Self's punishment - By Bernhard Schlink & Walter Popp Page 0,58
the other.’
He could understand that. We identified with each other there. I’d worked out in the meantime where the Bordeaux was stored and fetched the third bottle. The smoke was thick in the cabin.
‘Hey, landlubber, get to that galley and throw the fish from the fridge on the grill!’ In the fridge was potato and sausage salad from Kaufhof and next to it deep-frozen fillets of fish. They just had to be popped into the microwave. Two minutes later I was able to return to the cabin with dinner. Philipp had set the table and put on Zarah Leander.
After eating we went up to the bridge, as Philipp called it. ‘And where do you hoist the sail?’ Philipp knew my silly jokes and didn’t react. He also took my question as to whether he could still navigate as a bad joke. We were pretty tight by then.
We sailed under the bridge over the Altrhein and when we’d reached the Rhine we turned upstream. The river was black and silent. On the RCW premises many buildings were lit up, bright flames were shooting out of tall pipes, streetlamps cast a garish light. The motor chugged softly, the water slapped against the boat’s side, and from the Works came an almighty, thunderous hissing. We glided past the RCW loading dock, past barges, piers, and container cranes, past railroad lines and warehouses. It was growing foggy and there was a chill in the air. In front of us I could make out the Kurt Schumacher Bridge. The RCW premises grew murky, beyond the tracks loomed old buildings, sparsely lit in the night sky.
Inspiration struck. ‘Drive over to the right,’ I said to Philipp.
‘Do you mean I should dock? Now, there, next to the RCW? Whatever for?’
‘I’d like to take a look at something. Can you park for half an hour and wait for me?’
‘It’s not called parking, it’s dropping the anchor, we’re on a boat. Are you aware that it’s half past ten? I was thinking we’d turn by the castle, chug back, and then drink the fourth bottle in the Waldhof Basin.’
‘I’ll explain it all to you later over the fourth bottle. But now I have to go in. It has something to do with the case I mentioned earlier. And I’m not the least bit tipsy any more.’
Philipp gave me a searching look. ‘I guess you know what you’re doing.’ He steered the boat to the right and sailed on with a serene concentration I wouldn’t have thought him capable of at that point, moving slowly along the quay wall until he came to a ladder attached to it. ‘Hang the fenders out.’ He pointed to three white plastic, sausage-like objects. I threw them overboard, fortunately they were attached, and he tied the boat firmly to the ladder.
‘I’d like to have you with me. But I’d rather know you’re here, ready to start. Do you have a flashlight I can use?’
‘Aye, aye, sir.’
I clambered up the ladder. I was shivering. The knitted jumper, some American label, I was wearing beneath the old leather jacket to match my new jeans didn’t warm me. I peered over the quay wall.
In front of me, parallel to the banks of the Rhine, was a narrow road, behind it tracks with railway carriages. The buildings were in the brick style I was familiar with from the Security building and the Schmalzes’ flat. The old plant was in front of me. Somewhere here was Schmalz’s hangar.
I turned to the right where the old brick buildings were lower. I tried to walk with both caution and the necessary authority. I stuck to the shadows of the railway carriages.
They came without the Alsatian making a sound. One of them shone a torch in my face, the other asked me for my badge. I fetched the special pass from my wallet. ‘Herr Self? What part of your special job brings you here?’
‘I wouldn’t require a special pass if I had to tell you that.’
But that neither calmed them nor intimidated them. They were two young lads, the sort you find these days in the riot police. In the old days you found them in the Waffen SS. That’s certainly an impermissible comparison because these days we’re dealing with a free democratic order, yet the mixture of zeal, earnestness, uncertainness, and servility in the faces is the same. They were wearing a kind of paramilitary uniform with the benzene ring on their collar patch.