Monster Ep 69 - Yasuragi no Ie (A peaceful home)

At Hotel Versteck, an old man is enjoying the local cowberry jam served by the owner who shows them a picture of Konrad, the person who makes this jam. According to the owner, Konrad owns a piece of land on the south of a nearby hill where there are lots of cowberries thus allowing him to make the jam. The old man and his wife comment that they will return to the hotel for the jam which leads the owner to remark that Konard will be happy to hear the praises. Unknown to them, Konrad has already been shot dead on the hill...

Meanwhile, Grimmer and Lunge are discussing how the town will be destroyed where the latter remarks that there was a case in 1958 when a gun resulted in the destruction of a town by the name of Zweifelstadt. The trouble started when a series of murders began and the people suspected one another of being the culprit. One of them bought a gun for protection and shot his neighbour to protect himself. That started a spate of killings which left everyone dead. Grimmer says that they have to prevent the same thing from happening to this town but Lunge thinks that the first signs of unrest may be showing up soon.

Wim is bullied again and his money is snatched away by those boys. Just when he is seething with rage in his eyes, someone appears behind him and asks if he hates those guys enough to kill them. Wim shivers in fear upon hearing this...

The Hennichs head for the hill to look for Konrad as they do not wish to worry over others finding out their winning of 20 million marks in the lottery. Mr Hennich is even prepared to pay a share of the winnings to Konrad so as to keep the latter from revealing this to others. However, his wife worries that Konrad may keep demanding money from them but they do not have a better solution at the moment. When they reach the area where Konrad picks his cowberries, they are aghast to find him dead.

Grimmer passes by the sausage store and sees the female employee in high spirits. When he asks if something good has happened, the girl replies that her dream is going to materialise as someone has promised to take her away from this town. Grimmer senses something wrong once he hears this.

Wim's father is walking around aimlessly on the streets as he tries to find a place where he can get alcohol. He bumps into the elderly couple who were at Hotel Versteck earlier. Just when he is planning to walk away, the elderly man gets up from his wheelchair and passes Wim's father a gun since this is what he needs most at the moment.

At the same time, Lunge hears a gunshot and suspects that something may be happening now.

Meanwhile, in Prague, Tenma looks for Lipsky, Bonaparta's son and asks about the whereabouts of his father before something drastic happens. Lipsky finds out that Nina was the one who told Tenma about him and looks lovingly at the puppet he modelled after her.

Some time ago after Tenma and Nina left the ruins where she and Johan met, Tenma sent her to the hospital and informed Dr Reichwein and Dieter to come and take care of her. When Nina asked Tenma where he was heading to, he didn't give a clear answer to this. Tenma told Nina what he had known about Bonaparta so far from his research with the help of former Czechoslovakian secret police and General Wolf's men. Bonaparta was a Czechslovakian born in Germany and remained in the country after WWII when many of their countrymen were sent back to their hometowns. His name was an alias and he had a son with his wife of Czech descent. It so happened that his son also participated in the reading sessions Bonaparta held at the Mansion of Red Roses. As Bonaparta's son is supposed to be in Prague now, Tenma believes that Capek's last words was referring to him rather than Bonaparta himself. When Tenma showed Nina a photo of the children who attended the reading sessions, she revealed that Bonaparta's son should be the man she had met in Prague who was kicked out from those sessions as he wasn't considered a superior child. Nina urged Tenma to look for this man soon to locate Bonaparta or else Johan will execute his plan of a perfect suicide soon.

Lipsky brings Tenma back to his apartment where the latter remarks that his shelf is full of picture books by Bonaparta under different names. Tenma says that based on his reading of most of his books, he has come to realise that the characters would always have German names and the pen names of the authors would be in Czech. However, for the book "The God of Peace" under the name of Klaus Poppe, this didn't follow the trend because the name is German. As such, Tenma deduces that Klaus Poppe is the real name of Bonaparta. Lipsky comments that Tenma is not the first who found out his father's real name since Lunge had arrived at the same conclusion weeks ago. He also reveals that Lunge had put himself into the shoes of Bonaparta so as to guess where he would be at i.e. the homeland in his heart. As the German-born Czechoslovakians were chased out of Bohemia after Germany lost WWII, Tenma asks Lipsky if he knew where Bonaparta's family lived in before the war where he answers that it should be a place in southern Germany which is surrounded by mountains. Lipsky also mentions a hand-drawn postcard apparently sent by his father which he gave to Lunge. When Lipsky asks Tenma if his father will be killed, Tenma admits that he doesn't know for sure but even if Bonaparta dies, that won't be the end of it. Lipsky pleads with Tenma to protect Nina no matter what happens and he promises to do so.

Back at Ruhenheim, the whole town is enveloped in darkness due to a downpour. Mr Hennich returns home and tells his wife that the police have not found Konrad's body yet after the couple hid it in the woods. Mrs Hennich starts to regret doing that but her husband thinks that it is no use to say this now. At the same time, Grimmer finds out from the train station staff that the town is effectively sealed off from the outside world due to flooding on the rails and the river almost overflowing due to the rain.

Tenma goes to an expert on children's picture books who comments that he doesn't like Klaus Poppe's works which are full of malice as compared to similar-themed storybooks with depressing content. The expert passes Tenma a storybook with the title, "A Peaceful Home" written by a certain Helmuth Voss whom he suspects should be Poppe too even though there was a deliberate attempt to change the theme and the art style.

"A thief runs to a town enclosed by mountains and plans to cheat money from the locals. However, after interacting with them, he slowly forgets how to steal and decides to live on quietly while doing things for them."

The expert remarks that the drawings deteoriated from Poppe's usual standards just when the content became more positive. As such, he deduces that Poppe must have lost his direction when writing this book. Tenma asks the expert for a map of southern Germany and comes to the conclusion that Poppe a.k.a. Bonaparta should be living in Ruhenheim now.

In Ruhenheim, the police are still looking for Konrad but the search operations are impeded by the heavy rain. The police officer complains to the owner of Hotel Versteck that something must be wrong with this town as a series of bad things have been happening. Besides Konrad's disappearance, Mrs Hillman's dog was shot thus resulting in her being bedridden and a local by the name of Mr Kemner was assaulted last night where he sustained serious injuries. The police officer laments that even with such a pressing situation, no reinforcements can be sent to the town due to the bad weather and wonders what they should do.

Just then, the elderly couple who are regulars at the hotel arrive and the old man comments that they can't go anywhere due to the rain. When Lunge looks at the old man's shoes, he starts to suspect something and comments openly to the couple that the old man must have been walking in the rain since his shoes are very dirty. As Lunge makes a phone call, the elderly couple stare at him as if they can't wait to eat him alive. When Lunge finds that the phone lines are not working, the elderly couple have a smirk on their faces as if they expected it...

The police officer passes by a car with its bonnet raised and decides to ask if the driver needs help. However, the driver shoots the police officer without saying anything. Upon hearing the gunshot, Grimmer starts to feel that there is nothing they can do to stop the massacre...

It looks as if the plan on how the town will be wiped out is slowly manifesting. I guess the issue lies with the loss of trust and unrest. Previously, everyone was able to get along well without major problems but when unhappiness breeds, it spurs people to take drastic actions. For example, winning the lottery put the Hennich couple on tenterhooks and caused them to buy guns so as to protect themselves. If not for their newfound wealth, they would have reported to the police right away after finding Konrad's body instead of hiding it because they feel that they may be suspected of silencing Konrad who may know that they have struck the lottery. As such, the whole problem is not started by outsiders moving into the town to kill the locals but by inciting hatred and distrust for one another, the same aim can be achieved as long as the locals kill one another.

However, I have no idea how this fits in with the "perfect suicide" which Nina mentioned as the ultimate goal of Johan. Perhaps he hopes that someone will kill him in the end?

Meanwhile, I have a hunch that the owner of Hotel Versteck isn't as simple as he seems. Could he be Klaus Poppe a.k.a. Bonaparta himself? And that elderly couple don't look like innocent folks either. Maybe they are Johan's men?

5 episodes to go and there are still a lot of mysteries to be solved. I wonder if the story can be wrapped up properly by the last episode.