Self's deception - By Bernhard Schlink & Peter Constantine Page 0,4

his noisy roommates. “And then when Leo comes back she'll still have the apartment.”

“Where is she?”

“I've no idea. I'm sure she knows what she's doing.”

“Hasn't anyone come looking for her?”

The young man ran his hand over his smooth hair, pressing it down even flatter, and hesitated for a moment. “You mean for a job? You mean if someone like you…no, nobody's been here.”

“What do you think—could she handle a job interpreting for a small technological conference, twelve participants, from German to English and English to German? Would she be up to it?”

But the student didn't let himself be drawn into a conversation about Leo. “You see?” he said. “Full sentences are of little if any use. Here I am, telling you in full sentences that she isn't here, and you ask me if she can handle a small conference. She's gone…disappeared…flown off …” He flapped his arms. “OK? If she happens to show up I'll let her know you came by.”

I handed him my card—not the one from my office, but the one with my home address. I found out that he was working on a dissertation in philosophy on catastrophic thought, and that he'd met Leo at a university residence hall. Leo had given him French lessons. I had already started down the stairs when he again warned me against full sentences. “You mustn't think you're too old to grasp the idea.”

4

Her dear old uncle—how sweet!

Back at the office, I gave Salger a call. His answering machine recorded my request that he call me back. I wanted to know the name of the residence hall in which Leo had lived so I could look into who her friends were and where she might be—not a hot trail, but I didn't have many options.

Salger called me back that evening just as I stopped by my office on my way home from the Kleiner Rosengarten restaurant. I had gone there too early. There was hardly anyone there, my usual waiter Giovanni was on vacation in Italy, and the spaghetti gorgonzola was too heavy. My girlfriend, Brigitte, could have made me a better meal. But the previous weekend she'd seemed a little too hopeful that I might learn to let her spoil me: “Will you be my cuddly old tomcat?” I don't want to become some old tomcat.

This time Salger was exquisitely polite. He expressed his deepest gratitude that I was taking on the case. His wife was grateful, too. Would it be all right if he gave me a further payment next week? Would I inform him the moment I found Leo? His wife begged that I…

“Could you tell me Leo's address before the Häusser-strasse, Herr Salger?”

“Excuse me?”

“Where did Leo live before she moved to the Häusser-strasse?”

“I'm afraid I can't tell you that offhand.”

“Could you take a look, or ask your wife? I need her old address. It was a university residence hall.”

“Oh yes, the residence hall.” Salger fell silent. “Liebigstrasse? Eichendorffweg? Schnepfengewann? I can't think of it right now, Herr Self; the names of all kinds of streets are going through my head. I'll talk to my wife and take a look at my old address book—we might still have it somewhere. I'll let you know. Or I should say, if you don't find a message from me on your answering machine tomorrow morning, that means we couldn't find it. Would that be all? In that case, I wish you a good night.”

I couldn't say I was warming up to Salger. Leo was leaning on the small stone lion, looking at me, pretty, alert, with a determination in her eyes that I felt I understood, and a question or a spark of defiance that I could not interpret. To have such a daughter and not know her address—shame on you, Herr Salger!

I don't know why Klara and I never had any children. She never told me she'd gone to see a gynecologist, nor had she ever asked me to take a fertility test. We were not very happy together; but no clear links have ever been drawn between marital unhappiness and childlessness, or marital happiness and an abundance of children. I'd have liked to have been a widower with a daughter, but that is a disrespectful wish, and I've only admitted it to myself in my old age, when I no longer keep any secrets from myself.

I spent a whole morning on the phone till I finally located Leo's residence hall. It was on Klausenpfad, not far from the public