Self's punishment (23 page)

13

Can’t you see how Sergej is suffering?

Sergej Mencke was lying in a double room in the Oststadt Hospital on the garden side. The other bed was currently unoccupied. His leg was suspended from a kind of pulley and held in place at the correct slant by a metal frame and screw system. He’d spent the last three months, with the exception of a few weeks, in hospital and looked correspondingly miserable. Nonetheless I could clearly see that he was a handsome man. Light, blond hair, a longish, English face with a prominent chin, dark eyes, and a vulnerable, arrogant cast to the lips. Unfortunately his voice was petulant, maybe just as a result of the past months.

‘Wouldn’t it have been right to come and see me first, instead of bothering my entire social world?’

So he was one of those. A whiner. ‘And what would you have told me?’

‘That your suspicions are pure fantasy, they’re the product of a sick brain. Can you imagine mutilating your own leg like this?’

‘Oh, Herr Mencke.’ I pulled the chair to his bed. ‘There’s a lot I wouldn’t do myself. I could never cut open my thumb to avoid washing up. And what I, as a ballet dancer without a future, would do to make a million, I really couldn’t say.’

‘That silly story from scout camp. Where did you dredge that one up from?’

‘From bothering your social world. What was the story with the thumb again?’

‘That was a completely normal accident. I was carving tent pegs with my pocket knife. Yes, I know what you want to say. I’ve told the story differently, but only because it’s such a nice one, and my youth doesn’t provide many stories. And as for my future as a ballet dancer . . . Listen. You don’t exactly give the impression of a particularly rosy future yourself, but you wouldn’t go breaking a limb because of it.’

‘Tell me, Herr Mencke, how did you plan to finance the dance school you’ve talked about so often?’

‘Frederik was going to support me,
Fritz
Kirchenberg, I mean. He has stacks of money. If I’d wanted to cheat the insurance company I’d have thought up something a little cleverer.’

‘The car door isn’t that silly. But what would have been cleverer?’

‘I have no desire to discuss it with you. I only said
if
I’d wanted to cheat the insurance people.’

‘Would you be willing to undergo a psychiatric examination? That would really facilitate the insurance company’s decision.’

‘Absolutely not. I’m not going to have them tag me as mad. If they don’t pay up right away, I’m going to a lawyer.’

‘If you go to trial you won’t be able to avoid a psychiatric examination.’

‘Let’s wait and see.’

The nurse came in carrying a little dish with brightly coloured tablets. ‘The two red ones now, the yellow one before and the blue one after your meal. How are we today?’

Sergej had tears in his eyes as he looked at the nurse. ‘I can’t go on, Katrin. Nothing but pain and no dancing ever again. And now this gentleman from the insurance company wants to make me out to be a cheat.’

Nurse Katrin laid her hand on his forehead and glowered at me. ‘Can’t you see how Sergej is suffering? You should be ashamed of yourself! Leave him in peace. It’s always the same with insurance companies; first they make you pay through the nose and then they torture you because they don’t want to cough up.’

I couldn’t add anything to this conversation and fled. Over lunch I noted down keywords for my report to the Heidelberg Union Insurance. My conclusion was neither that of deliberate self-mutilation, nor mere accident. I could only gather together the points that spoke for one or the other. Should the insurance not wish to pay they wouldn’t have a bad case.

As I was crossing the street, a car spattered me from head to toe in slushy snow. I was already in a foul mood when I reached my office and the work on the report made me all the more morose. By the evening I’d laboriously dictated two cassettes that I took round to Tattersallstrasse to be typed up. On the way home it struck me I’d wanted to ask Frau Mencke about little Siegfried’s tooth-extraction methods. But now I couldn’t care less.

14

Matthew 6, verse 26

It was a small huddle of mourners that gathered at the Ludwigshafen Cemetery at 2 p.m. on Friday. Eberhard, Philipp, the vice-dean of the Heidelberg faculty for the sciences, Willy’s cleaning lady, and myself. The vice-dean had prepared a speech, which, due to the low turnout, he delivered gracelessly. We discovered that Willy had been an internationally recognized authority in the field of screech owl research. And this with heart and soul: in the war, as an adjunct lecturer at Hamburg at the time, he had rescued the entire family of distraught screech owls from the burning aviary in Hagenbeck Zoo. The minister spoke about Matthew 6, verse 26, about all the birds beneath the heavens. Beneath blue heavens and on crunchy snow we walked from the chapel to the grave. Philipp and I were first behind the coffin. He whispered to me, ‘I must show you the photo sometime. I came across it when I was tidying up. Willy and the rescued owls, with singed hair, or feathers respectively, six pairs of eyes looking exhaustedly but happily into the camera. It warmed my aching heart.’

Then we stood by the deep hole. It’s like eenie, meenie, minie, mo. According to age, Eberhard is next, and then it’s my turn. For a long time now when someone I’m fond of dies, I’ve stopped thinking, ‘Oh, if only I’d done this or that more often.’ And when a contemporary dies it’s as though he’s just gone on ahead, even if I can’t say where to. The minister recited the Lord’s Prayer and we all joined in; even Philipp, the most hard-boiled atheist I know, said it aloud. Then each of us cast a small shovelful of earth into the grave, and the minister shook our hands, one by one. A young guy, but convinced, and convincing. Philipp had to return to work straight away.

‘You will come by this evening for a funeral meal, won’t you?’ Yesterday in town I’d bought another twelve little sardine cans and laid the tiny fish in a Escabeche marinade. To go with it there’d be white bread and Rioja. We settled on eight o’clock.

Philipp strode off like a Fury, Eberhard did the honours with the vice-dean, and the cleaning lady, still emitting heartrending sobs, was led gently on the arm of the minister to the exit. I had time and slowly wandered along the cemetery paths. If Klara had been buried here I’d have wanted to visit her now, and commune a bit.

‘Herr Self!’ I turned around and recognized Frau Schmalz, complete with small trowel and watering can. ‘I’m just on my way to the family grave, where Heinrich’s urn is at rest now, too. It’s looking nice, the grave. Will you come and see?’ She looked at me shyly from her narrow, careworn face. She was wearing an old-fashioned black winter coat, black button-up boots, a black fur hat over her grey hair pinned in a bun, and was carrying an imitation-leather handbag that made one wince with pity. In my generation there are female figures, the sight of whom rouses in me a belief in all the pronouncements of all the prophets of the women’s lib movement. Not that I’ve ever read them.

‘Are you still living in the old compound at the Works?’ I asked her on the way.

‘No, I had to get out, it’s all torn down. The Works found me somewhere on Pfingstweide. The apartment’s fine and everything, very modern, but you know, it is hard after so many years. It takes me a full hour to get to the grave of my Heinrich. Later today my son, thank God, will pick me up in his car.’

We were standing in front of the family grave. It was heaped high with snow. The ribbon from the wreath bequeathed by the Works, and long since decomposed, was fixed to a cane and rose up like a standard by the gravestone. Widow Schmalz put down the watering can and let the trowel drop. ‘I can’t do anything today with this load of snow.’ We stood there, both thinking of old Schmalz. ‘These days I hardly get to see my little Richard either. I live too far out. What do you think, is it right that the Works . . . Oh God, now that Heinrich’s no longer around I’m always thinking such things. He never let me, never let anybody question the Works.’

‘How much warning did you have that you had to leave?’

‘A good six months. They wrote to us. But then everything went so quickly.’

‘Didn’t Korten make a point of talking to your husband four weeks before your move, so that it wouldn’t be too hard on you?’

‘Did he? He never told me about it. He did have a close relationship with the general, you know. From the war, when the SS assigned him to the Works. Since then it was right what they said at the funeral, the Works was his life. He didn’t get much out of it, but I was never allowed to say that either. Whether SS officer or security officer, the fight goes on, he used to say.’

‘What became of his workshop?’

‘He set it up with such love. And he really cared for those vans and trucks. Then it was all got rid of very quickly during the demolition, my son could scarcely retrieve a thing. I think they scrapped it all. I didn’t think that was right either. Oh, God.’ She bit her lips and made a face as though she’d committed a mortal sin. ‘Forgive me, I didn’t mean to say anything bad about the Works.’ She grasped my arm appeasingly. She held on tightly for a while, staring at the grave. Thoughtfully, she continued, ‘But perhaps at the end Heinrich himself didn’t think it was right the way the Works was treating us. On his deathbed he wanted to say something to the general about the garage and the vans. I couldn’t understand him properly.’

‘You’ll permit an old man a question, Frau Schmalz. Were you happy in your marriage with Heinrich?’

She gathered up the watering can and trowel. ‘That’s the sort of thing people ask nowadays. I never thought about it. He was my husband.’

We walked to the parking lot. Young Schmalz was pulling in. He was happy to see me. ‘The good doctor . . . met Mum at Dad’s grave.’ I told him about my friend’s funeral.

‘I’m grieved to hear that. Painful, taking leave of a friend. I’ve been there too. I remain grateful for your help with our little Richard. And one day my wife and I would like to have that coffee with you. Mum can come along, too. Any particular cake your favourite?’

‘My absolute favourite is sweet damson shortcake.’ I didn’t say it to be mean. It really is my favourite cake.

Schmalz handled it well. ‘Ah, plum with floury-butter crumble. My wife can bake it like no other woman. Coffee maybe in the quiet lull between the impending holiday and New Year?’

I said yes. We’d telephone regarding the exact date.

The evening with Philipp and Eberhard was one of melancholic gaiety. We remembered our last Doppelkopf evening with Willy. We’d joked then about what would come of our games circle if one of us were to die. ‘No,’ said Eberhard, ‘we’re not going to look for someone new to make up the four. From now on it’s Skat.’

‘And then chess, and the last one will meet himself twice a year to play solitaire,’ said Philipp.

‘It’s all very well for you to laugh, you’re the youngest.’

‘It’s nothing to laugh about. Solitaire? I’d rather be dead.’

15

And the race is on

Ever since I moved from Berlin to Heidelberg I’ve been buying my Christmas trees at the Tiefburg in Handschuhsheim. It’s been a long time since they were any different from those elsewhere. But I like the small square in front of the ruined castle with its moat. The tram used to turn around here on squealing tracks; this was the end of the line and Klärchen and I often set off on our walks on the Heiligenberg from here. These days Handschuhsheim has turned trendy and everyone who thinks of themselves as having a modicum of cultural and intellectual flair gathers at the weekly market. The day will come when the only authentic neighbourhoods are places like the suburban slums of the sixties.

I’m particularly fond of silver firs. But so far as my sardine cans went, I felt a Douglas spruce would be more appropriate. I found a beautiful, evenly grown, ceiling-height, bushy tree. Stretching from the right-hand corner on the passenger side to the back left-hand corner, it fitted in neatly over the reclined front seat and the folded-down back seat of my Opel. I found a space in the parking garage by the town hall. I’d made a little list for my Christmas shopping.

All hell was loose on the main street. I battled my way through to Welsch the jeweller and bought earrings for Babs. It’ll never happen, but I’d like to have a beer with Welsch one day. He has the same taste as me. For Röschen and Georg, from the selection at one of those all-pervading gift shops, I chose two of those disposable watches, currently modern among our postmodern youth, made of see-through plastic with a quartz movement and a heat-sealed face. Then I was exhausted. In Café Schafheutle I bumped into Thomas with his wife and three puberty-ridden daughters.

‘Isn’t a security man supposed to make a gift of sons to his Works?’

‘In the security field there’s an increasingly attractive range of jobs for women. For our course we’re estimating around thirty per cent female participants. Incidentally the conference of Ministers of Culture and Education is going to support us as a pilot project, and so the technical college has decided to establish a separate department for internal security. That means I can introduce myself today as the designated founding dean. I’m leaving the RCW on the first of January.’

I congratulated the right honourable dean on his office, the honour, the prestige, and the title. ‘What’s Danckelmann going to do without you?’

‘It will be difficult for him in the next few years until he retires. But I would like the department to provide consultation too, so he can buy advice from us. You’ll remember the curriculum you wanted to send me, Herr Self?’

Evidently Thomas already felt emancipated from RCW and was adapting to his new role. He invited me to join them at their table where the daughters were giggling and the mother was blinking nervously. I looked at my watch, excused myself, and dashed off to Café Scheu.

Then I embarked on round two of checking off my list. What do you give a virile man in his late fifties? A set of tiger-print underwear? Royal jelly? The erotic stories of Anaïs Nin? Finally I bought Philipp a cocktail shaker for his boat bar. Then revulsion for the Christmas din and commercialism swamped me. I was filled with immense discontent with the crowds and with myself. It would take me hours to shake it off at home. Why on earth had I launched myself into the Christmas mêlée? Why did I make the same mistake every year? Haven’t I learned anything in my life? What is the point of the whole thing?

The Opel smelled pleasantly of fir forest. When I’d fought my way through the traffic to the autobahn I heaved a sigh of relief. I shoved in a tape, fished out from way down the pile, as I’d heard the others too often on the journey to and from Locarno. But no music came.

A telephone was picked up, the dialling tone sounded, a number was dialled, and the recipient’s phone rang. He answered. It was Korten.

‘Hello, Herr Korten. Mischkey here. I’m warning you. If your people don’t leave me alone your past is going to explode around your ears. I won’t be pressured like this any longer, and I certainly won’t be beaten up again.’

‘I’d imagined you’d be more intelligent from Self’s report. First you break into our system and now you threaten blackmail. I have nothing to say.’ Actually Korten should have hung up that very second. But the second came and went, and Mischkey talked on.

‘The times are over, Herr Korten, where all it takes is an SS contact and an SS uniform to move people from here to there, to Switzerland and to the gallows.’ Mischkey hung up. I heard him take a deep gulp of air, then the click of the tape recorder. Music began. ‘And the race is on and it looks like heartache and the winner loses all.’

I turned off the player and pulled over to the hard shoulder. The tape from Mischkey’s Citroën. I had simply forgotten it.