Self's deception (11 page)

29
In this weather?

I drove over to Wieblingen, to the Schusterstrasse. I rang Wendt's bell and knocked on his door in vain. As I returned to my car I saw Frau Kleinschmidt standing at her front door. She must have been watching me from behind her curtains.

“Herr Wendt!” she called over to me.

I hopped over two puddles, got drenched by a gush of water from the porch gutter, and joined Frau Kleinschmidt in her front hall. I wiped my glasses dry.

“Are you looking for your son again? He was here—see, there's his car—but a man drove up and then the two of them went for a walk.”

“In this weather?”

“Strange, isn't it? I think it's strange. And three-quarters of an hour later the other man came back alone, got in his car, and drove off. That's strange, too, isn't it?”

“You have sharp eyes. What did the man look like?”

“My husband's always saying that, too. 'Renate,' he tells me, 'Renate, you've got a good pair of eyes in that head of yours.' But I didn't get a good look at the other man. He'd parked back over there. See? There, where the Ford is standing. It was hard to get a good look at him in the rain. In the rain, all cats are wet. But I did see that he was driving a VW Golf,” she said brightly, like a child eager for praise.

“Which way did the two of them walk?”

“Down the street. It's the way to the river, you know, but you can't see that far from here, no matter how good your eyes are.”

I refused a cup of freshly brewed coffee and got back in my car. I slowly drove down the street that ran along the Neckar River. Houses, trees, and cars were shrouded in a veil of rain. It was just after four, but it looked like early twilight.

After a while the rain grew lighter, and finally my wiper blades scratched over the dry windshield. I got out. I followed the path that crosses the Neckar Meadows from Wieblingen to Edingen and then goes past the sewage plant and the composting plant and under the autobahn bridge. At one point I thought I saw a piece of clothing that might belong to Wendt, trudged through the wet grass to take a look, and came back with wet feet. I generally like being outside when the earth is aromatic after a rain and the air tingles on my face. But this time I only felt clammy.

I found him, his arms outstretched and his eyes fixed. Above us the traffic rumbled. The way he was lying there, he could have fallen from the autobahn bridge onto the slabs that had been put down when the bridge was built. But there was a small hole in his light raincoat where the bullet had pierced his chest. It was dark red, almost black. On his raincoat, around the hole, the red gleamed brightly. There wasn't much blood.

Next to him lay his briefcase, as if it had slipped out of his hand. I took some tissues out of my pocket and used them to pick up the briefcase and take it under the bridge, where it was dry. With the tissues wrapped around my fingers, I pulled out a newspaper, a large notebook, and a copy of a map. The notebook was Wendt's hospital appointment calendar, and had no entry for this afternoon. The map had no place names on it, and I didn't recognize the terrain it showed. There was no town, river, or colors that might indicate a forest or houses. Most of it was divided into small numbered squares. A double line vertically cut the map in half, and several double lines veered from it to the left and extended into another double line that led straight to the edge of the map. I committed a few of the numbers to memory. At the bottom there was 203. At the top, 537, 538, and 539. On the left side, 425, and on the right side, 113. Then I put the briefcase back exactly as I had found it.

Wendt's head was slightly raised, propped up by a stone jutting out from a slab, and it was as if his fractured gaze was reaching longingly into the distance. I would have liked to close his eyes. It would've been the proper thing to do. But the police would not like it. In Wieblingen I called from the nearest phone booth and asked to be put through to Chief Inspector Nägelsbach's office.

“I can't believe you sent me your colleagues from the Agency.” I had to get that off my chest first.

“I sent you who?” Nägelsbach asked.

“This morning I had a visit from Bleckmeier and Rawitz, from the Federal Criminal Investigation Agency. They wanted to know the whereabouts of Leonore Salger.”

“I had nothing to do with that. What you and I spoke about that evening…How can you think I would abuse your trust like that?” Nägelsbach's voice was shaking with indignation. I believed him. Should I be ashamed? Had he been more straightforward with me than I had been with him? “I apologize. I simply couldn't imagine that the Agency would otherwise think of questioning me.”

“Hmm.”

I told him I had found Wendt. Nägelsbach asked me to wait for him by the phone booth. Exactly five minutes later a patrol car and an ambulance appeared, along with Tietzke from the local paper, and three minutes after that Nägelsbach himself pulled up with a colleague. I got into their car and showed them the way to Wendt's corpse, and they set to work. I was free to go. “Let's talk tomorrow,” Nägelsbach said. “Can you come by my office in the morning?”

30
Spaghetti al pesto

The lightbulb on my landing was still out. I saw it as I stopped to catch my breath on the floor below and went back down again.

Brigitte wasn't home yet. Young Manu and I made my spaghetti carbonara—it's never too early for a child to be taught that cream is the body of a light pasta sauce, and vermouth the soul.

When Brigitte and I took the dog out for a walk late that evening, she wanted to know what was going on. “It's so great you're here and that the two of you cooked supper— and you even washed up—but I know you didn't come over just to please me.”

“How about to please
me
—wouldn't that be enough?”

She sensed that I wasn't telling her the whole truth, but she didn't want to push the matter. Back at her place we watched a movie and the late news. Before the weather report there was a bulletin in which the Federal Criminal Investigation Agency made a special public appeal for information. There hadn't been a bulletin earlier that evening when I'd watched the news with Manu. I didn't recognize the pictures they showed of the two nameless men. But the woman they showed was Leo, and they gave her name. The bulletin disclosed that there had been a terrorist attack on an American military installation and that there had been two casualties. Then a press officer from the Criminal Investigation Agency appeared on the screen and spoke of a new generation of part-time terrorists who lead normal lives during the day, and at night launch attacks with murder and fire. He asked the public to cooperate and to expect roadblocks and checkpoints over the next few days. He promised that any information that was provided would be handled in the strictest confidence and mentioned a substantial reward.

“Isn't that the girl whose picture is leaning on the small stone lion in your office?”

I nodded.

“I hope you don't think I'm thinking of the reward. What I'm thinking of is how I found you the other day. You told me you'd tell the police where she is when you know why they're looking for her. Now you know.”

“Do I really? There was a terrorist attack on an American base and there were two casualties; that's all I know. But how come I don't know when and where the attack took place? Leo went into hiding in January, now it's May. The way they're talking, you'd think the attack took place yesterday, and that she'd gone into hiding yesterday. No, Brigitte, I know next to nothing.”

As we lay in bed I made up my mind and set the alarm. I hoped that the people of Amorbach, and the Hopfen family in particular, hadn't seen the late-night news.

The following morning at six I was in my car, heading to Amorbach.

31
Like in the days of Baader and Meinhof

The streets were empty, and I was able to pick up speed. The sun rose as a pale red disk, but had soon steamed away the haze, blinding me in the many sharp curves between Eber-bach and Amorbach. The rainy days were over.

The Badischer Hof Restaurant had opened already, and the breakfast buffet was laid out. At the table next to mine sat a married couple who were outfitted in knickerbockers and red socks. They looked out of place, almost like aliens, but they were ready for their hike through the Odenwald, and were reading the local
Bote vom Untermain
paper over coffee and rolls. I was itching to tell them how important it was in a marriage to talk to each other and to ask them to give me their paper. But I couldn't work up the courage. All the same, I could see that Leo's picture wasn't on the front page.

It was on page four. By the time I rang the doorbell in Som-merberg at a quarter to nine, I had bought the newspaper and was holding it under my arm. The children were making a great racket inside. Leo opened the door.

I had recently caught only a glimpse of her, and even then she had remained for me the girl in the first photograph, the girl with the mouth that liked to laugh, with the question and the reproach in her eyes, the girl who was leaning on the little stone lion on my desk. I had not really come to terms with the young woman whose picture I had been given at the Klausenpfad residence hall. Now she was standing in front of me, another year or two older. Her chin and cheekbones showed determination. I read in her eyes: “What does this old man want? Is he selling something? Some kind of door-to-door salesman? Or has he come to read the electric and gas meters?” She was again wearing jeans and a man's checked shirt.

“What can I do for you?” Her accent was as thick as the peanut butter on the sandwiches Manu makes for himself.

“Good morning, Frau Salger.”

She took a step back. I was almost happy about the distrust in her eyes. Better a dangerous old man than a tiresome one.

“Excuse me?”

I handed her the newspaper, opened to page four. “I'd like to have a word with you.”

She looked at her picture with a mixture of curiosity and resignation: That's supposed to be me? Who cares, it's all over anyway.

I imagined that the picture was from the police files, when she had been taken in for fingerprinting during the student protests. Sometimes there is talk about criminalization by the police, meaning that law enforcement creates breaches of law as much as it fights them. These are unacceptable generalizations. It is only police photographers who are capable of “criminalizing” a person. And they are masters of their trade. Send them the most innocent and law-abiding individual you can find, and before you know it they will give him the mug of a criminal. Leo shrugged her shoulders and handed me back the newspaper. “Could you please wait a moment?” Her accent was gone.

I stood outside the door and heard snippets of Leo telling the children to put on their shoes, take along their jackets, and put their sandwiches in their schoolbags. Then she ran down the stairs and I heard her opening and shutting room and closet doors. When she came out of the house with the children, she was carrying a coat over her arm and a packed bag over her shoulder.

“Do you mind if I drive on ahead with the kids? I want to drop them off at the kindergarten and at the school and then leave the car outside Dr. Hopfen's office.” She unlocked the Land Rover and helped the children get in.

I followed in my car, and saw the little girl go into the kindergarten and the boys into the school. Then Leo parked the Rover, dropped the keys into Dr. Hopfen's mailbox, and came over to my car with her bag and coat. “Let's go.”

Did she think I was a policeman? Well, that could be cleared up later. When I turned into the road leading to Eber-bach she looked at me with surprise but didn't say anything. We were silent all the way to Ernsttal. I parked the car under some trees. “Come along, let's have a cup of coffee.”

She got out of the car. “And where are we going after that?”

“I don't know. Bonn? Heidelberg? Where would you like to go?”

We sat on the terrace and ordered coffee. “You're not a policeman—so who are you and what do you want?” She took tobacco and cigarette papers out of her bag, nimbly rolled herself a cigarette, and asked me for a light. She smoked and waited for my answer, looking at me not distrustfully but carefully.

“Wendt is dead, and everything points to this man being the murderer.” I showed her one of the pictures from her album, in which the fake Herr Salger stood next to her with his arm around her shoulder. “You know him.”

“What of it?” The caution in her eyes turned to defense. She had been sitting with her elbows propped on the table. Now she leaned back.

“What of it? Wendt helped you. First he hid you in the psychiatric hospital, then he got you the job as an au pair in Amorbach. I didn't know him well, but I admit that it troubles me that he might still be alive if I had told the police what they wanted to know, about you, about this guy”— I pointed at the picture—”and about Wendt. I am quite sure that he would still be alive if you had done one or two things differently.”

The café owner brought us our coffees. Leo got up. “I'll be right back.” Did she want to squeeze her way out the restroom window and head through the woods for Bavaria? I took the risk. The café owner began telling me that our forests have been dying since German boilers have been burning Russian natural gas. “They put something in it,” he whispered. “Those Russians don't need war and weapons anymore.”

Leo returned. Her eyes were swollen with tears. “Can you please tell me what you want from me?” She spoke in a natural voice, but not without effort.

I gave her a condensed version of the last couple of weeks.

“Who are you working for now?”

“For myself. I can do that from time to time, if it's not for too long.”

“And you want to know what I know just out of interest and curiosity?”

“Not only. I also want to know what I might have to expect from him.” I pointed again at the picture. “Incidentally, what's his name?”

“And when I've told you everything, what then?”

“You're asking me if I'll hand you over to the police?”

“That would be an option, wouldn't it? By the way, did you have a hard time recognizing me?”

“Not really. But recognizing people who don't want to be recognized is part of my job.”

“Will you take me away from here?”

I didn't understand what she was getting at.

“I mean, can you take me somewhere where these pictures won't… They'll be up in every post office and police station, like in the days of Baader and Meinhof, won't they? And on TV—do you think they'll show them on TV, too?”

“They already have, yesterday.”

“Do you have any ideas? If you do, I'll tell you what you want to know.”

I needed some time to think. Supporting a terrorist organization, facilitation, obstruction of justice—all the things that could happen to me went through my head. Could I claim at my age a diminished capacity, or was that only permissible in Nazi trials? Would they impound my old Opel as an instrument of crime? I postponed the moral question of whether I would keep my promise to Leo if she had committed the most dreadful atrocities.

I got up. “Fine. I'll take you to France, and on the way to the border you can tell me what you know.”

She remained seated. “And the official at the border will just wave us through with a smile?”

She was right. Even in a Europe of open borders, the police at border crossings take particular care during a hunt for terrorists. “I'll take you over a back road.”