Self's Punishment Part 6

'Yes, I have someone,' she said pugnaciously. 'When should we do it?'

'I'd opt for this afternoon at five, after work. Then it won't be hanging over us. But won't it be difficult to get a court?'

'My boyfriend will manage it. He seems to know someone at the court reservation office.'

'Where will we play?'

'At the RCW sports field. It's over in Oggersheim, I can give you a map.'

I hurried to get into the computer centre and had Herr Tausendmilch, 'but this remains between the two of us,' print me out the current status of the tennis court reservations. 'Are you still here at five o'clock?' I asked him. He finished at four-thirty but was young and declared himself willing to make me another printout at five on the dot. 'I'll be glad to tell Firner how efficient you are.' He beamed.

When I got to the main gate I b.u.mped into Schmalz. 'The cake proved palatable?' he enquired. I hoped the taxi driver had eaten it.

'Please pa.s.s on my warm thanks to your wife. It tasted quite excellent. How is little Richard?'

'Thank you. Well enough.'

Don't worry, poor Richard. Your father wants you to be extremely well. He just can't risk the sibilant.

In the car I took a look at the printout of the tennis court reservations, although it was already clear to me that I wouldn't find a reservation for Mischkey or Buchendorff. Then I sat in the car for a while, smoking. We actually didn't have to play tennis; if Mischkey turned up at five and a court was reserved for us, I had him. Nonetheless I drove to Herzogenried School to inform Babs, who owed me a favour, that she was duty-bound to play doubles. It was the morning break and Babs was right: kids were carrying on with one another in every corner. Lots of students had their Walkmans on, whether standing alone or in groups, playing, or smooching. Wasn't the outside world enough, or was it so unbearable for them?

I found Babs in the staffroom talking to two student teachers.

'Anyone for tennis?' I interrupted, and took Babs to one side. 'Really, you must play tennis with me this afternoon. I need you urgently.'

She kissed me, reservedly, as is appropriate for a staffroom. 'What an opportunity! Didn't you promise me a springtime excursion to Dilsberg? You only let me clap eyes on you when you want something. It's nice to see you, but frankly I'm annoyed.'

That's how she was looking at me, both delighted and pouting. Babs is a lively and generous woman, small and compact, and agile. I don't know many women of fifty who can dress and act so lightly without trying to play young. She has a flat-ish face, a deep furrow above the bridge of her nose, a full, determined, and at times severe mouth, brown eyes beneath hooded lids, and closely cropped grey hair. She lives with her two grown-up children, Roschen and Georg, who are far too comfortable at home to make the leap to independence.

'And you really forgot we went to Edenkoben for Father's Day? If you did, then I'm the one to be annoyed.'

'Oh dear when and where do I have to play tennis? And do I get to find out why?'

'I'll collect you from home at quarter past four, all right?'

'And you'll take me at seven to choir; we're rehearsing.'

'Gladly. We're playing from five till six at the RCW tennis courts in Oggersheim, mixed doubles with an executive a.s.sistant and her boyfriend, the chief suspect in my current case.'

'How thrilling,' said Babs. Sometimes I have the impression she doesn't take my profession seriously.

'If you'd like to know more I can fill you in on the way. And if not, that's all right too, you just have to behave naturally.'

The bell rang. It sounded the way it did in my day. Babs and I went out into the corridor, and I watched the students streaming into the cla.s.srooms. They didn't just have different clothes and hairstyles, their faces were different from the faces back then. They struck me as more conflicted and more knowing. But the knowledge didn't make them happy. The children had a challenging, violent, and yet uncertain way of moving. The air vibrated from their shouts and noise. It almost felt threatening.

'How do you survive this, Babs?'

She didn't understand me. Perhaps because of the noise. She looked at me questioningly.

'Okay then, see you this afternoon.' I gave her a kiss. A few students wolf-whistled.

I welcomed the peace of my car, drove to the Horten parking lot, bought champagne, tennis socks, and a hundred sheets of paper for the report I'd have to write that evening.

20

A lovely couple

Babs and I were at the grounds shortly before five. Neither the green nor the silver cabriolet was parked there. It was fine with me to be first. I'd changed into my tennis things at home. I asked them to put the champagne on ice. Then Babs and I perched ourselves on the uppermost step of the flight of stairs leading from the restaurant terrace of the clubhouse to the courts. The parking lot was in full view.

'Are you nervous?' she asked. During the drive she hadn't wanted to know more. Now she was just asking out of concern for me.

'Yes. Perhaps I should stop this work. I'm getting more involved in the cases than I used to. This time it's difficult because I find the main suspect very likeable. You'll get to know him in a moment. I think you'll warm to Mischkey.'

'And the executive a.s.sistant?'

Could she sense that, in my mind, Frau Buchendorff was more than just a supporting actress?

'I like her, too.'

We had chosen an awkward place on the steps. The people who had played until five went trooping up to the terrace, and the next lot came out of the changing rooms and bustled down the stairs.

'Does your suspect drive a green cabriolet?'

When my view was clear too I saw that Mischkey and Frau Buchendorff had just pulled up. He sprang out of the car, ran round and flung open her door with a deep bow. She got out, laughing, and gave him a kiss. A lovely, vibrant, happy couple.

Frau Buchendorff spotted us when they reached the foot of the stairs. She waved with her right hand and gave Peter an encouraging nudge with the left. He, too, raised an arm in greeting then he recognized me, and his gesture froze, and his face turned to stone. For a moment the world stopped turning, and the tennis b.a.l.l.s were suspended in the air, and it was absolutely still.

Then the film moved on, and the two of them were standing next to us, and we were shaking hands, and I heard Frau Buchendorff say, 'My boyfriend, Peter Mischkey, and this is the Herr Self I was telling you about.' I went through the necessary introduction.

Mischkey greeted me as though we were seeing each other for the first time. He played his part composedly and skilfully, with the appropriate gestures and the correct sort of smile. But it was the wrong role, and I was almost sorry that he played it with such bravado, and would have wished instead for the proper 'Herr Self? Herr Selk? A man of many guises?'

We went over to the groundsman. Court eight was reserved under Frau Buchendorff 's name; the groundsman pointed it out to us curtly and ungraciously, involved as he was in an argument with an older married couple who insisted they had booked a court.

'Take a look yourselves, if you please, all the courts are taken and your name isn't on the list.' He tilted the screen so that they could see it.

'I can't allow this,' said the man. 'I booked the court a week in advance.'

His wife had already given up. 'Oh, leave it, Kurt. Maybe you mixed things up again.'

Mischkey and I exchanged a quick glance. He wore a disinterested expression but his eyes told me his game was up.

The match we launched into is one I'll never forget. It was as though Mischkey and I wanted to compensate for what had been lacking in open combat before. I played beyond my capabilities, but Babs and I were properly thrashed.

Frau Buchendorff was in high spirits. 'I have a consolation prize for you, Herr Self. How about a bottle of champagne on the terrace?'

She was the only one to have enjoyed the game uninhibitedly and didn't mask her admiration for her partner and her opponents. 'I hardly recognized you, Peter. You're enjoying yourself today, aren't you?'

Mischkey tried to beam. He and I didn't say much as we drank the champagne. The two women kept the conversation going.

Babs said, 'Actually, that wasn't really a game of doubles. If I weren't so old, I'd hope you two men were battling for me. But as it is, you must be the one they're wooing, Frau Buchendorff.'

And then the two women were on to age and youth, men and lovers, and whenever Frau Buchendorff made some frivolous remark, she gave the silent Mischkey a kiss.

In the changing rooms I was alone with Mischkey.

'How does it go from here?' he asked.

'I'll hand in my report to the RCW. What they'll do with it, I don't know.'

'Can you leave Judith out of it?'

'That's not so easy. She was the bait to a certain extent. How else could I explain how I got on to you?'

'Do you have to say how you got on to me? Isn't it enough if I simply confess that I cracked the MBI system?'

I thought it over. I didn't believe he wanted to make trouble for me, nor could I see how that would be possible. 'I'll try. But don't pull any fast ones. Otherwise I'll have to submit that other report.'

Back at the car park we joined the two ladies. Was I seeing Frau Buchendorff for the last time? I didn't like the thought.

'See you soon?' was her goodbye. 'How's the case coming along by the way?'

21

You're such a sweetheart

My report for Korten turned out to be short. Nonetheless, it took me five hours and a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon before my draft was finished at midnight. The whole case replayed in front of me, and it wasn't easy to keep Frau Buchendorff out of it.

I saw the RCWRCC link as the exposed flank of the MBI system that allowed not only people from the RCC but also other businesses connected to the RCC to access the RCW. I borrowed Mischkey's characterization of the RCC as the turntable of industry espionage. I recommended disconnecting the emission data recording system from the central system.

Then I described, in a sanitized way, the course my investigation had taken, from my discussions and research in the Works to a fictive confrontation with Mischkey at which he had declared himself willing to repeat a confession and to reveal the technical details to the RCW.

With an empty, heavy head I went to bed. I dreamt of a tennis match in a railway carriage. The ticket inspector, in a gas mask and thick rubber gloves, kept trying to pull out the carpet I was playing on. When he succeeded we continued to play on the gla.s.s floor, while beneath us the sleepers raced by. My partner was a faceless woman with heavy, hanging b.r.e.a.s.t.s. Her movements were so powerful, I was constantly afraid she'd crash through the gla.s.s. As she did I woke up in horror and relief.

In the morning I went to the offices of two young lawyers in Tattersallstra.s.se whose under-burdened secretary sometimes typed for me. The lawyers were playing Amigo on their computers. The secretary promised me the report for eleven o'clock. Then, back in my office, I looked through the mail, mostly brochures for alarm and security systems, and called Frau Schlemihl.

She hemmed and hawed a great deal, but eventually I got my lunchtime meeting with Korten in the canteen. Before I collected the report, I booked a flight on the spot at the travel agent's for that evening to Athens. Anna Bredakis, a friend from university days, had asked that I give her plenty of prior warning. She had to get the yacht she'd inherited from her parents sail-worthy and a.s.semble a crew from amongst her nieces and nephews. But I'd prefer to be in Piraeus, haunting the harbour bars, than reading about Mischkey's arrest in the Mannheimer Morgen Mannheimer Morgen and having Frau Buchendorff connect me to Firner, who'd congratulate me with his silver tongue. and having Frau Buchendorff connect me to Firner, who'd congratulate me with his silver tongue.

I arrived half an hour late for lunch with Korten, but I couldn't use that to make a point. 'Are you Herr Self?' asked a grey mouse at reception who'd caked on too much rouge. 'Then I'll call the general director straight away. If you'd be so kind as to wait.'

I waited in the reception hall. Korten came and greeted me rather curtly. 'Things not advancing, my dear Self? You need my help?'

It was the tone of a rich uncle greeting his tiresome, debt-producing, and money-begging nephew. I looked at him in bewilderment. He might have a lot of work and be stressed and ha.s.sled, but I was ha.s.sled, too.

'All I need is for you to pay the bill in this envelope. You could also listen to how I solved your case, but then again you could also let it be.'

'Not so touchy, my dear friend, not so touchy. Why didn't you tell Frau Schlemihl right away what this is about?' He took my arm and led me into the Blue Salon once again. My eyes searched in vain for the redhead with the freckles.

'So, you've solved the case?'

I briefly summarized my report. When, over the soup, I came onto the slip-ups of his team, he nodded earnestly. 'Now you see why I can't hand over the reins yet. Nothing but mediocrity.' I didn't comment. 'And what sort of man is this Mischkey?'

'How do you imagine someone who orders a hundred thousand rhesus monkeys for your plant and deletes all account numbers that begin with thirteen?'

Korten grinned.

'Exactly,' I said. 'A colourful character, and a brilliant computer expert to boot. If you'd had him in your computer centre, these mess-ups wouldn't have happened.'

'And how did you get on to this brilliant chap?'

'What I choose to say on that is contained in the report. I don't have any wish to expand greatly on that now. Somehow I find Mischkey likeable and I don't find it easy to turn him in. I'd appreciate it if you weren't too severe, not too hard you know what I mean, don't you?'

'Self, you're such a sweetheart!' Korten laughed. 'You've never learned to do things thoroughly or not at all.' And then, more reflectively, 'But perhaps that's your strength your sensitivity lets you get inside things and people; it lets you cultivate your scruples, and at the end of the day you do actually function.'

He rendered me speechless. Why so aggressive and cynical? Korten's observation had got me where it hurt, and he knew it and blinked with pleasure.

'Don't worry, my dear Self, we won't cause any unnecessary trouble. And about what I said I admire it in you very much, don't get me wrong.'

He was making it even worse and looked me mildly in the face. Even if there was some truth in his words doesn't friends.h.i.+p mean treading carefully when it comes to the lies the other person builds into his life? But there wasn't any truth in it. I felt a surge of fury.

I didn't want dessert any more. And preferred to have my coffee in the Cafe Gmeiner. And Korten had a meeting at two.

At eight I drove to Frankfurt and flew to Athens.

Part Two