Self's Punishment

now picturing it, had never been mentioned. It belonged neither to the telephone lines nor to the terminal connections. It differed from those by not being a mode of direct communication. Rather a silent flow of data migrated from the various sensors onto tape. Data that interested no one at the plant and could be immediately forgotten unless there happened to be an alarm or an accident. I understood why the musical confusion on my stereo had preoccupied me for so long: the interference came from inside.

I played around with my ham and eggs and the multitude of questions going through my mind. Above all I needed additional information. I didn’t want to speak with Thomas, Ostenteich, or Oelmuller now. If they had forgotten an RCW-RCC connection, that would ultimately cause them more concern than the connection itself. I needed to take a look at the RCC and find someone there who could explain system connections to me.

From the phone booth next to the restroom I gave Tietzke a call. The RCC, it transpired, was the Regional Computer Centre in Heidelberg. ‘To a certain degree even trans-regional,’ said Tietzke, ‘as Baden-Wurttemberg and the Rhineland-Palatinate are hooked up to it. What do you have in mind, Herr Self?’

‘Do you ever let up, Herr Tietzke?’ I retorted, and promised him the rights to my memoirs.

15 Bam bam, ba bam bam

I drove straight to Heidelberg. In front of the law school I found a parking space. I walked the few steps to Ebert-Platz, the former Wrede-Platz, and found the Regional Computer Centre in the old building with the two entrance pillars where the Deutsche Bank used to be. The doorman sat in the former banking hall.

‘Selk from Springer Publishing,’ I introduced myself. ‘I’d like to talk to one of the gentlemen from emission supervision, the publishing house called ahead.’

He picked up the telephone. ‘Herr Mischkey, there’s someone here from Springer Publishing, he says he wants to talk to you and has an appointment. Should I send him up?’

I interjected. ‘Can I talk to Herr Mischkey myself?’ And as the doorman was sitting at a table not screened by glass and since I was already reaching for it, he handed the receiver to me, nonplussed.

‘Hello, Herr Mischkey, Selk from Springer Publishing here, you know? We’d like to include a report on the direct emission model in our computer journal, and after talking with the industry I’d like to hear the other side. Will you see me?’

He didn’t have much time but invited me up. His room was on the second floor, the door was open, the view opened onto the square. Mischkey was sitting with his back to the door at a computer that had his full concentration and on which he was typing with two fingers at great speed. He called over his shoulder, ‘Come on in, I’ll be finished in a second.’

I looked around. The table and chairs were awash with computer printouts and magazines from Computer Weekly to the American edition of Penthouse. On the wall was a blackboard with ‘Happy Birthday, Peter’ scrawled on it in smudged chalk. Next to that Einstein was sticking his tongue out at me. On the other wall were film posters and a still that I couldn’t assign to a particular film. ‘Madonna,’ he said without looking up.

‘Madonna?’

Now he did look up. A distinctive, bony face with deep furrows in the brow, a small moustache, an obstinate chin, all topped with a wild mop of greying hair. His eyes twinkled at me in delight through a pair of intentionally ugly spectacles. Were the national health glasses of the fifties back in fashion? He was wearing jeans and a dark- blue sweater, no shirt. ‘I’ll call her up on screen for you from my film file.’ He beckoned me over, typed in a couple of commands, and the screen filled in a flash. ‘You know how it is when you’re fishing for a tune that you can’t quite remember? Problem of all music and movie buffs? I’ve solved that with my file, too. Do you want to hear music from your favourite film?’

‘Barry Lyndon,’ I said, and in the space of seconds came the squeaky but unmistakable start of the Sarabande by Handel, bam bam, ba bam bam. ‘That’s fantastic,’ I said.

‘What brings you here, Herr Selk? As you can see, I’m very busy at the moment and haven’t much time to spare. It’s to do with emissions?’

‘Exactly, or rather, with a report on them for our computer journal.’

A colleague entered the room. ‘Are you messing around with your files again? Do you expect me to deal with the registration data for the church? I must say I find you extremely uncooperative.’

‘May I introduce my colleague Grimm? That’s really his name, but with two “m’s” – Jorg, this is Herr Selk from the computer journal. He wants to write about the office culture in RCC. Keep going, you’re being most authentic.’

‘Oh, Peter, really…’ Grimm puffed out his cheeks. I placed them both in their mid-thirties, but one came across like a mature 25-year-old and the other like a man in his fifties who’s aged badly. Grimm’s grimness was only accentuated by his safari suit and his long, thinning hair. I kept what was left of my hair trimmed short. I wondered whether my hair situation might still get worse at my age, or whether the balding was over, just as getting pregnant is over for post-menopausal women.

‘You could have called up the church report on your computer ages ago, by the way. I’m in the middle of the traffic census. It has to go out today. Yes, Herr Selk, it doesn’t look good for the two of us. Unless you want to buy me lunch? At McDonald’s?’

We arranged to meet at twelve-thirty.

I strolled up the main street, impressive evidence of the city council’s will towards destruction in the seventies. It wasn’t drizzling at the moment. Yet the weather couldn’t make up its mind what to offer for the weekend. I decided to ask Mischkey about the meteorograph. In the Darmstadt shopping centre I came across a record shop. Sometimes I like to sample the zeitgeist, buy the representative record or the representative book, go to see Rambo II or watch an election debate between the chancellor and his challenger. There was a special offer on for Madonna. The girl at the till took a look at me and asked if she should gift-wrap it. ‘No. Is that the impression I give?’

I walked out of the Darmstadt shopping centre and saw Bismarck-Platz ahead of me. I’d have liked to visit the old man on his pedestal. But the traffic didn’t allow it. On the corner I bought a packet of Sweet Afton, and then time was up.

16 Like an arms race

It was rush hour at McDonald’s. Mischkey pushed us skilfully to the front. Following his recommendation, I chose a Fish Mac with mayonnaise, a small portion of fries with ketchup, and a coffee.

Mischkey, tall and lanky, ordered a quarter-pounder with cheese, a large portion of fries, three portions of ketchup, another small hamburger to ‘fill the little gap afterwards’, an apple pie, two milkshakes, and a coffee.

The full tray cost me almost 25 marks.

‘Not expensive, is it? For lunch for two. Thanks for inviting me.’

First of all we couldn’t find two seats together. I wanted to move a chair to a free space, but the chair was attached to the floor. I was bemused; neither as an attorney, nor as a private detective, had I ever come across the offence of theft of restaurant chairs. Eventually we installed ourselves at a table with two high school students who eyed Mischkey’s assortment enviously.

‘Herr Mischkey, the direct emission model file led to the first lawsuit dealing with computers since the national census, the first, also, to reach the Federal Constitutional Court. The computer journal wants a legal report from me since legal journalism is my field. But I’ve realized I need to figure out more of the technical side, and that’s where I’d appreciate some information.’

‘Mmm.’ He chomped contentedly on his quarter-pounder.

‘What sort of data-sharing is there between yourselves and the industrial firms you supervise the emissions for?’