Inspector Barthelmie has a lot on his plate. The circle of suspects is large. The victim and his teammates have many enemies in Kleingroßdorf.
The victim was lucky, if one can call multiple fractures, missing front teeth, internal contusions, and hematomas lucky. The motorcyclist could, of course, be dead or paralyzed from the neck down. Therefore, the inspector from the Direcţia de Investigaţii Criminale is investigating the case as attempted manslaughter, and possibly even attempted murder, who knows. After all, a wire rope strung at head height doesn't grow on its own between two trees; it's deliberately placed there.
The young man, who was thrown from his motorcycle in the hilly terrain around Kleingroßdorf, is unable to be questioned. One of the hematomas is located in his brain. Doctors have placed him in a medically induced coma. The statements of the four other enduro riders, who had accompanied him on one of their usual off-road rides across slopes and meadows far from any roads, paths, or trails, were largely unhelpful.
They could only report that their leader, who was riding at the head of the motocross group as usual, was suddenly thrown from his saddle. He somersaulted several times, a bush cushioning his almost fatal fall. They had been riding at dusk; none of them had had a chance to see the wire rope.
The inspector sits at a table in the old Saxon school in Kleingroßdorf. For years, ever since most of the Saxons left, it hasn't been used for its original purpose and fell into disrepair. Now, however, it has been partially renovated and is in relatively good condition. Exhibition rooms have been set up on both floors. They stand empty, though. The associated art project recently failed.
Barthelmie himself once attended a Saxon school, the German-language grammar school in the big city. Back then, the language of instruction in all subjects at the high school was still German. Unlike many of his Saxon classmates, he didn't need to learn Romanian as a foreign language, because he grew up bilingual. His mother was Romanian, his father a Transylvanian Saxon. Both have been dead for a long time, and Barthelmie himself is about to retire after 35 years of police service.
Barthelmie became a police officer when the Romanian Police were being reorganized after the ignominious end of the "Titan of Titans," the deranged communist dictator Nicolae Ceaușescu. He found several colleagues who had profited handsomely from the old regime. They came to an understanding. As recently as 2019, the then Romanian President Klaus Iohannis lamented corruption, incompetence, and cronyism within his country's police force.
Barthelmie sighed and rolled his pen over the list of suspects he had summoned to the school for questioning. His own office at the police station in the big city was currently unusable. A burst pipe had flooded the offices during the long-overdue installation of a sprinkler system.
At the top of Barthelmie's list is the village shepherd. It's documented that the shepherd has clashed with the enduro riders several times because they repeatedly damage the grazing land for his sheep. However, according to the statements of the unharmed motorsport enthusiasts, they have also made themselves equally unpopular with some other villagers.
There's the local conservationist, an immigrant from Germany, who inundates the authorities with complaints about the damage the off-roaders are causing in the idyllic landscape around the village. They tear away the grass and exacerbate soil erosion on the slopes they race up and down just for fun.
Several well-to-do residents, locals and non-locals alike, whose elegant or merely aspiring houses rise on the hills above the village, are not particularly pleased with the regular disturbance caused by the young extreme bikers who roar and stink past their fences. This is especially true because the motorcyclists never actually ride from point A to point B, but instead steer their machines into the sloping undergrowth in front of the manicured gardens, where, circling their illegal course again and again, they create a constant, never-ending noise. The homeowners have made their anger official with a petition, which they unsuccessfully submitted to the local council.
Yes, and down in the village center, there are also complaints from residents during the summer season. That's when the local enduro enthusiasts get reinforcements from abroad. They travel from all over the world (and they're almost always men), lured by the big rally for their kind that the city hosts annually. Away from the rally route, they also fan out into the surrounding countryside, where – unlike at home – they can tear through the landscape pretty much undisturbed, whether it's designated as a nature reserve or not.
Around the kiosk with beer garden in the village center, where the adventure sports enthusiasts park their motorhomes and meet for one or more beers (we assume that the drinks are all unleaded, of course, without, alcool), there is a lot of activity.
It's quite something to rev the engine at the foot of the majestically silent Romanesque fortified church, demonstrating the capabilities of your highly tuned machine to your fellow enthusiasts! And then to set off for a joint mud fight – nothing beats getting your expensive leathers (preferably white) covered in mud after a downpour on a muddy track.
“They’re all pigs,” says Cioban, sitting before the inspector. The shepherd isn’t used to mincing his words, and he’s not afraid of the police. “Of course I cursed, what else would I do? It was a close call; those lunatics could have driven right through my flock!”
The inspector studies Cioban, who sits before him on the interrogation chair, his shepherd's crook in hand. The man looks like he's done hard work and looks directly into the policeman's eyes. "If I'd wanted to do something to those idiots, the Tâmpiților, I would have given them a good thrashing with my stick. But a wire rope, cowardly in the dark? Never." Barthelmie nods and lets him go.
The nature enthusiast brings an interpreter. Barthelmie conducts the conversation in Romanian. This is actually unnecessary, but quite convenient for the inspector, as he wants to know how accurately the interpreter translates to and from German. The interpreter has an ashen face and reeks of Zuika. The inspector himself appreciates plum brandy, but not in the morning.
“Do you know how many cyclists are killed in accidents in this area every year?” the nature enthusiast immediately asked. His companion’s Romanian version was: “A terrible accident. But I’m equally saddened by the number of cyclists who are killed here every year.”
"On wire ropes? Hardly," said the inspector, fixing his gaze on the interpreter. "We're not talking about an ordinary accident here, but a near-fatal trap. After all your fruitless complaints, have you perhaps considered taking the law into your own hands?"
The nature enthusiast raises them defensively and leans back. "That's out of the question for me. I abhor violence. And Mother Earth will ultimately turn against all those who sin against her."
The interpreter translates into Romanian: “That is out of the question for me. I kiss the earth in which the dead man now rests, may his sins be forgiven.”
"Well, the motorcyclist is badly injured, but—for now—certainly not dead. Would you perhaps have preferred things to be different?" The interpreter pales even further, and his client's vigorous head-shaking needs no translation. Then again, who would admit to something like that?
The residents on the hills: One admits that he piled up dead tree branches to block the most frequently used paths by enduro riders – of course, the rotten wood wasn't a permanent obstacle for them, more of a challenge. Another confesses that he's considered having concrete blocks poured along the gravel track in front of his house so that the annoying enduro riders can no longer turn off into the open countryside.
The mayor of the neighboring town, which also administers Kleingroßdorf, later confirmed in his office various, as he called them, “negligible expressions of displeasure” about the activities of the motorsport enthusiasts that had come to his attention.
“You know,” he confided to the inspector, “we’d like to see more tourism here. The big city would too. We’re on the same page. We need development, foreign currency. And these summer motorcyclists bring in money. Most of the ones who complain are foreigners too, but they barely pay property tax here, nothing more. They sit in their summer houses, have no idea about our lives, yet they still like to complain. And the local youth want their fun too. A little cruising around – well, what else are they supposed to do? That’s all I can say about it.”
The inspector is persistent, and he knows the people around here. The mayor is the brother-in-law of an employee at the tourist office in the big city, as Barthelmie knows. Well, look at that. Tourism development meets family values. The well-to-do people on the hills—they look down on the long-established villagers in more ways than one, and on their noisy offspring especially. The nature enthusiast from Germany: He's known back home as a militant climate activist; the inspector doesn't need forensics for that, just the internet. Cioban? Well, an honest man, certainly. He'll always defend his flock of sheep. Perhaps not just against bears and wolves.
The ground torn up by the off-road motorcycles seems full of lies. The mud splashed by their riders clings to many cheeks.
The inspector is sitting in his favorite restaurant in the big city, not far from the police station. Little in the big city is far from his office, because the big city isn't really all that big.
Barthelmie spoons up a ciorbă de perișoare, a meatball soup. Three meatballs float in the ciorba. He pushes them to the edge of the plate: Cioban, nature lover, wealthy hill dweller.
He looks into the soup. It's clear. He takes the spoon and heaps it with smântână, the indispensable cream addition. He drops a dollop of it into the broth. It becomes cloudy. He eats the three meatballs and studies the rest of the ciorba for a long time, then leaves it untouched.
The next day, the inspector is back in Kleingroßdorf. He had previously consulted the land registry records for the village at the land registry office, examining the most recent property sales. A pattern emerges. The most frequently used enduro tracks are no longer designated as nature reserves, but, in their dilapidated state, as fallow land – and were sold for a pittance. An application to rezone them as building land is pending. The buyer is always the same: a Societate cu Răspundere Limitată in Alba Iulia, about 80 kilometers away. Barthelmie will have to pay this real estate development company a visit, he thinks to himself.
The inspector stood by the two trees between which the wire rope had been strung and wondered: Was someone being eliminated here, perhaps an accomplice? Why? Did the boy want out? Was he demanding too much for repeatedly destroying everything with his crew? What did he want? A new, nicer, bigger, more powerful, faster, louder motorcycle? What did his cronies know about it, those equally adolescent motorsport enthusiasts who, perhaps on commission, repeatedly flattened the same track with him until it became a marketable wasteland?
The investigator gets down on the ground, squats, looks at the old fruit trees surrounding him, neglected by anyone, and picks up a little soil, rubbing it between his fingers. The topsoil was once fertile, now it's worn down, the grass stripped bare. He puts a clod of earth in his pocket and prepares to conduct a few more interviews.
As Barthelmie went to fumble for his keys in his coat outside his bachelor apartment in an old house on the Little Ring of the Big City, he noticed that the door was only ajar. He was certain he had locked it that morning when he left the apartment.
Barthelmie draws his service pistol and takes the safety off. Then he kicks the door open. It bursts open to reveal a scene of devastation. The confirmed bachelor doesn't exactly keep a model home, but his modest abode has never looked this catastrophic. His few belongings are scattered on the floor, armchairs and coffee table are overturned, dishes are smashed to bits, and his jazz record collection—a particularly painful loss—is strewn throughout the apartment like black puzzle pieces.
Barthelmie nervously opens a small wall cabinet where he keeps an old heirloom: his great-grandfather's pocket watch. A beautiful, gilded timepiece with a chain and the inscription: "For 30th Anniversary of Service." His great-grandfather had been a conscientious tax official. The watch has a musical mechanism, which, however, stopped working long ago. It used to play the words "Always Practice Loyalty and Honesty" when the lid was opened. Barthelmie has wanted to have the watch repaired for a long time, but is put off by the cost. The precious item remains untouched in the drawer.
But the historical map of Sibiu, with the original German names of all the streets, alleys, and staircases, which hung above Barthelmie's desk, now lies crumpled in the toilet. On the now-empty wall above the desk, someone has sprayed a single word in blood-red paint: "Avertisment" – "Warning".
The inspector secures his pistol and says to himself: "A clear case for the police." He calls in the crime scene investigators, opens the undamaged refrigerator and a can of "Ursus Nefiltrata," straightens an armchair, sits down in it, brings the beer can to his mouth, looks at the desk wall and thinks.
The next morning, he was finally able to use his office at the police station again. He noticed that his desk drawer, which he always carefully locked, was slightly ajar. He put on disposable gloves, pulled the drawer open completely, and found an unmarked and unsealed envelope. It contained 100 crisp, new 500-lei notes, roughly €10,000. A tidy sum, far exceeding his monthly salary. But probably insignificant compared to the illicit wealth generated by the brownfield land deals around Kleingroßdorf.
This attempted bribery, the inspector knew, should be reported. But to whom? Barthelmie immediately thought of several superiors whom he suspected of being corrupt. He asked his secretary who had access to his office while it was under lockdown. Of course, no one. It was highly unlikely that a stranger could have broken in. The envelope was a sign from above.
The initial findings from the forensic investigation in Barthelmie's ransacked apartment are also sobering. No fingerprints – professionals were at work. Or someone in the crime scene investigation unit had a lucrative reason for not performing their job as professionally as one would expect.
Barthelmie put the envelope in his coat pocket. He immediately set off again for Kleingroßdorf. Beforehand, he called to inquire about the condition of the motorcyclist who had been involved in an accident (as the police say). The motorcyclist was still in a coma and unable to be questioned. Barthelmie instructed a colleague he knew to be reliable to take up a post outside the intensive care unit of the district hospital.
In Kleingroßdorf, the inspector now faces an unpleasant interrogation. The parents of the accident victim receive him in an old Saxon house on the main street, nicely renovated, with the usual large gate leading to a very long, narrow courtyard and an adjoining vegetable and ornamental garden. The current residents are Romanians, the Stoicas.
The room Barthelmie is admitted to is dark, as is the mood of his hosts. The motorcyclist is their only son. It's clear the mother has been crying a lot recently. The father is holed up in his patriarchal armchair, arms folded, expressionless. The inspector is offered a seat, but no refreshments.
“Well,” says Barthelmie, leaning forward in his armchair, “your son, Alexandru…”
“A good boy!” the mother immediately interjects, as if preparing an indictment.
"Without a doubt. A diligent motorsport enthusiast."
The father speaks up: "Is that forbidden?"
Barthelmie raises his hands, but immediately lowers them again. "Absolutely not. Motorcycling is a bit dangerous, though. Have you ever had reason to believe that your son might be – how should I put it – perhaps taking it a bit too far?"
The father sighs. The mother reaches for a handkerchief. "What are you trying to say?" asks Stoica Senior.
"Nothing at all. I'm just asking. Did you know that your son's off-road driving also took him through nature reserves?"
"Nature reserve!" The father stood up abruptly and opened the window. "Look outside, Inspector! There's nature everywhere here. Enough nature for everyone!"
"Certainly." Barthelmie's mouth is dry. "May I ask you for a glass of water?"
“Cu siguranță.” Mother Stoica jumps up, obviously glad to escape the questioning and get into the kitchen.
Barthelmie looked sharply at her husband. "May I ask you what you do for a living?"
"You may. I work for the tourist office of the big city."
"Oh. You too?"
"What do you mean by that?"
"Nothing. I'm just wondering how much one earns at the tourist office. It's probably not 50,000 lei net per month, I assume?"
Mother Stoica returns from the kitchen with the glass of water. It remains untouched, as her husband shows the inspector the door.
Barthelmie is back on the main street of Kleingroßdorf, taking note of a formal summons for the Stoica parents to the police station – separately. He looks around.
There's the kiosk with its snack bar, right next to the old village school. A hub for gossip and rumors, the inspector assumes. He opens one of the numerous refrigerated display cases on the outside of the kiosk. They mostly contain local beer, but also mineral water. He takes a bottle of "Aqua Carpatia plata," pays for it at the till, and tries to strike up a conversation with the young woman behind it. No luck. She wordlessly counts out his change.
It's a sunny day, Barthelmie has time. For now. The envelope of lei notes burns like fire in his coat pocket. He sits down at one of the many tables in front of the kiosk. Most are empty. It's still too early for mici with cartofi prăjiți, meat rolls with fries. But a few beer drinkers have already gathered, at 11:30 a.m. They are clearly construction workers, either recovering from the strenuous task of clearing the roadside ditches that are finally going to house sewage pipes – or they are other tradespeople who have just filled in the same ditches after laying water lines. There's always something to bury or dig up around here.
Barthelmie pulls his smartphone from his pocket and sends a text message to an old friend at the Direcția Națională Anticorupție (DNA), the national anti-corruption agency. The inspector wonders, yet again, why the abbreviation has to be DNA. A touch of bureaucratic humor? Corruption seems to be practically in the national DNA.
Barthelie types an innocuous greeting into his smartphone: He inquires about the well-being of "Auntie Eleana." That's the code word for: "I need your help." Barthelmie asks if he could visit his aunt and bring her "a piece of Kremšnita," her favorite pastry. Another code word for a small token of appreciation among friends. Even in the anti-corruption agency, nothing is free, not even among old comrades. Barthelmie's buddy from their earlier days together at the Criminal Investigation Department has long since moved to the Alba Iulia Territorial Service of the DNA, the agency's branch office in Weißenburg. "We still have the old names for the places," the inspector thinks to himself. "But hardly anyone left who can pronounce them."
A truly beautiful, promising April sun shines on the kiosk and the tables and chairs in front of Barthelmie. He unbuttons his shirt collar. He'd love a cigarette now, but he's given that up. He glances at the impressive row of refrigerators lined up in front of the kiosk. Ciuc. Ciucas. Timisoreana. Neumarkt. Bergenbier. Ursus. Well. Why not. An Ursus, then, Bärenbier. Barthelmie came by taxi and can afford one. In Romania, the blood alcohol limit for drivers is zero, even for the police.
The young woman at the kiosk till hadn't become much more talkative when the inspector placed his can on the counter. He probably looked too much like an inspector. Barthelmie shrugged, declined his 50 bani change, and sat down outside again. He took a first sip of his ice-cold beer. A cigarette would be nice right now.
The terrace in front of the kiosk is bustling. A young woman in a colorful, long skirt with gold trim buys her son an ice cream. They both lean over the freezer, which, like the beer coolers, stands outside. A discussion ensues between mother and son. He wants a bigger and more expensive ice cream than she has in mind. At the table next to Barthelmie sits an older woman, also in traditional dress, apparently the grandmother. She interjects with just one word, then silence falls. The boy, perhaps eight or nine years old, makes do with the small ice cream. The old woman nods with satisfaction. Then she fixes her gaze on Barthelmie. He's probably been looking over for too long.
The inspector looks away. His can of Ursus is half empty. The beer puts Barthelmie into a pleasant state of apathy. He closes his eyes briefly, enjoying the warmth both inside and out. The sun is really shining on Kleingroßdorf today.
Barthelmie stretches out his feet and Googles "Sibiu Enduro Rally" on his phone. The result takes him to the website of the city's tourist office. He learns that once a year, an international sponsor, whose main business is producing a sticky, caffeine-laden "energy drink," organizes a "Hard Enduro World Championship" in and around the city, a "true marathon," as it's described, that leads through "the depths of Transylvania."
Ah yes, of course! Every year, Barthelmie recalls, the motorsport enthusiasts known as the "Romaniacs" roar around the Great and Small Ring roads, causing extensive road closures, to kick off their five-day rampage through forests and meadows. The city council considers it a tourist-friendly "event," while the inspector deems it utter nonsense.
He mustn't let that influence his investigation, of course. He continues googling: "Hard Enduro." The AI suggests: "Unlike classic enduro, the focus isn't on speed, but on overcoming extreme natural obstacles such as rocks, steep climbs, and mud." And Barthelmie finds a whole series of recommended "hard enduro trails" around Kleingroßdorf, complete with information on the points that can be earned by completing them.
Overcoming extreme natural obstacles? The old, overgrown orchards in the area qualify as such obstacles, as do the toad ponds, steep sheep pastures, and mountain streams. In the deeply carved valleys where the streams flow, one can race up and down the slopes with abandon, aimlessly, but with points awarded. Anyone wanting to stroll along the stream bank afterward should definitely wear a respirator: the exhaust fumes linger reliably in the valley, reminding you for minutes of the motorcyclists, as if they had been relentlessly urinating on every tree like a gigantic dog. And they don't even have to dismount!
Barthelmie wonders why anyone would ever get on a motorcycle. Even ride off and leave the road to collect points on mud and gravel. And then maybe end up tied to a wire rope. Because he might have gotten in someone's way too much while off-road riding.
Kleingroßdorf doesn't seem like a plausible place for capital crimes. The Protestant church on the left, the Orthodox biserica on the right. In between, the old Saxon houses, almost all of them now well-restored. A small stream runs through the middle. Above it all, the fortified church – as Romanesque as it is romantic. Here, life has moved at a slow pace for centuries.
Barthelmie's smartphone twitches. But it's not his old friend from DNA testing. A warning tone blares from the phone. The accompanying text message warns of a bear sighted on the edge of the village. In broad daylight. This sort of thing is happening more and more often. The gendarmerie, it says, is already on its way.
It was a harsh winter for the bears. The preceding summer and autumn had also been poor. There were hardly any berries in the forest, and the fruit and nut trees bore only meager fruit. There was little to fatten up for hibernation. Moreover, the Carpathian forests are already overpopulated, with bears waking up earlier and earlier and competing for the scarce food supply. Population estimates are constantly being revised upwards. And hunger is driving Ursus arctos closer to human settlements than ever before, sometimes even into them.
Like this specimen, one of perhaps up to 12,000 brown bears in Romania, which is actually, Barthelmie can hardly believe his eyes, trotting around the corner on the bridge over the village stream and down the main road. The road is empty, thank goodness.
It is a rather young animal that has ventured into the village, not one of the experienced "begging bears" that are fed by tourists on the spectacular, quasi-alpine mountain passes of Transylvania and therefore no longer shy away from humans; these panoramic routes are far from Kleingroßdorf.
The shaggy, not-quite-fully-grown boy, perhaps two years old, who approaches the kiosk out of sheer necessity, lured by the irresistible smell of the mici (grilled minced meat) on the snack grill, having apparently not been able to overturn and plunder enough garbage cans, probably stands about two meters tall when standing upright. The animal now breaks into a trot, heading straight for the kiosk. Beer cans and coffee cups are dropped. Those who are wise take cover. Not everyone is wise.
Barthelmie, already on his feet, service pistol at the ready, watches in horror as one of the construction workers, instead of fleeing the terrace for safety, runs straight towards the bear with his cell phone out. Yes, that could undoubtedly be a nice last close-up snapshot before the bear snatches the fool.
Barthelmie shoves the man aside with his shoulder as he tries to hurry past. "Police!" he shouts, commanding respect. There are no sirens, no sign of the gendarmerie. There is only Barthelmie with his pistol. And the inspector, it must be admitted, is not a very good shot.
The bear hesitated briefly because of the shouting on the terrace. Now he starts moving again, only 100 meters away. Barthelmie aims at him as far as his trembling hands allow.
An electric scooter turns the corner. Two teenagers stand laughing on the footboard. They're looking at the kiosk they're probably heading for, not at the bear approaching from the side. They don't even notice it.
Barthelmie shoots. Once, twice. The third shot hits its mark. The bear falls. The e-scooter riders fall too, from fright. They only suffer scrapes. But the bear is dead. A direct shot.
Silence. Then the siren of the Gendarmerie. They order the removal of the carcass. The incident is recorded. A mere formality; Barthelmie is treated courteously. After all, he's practically a colleague. And he probably saved lives, too. But there will be repercussions: the bear is a protected species.
Barthelmie is sweating, even though the sun has now darkened. He sinks back into his seat on the terrace. The silent cashier smiles as she places a fresh Ursus beer in front of him. Applause erupts. The inspector is a hero, no matter what the conservation authorities might say later.
Barthelmie's smartphone rings again. It's his old friend from DNA testing. "Aunt Elenea doesn't want any visitors. She's managing just fine, she says. And she thinks everything will be alright, as always, brave old aunt. She fondly remembers her time in Bucharest and holds it in high esteem."
No visitors wanted. And Bucharest. Which translates from the code as: "Stay away from this. It's too hot, I can't help you. Higher authorities are involved."
The inspector's hand slipped into his coat pocket and felt for the envelope containing the banknotes. 50,000 lei—a decent sum, he'd never seen so much in one place. With that, he could buy a new jazz record collection, even at the exorbitant prices on the vinyl market today. And then there would even be a good amount left over for a new stereo system with a sublime turntable whose highly sensitive crystal stylus and other technology would finally do justice to Cannonball Adderley's sound as much as to Miles Davis—provided, of course, that the speakers were upgraded accordingly: active, man-high, bass-reflex.
One could finally afford to repair the mechanism of great-grandfather's clock: "Always practice loyalty and honesty." Or perhaps not.
As the inspector ponders this, four teenage enduro riders, the same ones he's already questioned, prop up their bikes next to the kiosk. They walk past him, grinning. He doesn't care. He's a hero, for a day. This will have to last until retirement, which he hopes to experience in good health. Tomorrow he'll close the "Wire Rope" investigation file. He's fairly certain there won't be any awkward questions. A wire rope in the woods—who knows how long it's been there, or who strung it up and for what purpose? A construction worker, perhaps, a lumberjack, a surveyor. It was an unfortunate accident, nothing more.