friends until her mother finally found her and assured her that she
hadn’t spoken to Meinhart Steinhagen in more than sixteen years.
Lina sighed and looked at Max, who hadn’t said anything all this
time. “He wouldn’t give up. He tried again and again. At last curi-
osity got the better of me, and we met at the Ohlsdorfer cemetery.”
She grimaced. “A strange place for a first meeting between father and daughter, I know, but in a way it was fitting. Our relationship was dead on arrival.”
The Ohlsdorfer cemetery, located in the north of Hamburg, is the
largest parklike cemetery in the world, a spacious, elaborately designed development, in which many of the best long-established Hamburg
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Dead Woods
merchant families have mausoleums, among them the Steinhagen fam-
ily. Her father led her to the grave of her ancestors and, whether she wanted to or not, she felt something like awe for a moment when
she saw the ancient moss-covered crypt—and also a certain connected-
ness with the people who were buried there. It was the first time she realized that her family consisted of more than just her mother and
Christian. Asta Svenson was an only child. Her father, a member of the Danish minority in Schleswig-Holstein, immigrated to Denmark soon
after Lina was born, without taking his wife and daughter along. Asta’s mother came from a worker’s family in Kiel without a long or illustri-ous history. And now Lina was standing at the grave of her ancestors, some of whom had been resting here since the cemetery was opened
in 1877. Lina quickly turned away and rubbed her arms as if she were cold, though it was a warm day. She furtively glanced at the man next to her. At the time, Meinhart Steinhagen must have been in his mid-to-late forties. He wore a custom-made suit, a tie, and custom-made
leather shoes. As if that weren’t enough, he had arrived in a massive BMW and reeked of an expensive aftershave lotion.
From the way he looked at her, it was obvious that he, too, was
shocked by the meeting with his daughter. Lina had just discovered
punk. She was wearing a leather mini, torn fishnet tights, and com-
bat boots. Her hair was artistically arranged in red, yellow, and green spikes; her ears were all but hidden under a myriad of rings; and her brows, nose, and lips were pierced, as well. She no longer remembered when she had last dared to go outside without her makeup.
It turned out that neither of them wanted their family relation-
ship made public. Lina because she had been taught from the cradle
an aversion against those above her—she already felt like a traitor for just meeting him—and Meinhart Steinhagen because he didn’t want
to risk his marriage by allowing his wife to find out about an affair that happened when she had been pregnant with her first child. Johanna
Steinhagen was born a mere five months before Lina.
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Maria C. Poets
She was quiet and finished the rest of the foam in her cup.
“And then?” Max finally asked.
Lina shrugged. “There was no ‘then.’ We never met again after
that. I had satisfied my curiosity. I had met my real father and didn’t like him. And he . . .” She shrugged again. “I think he was never really interested in me. He had just wanted to find out if I could threaten him. An illegitimate child isn’t something he needs or wants.”
“But it’s different nowadays?” Max asked.
“His wife died,” Lina explained, “so he has nothing to lose if it
becomes known that he has an illegitimate daughter.”
“But why,” Max thought out loud, “did he suddenly call you
last Sunday and tell you that the Ansmann Bank might be facing
bankruptcy?”
He noticed how Lina changed as she switched from the past to the
present, from memory to investigation. She pulled her legs under the chair and focused. “It wasn’t his first call. Shortly after the death of his wife, about five years ago, he started to call me every now and then. He always asks me how I’m doing and whether we could get together one
of these days.” (He had also begun to call her dear child or dear, she thought but didn’t say.) “I already had an unlisted number at the time.
I’m sure it’s no problem for someone with his connections to get such numbers, but he must have known I would notice. Maybe he wanted
me to know how powerful he was. Was he trying to control me or to
get information through me? I didn’t doubt for a moment that he’d use me, the way he uses everyone.”