leave it, Frau Buchendorff, I like driving in a sports car with the top down on a mellow summer night.’
We drove over the suspension bridge, below us the Rhine and the harbour. I looked up at the sky and the cables. It was a bright and clear starry night. When we turned off the bridge and before we were submerged in the streets, Mannheim with its towers, churches, and high-rises lay before us for a moment. We had to wait at a traffic light and a heavy motorbike drew up alongside. ‘Come on, let’s drive out to the Adriatic,’ shouted the girl on the back of the bike to her boyfriend. In the hot summer of 1946 I’d often been out at the gravel pit, its name, Adriatic, imbued with Mannheimers’ and Ludwighafeners’ yearning for the South. Back then my wife and I were still happy and I enjoyed our companionship, the peace, and the first cigarettes. So, people still went out there, more rapidly and easier these days, a quick dip in the water after the movies.
We hadn’t spoken throughout the journey. Frau Buchendorff had driven fast, and with focus. Now she lit a cigarette.
‘The blue Adriatic,’ she mused ‘when I was small we sometimes drove out in our Opel Olympia. There was coffee substitute in the thermos flask, cold cutlets, and vanilla pudding in the preserving jar. My big brother was streetwise, a rocker, as they called it; on his moped he soon went his own way. Back then the notion of going for a quick dip in the night was just getting fashionable. It all seems so idyllic now, looking back – as a child I always suffered those outings.’
We’d reached my house but I wanted to savour a little longer the nostalgia that had engulfed us both.
‘In what way suffered?’
‘My father wanted to teach me how to swim but had no patience. My God, the amount of water I swallowed.’
I thanked her for the ride home. ‘It was a beautiful drive.’
‘Goodnight, Herr Self.’
11 Terrible thing to happen
A glorious Sunday saw the last of the good weather. At our picnic by the Feudenheim Locks my friend Eberhard and I ate and drank much too much. He had brought a miniature wooden crate with three bottles of a very decent Bordeaux, and then we made the mistake of downing the RCW Spatlese, as well.
On Monday I woke up with a blazing headache. On top of that the rain had coaxed out the rheumatism in my back and hips. Perhaps that’s why I dealt with Schneider all wrong. He had reappeared, not flushed out by the Works security service, just like that. I was to meet him in a colleague’s laboratory; his own had been burnt to a shell in the accident.
When I entered the room he straightened up from the fridge. He was tall and lanky. He invited me with an indeterminate flick of the hand to take a seat on one of the lab stools and remained standing himself, shoulders stooped, in front of the refrigerator. His face was ashen, the fingers of his left hand yellow from nicotine. The immaculate white coat was supposed to hide the decay of the person inside. But the man was a wreck. If he was a gambler then he was the sort who had lost and had no shred of hope left. The sort who fills out a lottery ticket on a Friday, but doesn’t bother to look on the Saturday to see if he’s won.
‘I know why you want to talk to me, Herr Self, but I’ve nothing to tell you.’
‘Where were you on the day of the accident? You’ll know that surely. And where did you disappear to?’
‘I unfortunately do not enjoy great health and was indisposed in recent days. The accident in my laboratory was a real blow, important records of research were destroyed.’
‘That’s hardly an answer to my question.’
‘What do you really want? Just leave me alone.’
Indeed, what did I really want from him? I was finding it more and more difficult to picture him as the brilliant blackmailer. Broken as he was, I couldn’t even imagine him the tool of some outsider. But my imagination had duped me in the past and there was something not right about Schneider. I didn’t have that many leads. His, and my own, misfortune that he’d found his way into the security files. And there was my hangover and my rheumatism and Schneider’s sulky, whiny manner that was getting on my nerves. If I couldn’t intimidate him then I might as well kiss my job goodbye. I gathered myself for a fresh attack.
‘Herr Schneider, we are investigating sabotage resulting in damages reaching into the millions and we’re acting to prevent further threats. I’ve encountered nothing but cooperation during my investigation. Your unwillingness to lend your support makes you, I’ll be perfectly honest, a suspect. All the more so as your biography contains phases of criminal entanglement.’
‘But I put a halt to the gambling years ago.’ He lit a cigarette. His hand was trembling. He took some hasty drags. ‘But, okay, I was at home in bed and we often unplug the telephone at the weekend.’
‘But Herr Schneider. Security was round at your house. There was nobody home.’
‘So you don’t believe me anyway. Then I won’t say another word.’
I’d heard that often enough. Sometimes it helped to convince the other person I believed whatever he said. Sometimes I’d understood how to address the deep-seated trouble at the source of this childish reaction so that everything came gushing out. Today I was capable of neither one nor the other. I’d had it.
‘Right, then we’ll have to continue our discussion in the presence of Security and your superiors. I’d have liked to spare you that. But if I don’t hear from you by this evening… Here’s my business card.’
I didn’t wait for his reaction, and left. I stood under the awning, looked into the rain and lit a cigarette. Was it also raining on the banks of the Sweet Afton? I didn’t know what to do. Then I recalled that the boys from Security would have set their trap and I went over to the computer centre to take a look. Oelmuller wasn’t there. One of his co-workers whose badge revealed him to be a Herr Tausendmilch showed me on screen the message sent to users about the false data file.
‘Should I print it out for you? It’s no problem at all.’
I took the printout and went over to Firner’s office. Neither Firner nor Frau Buchendorff were there. A typist regaled me on the subject of cacti. I’d had enough for one day and left the Works.
If I’d been younger I’d have driven out to the Adriatic regardless of the rain to swim off my hangover. If I could just have got into my car I’d maybe have done it anyway, regardless of age. But with my injured arm I still couldn’t drive. The guard, the same one as on the day of the accident, called a taxi for me.
‘Ah, you’re the fellow who brought in Schmalz’s son on Friday. You’re Self? Then I have something for you. He scrabbled beneath the control and alarm desk and came back up with a package that he handed over with ceremony.
‘There is a cake inside as a surprise for you. Frau Schmalz baked it.’
I had the taxi take me to the Herschel baths. It was women’s only day in the sauna. I had it take me to the Kleiner Rosengarten, my local, and ate a saltimbocca romana. Then I went to the movies.
The first movie showing in the early afternoon has its charm, regardless of what’s playing. The audience consists of tramps, thirteen-year-olds, and frustrated intellectuals. When there were still students who lived out of town, they went to the early showing. Pupils who matured earlier used to go to the early showing to make out. But Babs, a friend who’s headmistress of a high school, assures me that pupils now make out at school and are all made out by one o’clock.
I’d ended up in the wrong theatre – the cinema had seven of the things – and had to watch
On the way home I looked in at the office. I picked up a message that Schneider had hanged himself. Frau Buchendorff had spoken with extreme matter-of-factness on the answering machine and asked to be called back immediately.
I poured myself a sambuca.
‘Did Schneider leave a note?’
‘Yes. We have it here. We think your case is over now. Firner would like to see you to talk about it.’
I told Frau Buchendorff I’d be there straight away, and called a taxi.
Firner was light of heart. ‘Greetings, Herr Self. Terrible thing to happen. He hanged himself in the laboratory with an electric cable. A poor trainee found him. We tried everything to revive him of course. No use. Read the
