Self's deception (4 page)

8
Davai, Davai

The first drops fell, and the park emptied. The patients ran to the buildings. The loud chirping of agitated birds hung in the air. I took refuge under an old, half-open bike shelter, between slanting rusty racks that had not seen a bicycle for a long time. There were lightning and thunder, and the pelting rain hammered on the corrugated iron roof. I heard a blackbird sing, leaned forward to catch a glimpse of the bird, and pulled my head back completely wet. The bird was sitting under the regimental coat of arms up in the corner of the old building. The first blackbird of summer. Then I saw two figures coming slowly toward me through the pouring rain. An attendant in a white gown was calmly talking to a patient in an oversized gray suit and gently pushing him along. The attendant was holding the patient's hand behind his back in a police grip that wasn't painful, but could quickly force one into submission. As they approached, I could understand the attendant's words, appeasing nonsense, along with an occasional sharp, “Davai, Davai!” Both men's clothes were sticking to their bodies.

Even as they were standing next to me under the corrugated roof the attendant didn't let go of his patient. He nodded to me. “New here? Administration?” He didn't wait for my reply. “You guys up there have it easy while we here have to do all the dirty work. Nothing personal, I don't even know you.” He was broad and heavy and towered over me. He had a massive, rough nose. The patient was shivering and looking out into the rain. His mouth formed words I didn't understand.

“Is your patient dangerous?”

“You mean because I've got a tight grip on him? Don't worry. What do you do up there?”

There was a flash of lightning. The rain was still streaming down, drumming on the corrugated roof and splashing up from the gravel onto our legs. Rivulets poured over the shelter's concrete floor, and a smell of wet dust hung in the air.

“I'm from outside. I'm looking into the accident of that female patient last Tuesday.”

“You're from the police?”

The thunder came roaring over us. I flinched, which the attendant might well have taken for a nod, and me for a policeman.

“What accident?”

“Over in the old building—a fatal fall from the fourth floor.”

The attendant looked at me blankly. “What are you talking about? That's the first I've heard about a fall last Tuesday. And when I don't know a thing, it never happened. Who's supposed to have fallen?”

I handed him Leo's picture.

“That girl? Who told you such bullshit?”

“Dr. Wendt.”

He gave me back the picture. “In that case, I didn't say anything. If Dr. Wendt… if the director's golden boy said so”—he shrugged his shoulders—”then I guess we had an accident. A fatal fall from the fourth floor of the old building.”

I put off acknowledging what the attendant had retracted. “And your patient here?”

“He's one of our Russians. He gets into a crazy mood now and then. But he needs his fresh air, too, and I've got a good grip on him. Right, Ivan?”

The patient became agitated. “Anatol, Anatol, Anatol…” He was shouting the name. The attendant tightened his grip and the shouting stopped. “There, there, calm down, Ivan, nothing will happen to you, it's just thunder and lightning, there, there, what will this nice policeman think?” He spoke in the kind of crooning voice with which one reassures children.

I took my pack of Sweet Aftons out of my pocket and the attendant took one. I offered the patient one, too. “Anatol?” He cringed, looked at me, clicked his heels together, bowed, and, turning his head away, fished a cigarette out of the pack.

“Is his name Anatol?”

“How am I supposed to know? You can't get anything out of these guys.”

“And who are 'these guys'?”

“We've got all kinds here. They're left over from the war. They were workers in the Third Reich, or foreign volunteer helpers, or fought for some Russian general. Then we've got those from the concentration camps, both inmates and guards. When they're crazy, they're all the same.”

The rain grew weaker. A young attendant, his coat billowing, ran past us, jumping over puddles. “Hey, hurry up,” he called. “It's almost time to clock out.”

“I guess we ought to go.” The attendant next to me let his cigarette fall, and it went out on the wet ground. “Come on, Ivan. Time to grab some grub.”

The patient had also let his cigarette fall, trod it out, and with his foot carefully buried it in the gravel. Again he clicked his heels together and bowed. I watched the two men slowly make their way to the new building at the other end of the park. The thunder rumbled in the distance, and the rain rustled with gentle monotony. Figures appeared in the doors, and from time to time a doctor or attendant with an umbrella crossed the park with quick steps. The blackbird was still singing.

I remembered the senior public prosecutor's note that had crossed my desk in 1943 or 1944 at the Heidelberg Public Prosecutor's Office, which had decreed that any Russian or Polish workers not meeting their quotas were to be sent to forced labor in a concentration camp. How many had I sent? I stared into the rain. I shuddered. The air after the storm was clear and fresh. After a while I only heard the drops falling from the leaves of the trees. The rain had passed. The sky split open in the west, and pearls of water sparkled in the sun.

I returned to the main building, crossed the stairwell, passed the main entrance, and went out through the columns of the portal. It was five o'clock, change of shift, and employees were streaming out. I waited, keeping a lookout for Wendt, but he didn't appear. The attendant from before was one of the last to come out, and I asked him if he wanted me to drop him off somewhere. In the car on our way to Kirch-heim he reiterated that he hadn't said anything.

9
It was only later

It was only later that the shock of Leo's death kicked in, and then, even later, relief that the information could not be right. If the attendant didn't know something, it never happened. I believed him. Also Eberlein would have reacted differently had the fatal fall from the window really taken place. Was he merely trying to provoke me in order to probe me? Be that as it may, in our exchange he'd found out more about me than I had found out about him. I was angry that I hadn't realized this, too, until later.

When I got back home I called Philipp. Sometimes it's a small world—perhaps Philipp, as a surgeon at the Mannheim Municipal Hospital, might know something about the State Psychiatric Hospital and its doctors. He was on his way to a house call and promised to get back to me. But an hour later the doorbell rang and there he was. “I thought I'd better drop by. We don't see enough of each other.”

We sat on the leather couches in my living room, which also served as my study, the door to the balcony open. I uncorked a bottle of wine and told Philipp about my investigation at the psychiatric hospital. “I can't make heads or tails of it. Wendt with his silly lies, sinister old Eberlein, and the attendant's hints about Wendt being the director's golden boy—do you see rhyme or reason in any of this?”

Philipp downed the glass of good Alsatian riesling in one gulp and held it out to me. “We're having our spring festival at the yacht club on Friday. I'll take you along and you can have a nice chat with Eberlein.”

“Eberlein's got a yacht?”

“The
Psyche
. A Halberg-Rassy 352, sails like a three-quarter-ton vessel, top of the line.” Philipp's glass was empty again. “You call Eberlein sinister,” he said. “All I know is that people see him as an energetic, unconventional boss. The psychiatric hospital had taken a nosedive, and he put it back on track again. He is seen as a traditionalist in the field, but I don't think that a reformer could have gone a different route and done a better job. Wendt being his protégé doesn't fit the picture, though. Then again, one wouldn't expect him to esteem all doctors the same way—perhaps he likes Wendt particularly. But if Wendt, whom I've never heard of, is behind the mess you're describing, I wouldn't want to be in his shoes.”

“And what about your shoes?” I asked. Philipp had knocked back the third glass, too, and rolled the stem between his fingers and looked unhappy.

“Füruzan has moved in with me.”

“Just like that?”

He smiled sourly. “It's just like in that building and loan commercial. The bell rings, and there she is at my front door with all her earthly belongings, along with some furniture mover, to move her things into my apartment.”

I was impressed. Ever since I'd known him he hit on women, took them out a few times, got them into bed, and that was that. Nurses and hospitals are exactly the same, was his motto: Either you get out quickly, or you're a hopeless case. So he was always particularly careful with nurses. Also because of the working atmosphere. And Füruzan, the proud, voluptuous Turkish nurse, brought everything tumbling down with the flick of a wrist.

“When did this happen?”

“Two weeks ago. I had to slam the door in her face. And then turn the key. It wasn't fair of her. I just couldn't handle it.”

Turbo crossed the roof and came into the room from the balcony.

Philipp said, “Here kitty, kitty,” and held out his hand. The cat marched straight past him. “See how things are with me? He can sense that I'm a castrated man and turns his back on me.”

I sensed something else. Philipp hadn't just dropped by because we don't see enough of each other. As I brought out another bottle from the kitchen, he spilled the beans. “Thanks, just one more sip, I'll have to get going. And if Füruzan should call here and ask for me…I don't know if she'd do that, but if she does…could you…I mean, as a private investigator, you know how to handle these things. Could you tell her, for instance, that I had trouble with my car and that I had to take it to some mechanic you recommended who could only take a look at it this evening…I'm hanging around there, and he doesn't have a phone. How's that?”

“Who's the other one?”

He shrugged his shoulders and raised his hands. “You don't know her. She's a student nurse from Frankenthal, but she's got a figure…breasts, I swear, she's got breasts like ripe mangoes and a bottom like…like …”

I suggested pumpkins.

“That's it, pumpkins. Or perhaps melons, not the yellow ones, the green ones with the red flesh. Or perhaps …” It was on the tip of his tongue.

“Do me a favor and tell Füruzan that you and I went out,” I said to him, “and I won't pick up the phone tonight if it rings.”

He left, and I sat there looking into the twilight thinking about my case and my friend Philipp. Füruzan didn't call. At ten o'clock Brigitte came over. My curiosity had been piqued: Before she slipped into her nightgown I took a quick, meticulous look. A pumpkin? No, and not a melon either, nor a muskmelon or a watermelon. A Belgian tomato.

10
Scott at the South Pole

Chief Inspector Nägelsbach is always restrained and polite. He was that way when we met during the war at the Heidelberg Public Prosecutor's Office, and this was how he remained toward me when we became friends. We're both well past the age when friendships thrive on emotional outpourings.

When I visited him the following morning at the Heidelberg police headquarters, I could tell right away that something wasn't quite right. He remained sitting at his desk and only shook my outstretched hand when I was about to withdraw it.

“Please be seated.” He waved me to a chair by the filing cabinets, quite a distance from his desk. He frowned when I picked up the chair and brought it closer to his desk, as if I were invading his space.

I came straight to the point. “A case has taken me to the State Psychiatric Hospital. There's something fishy going on there. Can you tell me if the police have been there recently?”

“I am not in a position to provide you with such information. That would be against regulations.”

We have never kept to the regulations, but made each other's work and life easier. He knows I can be trusted with the confidential information he gives me, just as I know I can trust him with the information I provide him. I couldn't figure out what was going on. “What are you talking about?”

“Nothing.” He peered at me hostilely through the small round lenses of his glasses. I was about to say something curt, then I realized that his expression was not one of hostility, but unhappiness. He had lowered his eyes and was looking at the newspaper. I got up and came to his side.

“Cork Monuments of Italy.” It was a newspaper article about an exhibition in Kassel of cork models of ancient buildings, from the Pantheon to the Colosseum, that had been made in Rome by Antonio Chichi between 1777 and 1782. “Read the last bit!”

I quickly ran an eye down the column. The article ended with a quote from a Leipzig art dealer who, in 1786, had proclaimed that these masterful cork models were the best possible medium for conveying a precise and sublime impression of the original monuments. In fact I would have mistaken the picture of the model in the paper for the real thing if it had had the right background.

“I feel like Scott when he reached the South Pole, only to find the tent Amundsen had pitched. Reni wants us to drive over to Kassel this weekend. She says I could see for myself that it's comparing apples and oranges. But I don't know.”

I didn't know either. When he was fifteen, Nägelsbach had begun building models of major monuments out of match-sticks. From time to time he would attempt to build something else, like Dürer's
Praying Hands
or the golden helmet of Rembrandt's
Man in a Golden Helmet
, but his mission in life, to which he was going to devote his retirement, was to build a model of the Vatican. I know and value Nägelsbach's works, but to be honest they did not achieve the kind of illusion of reality that those cork models did. What could I tell him? That art was more a matter of creation than an attempt to portray reality? That in life the goal wasn't as important as the journey? That today the world remembered Scott, not Amundsen?

“What are you working on right now?” I asked him.

“On the Pantheon, of all things. For four weeks now. Why didn't I go for the Brooklyn Bridge?” His shoulders drooped.

I waited for a bit. “Can I drop by again tomorrow?”

“It's the State Psychiatric Hospital, right? I'll call you when I have the information.”

I drove back to Mannheim with a deep feeling of futility. My old Opel purred over the asphalt. Sometimes the tires thumped over the yellow bumps marking the shifting of lanes where road work was being done. Failure late in life is no easier to bear than failure when one is young. It might not be the first time one is knocked down, but it might well be the last.

Back at my office, Salger's strained voice sounded from the answering machine. He was most anxious for news and wanted me to leave a message on his machine with an update on my investigation. He was sending another payment. His wife was also anxious for news. He didn't want to keep pestering me, but he did until my answering machine cut him off after two minutes.