Self's deception - By Bernhard Schlink & Peter Constantine Page 0,53

woman's cool voice answered. “Ah, Herr Self? Is your tooth bothering you again? Would you like to drop by now? We've just had a cancellation.” I went over right away. The cool voice belonged to a cool blonde with flawless teeth. She sent me in right away, though I was not the same Herr Self who was already a patient there. I hadn't been aware that there was another Herr Self in the area. From what I know of our family tree, I'm the last twig to have sprouted.

The dentist was young, with a sure eye and a calm hand. The dreadful moment when the syringe approaches, fills your field of vision, and disappears because it has entered the oral cavity in search of a place to puncture, then the wait for the puncture, and finally the puncture itself—the doctor was so quick that I barely suffered. He managed to keep me calm, do his job, and flirt with his assistant. He explained to me that he wasn't sure if he could save tooth three-seven. It was deeply decayed. But he'd give it a try. He would remove most of the cavities, apply Calaxyl, seal it with Cavit, and put in a temporary bridge. A few weeks would show if tooth three-seven would hold. Was that all right?

“What are my options?”

“I could extract the tooth right away.”

“And then?”

“Then we wouldn't opt for a permanent bridge, but we'd do something removable for three-five to three-seven.”

“Do you mean I would be getting dentures?”

“Don't worry, not a full denture, just a removable prosthesis for the rear of the third quadrant.”

But he could not deny that the prosthesis was meant to be put in and taken out, and was to remain overnight in a glass, where I would find it waiting for me in the morning. I quickly consented to any and all measures necessary to save tooth three-seven. Any and all measures.

I saw a movie once in which a man hanged himself because he was about to get dentures. Or had it been an accident? He had wanted to hang himself, but then as he was dangling there changed his mind but couldn't do anything because the dog had pushed over the chair on which he had been standing with the noose around his neck.

Would Turbo render me this final favor?

2

What insanity!

I went to Nägelsbach's office. He didn't ask me why I came only now, or where I'd been. He took down my statement. He already knew that I had passed myself off to Frau Klein-schmidt as Wendt's father. He also knew that she had let me into his apartment, thinking I was his father. But he didn't reproach me for that. I found out from him that the police were still completely in the dark about what Wendt's death meant.

“When is the funeral?”

“Friday, at the cemetery in Edingen. Wendt's parents live there. Remember the commercial back in the fifties? 'Want a house that's nice and new? Wendt will make your dreams come true!' Old Wendt used to have a small office in the arcade at the Bismarckplatz. Now it's grown into a big agency, with offices in Heidelberg, Schriesheim, Mannheim, and God knows where else.”

I was already at the door when Nägelsbach touched on Leo. “Did you know that Frau Salger was hiding in Amorbach?”

“Have you arrested her there?”

He looked at me carefully. “No, she was already gone by the time one of the neighbors who'd seen her mug shot on TV called us. That's the way of the world—mug shots are also seen by the people you're looking for.”

“Why weren't you able to tell me the other day why you had a search out for Frau Salger?”

“I'm sorry, I can't tell you that now either.”

“The media says it's all about a terrorist attack on an American military installation—was that around here?”

“It had to have been in Käfertal or in Vogelstang. But we don't have anything to do with that.”

“What about the Federal Criminal Investigation Agency?”

“What about it?”

“Has it been brought into the case?”

Nägelsbach shrugged his shoulders. “One way or another, the Agency's always involved in such cases.”

What I was interested in was how the Agency was involved in all this, but I could see from his expression that there was no point in asking any more questions. “By the way, do you remember an attack on the army recruiting office in the Bun-senstrasse about six years ago?”

He thought for a while, and then shook his head. “No, there wasn't any attack