Self's punishment - By Bernhard Schlink & Walter Popp Page 0,85
life insurance, no, that didn’t appeal to me. Perhaps Tyberg would invite me to stay for the next vacation anyway.
When darkness fell I was back in Locarno, strolling through the festively decorated town. I was looking for sardine cans for my Christmas tree. In a delicatessen beneath the arcades I came across some Portuguese vintage sardines. I took two recent tins, one from last year in glowing greens and reds, the other from two years ago in simple white with gold lettering.
Back at the hotel reception a message was waiting from Tyberg. He’d like to have me picked up for dinner. Instead of calling him and having myself picked up I went to the hotel sauna, spent three pleasant hours there, and lay down in bed. Before falling asleep I wrote Tyberg a short letter, thanking him.
At eleven-thirty Judith knocked at my door. I opened up. She complimented me on my nightshirt, and we agreed on a departure time of eight o’clock.
‘Are you content with your decision?’ I asked.
‘Yes. The work on the memoirs will last two years, and Tyberg has already been giving some thought to afterwards.’
‘Wonderful. Then sleep well.’
I’d forgotten to open the window and was awakened by my dream. I was sleeping with Judith who, however, was the daughter I’d never had and was wearing a ridiculous red hula skirt. When I opened a can of sardines for the two of us, Tyberg came out, growing bigger and bigger, until he filled the whole room. I felt stifled and woke up.
I couldn’t go back to sleep and was glad when it was time for breakfast, even gladder when we were on the road at last. Beyond the Gotthard tunnel, winter began again, and it took us seven hours to reach Mannheim. I’d actually intended to visit Sergej that day, in hospital after a repeat operation, but I wasn’t up to it now. I invited Judith in for some champagne to celebrate her new job, but she had a headache.
So I had champagne and sardines on my own.
13
Can’t you see how Sergej is suffering?
Sergej Mencke was lying in a double room in the Oststadt Hospital on the garden side. The other bed was currently unoccupied. His leg was suspended from a kind of pulley and held in place at the correct slant by a metal frame and screw system. He’d spent the last three months, with the exception of a few weeks, in hospital and looked correspondingly miserable. Nonetheless I could clearly see that he was a handsome man. Light, blond hair, a longish, English face with a prominent chin, dark eyes, and a vulnerable, arrogant cast to the lips. Unfortunately his voice was petulant, maybe just as a result of the past months.
‘Wouldn’t it have been right to come and see me first, instead of bothering my entire social world?’
So he was one of those. A whiner. ‘And what would you have told me?’
‘That your suspicions are pure fantasy, they’re the product of a sick brain. Can you imagine mutilating your own leg like this?’
‘Oh, Herr Mencke.’ I pulled the chair to his bed. ‘There’s a lot I wouldn’t do myself. I could never cut open my thumb to avoid washing up. And what I, as a ballet dancer without a future, would do to make a million, I really couldn’t say.’
‘That silly story from scout camp. Where did you dredge that one up from?’
‘From bothering your social world. What was the story with the thumb again?’
‘That was a completely normal accident. I was carving tent pegs with my pocket knife. Yes, I know what you want to say. I’ve told the story differently, but only because it’s such a nice one, and my youth doesn’t provide many stories. And as for my future as a ballet dancer . . . Listen. You don’t exactly give the impression of a particularly rosy future yourself, but you wouldn’t go breaking a limb because of it.’
‘Tell me, Herr Mencke, how did you plan to finance the dance school you’ve talked about so often?’
‘Frederik was going to support me, Fritz Kirchenberg, I mean. He has stacks of money. If I’d wanted to cheat the insurance company I’d have thought up something a little cleverer.’
‘The car door isn’t that silly. But what would have been cleverer?’
‘I have no desire to discuss it with you. I only said if I’d wanted to cheat the insurance people.’
‘Would you be willing to undergo a psychiatric examination? That would really facilitate the insurance company’s decision.’