Self's punishment - By Bernhard Schlink & Walter Popp Page 0,29

advance.’

His wife had already given up. ‘Oh, leave it, Kurt. Maybe you mixed things up again.’

Mischkey and I exchanged a quick glance. He wore a disinterested expression but his eyes told me his game was up.

The match we launched into is one I’ll never forget. It was as though Mischkey and I wanted to compensate for what had been lacking in open combat before. I played beyond my capabilities, but Babs and I were properly thrashed.

Frau Buchendorff was in high spirits. ‘I have a consolation prize for you, Herr Self. How about a bottle of champagne on the terrace?’

She was the only one to have enjoyed the game uninhibitedly and didn’t mask her admiration for her partner and her opponents. ‘I hardly recognized you, Peter. You’re enjoying yourself today, aren’t you?’

Mischkey tried to beam. He and I didn’t say much as we drank the champagne. The two women kept the conversation going.

Babs said, ‘Actually, that wasn’t really a game of doubles. If I weren’t so old, I’d hope you two men were battling for me. But as it is, you must be the one they’re wooing, Frau Buchendorff.’

And then the two women were on to age and youth, men and lovers, and whenever Frau Buchendorff made some frivolous remark, she gave the silent Mischkey a kiss.

In the changing rooms I was alone with Mischkey.

‘How does it go from here?’ he asked.

‘I’ll hand in my report to the RCW. What they’ll do with it, I don’t know.’

‘Can you leave Judith out of it?’

‘That’s not so easy. She was the bait to a certain extent. How else could I explain how I got on to you?’

‘Do you have to say how you got on to me? Isn’t it enough if I simply confess that I cracked the MBI system?’

I thought it over. I didn’t believe he wanted to make trouble for me, nor could I see how that would be possible. ‘I’ll try. But don’t pull any fast ones. Otherwise I’ll have to submit that other report.’

Back at the car park we joined the two ladies. Was I seeing Frau Buchendorff for the last time? I didn’t like the thought.

‘See you soon?’ was her goodbye. ‘How’s the case coming along by the way?’

21

You’re such a sweetheart

My report for Korten turned out to be short. Nonetheless, it took me five hours and a bottle of Cabernet Sauvignon before my draft was finished at midnight. The whole case replayed in front of me, and it wasn’t easy to keep Frau Buchendorff out of it.

I saw the RCW–RCC link as the exposed flank of the MBI system that allowed not only people from the RCC but also other businesses connected to the RCC to access the RCW. I borrowed Mischkey’s characterization of the RCC as the turntable of industry espionage. I recommended disconnecting the emission data recording system from the central system.

Then I described, in a sanitized way, the course my investigation had taken, from my discussions and research in the Works to a fictive confrontation with Mischkey at which he had declared himself willing to repeat a confession and to reveal the technical details to the RCW.

With an empty, heavy head I went to bed. I dreamt of a tennis match in a railway carriage. The ticket inspector, in a gas mask and thick rubber gloves, kept trying to pull out the carpet I was playing on. When he succeeded we continued to play on the glass floor, while beneath us the sleepers raced by. My partner was a faceless woman with heavy, hanging breasts. Her movements were so powerful, I was constantly afraid she’d crash through the glass. As she did I woke up in horror and relief.

In the morning I went to the offices of two young lawyers in Tattersallstrasse whose under-burdened secretary sometimes typed for me. The lawyers were playing Amigo on their computers. The secretary promised me the report for eleven o’clock. Then, back in my office, I looked through the mail, mostly brochures for alarm and security systems, and called Frau Schlemihl.

She hemmed and hawed a great deal, but eventually I got my lunchtime meeting with Korten in the canteen. Before I collected the report, I booked a flight on the spot at the travel agent’s for that evening to Athens. Anna Bredakis, a friend from university days, had asked that I give her plenty of prior warning. She had to get the yacht she’d inherited from her parents sail-worthy and assemble a crew from amongst her nieces and