Cherrypicker | Literature  What really happened at Raven Hall?

Fancy the story of a toxic friendship between boys and the unsolved disappearance of four people? From a run-down British boarding school in the swinging sixties? Helmut Krausser presents all this in his latest novel – and much more.

Multi-talented Helmut Krausser – the author has written 19 novels to date, as well as short stories, poetry, theatre plays, screenplays, radio plays, opera libretti and he can also compose – has just published a new work in a very special genre. At first glance, Freundschaft und Vergeltung appears to be a whodunit thriller.

Cold Case

Anthony “Tony” Brewer – first-person narrator, retired lawyer, still tormented by what happened at Raven Hall boarding school in the south of England during his school days in the mid-1960s – wants to finally solve a complex mystery. He wants to finally bring clarity to a case that the police gave up on and soon closed the investigation. At the time, the tabloid press was talking about the “Raven Hall Mystery”, but quickly lost interest.

And so now Tony wants to reopen this cold case: the disappearance without trace of Raven Hall director Iris Pinkerton, of John Bradshaw, a patron without whom Raven Hall would have long ceased to exist, of Deborah Rodgers, a universally admired teacher, and finally of Chris Bradshaw, John's son: an egomaniacal unsympathiser, intellectual overachiever, truant, charismatic and manipulator – but above all someone Tony desperately wanted to be friends with because he admired him, despite or because of his unconventionality, which constantly stirred up everyday life at boarding school, coupled with prepotent shamelessness.

Gifted self-promoter

This Christian “Chris” Bradshaw is introduced right at the beginning of the novel and remains its centrepiece. Like others, Chris travels to boarding school by train – and he uses the compartment like a stage on which he performs in front of his future classmates.

He calls them tadpoles – “More cock than brains and completely underdeveloped, but with a prospectus” – prospectus is his special word for perspectives. He swirls a flask of brandy, gives away frivolous photos, plays I got you babe by Sonny & Cher loudly on the tape recorder and uses antiquated words like vermaledeit. Everyone is both irritated and fascinated, especially Tony, who recognises the fateful nature of the performance with the distance of decades: “He was already recruiting us at that moment, of which we had no idea, because he did it with charm and the knowledge advantage of a year of life, which predestined him to be the natural leader.”

Revolts and escalations

Once they arrive at boarding school, the schoolboys, expertly guided by Chris, try their hand at sex (or their ideal of it), drugs and rock'n'roll: they philosophise about knickers and panties, joints and bottles of red wine are passed around. The most popular bands are The Byrds, The Kinks and The Who. Self-penned songs mock the teachers.

The entanglements on an interpersonal level are explosive and incriminating: the attractive teacher Deborah had an affair with the patron John Bradshaw, including pregnancy and abortion, or so it was rumoured. Now she is being blackmailed and repeatedly harassed by Bradshaw's son Chris. The situation around the decaying building is coming to a head, and not only time-honoured principles are in danger of slipping. The headmistress of the boarding school, Pinkerton, wants to intervene to bring order – whereupon she disappears, as do father and son Bradshaw and their adored one, Deborah Rodgers.

The author allows us to participate in all of this on several time levels: In Part 1, there is Tony's first-person narrative from the immediate aftermath of the outrageous events. Right next to it are log-like recordings of all possible people from memory – twenty years after the mysterious disappearance, Tony had made the first attempt to solve the mystery. The perspectives of third parties give us several versions of the events, making it harder to categorise the main characters as good or evil. Tony doesn't get any closer to a solution. Instead: “This silence. This silence. The mystery.”

Last hope Internet

In Part 2, Krausser presents a one-page interlude – a life as a successful lawyer, husband and family man has rarely been summarised more succinctly. In the third and final part – it is 2015 and Tony is now retired – the first-person narrator resumes the search for the fate of the disappeared. He writes in the local newspaper, uses the internet, sets up a blog, continues to puzzle over the most impossible clues and pursues them in pages of email correspondence. Exciting messages reach him from nowhere – they turn out to be fake news. This doesn't stop his obsessive pursuit, as it also prevents the boredom of being a pensioner, the sinking into insignificance, the final letting go of the person he calls his best friend on the last page of the book.

Will the mysteries be solved? Partly yes, partly they remain forever in literary darkness. No spoilers here, just a recommendation to make the gloomy winter days more enjoyable with this entertaining book about friendship and missed opportunities, about deception and truth, about the search for meaning and fulfilment, and finally about the sixties as an era of rebellious awakening.
 

12/2024