkle. With other guys, she’s just being seductive. More job than pleasure.’

‘What are you suggesting?’

‘I just think they must have liked each other. They are actually making love, not only having sex, not to mention the pure porn concept.’

‘What makes you say that?’ Lena wasn’t entirely convinced.

‘Recent experience. They have fun.’

Lena slowly came to realize why Anton was in the flat when she rushed into it a few hours before.

‘Fine. You slept with Anton! I knew it. I just disappear for the weekend and you find opportunities to play.’

‘You’re not my chaperon. Let’s talk about you. How on earth did you get that millionaire?’

‘He’s a millionaire? I wouldn’t tell. I just placed an ad in the newspaper. I used to do this when I was younger.’

‘You were looking for sponsors?!’

‘Listen, I was sixteen when I came here on my own. I needed money. Work in McDonald’s wasn’t the job of my dreams. So I started offering my services.’

‘What services?’

‘Not sex services for sure. You know, there are a lot of lonely men in Warsaw. Sometimes they earn a lot, but they have no one to spend time with them. They invite you to trips, restaurants. Sometimes they need a date for their families’ weddings, like gay people in the closet afraid of coming out to their family for instance. You’re not the first gay person I encountered. Sometimes they just want to spend the weekend with someone. I’m quite social. I was paid for that. I got bonuses, money for clothes and holidays. You’d be surprised how many students go through their studies thanks to some sugar daddy’s money. Life is brutal.’

‘I’m not really surprised that you have relationship problems,’ Robert summed up ‘Everything is a business deal for you.’

‘And that comes from a gay man who was married with children! I didn’t have sex with them. Let’s be honest, they wouldn’t afford it.’

‘So why did you stop?’

Lena pouted her lips.

‘Well, there was this one guy who tried to rape me and I decided that it’s too dangerous. McDonald’s was a safer option.’

Robert laughed.

‘But this Edward is not such a bad idea, I mean, it’s ridiculous to take a complete stranger from the street, but we would make use of his money. I don’t want Krakowski to pay for it all. The guy might look strange, but I checked his bank account. He’s really a millionaire! My fortune teller told me that you will bring me money.’

‘What else did she tell you?’

Robert told her about traveling.

‘Well, that’s what we’re doing at the moment. Let’s wait for other sensational prophesies. Coming back to Kieliszek and Tamka, if they were really so in love, why has he disappeared from the porn industry and she’s still literally working her but off?’

Robert shrugged. He didn’t have all the answers.

It was late when they arrived in Frankfurt. It was a business city with a lot of skyscrapers, holding both an office space for work and parks for office workers to take a breather. Its population was rather multinational. Its citizens were storming the streets in hijabs; Turkish, Serbian, Russian, Italian and Polish languages were heard almost just as often as the native German. The city was clean and Lena enjoyed its night atmosphere. They stopped at Hotel Arena Messe with its classic brown and beige interior and abundant breakfast possibilities.

Lena slept like a child while Robert was calling Johan Yzerman for the details of Gerald Meler’s case with an intention to visit Goethe University first thing in the morning. This time they booked a two-person room and didn’t have to share the bed.

They woke up and ate a hearty breakfast consisting of ham sandwiches, cereal, orange juice, coffee and some fruit. Lena was visibly exhausted after traveling to and from Cracov and now such a long way to Frankfurt. Still, there was no other choice but to drag her to an impressive yellowish building and make her stop complaining about swollen ankles.

The only person who remembered Gerald Meler was the employee of the university library.

‘He used to spend hours in the library. He was besotted with his books. I advised him to have a life, to meet friends, to go for a party, but you know these passionate men. They barely see any life apart from their studies.’

‘Did he have enemies? Was he liked?’

‘I don’t know if anyone even paid attention to him. He had a few classes. He spent a long time at the library. It was me who informed the police. He stopped coming to the library and I thought it was disturbing. You know, very few students read books he was reading. They weren’t really so popular. Apart from the obligatory volumes, we have a big collection of additional sources. We always ordered the latest editions and cooperated with American publishing houses. He knew them all. He borrowed a few volumes for the weekend. That was his only way of spending time. I saw him every Friday, he returned books, borrowed new ones. He did that for a couple of years. A very systematic man. Devoted. I was a student then, I was earning some extra money at the weekend in the library. I remember almost everyone from that period. Definitely better than I do it now. Now all faces just blend into one.’

‘That’s the proper way some people earn money to finish studies. They make a useful contribution to the education system.’ Robert commented to Lena, who rolled her eyes at his old-fashioned attitude.

Robert looked through the employment contract of Gerald Meler. He was quite young when he worked in the Institute. He must have been barely over thirty when his missing was noticed.

‘Did he have a family? Friends?’

‘He hung out mostly with his students. I’m sure his parents are dead by now. I don’t know how to help you.’

Robert wrote down the librarian number in case they wanted to find some more information.

As Lena didn’t understand what Robert was talking about with the library woman, she was left to her own devices. She found shelves with books on history and sociology. She looked through the volumes of history books, which were read by Meler. She flicked through a few of them. To each volume, on the inside cover was stuck a note with only a few university index numbers, as if no one wanted to dig deep in the social and historical factors of wars, revolutions and political turnovers. Lena knew she wasn’t the one to borrow such books and spend the weekend reading them from cover to cover. She wasn’t a Meler’s type of a person.

‘Ask her if we can have the names of the people who borrowed these books!’, she shouted over to Robert.

Robert translated what Lena was saying. The woman nodded and after a few minutes, she brought a list of students who happened to borrow the same history books over the years.

With this piece of information, they left Frankfurt and started their journey to Berlin.