Self's Punishment Part 8

Back in Mannheim, the first thing I did was drive to the city hospital. I located Philipp's room, knocked, and went in. He was in the process of hiding his ashtray, complete with smouldering cigarette, in the drawer of his desk. 'Ah, it's you.' He was relieved. 'I promised the senior nurse I'd stop smoking. What brings you round my way?'

'I've a favour to ask you.'

'Ask me over a coffee, let's go to the canteen.' As he strode ahead, white coat billowing, a cheeky one-liner for every pretty nurse, he looked like a lecherous Marcus Welby, MD. In the canteen he whispered something at me about the blonde nurse three tables away. She shot him a look, the look of a blue-eyed barracuda. I'm fond of Philipp but if he's gobbled up one day by a barracuda like that he'll deserve it.

I fetched the film canister from my pocket and placed it in front of him.

'Sure, I can get your film developed in the X-ray lab. But now you're shooting pictures you're not comfortable taking to the photo shop? Well, Gerd, that's a shocker.'

Philipp really did have one thing on the brain. Was it the same with me when I was in my late fifties? I thought back. Following the stale years of marriage to Klara I'd experienced those first years as a widower like a second springtime. But a second spring full of romance Philipp's pose as the gay Lothario was alien to me.

'Wrong, Philipp. There are some grains of paint in the film canister with something on them and I need to know whether it's blood, if possible which blood group. And it doesn't come from a deflowering on the hood of my car, as you're doubtless thinking, but from a case I'm working on.'

'The one doesn't necessarily contradict the other. But, whatever, I'll see to it. Is it urgent? Do you want to wait?'

'No, I'll give you a call tomorrow. How are things, by the way? Shall we drink a gla.s.s of wine sometime?'

We decided to meet on Sunday evening in the Badische Weinstuben. As we were leaving the canteen together he suddenly shot off. An Asian nurse's aid was stepping into the elevator. He made it just before the doors closed.

Back in the office I did what I should have done a long time ago. I called Firner's office, exchanged a few words with Frau Buchendorff, and was put through to Firner.

'Greetings, Herr Self. What's up?'

'I'd like to thank you very much for the hamper that was waiting for me when I got back from holiday.'

'Ah. You were on holiday. Where did it take you?'

I told him about the Aegean, about the yacht, and that I'd seen a s.h.i.+p full of RCW containers in Piraeus. He'd gone walking in the Peloponnese as a student and now had business every so often in Greece. 'We're protecting the Acropolis from erosion, a Unesco project.'

'Tell me, Herr Firner, how did my case proceed?'

'We took your advice and severed our system from the emission data site. We did so immediately after your report and since then haven't had any further annoyances.'

'And what did you do with Mischkey?'

'A few weeks ago we had him here with us for a full day and he had a great deal to say about the system connections, points of entry, and possible security measurements. A capable man.'

'You didn't get the police involved?'

'That didn't strike us as particularly opportune. From the police it gets into the press we don't like that sort of publicity.'

'And the damages?'

'We considered that, too. If it interests you: some of our people found it unbearable simply to let Mischkey go after calculating the damage he caused at five million. But at the end of the day, fortunately, economic sense triumphed over the legal aspect. Also over the legal reflections of Oelmuller and Ostenteich, who wanted Mischkey's case to be brought before the Federal Court. It wasn't a bad idea: before the Federal Court the Mischkey case would have demonstrated the dangers to which businesses are prey under the new emissions law. But it would have brought undesirable publicity. Besides, we're hearing, via the Economics Ministry, about rumblings from Karlsruhe that would make any further arguments on our part unnecessary.'

'So, all's well that ends well.'

'That would have a somewhat cynical ring to it, I think, in the knowledge that Mischkey went on to die in a car crash. But you're right, for the Works the matter had a happy ending, all things considered. Will we be seeing you here again? I had no idea that the general and yourself were such old friends. He told me about it when my wife and I spent an evening at his home recently. You know his house in Ludolf-Krehl-Stra.s.se?'

I knew Korten's house in Heidelberg, one of the first to be built in the late fifties from the perspective of personal security. I can still remember Korten one evening proudly demonstrating the cable car to me that connects the house, situated high up on the steep cliff above the street, with the entrance gate. 'If there's a power cut, it runs on my emergency power supply.'

Firner and I said our goodbyes with a few niceties. It was four o'clock, too late to make up for the missed lunch, too early to eat dinner. I went to the Herschel baths.

The sauna was empty. I sweated alone, swam alone beneath the high cupola with its Byzantine mosaics, found myself alone in the Irish-Roman steam bath and on the roof terrace. Shrouded in a large, white sheet, I dozed off on my deck chair in the rest room. Philipp was roller-skating through the hospital corridors. The columns he pa.s.sed were shapely female legs. Sometimes they moved. Philipp avoided them, laughing. I laughed back at him. Then I suddenly saw that it was a scream that gashed his face. I woke up and thought of Mischkey.

5

Hmm, well, what do you mean by good?

The proprietor of Cafe O had expressed his personality in an interior design that summarized everything that was fas.h.i.+onable at the end of the seventies, from the imitation fin-de-siecle lamps and the hand-operated orange juice squeezer to the little bistro tables with the marble tops. I wouldn't want to know him.

Frau Mugler, the dancer, I recognized by the severe black hair pulled back into a little ponytail, her angular femininity, and her look of sincere engagement. She'd gone as far as she could to look like Pina Bausch. She was sitting at the window, drinking a gla.s.s of freshly squeezed orange juice.

'Self. We spoke on the phone yesterday.' She looked at me with raised eyebrows and nodded almost imperceptibly. I joined her. 'Nice of you to take the time. My insurance firm still has some questions regarding Herr Mencke's accident that his colleague may be able to answer.'

'How did you hit on me in particular? I don't know Sergej especially well, haven't been here in Mannheim for long.'

'You're simply the first one back from vacation. Tell me, did Herr Mencke strike you as particularly exhausted and nervous in the last few weeks before the accident? We're looking for an explanation for its strange nature.' I ordered a coffee; she took another orange juice.

'Like I said, I don't know him well.'

'Did anything attract your attention?'

'He seemed very quiet, oppressed at times, but what do you mean by "attract attention"? Perhaps he's always like that, I've only been here six months.'

'Who from the Mannheim National Theatre knows him particularly well?'

'Hanne was closer to him at some point, so far as I know. And he hangs out with Joschka a lot, I think. Maybe they can help you.'

'Was Herr Mencke a good dancer?'

'Hmm, well, what do you mean by good? Wasn't exactly Nureyev, but then I'm no Bausch. Are you good?'

I'm no Pinkerton, I could have replied, but that wouldn't have been appropriate for my role.

'You won't find another insurance investigator like me. Could you give me the last names of Hanne and Joschka?'

I could have saved my breath. She hadn't been there long; don't forget, 'and in the theatre we're all on a first-name-terms basis. What's your first name?'

'Hieronymus. My friends call me Ronnie.'

'I didn't want to know what your friends call you. I think first names have something to do with one's personality.'

I'd love to have run out screaming. Instead I thanked her, paid at the counter, and left quietly.

6

Aesthetics and morality

The next morning I called Frau Buchendorff. 'I'd like to take a look at Mischkey's apartment and things. Could you arrange for me to get in?'

'Let's drive over together after office hours. Shall I pick you up at three-thirty?'

Frau Buchendorff and I took the back roads to Heidelberg. It was Friday, people were home early from work and getting their homes, yards, gardens, cars, and even the pavements ready for the weekend ahead. Autumn was in the air. I could feel my rheumatism coming on and would have preferred to have the top up, but I didn't want to appear old and kept quiet. In Wieblingen I thought about the railway bridge on the way to Eppelheim. I'd go there in the next few days. Now, with Frau Buchendorff, the detour hardly seemed appropriate.

'That's the way to Eppelheim,' she said, pointing past the small church to the right. 'I have the feeling I should take a look at the spot, but I can't do it yet.'

She left the car in the parking lot at Kornmarkt. 'I called ahead. Peter shared the apartment with a friend who works at Darmstadt Technical University. I do have a key but didn't want just to turn up.'

She didn't notice I knew the way to Mischkey's apartment. I didn't try to play dumb. No one answered our ring and Frau Buchendorff opened the front door. The lobby contained cool air from the cellar: 'The cellar goes down two levels into the hillside.' The floor was made of heavy slabs of sandstone. Bicycles were propped against the wall decorated with Delft tiles. The letterboxes had all been broken into at some point. Only a faint light trickled through the stained-gla.s.s windows onto the worn stairs.

'How old is the house?' I asked as we climbed to the third floor.

'A couple of hundred years. Peter loved it. He had lived here since he was a student.'

Mischkey's part of the apartment consisted of two large interlinking rooms. 'You needn't stay here, Frau Buchendorff, while I'm looking around. We can meet afterwards in a cafe.'

'Thanks, but I'll manage. Do you know what you're looking for?'

'Hmm.' I was getting my bearings. The front room was the study with a large table at the window, a piano and shelves against the remaining walls. In the shelves files and stacks of computer printouts. Through the window I could see the rooftops of the old town and Heiligenberg. In the second room was a bed with a patchwork quilt, three armchairs from the era of the kidney-shaped table, one of the aforementioned tables, a wardrobe, television, and a stereo system. From the window I looked left up to the castle and right to the advertising column I'd stood behind weeks ago.

'He didn't have a computer?' I asked in astonishment.

'No. He had all sorts of private stuff on the RCC system.'

I turned to the shelves. The books were about mathematics, computing, electronics, and artificial intelligence, films and music. Next to them an absolutely beautiful edition of Green Green Henry Henry and stacks of science fiction. The spines of the files indicated bills and taxes, product registration forms and instruction manuals, references and doc.u.ments, travel, the public census, and computer stuff I barely understood. I reached for the folder of bills and leafed through it. In the references file I discovered that Mischkey had won a prize in his third year of high school. On his desk was a pile of papers that I looked through. Along with private mail, unpaid bills, programming notes, and sheet music, I came across a newspaper cutting. and stacks of science fiction. The spines of the files indicated bills and taxes, product registration forms and instruction manuals, references and doc.u.ments, travel, the public census, and computer stuff I barely understood. I reached for the folder of bills and leafed through it. In the references file I discovered that Mischkey had won a prize in his third year of high school. On his desk was a pile of papers that I looked through. Along with private mail, unpaid bills, programming notes, and sheet music, I came across a newspaper cutting.

RCW honoured the oldest fisherman on the Rhine. While he was out fis.h.i.+ng yesterday on the river, Rudi Basler, who had turned ninety-five years old, was surprised by a delegation from the RCW headed by General Director Dr H. C. Korten: 'I didn't want to pa.s.s up the opportunity of congratulating the grand old man of Rhine-fis.h.i.+ng personally. Ninety-five years old and still as fresh as a fish in the Rhine.' Our photo captures the moment in which General Director H. C. Korten shares the happiness of the celebrated man and presents him with a gift hamper . . .

The picture had a clear shot of the gift hamper in the foreground; it was the same one I'd received. Then I found a copy of a short newspaper article from May 1970.

Scientists as forced labourers in the RCW? The Inst.i.tute for Contemporary History has picked up a hot potato. The most recent monograph from the Quarterly of Contemporary History deals with the forced labour of Jewish scientists in German industry from 1940 to 1945. According to this, renowned Jewish chemists among others worked in degrading conditions on the development of chemical war materials. The press officer of the RCW pointed to a planned commemorative publication for their 1972 centenary in which one contribution will deal with the firm's history under National Socialism, including the 'tragic incidents'.

Why had this been of interest to Mischkey?

'Could you come here for a moment?' I asked Frau Buchendorff, who was sitting in the armchair in the other room, staring out of the window. I showed her the newspaper article and asked her what she made of it.

'Yes, recently Peter had started asking for information on this or that about the RCW. He never had before. Regarding the matter of the Jewish scientists I even had to copy the article from our commemorative publication.'

'And where this interest stemmed from he didn't say?'

'No, nor did I push him to tell me anything because talking was often so difficult towards the end.'

I found the copy of the commemorative publication in the file ent.i.tled 'Reference Chart Webs'. It was next to the computer printouts. The R, the C, and the W had caught my eye as I was casting a resigned farewell glance at the shelves. The file was full of newspaper and other articles, some correspondence, a few brochures and computer printouts. So far as I could see, all the material was linked to the RCW. 'I can take the file with me, can't I?'

Frau Buchendorff nodded. We left the apartment.

On the homeward journey on the motorway the roof was closed. I sat with the file on my knees and felt like a schoolboy.

Suddenly Frau Buchendorff asked me, 'You were a public prosecutor, Herr Self, weren't you? Why did you actually stop?'

I took a cigarette from the packet and lit it. When the pause grew too long I said, 'I'll answer your question, I just need a moment.' We overtook a truck with a yellow tarpaulin, 'Fairwell' on it in red letters. A great name for a removal firm. A motorbike droned past us.

'At the end of the war I was no longer wanted. I'd been a convinced National Socialist, an active party member, and a tough prosecutor who'd also argued for, and won, the death penalty. There were some spectacular trials. I had faith in the cause and saw myself as a soldier on the legal front. I could no longer be utilized on the other front following my wound at the start of the war.' The worst was over. Why hadn't I simply told Frau Buchendorff the sanitized version? 'After nineteen fortyfive I first worked on my in-laws' farm, then in a coal merchant's, and then slowly started doing private investigations. For me, my work as a public prosecutor didn't have a future. I could only see myself as the National Socialist I'd been, and certainly couldn't be again. I'd lost my faith. You probably can't imagine how anyone could believe at all in National Socialism. But you've grown up with knowledge that we, after nineteen forty-five, only got piece by piece. It was bad with my wife, who was a beautiful blonde n.a.z.i and stayed that way till she became a nice, round Economic Miracle German.' I didn't want to say any more about my marriage. 'Around the time of the Monetary Reform they started to draft incriminated colleagues back in. I could have returned to the judiciary then, too. But I saw what the efforts to get reinstated, and the reinstatement itself, did to my colleagues. Instead of feeling guilt they only had a sense that they'd been done an injustice when they were expelled and that this reinstatement was a kind of reparation. That disgusted me.'

'That sounds closer to aesthetics than morality.'

'It's hard to tell the difference any more.'

'Can't you imagine anything beautiful that's immoral?'

'I see what you mean, Riefenstahl, Triumph of the Will Triumph of the Will and so on. But since I've grown older I just don't find the ch.o.r.eography of the ma.s.ses, the bombastic architecture of Speer and his epigones, and the atomic blast brighter than a thousand suns beautiful any more.' and so on. But since I've grown older I just don't find the ch.o.r.eography of the ma.s.ses, the bombastic architecture of Speer and his epigones, and the atomic blast brighter than a thousand suns beautiful any more.'

We had stopped by my door and it was approaching seven. I'd have liked to invite Frau Buchendorff to the Kleiner Rosengarten. But I didn't dare.

'Frau Buchendorff, would you care to dine with me in the Kleiner Rosengarten?'

'That's nice of you, many thanks, but I won't.'

7

A raven mother