Self's deception - By Bernhard Schlink & Peter Constantine Page 0,48

out onto the terrace through the glass doors. She hadn't put on a sweater. She wore a tight, long-sleeved black dress that reached from her neck to just above her knees, and black high-heeled shoes. Her pantyhose, the stole, and the comb in her luxuriant pinned-up hair were red. She took her time crossing the terrace. She sashayed her way around tables, and when she squeezed between chairs that were too close together she pulled her shoulders up so high that her breasts were tight within the dress. Where there were no obstacles she walked with swaying hips, her head held high. I got up, pulled her chair out for her, and she sat down. The guests on the terrace had followed her with their eyes because of her swinging hips, and also because her dress was bare down the back.

“You're gorgeous.”

We sat opposite each other. Her sparkling eyes—blue beneath a blue sky and sometimes gray or green beneath gray clouds—shone darkly. In her smile was delight at the game she was playing. A touch of seduction, a touch of complacency, a touch of self-mockery. She shook her head at my compliment, as if to say: “I know, but don't tell anybody else.”

The waiter suggested fish from the lake and wine from the opposite shore. Leo ate hungrily. Over dinner I learned that she had spent a year in America as a high school student, that jersey sweaters don't get wrinkled, that the shirt and jacket I'd bought at her suggestion in Belfort suited me, and that her mother had been a voice-over actress and had previously been married to a washed-up movie director. It was clear that her relationship with her mother was not good. She asked me what life as a private investigator was like, how long I had been one, and what I had done before.

“You were a public prosecutor?” She stared at me in amazement. “How come you gave that up?”

During the course of my life I have given many different answers to this question. Perhaps all of them true. Perhaps none. In 1945, they turned their back on me for having been a Nazi public prosecutor, and when they wanted the old Nazis again, I turned my back on them. Because I was no longer an old Nazi? Because the let's-look-the-other-way attitude of my old and new colleagues at the bar rubbed me the wrong way? Because I had definitely had enough of others laying out for me what is just and unjust? Because as a private investigator I am my own boss? Because in life you should never pick up again what you've put down for good? Because I don't like the smell of government offices? “I can't quite say, Leo. Back in 1945, being a public prosecutor was simply over for me.”

A cool wind rose and the terrace emptied. We sat down to finish our bottle on a bench that was shielded by a wall. Vully was an unpretentious local wine without frills that I had never tried before. The moon had risen and was mirrored in the lake. I felt a chill, and Leo snuggled up to me, warming and seeking warmth.

“My father stopped talking in the last years of his life. I don't know if he couldn't talk or just didn't want to. I guess a bit of both. I remember at first trying to have conversations with him—I'd talk to him about something or ask him a question. I hoped he'd tell me more about himself. There were also times when he'd try to speak, but only a croaking rattle would escape from his throat. Mostly he'd look at me with a kind of crooked smile that asked for forgiveness and understanding, but perhaps it was also the result of the minor stroke he'd had. Later I just sat by his bedside, held his hand, looked out the window into the garden, and let my thoughts wander. That's where I learned to be silent. And to love.”

I put my arm around her shoulder.

“That was actually a nice time. For him and for me. Otherwise it was sheer hell.” She took the pack of cigarettes out of my coat pocket, lit one, and smoked it, inhaling deeply. “He couldn't hold his piss or shit anymore in those last years. The doctor said his condition was psychological, not physical, which he also told my father. That was before things got really bad. The doctor wanted to help him, to give him a