Self's deception - By Bernhard Schlink & Peter Constantine Page 0,94
found you in terrible shape and covered in blood.”
“Yes, but I had no idea they were in Spain. Leo called me once or twice, and it sounded far away—that was all.”
“That's strange.” She turned around, nestled her back against me, and fell asleep.
I knew what she found strange. How would a policeman in a godforsaken village in the Spanish provinces come upon German terrorists? Not without a tip-off. I conjured up the image of a German tourist abroad going to the police to make a statement that he recognized the inhabitants of a neighboring bungalow as the terrorists for whom there was an alarm out. Then I remembered the tip-off that had led Rawitz and Bleckmeier to me, not to mention the tip-off that had landed me in prison. These had not come from a tourist. Nor had the tip-off that had brought Tietzke to Wendt's corpse. I might have been pointed out by someone who happened to see me, someone from Mannheim who had been drawn to the Oden-wald and Amorbach by the warm summery day. But the tip-off about Wendt's corpse had come from Wendt's murderer.
26
A pointed chin and broad hips
Philipp wasn't in his hospital room.
“He's out in the garden.” The nurse followed me to the window. Philipp, in his dressing gown, was walking around a pond, every step as cautious as if he were treading on thin ice. This is how old men walk, and even if Philipp were able to walk normally again, there would come a day when this would be the only way he could walk. A day would come when this would be the only way I could walk, too.
“This is my third round already. Thanks, but I don't need your arm. I'm not using the cane they've been trying to foist on me either.”
I walked beside him, resisting the urge to tread as cautiously as he did.
“How long are they going to keep you here?”
“A few days, perhaps a week—just try pinning one of those doctors down. When I tell them they really don't have to treat me with kid gloves, they just laugh. They tell me I should have operated on myself, then I'd be fully up-to-date on my condition.”
I wondered if that was possible.
“I've got to get out of here!” He waved his arms. The pretty young nurses were unsettling him. “It's crazy! I've always liked them, the sweet ones as much as the mean ones, the firm ones, the soft ones. I'm not one of those guys who need big breasts or blond hair. It used to be, if they were young and had that look in their eyes, that blank look where you can't tell if it sees through everything or is utterly clueless, when they have that scent that only young women have—that was it. And now”— he shook his head—”now a girl can be sweet and flutter her eyelashes at me all she wants, but I no longer see the young girl she is, just the old woman she will one day turn into.”
I didn't understand. “You mean, a sort of X-ray vision?”
“Call it whatever you want. In the mornings there's Nurse Senta, for instance—the cutest face, soft skin, a pointed chin, small breasts, and broad hips. She acts stern, but loves to giggle. In the past, the air would have been charged. Now I look at her and see that one day her stern act will crease her mouth with scowling lines, blood vessels will spot her cheeks, and love handles will bulge over her midriff. Have you ever noticed how all women with pointed chins have broad hips?”
I tried to conjure up the chins and hips of the women I knew.
“Then there's Verena, the night nurse. A hot-blooded woman—but what looks wild now will look ravaged soon enough. In the past I wouldn't have given a damn. Now I see it, and it's like a bucket of cold water.”
“What do you have against ravaged women? I thought you saw Helen of Troy in every woman?”
“I did. That's the way I liked it, and that's the way I'd like it to be again.” He looked at me sadly. “But it doesn't work anymore. Now I only see a shrew in every woman.”
“Perhaps it's just because you're still under the weather. You've never been sick before, have you?”
He had already weighed this explanation, too, but brushed it aside. “I used to fantasize about being a patient in a hospital and being spoiled by the nurses.”