Know More

-And remember: This is strictly between us. We never talked about this at all. We never talked about anything. We have never even met. -Sure. I am fully aware that the club is seeking solutions, not problems. -Then, this question will hopefully be addressed. From now on, you will operate completely on your own. You know what that means. Xane had a faint idea. Descending the staircase of the Art Nouveau building, she several times recalled the codeword. She would have to try and remember it every day at the same time. Forgetting it would seal her fate. It was her only connection to the whole business. No record could be made of it. Nowhere. Nobody would be allowed to even know about it. There were, in fact, two of them, two codewords. Top secret. Xane had often wondered what would happen if she ever lost her memory, perhaps owing to a stroke or amnesia. She preferred not to think about it. The Bahnhofstrasse greeted her with a chill. Soon, it would fill up with pedestrians and vehicles, people heading for work. It was still very early. Xane looked around and wondered. They used to make her come so early, as if a woman on her own at this time of the day wouldn't arouse suspicion. What was her part in the whole matter? Was she an investigator or merely a bait, an easy prey for a predator? She wouldn't know until her mission would be accomplished. That's how it had always been and, so far, turnt out well. Oh no, it was so strange walking through the city at this time in the morning without any obvious reason, when no one seemed to be there. Later, getting to the station would have been so much easier, when the streets would be crowded with all kinds of people from all social layers. Or when the first cleaners went to work, but not now in the dawn of what promised to be a beautiful day. Her best bet would be to hurry towards the station and jump on an early train to take her home again. She seemed to have all odds against her, though.

At a distance, a man passed by the building of a bank affiliate and crossed the street, obviously approaching her. Xane took out her cell phone, went towards the bridge over the Rhine, where she stood still to take some photos. It didn't take the stranger long to come along and stand beside her. "Isn't that wonderful?" He asked. "Such a sight. The rising sun above the river Rhine." Xane gave no reply. She wasn't sure if she had better answered in the Swiss dialect she was addressed or rather in ordinary German. So, she remained silent and observed the man from the corners of her eyes. He wore jeans, walking shoes, a windbreaker. When he grabbed in the pocket of his jacket, Xane felt slightly uneasy but calmed down, when he pulled out a card and gave it to her. "Excuse me." He said. "I am Johann Hoffmann, previously a judge at a local court, but recently retired. How do you do?" It wasn't a situation Xane had hoped for. Hadn't she been convocated at this time of the day in order not to encounter anyone? Moreover, she never felt confident in the presence of strangers. For one thing, her grandmother, in her youth, had fallen victim to a gang rape and that had left the whole family scarred and scared ever after. The encounter of a stranger at a remote place, therefore, always made her uneasy and she knew only too well, how remote this place was. There were just the two of them, on that bridge and just the empty street thereover. The bridge was about 100 meters long, behind her, there were a small commons with a public toilet whence one could descend to the Rhine via stairs and a museum further behind. It was an uninhabited part of the town. Then why was she now having that encounter? With the intention not to provoke the stranger while getting rid of him as soon as possible, she uttered a friendly: "How do you do?" The man said: "You will find it strange that I am walking about here this early, but it just occurred to me to take some beautiful photos. No, just kidding, you know. But it could be true. It's more of a habit. After retirement, I had a dog, a rather big one. So, we walked for quite a while every morning. My dog has died some days ago and I keep walking without him, as if he were still here." That sounded reasonable. "What was your dog's name?" With the back of his hand, Johann Hoffmann wiped off a tear, and Xane noticed the wrinkles around his eyes. "Otto. He is now in dog's heaven." Xane still had the intention to leave the scene soon but wouldn't be impolite. On the other hand, she dreaded committing some form of infringement with her instructions from the club.

Her visit to Switzerland was to remain secret. "What kind of court sessions did you preside over?" Xane asked her interlocutor, a little bit against her intentions. "I was a criminal lawyer, almost all my career. Here, but also in other counties of Switzerland, too. There were quite some cases that I worked on. There is delinquency in Switzerland, too." Xane said that she would now have to hurry to catch her train, because she would have to be at her work place in a couple of hours. She thought that was a good pretext for running off without provoking negative feelings from Johann Hoffmann's side. Waiting for her train, sitting on a bench at the station, she took out his card. It was an unpretentious card made of thick, white paper with a black imprint of serifed letters. Name and address were printed on it as well as some academic titles and degrees. Xane thought that she could have dared having a longer conversation with him, that could have even benefitted her as an alibi. She was sure not to have told him her own name. On the train, she started googling his name but found nothing. She remembered him talking about some cases that he had worked upon and decided to investigate about some real important cases in the criminal history of Switzerland. Then she wondered why. Had the judge made an impression on her? A man whom she had met by chance? Xane made her way home by regional trains and had to commute several times. The notorious lack of reliability and the overcrowding of the German trains took their charges off her nerves, but the ticket cost only 42 EUR. Only, she thought. It's about 6 hours work at minimum wage, income tax deducted. Xane had now left Switzerland. She was German, old, and poor.

Xane loved the journey alongside the Rhine. It was beautiful. There had always been reasons for foreigners to come here: The beauty of the landscape. The Rhine Valley was a real gem. Yet there had been times, when the friendliness of the people, the reliability of the infrastructure, the freedom, and the wealth had attracted paying guests to Germany. Those days were gone. Nowadays, there was a massive influx of paupers from everywhere, people who made a living on child welfare and even sent part of it home abroad. Destitute people, barely educated, impressed in the German metropolitan areas. The whole country had been impoverished. On her journey home, Xane passed by half a dozen metropolitan areas. Germany was already densely populated. Still, the governing parties constantly asked for more housing projects. Large buildings were mushrooming in most regions of the country. Thus, green spots were destroyed and transformed into concrete desert that contributed to the climate disaster that the government pretended to address. On her journey home, Xane had not paused in any of the big cities she had come through. She would perhaps have to visit some of them during investigation, though she ignored which ones. For the time being, she was eager to finish traveling. She was exhausted and a bit frustrated, owing to the encounter with the judge and the fact that her visit to Switzerland hadn't remained completely unnoticed. Going the last mile by tube, her boss's face occurred to her. He kept repeating: "You know what that means." The boss was about 40 years of age, of normal height, of heavy built, though, with water blue eyes and brown hair. Xane had seen him several times and he had always worn a grey suit, a white shirt and black shoes with laces. The conversations had always been very formal, the boss being neither arrogant nor particularly friendly. Xane could have talked to anyone else instead. She did not particularly like the boss, nor did she really identify with the club, although she agreed with their aims, as far as she could make them out. She was working for the money. They didn't pay very well. Xane was poor. On her way home from the tube station, Xane passed by her "post box". This was something she really disliked, mainly for two reasons. Firstly, that post box business sometimes reinforced a strange behavior from her side and in the second place, she was never sure if she had found the real post box. At 300 meters from the stop, she passed by a bench. That must be it, she thought and briefly sat down, hoping that no neighbors came by. After all, what would they think if they found her sitting on a bench so close from home. She found the object stuck to a waste bin, stuck by means of a chewing gum. How nasty. She looked at the page from a suburban tattler. A class ad was marked. Xane made a quick photo of it with her cell phone camera, had a quick look over the content of the articles that seemed totally unimportant. Then she threw the disgusting thing off. One could not expect her to take that home, or could one? Xane was really annoyed. It was all so old school. Like many times before, she wondered, who was really behind the club. She would probably never know it.

She limited herself with fulfilling her tasks and getting paid for it. Her own post box contained another edition of the tattler, where the same class ad had been published again. Xane quickly erased the jpg from her cell phone. The other letters in her mailbox were a couple of bills, some commercials, a voter's registration for the election of the parliament of her federal state 6 weeks from there. It was hard to make a decision these days. Xane was really dissatisfied with every party and wouldn't perhaps vote at all. When she called the number from the class ad, she hardly understood the lady's name. So she had no choice but making an appointment to look at a car that she really had no intention of buying. She made the appointment for the next day, a Sunday. It was really a nuisance. After her exhausting trip to Switzerland, she would have well needed a day off to relax. On Monday, she would have to work again. On her balcony, Xane treated herself to a glass of alcohol free wine. That was really an alcohol free beverage, not a soft drink. She liked it very much. Most of all, she liked the alcohol free wine from the Saale Unstruth region in Eastern Germany, but the other brands weren't bad either. The Saale Unstruth region was the northernmost wine region in Germany and one of the two wine regions that had belonged to Eastern Germany when Germany had still been a divided country, divided by an iron fence with barbed wire and auto shooters into two halves with hostile ideologies. The other wine region was in Saxony near Dresden. Xane spared a quick thought for Johann Hoffmann, seized her cell phone to Google him, which was, again, to no avail. She almost fell asleep right there, on her balcony, where she had breakfast on Sunday morning before leaving for her appointment with the car seller. That took place quite a way off in a neighboring town where she hadn't been very often. Her region was the 3rd largest metropolitan region in Western Europe, just third behind the metropolitan areas of London and Paris. The borders among the different towns had always been invisible. One had the feeling of living in one large city with a variety of neighborhoods that spread over it. One could distinguish different classes of neighborhoods, posh and lowbrow suburbs with large edifices that used to be inhabited by people who had come to the region for work whilst, nowadays, they were flooded with those who came there not to work.

Those were the people who determined the contemporary lifestyle. On her way to the car seller, Xane had to listen to all sorts of conversations she could understand. Some people were having loud face to face dialogs while others shouted into their smart phones, obviously fearing not to be heard. Xane resented their lack of education. They're majoritizing us, she thought. They don't care about our customs and walk all over us. She would have voted for a party that had constituted themselves on the right, but felt that they were too homophobic for her taste. She was also more tolerant of other religions and convinced that Muslims were not more involved in delinquency than others. The delinquency of gangs had even aroused her suspicion about their being at all Muslims, mainly owing to their misbehavior. She also wondered why recent governments had striven to outnumber the locals by an inundation of the underprivileged from far afield. The fact that one wasn't allowed to say so in public was the mere proof of it. The ride on public transport to the remote neighborhood where the lady selling that car lived proved a real ordeal. Some busses were just not coming. They were indicated on a switchboard. Then the announcement was dropped, without any bus arriving. The trains were all late, that means by more than ten minutes, because if they arrive by 9 minutes late, they are said to have arrived in time. It took Xane three and a half hours to get to her appointment. It took place in a better neighborhood where obviously teachers, civil servants, and professional people lived.

Xane had to climb up a hill to get there, which surprised her. There were hills in her region but more in the Southern parts, like in the town where she lived or in the South of Essen, one of the larger cities in Germany. In the former Western part, the Federal Republic, it had ranked fourth in terms of inhabitants. Since the former "Democratic Republic of Germany ", much less democratic than the name suggested, had joined its Western counterpart, larger cities like Dresden and Leipzig had been added, but Essen was certainly among the ten largest cities of Germany and so was its neighbor town Duisburg. Duisburg had a harbor on the Rhine that was one of the largest in Europe. Those were cities that Xane knew much better than that smaller town with slightly above 100000 inhabitants where she intended to look at the car. It had taken her three and a half hours to get there, just on public transport and without any urban hiking that she cherished so much. The street where the people lived who sold the car was a quiet street. The houses had two storeys and were built for one family each. Even though most of them seemed to have carports and garages, there were still many cars parking alongside the pavement. Let's hope for the best, Xane thought and took photos of the cars that had been parked on both sides of the street as she approached the house where the sellers lived. The houses were all similar here, probably built in the late fifties or early sixties of the last century, solid brick buildings with angled roofs. The original windows with wooden frames had long since been replaced by plastic windows with double window panes, a standard adopted after the first oil crisis in 1973 in order to save energy. The houses were heated either with oil or natural gas. The heating period started in September or October and ended in spring, even though cold winter days were rare in this part of the Ruhr area. In the mountainous regions bordering the Southern part of the metropolitan area they were more frequent. Those were touristic parts of the country where skiing was possible. In this region on the Ruhr, however, an Atlantic climate prevailed. The appointment was at a house with a small lawn and some shrubs planted in front of it, a small path beside the entrance to the garage led to the aluminum door that was opened by a lady in her mid fifties who had obviously awaited her. When she introduced herself as the owner of the car, Xane identified a slight Polish accent.

After the end of the second World War, many people had migrated to Western Germany. In the beginning, those had been Germans from those regions in Poland and Czechoslovakia that had previously belonged to Germany. Later, members of the German minorities in Eastern Europe had also come, afterwards the Jewish population of Russia had come as refugees. Those were the ethnic migrants who had come here, besides the workers from Southern Europe who had come to work there when there were still industries. That was a long time ago in the good old days when Xane had been a child and a young lady. People of Xane's age now used to look much older in those days. They used to work until the age of 65 and many of them died soon after retirement. Nowadays, people survived on pension for many years, keeping a vivid interest in society, sports, exercise, many of them went for large journeys or cared for their grandchildren. Seniors in Xanes contemporary Germany were active and mobile. The owner of the car to be sold was definitely a best ager. She wore jeans and sweater and probably spent many hours every week at a fitness studio. Xane was relieved to find out that the car she was offered was among those she had just taken photos of. Since she had no intention at all of buying a car, Xane pretended to be looking for a car on behalf of a friend. The owner allowed her to take more photos of the car and also of the "vehicle license ", a small document containing all the particulars of the vehicle that drivers had to carry along with their driving license. There was good reason for a person looking for a car for some one else to take a photo of the vehicle license since some key identifiers indicated by the document were necessary to assess the expenses incurred for a particular car owing to the compulsory third party liability insurance and taxation. Xane was not invited inside the house. Everything took place on the street. She was happy with the information she had obtained and bid the seller farewell who told her that she had a lot of potential buyers for her car. Xane was glad to hear that, it relieved her bad conscience. The car was about 20 years old, a pulman version of a famous brand that had once been popular throughout Europe and in its Eastern hemisphere in particular. As a matter of fact, Xane remembered those times when newspapers abounded with articles about cars of that brand being stolen and taken to Poland and the Ukraine. Later, it was reported by the papers that car owners had sometimes been involved in the process to cover expenses. Some people had obviously taken recourse to illegal solutions. Xane had kept this in mind as a milestone in the history of her country in much the same way as she remembered an article published by the Economist in the early eighties of the previous century presenting Germany as a country where no one used public transport without a ticket. Xane remembered that was true in those bygone good old days, the more, since she had always spent her pocket money paying for tickets and was nevertheless, while still in school, charged with having falsified a ticket. As a matter of fact, the machine had made a double imprint on her ticket, owing to a technical problem. Her expensive ticket was seized by the ticket collector, so, in the days prior to the cell phone camera, Xane was then deprived of any object of evidence. Another lady on the mostly empty train, also with a Polish accent, was not willing to act as a witness on her behalf. That was an experience that Xane had made several times with that population group, although there were people from Poland who were perfectly alright, most of the times real Polish, though, not those with just the accent. After her ticket had been seized by Mr Kampl, that was the name of the ticket conductor, the young girl Xane had to buy another ticket just as expensive. Xane 's father made some hours-long phone calls with the Essen branch of what was then called "Bundesbahn", not a company but a state owned office under the auspices of the Minister of Transport of the former Federal Republic of Germany. The phone calls cost her parents an arm and a leg. Since Xane never received an apology for the ticket conductor's outrageous behavior, she had thus found out what a loser her father really was.

Moreover, she still resented the methods of the German railways and preferred to the very day every other form of transport. Even though they were still very important, Xane was glad that the German railways were, at least, no longer monopolistic. She always rode the private train companies. As far as the Polish accent of the only eye witness and some other spineless people was concerned, Xane had not taken that to heart for the sake of so many wonderful people with the same accent whom she had also met. Xane decided to go home via Essen. At Essen Central Station, there were many shops open on Sunday, among them a large discounter that was open until ten at night. Xane opted for a German variety of blue Stilton. Since alcohol free wine was not available at those stores, she bought a bottle of alcohol free champagne. In Germany, only French sparkling wines were entitled to be called champagne. German sparkling wines produced according to the champagne method, and only those, were entitled to call themselves Sekt, while all other origins and also the alcohol free variety that Xane took home were called sparkling wine. Afterwards, Xane enjoyed a cup of coffee at an ice cream parlor in the city of Essen. Meanwhile, she sent the information obtained to her contact email: "Dear friend, attached you will find some photos of the car of your interest as well of its vehicle license. I hope to have served you. Yours faithfully, your consultant." Xane had been asked to always hand in information with that signature. She was very surprised when she almost immediately received a reply: "My dear consultant, thank you very much for your kind assistance. Please ask for compensation at Herne. Any time. Yours sincerely, your friend."

That meant that her task had been achieved and her money deposited. High time for Xane to go and collect it. So she went back to the central station. When Xane had reached the remote platform where the hourly train via Herne was soon to leave, the loudspeaker announced that it had just been canceled. Yeah, that was the German Bahn. Xane took a train to Bochum operated by a private company, which was more to her heart but also a redirection which took her much longer to get there. On the train, she mused about the reasons for her newly accomplished mission and wondered if it had been in any way revelatory of the club?She kept wondering who was behind that organization. Was she, after all, investigating for a private eye? Or for an insurance company, for whom her information was highly relevant if the car had, for example, been stolen, perhaps many years ago? Who could tell. She had arrived at the terminal of the tube, whence Xane had to walk half a mile to reach the Canal. The Rhine Herne Canal had been built about two hundred years ago and was still used. It had been constructed in parallel to the river Emscher, a confluence of the Rhine. The Emscher was a very shallow river originating near Unna. Here, it had hardly had any bed and was not appropriate for the purposes of the "industrial barons" who colonized the region. The Emscher had therefore been canalized and collected all sorts of pollution. Only recently had its renaturation been initiated. Xane did not bother to visit the stinking polluted little river, because her remuneration would be deposited on the embankment of the Canal. She quickly descended to the path that was now used by many bikers, in particular on a sunny Sunday evening where she immediately found the paper bag of a discount store. It was in fact visible from far. How dare you! Xane thought. I am really a pauper, but you treat me really badly. She had anticipated a small envelope hidden somewhere close to this small outlet of the ground serving a purpose Xane had so far failed to discover. There was a staircase and a fence around it. Xane ignored what purpose it served. Instead of a small envelope with money, she found a book called "Energy for Herne ", quite nice, really, and an envelope. The envelope contained a card, congratulating her on her "great achievement" and three fifty Euro notes, from which Xane immediately deducted the two tickets of 42 Euros, Switzerland and return. Thinking about all the hours spent for that task, Xane was really dissatisfied. True, she loved Switzerland. The expenses of her journey had been covered. But seven hours of her free time spent at Bottrop and on the way thereto for just fifty Euros, in addition the unpleasant encounter of that Polish car seller. Don't call again, Xane thought. Don't you ever call me again. Enough is enough.

Labor was obviously not in short supply at that goddammit club, who ever those people were. Who were they, after all? Xane felt an urge to know more in due course. For the time being, she was really looking forward to joining her colleagues at the office on Monday. Only a couple of years ago had she found her breadwinning job in a call center. Recently the instructor of a hiking club, where Xane was a member and sometimes participated in classes had told them at a session what a horrible work place a call center was and why she, herself, had called it a day. Xane, on the other hand, had found the experience of working in dialogue marketing rather challenging. In the beginning, she had felt like a pilot in his cockpit. There were so many programs to administer while at the same time answering calls and so many technical problems to be solved, too. Xane often thought of the first typists in New York and other great cities who had obtained financial and social independence in a male dominated society by means of those jobs that required knowledge though not necessarily any professional qualifications. During her journey through the working place of the third millennium, Xane had seen many of her colleagues, always younger than herself, drop out of the job. Some might have found other jobs that suited them better or maybe not. Xane had started on a temporary basis, then conquered an indefinite contract, which she lost again, had then started afresh in a new job and again conquered another indefinite contract, well aware of the frailty of her professional existence, despite of the fact that, due to her portfolio of qualifications, she was really skilled to do that job. She cherished her employers who provided good jobs in a demanding environment that required a lot of investment and, was, at the same time, characterized by competition for clients well aware of their stronger position on the market. Xane felt that their strength stemmed from the high investment her employers had to shoulder which made them really vulnerable, while their customers could often draw on assets they had accumulated during the era of the German economic miracle in the middle of the previous century. Xane strongly identified with her employer, her supervisors, and her team. She had always had a vivid interest for sales, had derived a lot of knowledge about marketing and sales and was now happy to put those skills into practice. For Xane, her recent work places had been a source of both inspiration and recognition. She loved her team and her work place. On her days off she had sometimes done some odd jobs for the club and that very Sunday she had decided to drop the whole thing altogether, unless, perhaps it provided a way to satisfy her curiosity with regard of the club. She had ever since wondered who was behind that club and if it was, at all, a legal thing, which she had sometimes doubted. Since not even Xane was an island entirely of its on, there were some people in her environment who had really made an impact on her.One of them was George whom she had met many years ago. Apart from being about a head length smaller than Xane, who wasn't tall either, he was extremely good looking and had enormous self-confidence. He was always full of fun, creative and a real optimist. Through his heart warming presence, she had become acquainted with the club. So prior to quitting working for them, she would rather seek his advice. She felt, however, slightly insecure anticipating his reaction. Would he perhaps resent her decision? Xane dreaded to lose such a good friend. On her way home from the office, she decided to take things easy and write George a mail in order to mention it. There would still be plenty of time considering her involvement with the club while she was waiting for Georgie's answer. George, however, called her immediately and proposed a meeting. Being really tired from work, Xane tried to postpone it, but George insisted. "Girl, what the Halloween are you up to? Have you totally gone off your wits?" Firstly, Xane told him about the notice that was attached to a waste bin by means of a chewing gum. "So?" He asked. Xane said that this was all so disgusting and that the remuneration was also meager. "Just fancy, seven hours in all in that ugly town of Bottrop, then that Polish woman."

George asked: "Just for me to understand. What was wrong with her?" Xane said that she hadn't liked her, nor the suburb, where she lived. "Taking photos of that old car, so many hours for so little money." George said that making some money in her leisure time was perhaps a good idea. "No strings attached. And if ever the worst comes to the worst, you will perhaps be glad to be part of a widespread network." Xane asked what he meant. The worst? "I know you prefer trivial literature to serious works. I remember you once were an addicted reader of Karl May. He lived in Saxony at Hohenstein Ernstthal. Did you no that perhaps about a century before May, in that very town, there lived a historian by the name of Poelitz who had recollected the contemporary wisdom on politics and social science. He never became famous and I have wondered why. What he pointed out was that a society can only thrive if each member contributes to its well-being, within their means. One would think that is faint and clear, but look around yourself. Our society is being jeopardized by massive influx of people who don't even think of contributing to our society. They just take and never give. Our government is recklessly making debts and we might at some stage wake up to a morning when we'll all be financially destitute." Xane nodded and asked:"What do you think the club will do in such a situation? Pay us more than they do now? I have had a feeling that work force isn't in short supply. They look down on us, let me tell you that." George looked puzzled. "I don't know." He said. "Do you know whom we are working for? I sometimes get the impression that we are working for an insurance company or even the police. Most of the time, I do investigations, like observing people who cheat on their partner, their boss, who stole something, you know, that sort of delinquency. I can well identify with my tasks, you see, the lady whom I spied on yesterday was so unkind. If my task were to set things right in society, I'd be happy. Let's say she stole that car and got away with it many years ago, I feel it would be right to at least compensate the victims, say, the insurance company. I can then identify with the goals of the club. Only the payment is lousy."

George looked even more puzzled. It took a while before he said:"If, I say if because I don't know if it is true, if the woman committed some tort like cheating an insurer, that may not have been her only offence. People desperate for money will perhaps commit other crimes, too. And not all people working for the club will do the same kind of observations that you do. You were perhaps hired to do that kind of odd jobs because you excelled at them. Other club members excelled at other jobs." Excelled? Xane thought. That was really a strange characteristics of her moonlighting jobs that she had assumed for the want of money. Had she entangled into delinquency at some stage in her life, when she was unemployed? George had just said that people committed different crimes if desperate for money. George got her to do those odd jobs when she was out of employment, financially destitute, receiving no subsidies, because she wanted to finish her studies. In those days, it was much more difficult to receive welfare payments, unlike now, when people came from far afield looting the welfare state under an irresponsible government. Was she, herself, as a matter of fact, someone who committed all sorts of crimes for the want of a paycheck? "Then, what do the others do?" Xane asked. "Well, perhaps taking things some place. Anything. I don't know. Why bother? It's a good thing to earn some extra money or even make a living on it if there is no hope at all. You know yourself that in our society, you have to give yourself up in order to receive welfare cheques, while at the same time, regulations make it hard to start any form of business. Take craftsmanship. Without being entered to the craftsmanship roll, very few businesses are open to you, mainly a key and heels bar. I know a guy who opened one, a nice young man. Do you know how much they make him pay? Although he is a solopreneur, he must contribute to the welfare system, health scheme, pension scheme, and even unemployment scheme. How can an entrepreneur become unemployed. You tell me that. Apart from his acquisition efforts blocked by all sorts of hurdles benefitting dubious lawyers, but that's something else. How can he become unemployed. You tell me. All of the welfare contributions he has to pay are based on a fictitious income of 2000 EUR, an income, not a turnover. That means he would have to yield a turnover of estimated 4000 EUR at least. How can that be done with the repair of heels? Every month from startup. He is a young man and has to pay all that. Before he earned a single Euro.

While those who come from far afield get everything free without ever contributing to our Welfare state. Nobody read Poelitz, you know." For a short while, Xane felt like not pursuing the matter any further. She loved Georgie so much and didn't mean to hurt him in anyway, but then there was that little nudge to know more about how he really thought. So, she asked: "You say others are working for the club on a different basis. Let's look at the task I fulfilled yesterday yielding fifty bucks in all." George shook his head. "Sixty eight, to be precise. No strings attached, no tax deducted." Xane thought about how many times on her journey she had paid a Euro to use a public restroom and answered :"Thanks for reminding me that it was illegal . " George shook his head. "No way. I didn't want to say that. As I said, no strings attached. You can go for good any time. Just consider, that it is clean money nobody knows about. I invested it in a small patch of land which I bought at an auction . For now, it has been protected by environmental laws, but if ever my welfare paycheck was canceled, I'd use it to grow crop. Legislation will not count then, anyway. And I would rather not rely on being cared for by anyone. Not even our club."

To Xane, George's ideas sounded like a blueprint of their society. He'd invested his money in an erf he could use. He neither manufactured nor sold anything but claimed welfare instead. Only if welfare ceded was he intentioned to earn his living. How really absurd. He had incited her to the club, which in those days was of great relief. Xane had had no job and really no idea how she could pay her bills. She was then not in a position of inquiring into the purpose for which she collected all that information. Listening to George now, she had severe doubts if she could really leave the club as easily as he pretended. He was obviously talking her into spending her precious time with further dubious investigations. "Anyway, I'd like us to remain good friends." She could not make much of George 's face. "Just give a shout. " He purported. "Perhaps I take a short breath and go on a short trip. Just so. To Switzerland. A couple of days, if I get holidays." George frowned. "You alone ?" Xane told him that she would book a short trip to Central Switzerland with a group. "That is less expensive and I don't have to bother about meals and accommodation. Both will be fine. I went on that journey several times. Getting away from it all, I will make a better decision on how to proceed." Unfortunately, Xane hadn't received a seat next to the window. That was the only setback with those journeys. You didn't know how you were seated and you spent a lot of time on the coach. The lady who was sitting next to her suggested that they could swap seats from time to time. "Thanks. That won't be necessary. I've already several times made this trip to Switzerland." People traveling with this company were usually friendly. Her new traveling companion for the next next days seemed particularly kind. "Several times to Switzerland? Why?" She asked. "I love the country and we will visit some particularly nice places, Lucerne, Thun, and a small town where we will go by train in more than two thousand meters height , and Interlaken. The hotel is rather old but nice. It's a wonderful journey." The lady was petite and dressed quite posh. Her grey hair was a wig and unlike Xane, who carried all her belongings with herself in a bag pack, she had come to the bus stop near the central station with a large trolley. Xane thought that was a lot of luggage for just a couple of days. Xane went to Switzerland sleeping. A coach is a good place to sleep. Xane bent over her backpack. It served as a big cushion. Xane slept very well and did not even notice that the coach stopped several times on its way to the county of Obwalden. She had hardly talked to her friendly neighbor who joined her at the dinner table. She had put on a silk dress in which she looked quite elegant. Listening to her traveling companion account of their journey Xane was enjoying a modest but nutritious meal when her musings about the events ahead next morning were interrupted by the vibrations of her cell phone. A short message called her to Basel. How convenient, she thought, eager to go there so as to find out more about Johann Hoffmann, the judge whom she had encountered some time ago. Why had he been there? She told her companion that she wouldn't attend their excursions planned for the next day. Xane still ignored her name, which was quite typical of such tours.

Germans rarely introduced themselves, only rather educated compatriots did. So, Xane expected to spend a good part of her journey with the little old lady keeping her company without ever knowing her name . Xane asked her to inform the driver of her absence, on which she looked quite puzzled. Xane had stayed at the hotel in Central Switzerland many times before and really liked the breakfast with Swiss bread rather than rolls. It was a pity she had to skip breakfast to catch the early train leaving at 6 hours. Starting from home, she would have felt that Basel was waiting for her, but now it was a bit different since she was actually missing out on a nice excursion that would have taken her to scenic Thun and mundane Interlaken. Xane's train was typically Swiss, old and very well kept. In Germany, railroad operators had to buy new trains all the time. In Switzerland, she had witnessed, that the interior of the trains were often refurbished, but there remained always the same trains with their old doors that passengers had to open on their own, which could entail quite some effort. Like the stations, the trains were clean and, unlike their German counterparts that ridiculed schedules, they arrived always in time, even in winter. Xane was sitting by the window and soon greeted by the ticket collector in her charming accent. Xane loved the people from Switzerland. When someone with a mobile store came to offer her coffee, she agreed to a cup of Schüemli and a Weggeli, coffee and a Swiss roll. Having a good breakfast, she thought, was a solid start of the day. This train was empty, and the next one might be full. So she rather enjoyed the steaming beverage and the crisp roll right away rather then later on. Swiss trains were really well serviced. There used to be times when German trains were also quite good, but those days were gone. Only some trains operated by private companies could be relied on and they were the ones Xane always preferred. In Switzerland, it was different. Xane loved Switzerland. It was so good to be there, even for just a short holiday. Then why was she now going to Basel, when she could explore the Upper Land of the Bern region with her friendly travel companion? She probably felt like finding out why Johann Hoffmann had met her on the bridge in Basel. Going there on this train at her own expense rather than traveling around in that nice yellow coach, now seemed ridiculous to her. She had met Hoffmann by mere chance, no reason at all to further pursue the matter. Xane was annoyed with herself. She should have enjoyed her journey rather than bother with that club or chasing that old man. How old would he be? Certainly much older than herself. A man who was walking about in search of his dog. Xane knew only to well what it was like. Even many years after Freddy's death, she had revisited some places they had been together. All the time, she imagined how wonderful it would be if, in those days, she had a smart phone camera. Recently, people had the opportunity of taking videos of their loved ones whenever they wanted to.

Xane had no videos of Freddy. Sure, material things could not replace those you lost, but how soothing would it have been to look at a video of Freddy or listen to his voice again. Xane didn't have any record of Freddy, just a few photos. She had therefore taken recourse to autosuggestion, telling herself how much she wanted to remember their mutual past. Xane had always been a fan of autogenic training, a method of autohypnosis. So she had compiled formulas like: "We had wonderful times. I remember them now." Or: "I remember Freddy. We were happy in London." When she went to London, for example, she adjusted her autosuggestions accordingly. She memorized her mantras all the time. Did it work? Xane didn't know. When Hoffmann had told her that he was keeping up the habit of their mutual walks now that his dog had died, Xane had felt really attracted to him and at the moment when he wiped off the tear from his eye, she had been really moved. Xane arrived at Basel late in the morning and, first of all, went to the Vorstadt where Hoffmann lived, according to the business card that he had given her. They had really met in the very early hours, when Hoffmann had been walking about. Xane had not thought of that. It was much later now. So, any encounter was rather unlikely. Isn't it strange how often we overlook important facts when we make our plans? It happened so often to Xane that she was used to it. When she first noticed it, she had still been willing to openly talk about it, but at some stage decided that she was not compelled to tell everyone about her weaknesses. Like an impostor, she was now keeping her misassumptions to herself to readjust her plans accordingly. To her, that was a much more cognitive way of planning her things, and she had the feeling that others respected her more since she had adopted it.

True, she had ignored the missing link. Her trip to Basel would therefore be to no avail. Rather than enjoying her well deserved and, by the way, very expensive holiday, she was now up to receiving further instructions from her unpretentious supervisor at the club, to their orders and the negligible remuneration they yielded, no tax deducted, no strings attached. She had been mistaken once more. Xane was, perhaps, a failure. Why bother or even tell anyone about it? On that sunny day, the Spalenvorstadt looked especially beautiful. That was Xane's Switzerland. The old houses were freshly painted, which lent them a contemporary appeal, even though they bore witness of Switzerland and their good tradition of peace and the wealth it had brought with it. Unlike the more rural areas through some of which her scheduled excursion would have taken her on that very day, Basel didn't in any way reflect the struggle of the Swiss people to make a living in an environment that others would consider adverse. Her excursion would then have taken her to some smaller towns with their castles and old houses, hosting shops and stores in their first floor, most of the time. Switzerland is a mercantile nation. The next day, however, Xane would, again, come through the mountainous regions with their countless wooden barrages designed to block the frequent and unpredictable avalanches that haunted the country. Basel didn't reveal the efforts of hitting those wooden bolts into the rocky ground, nor the dangers that it had entailed. Nobody thought about those craftsmen who had swung their heavy hammers at 2000 meters above the sea level and even more, in order to make the nation thrive, nor about how many of them might have lost their lives in the process.

Chance had it that Xane found Johann Hoffmann in front of his house, fiddling about with an old bicycle. He wore a pair of baggy trousers that stuck to his slim body due to some century-old suspenders. The velvet like fabric of those trousers matched well with a sweater hand knit for a man of about double his posture. Walking by, Xane greeted him, pronouncing his name and PhD, as was usual in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. They kept telling you to omit the PhD, but it was considered part of a person's name. Hoffmann retorted the salutation without even looking up from his bike, to which Xane accelerated her pace to get out of his view. That was that, she thought. We obviously met by mere chance. She wondered why she felt so relieved by that finding. Before getting to the office, Xane treated herself to a slab of chocolate at the outlet of a grocery chain. She really cherished the no name brand sold by that particular chain. She also had some skimmed milk from a brand that was sold everywhere, even in the smallest village, at another ever present chain of groceries. She also had a plastic mug of prefab coffee with milk and sugar to later take the mug home to remind her of her short stay in Switzerland. After a while, it would be subject to normal wear and tear, so that she would take along a new one next time. Coffee was alright, as she didn't expect to be offered any at the office where the nobody of a supervisor eagerly awaited her. "Am I late, after all?" Asked Xane shyly. "No. Not at all. It's because of your last errand. You fulfilled it so expertly. We had everything at hand in little but no time. We hadn't expected that you submitted the car license and the photos immediately. As a matter of fact, we hadn't given you any according instructions because we hadn't thought of it." Xane found that really hard to believe. Moreover, she felt uneasy about the way she was addressed. There was a disparity between the hymn on her achievement she had just heard and the actual remuneration obtained. This is outrageous, she thought. "We have, therefore, considered charging you with further and more demanding tasks."

The self contentment that her supervisor displayed reminded Xane of the bunch of thugs that had come to early Nazi Germany just to commit acts of gang rape to the detriment of the Jews that had already been deprived of most of their civil rights. They might have been about his age. Or even younger. Or older. She ignored that, because her grandmother had declined to mention it. It was, however, common knowledge that people from across the border had sometimes come to Nazi Germany to take advantage of the Jewish misery. Mind you, thought Xane. It's not his fault and he has nothing to do with it. It could be that his ancestors were victimized, too. At that, Xane had a slightly friendlier attitude toward her supervisor who was by far her junior and, therefore, didn't take it to heart that he didn't even bother to ask for her consent for those more demanding tasks, just mentioned by him, in which Xane wasn't, of course, at all interested. Before Xane could even object, the supervisor told her that the new task would comprise more involvement with Switzerland. That was an incentive, but probably not feasible now. Xane had a job she loved and would never give it up for a demanding task to be fulfilled in Switzerland. "Are you pulling my leg?" Xane asked. "I am employed and certainly not the person you are looking for to assume responsibility for your demanding tasks." While her boss kept chattering on, Xane had the representation of Johann Hoffmann on her inner radar, and she wondered, of whom he reminded her and why she just didn't seem to be able to let loose. "Anyway, she lives at Lucerne, but you will meet tomorrow at her house at Mustair." The name of that village took Xane back to reality since she expected to go there the next day, on board what was probably one of the slowest fast trains in the world. Xane had on several occasions been there and always cherished a ride sometimes above the clouds or else with an impressive view. Was it a wonder that people had invented aeroplanes if they could even live among the clouds. There were farms at that height, and avalanche barriers everywhere. "Excuse me?" She said. "Mustair is a small town in the county of Grishun, more precisely in the Rhetic part thereof." And even more precisely, in the Surselva region. It is dominated by a monastery and has a famous boarding school, Xane thought. And I intended to go there anyway, on a train that uses the same railways like the famous Golden Pass. Only, that it's an ordinary train where you can blend into the locals. "We couldn't make an appointment with Ms. Müller at her Lucerne flat.

She has recently withdrawn from society and obviously spent a lot of time in the little log cabin she inherited from a paternal grand-uncle, whence she has done consulting work. There are obviously clients visiting her in the mountains. And that's really in the mountains." I know, Xane thought. "Anyway, Ms Müller, or Doris, as we call her, expects you there tomorrow at 11 hours and will give you all the necessary instructions." Why bother, thought Xane, who knew that the train of her group would eventually leave Mustair the next day at a quarter to two from platform five. She had always loved Mustair that she had visited several times and tried to connect with locals who, besides their Surselva idiom, spoke German, although the region bordered Southern Tyrol in Italy. "We don't speak the Southern Tyrolean Rhetic dialect, they told her, but we understand it." Meeting Doris Müller, consultant and a real Surselvan, was certainly a U-turn in her journey. She was really adamant to become acquainted with her. This was an opportunity she wanted and therefore, the whole task was attractive. Strange, how my nobody of a boss lured me into doing it again, she thought. To be continued