Self's deception - By Bernhard Schlink & Peter Constantine Page 0,86

Nägelsbach. For ten minutes there was complete silence in the room. Through the small window I could see a section of the Heidelberg Castle. From time to time a car drove along the Oberer Fauler Pelz. In the distance someone was practicing on the piano. Everybody was silent until Nägelsbach had read the last page.

“We have to get the original. We'll have his place searched.”

“I doubt he'd have the original lying around at home.”

“Perhaps he does—it's worth a try.”

“Why don't we go have a word with the Americans?”

“I don't like this business either,” Nägelsbach said, looking at me sadly. “But an attack in Viernheim in which poison gas was released—poison gas belonging to the Americans or from old German stockpiles—that's simply not acceptable.”

“Was poison gas released?” I asked

“Our American friends …” Bleckmeier began, only to fall silent at a glance from Rawitz. I repeated my question.

“Even if poison gas was not released—if the trial centers on it and the press zeros in on the story, all hell will break loose. Even if mass panic can be avoided, Viernheim will be a branded town. People will want to avoid it the way they would avoid Chernobyl. The terrorists should not be allowed to boast of this potential damage and threat. And the inhabitants don't deserve to be plunged into such fear by the terrorists.”

“Are you trying to justify—” I tried to ask.

“No,” Franz interrupted, “you've got your logic all mixed up. The trial can't take this course, but that certainly doesn't justify letting the perpetrators get away. What it boils down to is that we have a double responsibility: on one hand to the people of the area, particularly in Viernheim, and on the other for the implementation of the government's charge. And our responsibility doesn't end even there. We must consider the Americans, and the relationship between Germany and America, and the fact that the abandoned hazardous sites of the world wars have to be approached with a systematic solution. If there is ice in Viernheim, then we are dealing with the tip of the iceberg and we can't do things by half. You know as well as I do …”

I stopped listening. I was tired of all the talk, and tired of the grand words of double, triple, quadruple, and quintuple responsibility, and all the bickering surrounding my head. Suddenly I was no longer interested in threatening to throw a wrench into the Käfertal trial, nor in them letting me go free in order to save the trial. I just wanted to go to my cell, lie down on my bunk, and not give a damn about anyone or anything.

Franz looked at me. He was waiting for a reply. What was it that he had asked? Nägelsbach helped. “Dr. Franz is referring to a mutual rapprochement—on one side your role in the legal proceedings, and on the other the question of guilt and punishment.” They looked at me expectantly.

I didn't want to take on the role they were trying to foist on me. I told them that. They called the warden and had him take me back to my cell.

21

Stuttering a little

By late afternoon I was a free man. There had been no further questioning and no hearing before the judge. The trusty had brought me a tray with cauliflower soup, spareribs, a vegetable platter, potatoes, and a vanilla custard. Otherwise I had remained alone, and with the help of Keres's Best Games of Chess had cornered Alyekhin into checkmate, until the warden came, told me I could go, and walked me to the gate. Thank God prisons don't follow the example of hospitals, which never release a patient on a weekend, even if he is cured.

I stood outside the prison gate with my little suitcase, savoring the smell of freedom and the warmth of the sun. And when I reached the Neckar River I took pleasure in the smell of dead fish, motor oil, and old memories. In the lock by the Karlstor a barge was being lowered. A blanket was spread out over the top of its hold with a little playpen in which a child was playing.

“Can you take me along?”

The bargeman could see that I was calling out something to him, but couldn't make out what I was saying. I pointed at myself, at the barge, and waved my hand downriver. He laughed and shrugged his shoulders. I took this as a yes, hurried down the embankment, and jumped from the edge of the lock