Self's deception (9 page)

23
The boy who lops the thistle's heads

That evening I went to see Nägelsbach in his workshop, a converted shed in an old building in the Pfaffengrunder settlement from the 1920s. He had given me a call. “I've got some information on Wendt.”

It was still light outside, but a fluorescent fixture was already on over his workbench. “What you're doing isn't going to be the Pantheon, right?” I said. From what I could see, the gnarled structure on his workbench could evolve into a clenched fist, a tree stump, or a rock, but not a domed structure.

“You said it, Herr Self. I've been doing some thinking. I see now that I shouldn't have just launched into my models, but done some thinking first. Doing buildings was the wrong way to go: the Cologne Cathedral, the Empire State Building, Lomonosov University, all built to scale with matchsticks. That was just childish nonsense. I was like the boy in that Goethe poem 'who lops the thistle's heads.'“ He shook his head despondently. “What I worry about is that I'm all burned out.”

“What should you have done instead?”

He took off his glasses and put them back on again. “Do you remember my efforts with the praying hands and the golden helmet? In principle, that was the right path for me, but what I'd done wrong was that I'd taken the paintings as my models. A matchstick sculptor needs to find his models in sculptures of wood, stone, or bronze. Are you familiar with Rodin's
Kiss
?”

On the wall were some twenty photographs of two kissing figures taken from every perspective. They were seated next to each other, she with her arm around his neck, he with his hand on her hip. “I've also ordered a cast that has a patina of bronze, of course an altogether different model than these photos.” He looked at me as if waiting for approbation. I dodged into a question about his wife. Whenever I came to his workshop, she had always been sitting in a chair with a book. For years she had read to him as he worked. Instead of answering my question, he rang a bell. After a short, uncomfortable wait, Frau Nägelsbach appeared. She greeted me warmly, but self-consciously. It was evident that Nägelsbach's creative crisis had spilled over into a marriage crisis. Frau Nägelsbach's plumpness had lost its cheerful ruddiness.

“Why don't we all go outside?”

He picked up three folding chairs, and we sat down beneath a pear tree. I asked him about Wendt.

“What I know lies a long time back. Ages ago, Wendt had been a member of the leftist terrorist group SPK, the Socialist Patient Collective. We don't know whether he belonged to the small circle surrounding the notorious Dr. Huber or to those who were members more out of curiosity than anything else. He was driving a stolen vehicle without a driver's license and had an accident, and the woman who was in the car with him—she was also in the SPK—soon afterward went underground and joined the Red Army Faction. He was only seventeen. His parents and teachers stood behind him all the way, so his past didn't really cause him any trouble until two years ago, when he was hired by the State Psychiatric Hospital. Word got around that he'd been a terrorist, and the old story was dug up again.”

I remembered. In 1970 and 1971, the papers were full of reports on Dr. Huber, who had been fired from the Heidelberg University Neuropsychiatry Clinic and had then gone on to round up his patients and create the SPK. He had commandeered rooms at the university and prepared for revolution. Revolution as therapy. By 1971 all was over, Dr. Huber and his wife had been arrested, and the patients were scattered in all directions—except for a few who went over to the Red Army Faction. “Nothing has come up about Wendt since then?” I asked.

“Nothing. How come he interests you?”

I told him about my search for Leo in Heidelberg, in Mannheim, and finally at the State Psychiatric Hospital; of Wendt's foolish lies; and of my mysterious client.

“What is the young woman's last name?”

“Salger.”

“Leonore Salger from Bonn?”

I hadn't even mentioned Bonn. “How come—”

“And you know where Frau Salger is right now?” His tone became official and inquisitorial.

“What's going on? Why are you asking?”

“We're looking for Frau Salger. I cannot disclose the reason, but you can believe me, it's no trifle. Where is she?”

In the many years of our friendship we had always been aware that he was a policeman and I a private investigator. In a sense, our friendship lived off the fact that we were acting out different roles in the same play. He never treated me like a witness, and I never used the kind of tricks on him with which I find out from people things they don't want to disclose. Was that only because the cases had never been all that important, while this one was? There was a sharp retort on the tip of my tongue, but I swallowed my words. “No, I don't know where Frau Salger is right now.”

He wasn't satisfied. He continued digging, and I continued dodging. The tone became increasingly tense, and Frau Nägelsbach looked at the two of us with mounting alarm. She repeatedly tried to pacify us. Then she got up, went into the house, and came back with a bottle of wine and some glasses. “I don't want to hear another word about this case or this woman,” she cut in. “Not another word. If you won't stop,” she turned to her husband, “then I'll tell Herr Self what's what. And if you won't stop”—now she turned to me—”I will tell my husband, perhaps not everything—because I don't have all the facts—but everything that you have said without intending to, and what my husband hasn't heard because he's become too furious to listen.”

We both fell silent. Then we slowly started chatting again, about Brigitte and Manu, vacations, old age, retirement. But our hearts were not in it any longer.

24
Marble breaks and iron bends

Driving back home, I brooded over why I'd been so intent on keeping Leo's whereabouts to myself. Was she worth it? Did it help her in any way? By all accounts she'd been unlucky in her father, and I doubted that the counterfeit Salger had brought her much luck either, though he often appeared in her photo album, with her as a little brat on his knee, him pushing her swing, or with his arm around the growing girl. How was I to reconcile Salger the paternal friend with Salger the wannabe father? I didn't know who she was, what she'd done, why she was hiding. It was high time I had a word with her.

It was only ten thirty when I arrived in Mannheim, and the mild night beckoned me out for a walk. I went to the Kleiner Rosengarten restaurant and had a bottle of Soave with my vermicelli alla puttanesca, a dish that is not on the menu but which the chef makes for me if I ask him nicely and he happens to be in the mood. After my meal I was slightly tipsy.

In the old days, when I climbed the stairs up to my attic apartment, I only needed to stop once for a breather. Then it became twice, and now, on a bad day, I have to stop on every landing. Today was a bad day. I stopped, steadied myself on the banister, and could hear my heart pounding and my breath whistling. I looked up and saw that the landing in front of my apartment was dark. Was the lightbulb out?

Then I attacked the last flight of stairs. We Prussians have fought the battles of Düppeler Schanzen, Gravelotte, and Langemarck and stormed greater heights. When I got to the last few stairs I took the key out of my pocket. There are three doors on my landing. One is to my apartment, the second to that of the Weilands, and the third up to the attic—I have my back to that one when I unlock my door.

He had been standing in the doorway to the attic waiting for me. When I unlocked my door he came up behind me, laid his left hand on my shoulder, and with his right poked a gun into my side. “Don't try anything foolish!”

I was too taken aback, and also too exhausted and drunk, to be able to dodge him or throw a punch. Maybe I'm also too old. I'd never been threatened with a weapon before. During the war I was in the tank division, but in a tank you're not threatened, you're simply hit. Our tank had been hit one beautiful day, the sky blue, the sun warm, little white clouds—bang.

He remained behind me as I reached for the light switch in my front hall. It was gloomy out on the landing, and my win-dowless hall would be completely dark if the door closed before I turned on the light. An opportunity? I hesitated and waited for the door to fall shut. But he kicked me in the hollow of the knees and as I went down he closed the door and turned on the light. I staggered back to my feet, and he shoved the gun into my side again. “Keep walking!” In the living room he not only kicked me, but I also banged my shin against the coffee table. That really hurt. I sat down on one of my two leather couches and massaged my leg. “Get up!” he shouted, but I refused. So he fired. The thick leather of my couch comes from the broad nape of Argentinean buffalo and has stood its ground against my shoes, the embers of my cigarettes, and Turbo's claws. Faced with the projectile, it surrendered. I didn't. I remained seated, continued to massage my leg, and looked at my guest.

The shot had only made a popping sound, but the gun with its silencer looked vicious. He was wearing his mirrored sunglasses again and had turned up the collar of his coat. He looked at the gun, then at me, and then at the gun again. Suddenly he burst out laughing and let himself fall on the couch opposite me.

“We had trouble communicating earlier today, Herr Self, so I brought along an assistant, a therapist, so to speak.” He looked at his gun again. Turbo came into the living room, jumped up on the couch next to me, arched his back, stretched his paws, and began grooming himself. “I've also brought a lot of time with me. Perhaps our morning conversation simply suffered from a lack of time. You were in such a terrible hurry. Did you have an important appointment, or are you just obstinate as a mule? Do we have a pleasant or a difficult evening ahead of us? Whatever is obstinate and will not bend, ultimately breaks. How does Drafi Deutscher's song go? 'Marble breaks and iron bends …' I can assure you that there is a general rule behind that.” He raised his gun. I couldn't see where he was aiming—at me, over me, next to me—I could only see myself in the reflection of his sunglasses. He fired. Behind me, on the old pharmacy shelf where I keep my books and records, a bust of Dante's Beatrice, the work of an early-twentieth-century Munich artist, shattered. “See? That's how it is with marble,” he said. “And it isn't any different with everything that lives and breathes. Only there are no shards.” He raised the gun again.

I didn't try to figure out if he was aiming at Turbo or if it only looked that way. I staggered to my feet and slapped his arm out of the way. He immediately struck me back, hit me across the face with the gun, and pushed me back onto the couch. Turbo caterwauled and ran off.

“Just try something like that again!” he hissed angrily. Then he laughed once more and shook his head. “What an old fool you are!”

I tasted blood on my lip.

“Well, let's have it! Where's Leo?”

“I don't know. I've got a couple of leads, but that's all, just a couple of leads. I don't know where Leo is.”

“It's been three days since we spoke on the phone. Have her whereabouts slipped your mind since then?” He sounded surprised and ironic.

“It was a fishing expedition. It's not that I've forgotten her whereabouts, I just never knew them. Just a fishing expedition, know what I mean? I didn't like it that I could never get to see you.”

“Do you think I'm stupid or something?” he shouted, his voice breaking. But he immediately calmed down again, smiled, and shook his head. He got up, stepped in front of me, and waited for me to look up at him. Then he hit me again with the butt of his gun, just like that. Pain tore across my cheek and chin.

He didn't lose control when he shouted. He shouted with a cool head. I was frightened. I had no idea what…

The doorbell rang. We both held our breath. The doorbell rang a second and then a third time. There was a knock. “Gerhard, open up! Open up! What's going on in there?” Brigitte could see a glimmer of light under the door.

My guest shrugged his shoulders. “I guess we'll catch up some other time.” He left the room. I heard him open the front door, say “Good evening,” and descend the stairs with quick steps.

“Gerhard!” Brigitte kneeled next to me on the couch and took me in her arms. When she let go of me her blouse was stained with blood. I tried to wipe the blood away, but couldn't. The more desperately I ran my hands over her blouse, the worse the bloody scrawl became. I gave up.

25
Don't forget the kitty litter!

After Brigitte washed my face and cleaned up the cuts, she put me to bed. My face was on fire, but otherwise I felt cold. My teeth kept chattering. Drinking was difficult: My swollen lip couldn't hold the liquid in. During the night I was feverish.

I dreamt of Leo and Dr. Eberlein. The two were going for a walk, and I handed them an official document forbidding them to go on walks together as father and daughter. Eberlein laughed his smug laugh and put his arm around Leo. She snuggled up to him and threw me a shameless, disdainful glance. I was about to specify that not only were they to refrain from acting as father and daughter, but also as…when Eberlein suddenly whistled, and Anatol or Ivan hurled himself at me. He had been cowering at Eberlein's feet, waiting for his whistle.

When I fell asleep again, Chief Inspector Nägelsbach was walking me through a town. The buildings were of wood, as were the streets and sidewalks. There wasn't a soul about, and whenever I managed to peek into a house it turned out to be an empty shell without rooms or stories. Nägelsbach was walking so fast that I couldn't keep up with him. He turned around, waved, and called to me, but I couldn't hear him anymore. Then he was gone, and it dawned on me that I would never be able to find my way out of this maze of empty streets and houses. I realized I was in a Nägelsbachian matchstick town. I was tiny, no bigger than a watch hand or a jelly bean. No wonder I feel so cold, I thought, tiny as I am.

Brigitte brought me a hot water bottle and heaped blankets on the bed. In the morning I was bathed in sweat, but the fever had gone down.

Shaving was out of the question. And yet the scabby welts on my cheeks, lips, and chin did not split open when I brushed my teeth. I looked quite rakish, and decided against wearing a tie. Out on the balcony the sun was shining, and I unfolded my lounger and lay down on it.

What was next? Salger was a clever man. He had a repertoire of faces, vocal registers, patterns of expression, and behavior. There was something playful about how he made use of them, and our encounters brought to mind face-offs on a chessboard. Not the kind of chess evenings I had with Eber-hard, whom I could never hope to beat or even think of beating, where I just enjoyed the beauty of his moves and our being together, but chess games of the kind I used to play in the past, determined to beat my opponent. Chess games that were like sword fights, where the aim was to destroy your opponent—that is, not him, but his self-confidence.

I remembered how I had once battled a whole evening with my future father-in-law, who initially had treated me dismis-sively. His son and I had been schoolmates and later fellow students. “Well, well, I see you're trying your hand at chess,” he said to me ironically when he found us over a chessboard. Klara was standing right there, and I could barely hide my shivering agitation. To be insulted like this in front of her. “Do you play, too?” I asked with as much coolness as I could muster. Old Herr Korten was assured by his son that I played a passable game, and challenged me to a round the following Saturday. He offered a bottle of champagne as a prize, and I had to promise that I would clean and oil his gun collection if I lost. All that week I lived and breathed chess, worked my way through openings, went over the moves of games, found out when and where Berlin chess clubs got together. In the first and second games old Herr Korten still had a chance. But he lost, even though I allowed him to retract the moves he called his “foolish little slipups.” By then I knew how he played, and I toyed with him. That was the last time he challenged me to a game. And the last time he treated me dismis-sively.

So Salger wanted to play with me? Let him try.

Turbo looked at me obliquely. He was sitting in the flower box, steadying himself with his front paws, his head tilted to the side.

“I know, I know, Turbo, no need to look at me like that. That was just hot air.” He listened attentively. When I didn't continue, he turned away and began grooming himself. I suddenly remembered how Turbo had sat on the couch next to me last night, while Salger was facing us with his gun. What if Salger were to take aim and fire faster the next time he showed up? I got up and walked over to the phone. Eberhard? No, he's allergic to cats. Brigitte? Nonni and Turbo fight like cats and dogs. Philipp? I didn't manage to reach him or Füruzan, and was told at the clinic that he was at a conference in Siena. Babs? She was home. She was having a late-afternoon cup of coffee with her two grown-up children, and invited me over right away. “You want to put Turbo up here? No problem, bring him along, and don't forget the kitty litter.”

Turbo always has a fit in the car. I've tried baskets, I've tried collars, I've tried nothing at all. The sound and vibration of the engine, the quickly changing images, and the speed are all too much for my cat. His world is the rooftops between the Richard-Wagner-Strasse, the Augusta-Anlage, the Moll-strasse, and the Werderstrasse, the few balconies and windows he can reach over the rooftops, the few neighbors and cats living behind those balconies and windows, the pigeons and the mice. Whenever I need to take him to the vet, I carry him under my coat, and he peeks out between the buttons the way I would out of a space shuttle. That was how we made the long trip to the Dürerstrasse.

Babs lives in a large apartment with Röschen and Georg, who, if you ask me, are old enough to stand on their own two feet. And yet they prefer to keep their feet firmly planted on mummy's hearth rug. Georg is studying law in Heidelberg, and Röschen can't ever decide whether she wants to study, get some kind of vocational training or a job, or which of her admirers to choose between. She had kept them dangling so long that they finally gave up, and now she was absolutely miserable.

“Were they so great?”

She had either been crying or had a cold. “No,” she sniffled, “but…”

“No buts. If they weren't that great, then you should be glad you got rid of them.”

She sniffled. “Do you know anyone I can date?”

“I'll get back to you on that one. Do you think you can look after Turbo in the meantime? Think of it as practice. Men and tomcats are one and the same thing.”

She smiled. She is a punk rocker with violet and yellow hair, alligator clips in her earlobes, and a computer chip in the side of her nose. But she smiled in a nice, old-fashioned way. “Jonas has—”

“Is that one of the two beaus?”

She nodded. “Jonas has a rat called Rudi. He never goes anywhere without him. I could invite him over for dinner— he did say we should remain friends—and while he eats his spaghetti, Turbo can eat Rudi.” Her eyes misted over. “What do you say to that, Uncle Gerhard?”