Self's punishment - By Bernhard Schlink & Walter Popp Page 0,15

just getting fashionable. It all seems so idyllic now, looking back – as a child I always suffered those outings.’

We’d reached my house but I wanted to savour a little longer the nostalgia that had engulfed us both.

‘In what way suffered?’

‘My father wanted to teach me how to swim but had no patience. My God, the amount of water I swallowed.’

I thanked her for the ride home. ‘It was a beautiful drive.’

‘Goodnight, Herr Self.’

11

Terrible thing to happen

A glorious Sunday saw the last of the good weather. At our picnic by the Feudenheim Locks my friend Eberhard and I ate and drank much too much. He had brought a miniature wooden crate with three bottles of a very decent Bordeaux, and then we made the mistake of downing the RCW Spätlese, as well.

On Monday I woke up with a blazing headache. On top of that the rain had coaxed out the rheumatism in my back and hips. Perhaps that’s why I dealt with Schneider all wrong. He had reappeared, not flushed out by the Works security service, just like that. I was to meet him in a colleague’s laboratory; his own had been burnt to a shell in the accident.

When I entered the room he straightened up from the fridge. He was tall and lanky. He invited me with an indeterminate flick of the hand to take a seat on one of the lab stools and remained standing himself, shoulders stooped, in front of the refrigerator. His face was ashen, the fingers of his left hand yellow from nicotine. The immaculate white coat was supposed to hide the decay of the person inside. But the man was a wreck. If he was a gambler then he was the sort who had lost and had no shred of hope left. The sort who fills out a lottery ticket on a Friday, but doesn’t bother to look on the Saturday to see if he’s won.

‘I know why you want to talk to me, Herr Self, but I’ve nothing to tell you.’

‘Where were you on the day of the accident? You’ll know that surely. And where did you disappear to?’

‘I unfortunately do not enjoy great health and was indisposed in recent days. The accident in my laboratory was a real blow, important records of research were destroyed.’

‘That’s hardly an answer to my question.’

‘What do you really want? Just leave me alone.’

Indeed, what did I really want from him? I was finding it more and more difficult to picture him as the brilliant blackmailer. Broken as he was, I couldn’t even imagine him the tool of some outsider. But my imagination had duped me in the past and there was something not right about Schneider. I didn’t have that many leads. His, and my own, misfortune that he’d found his way into the security files. And there was my hangover and my rheumatism and Schneider’s sulky, whiny manner that was getting on my nerves. If I couldn’t intimidate him then I might as well kiss my job goodbye. I gathered myself for a fresh attack.

‘Herr Schneider, we are investigating sabotage resulting in damages reaching into the millions and we’re acting to prevent further threats. I’ve encountered nothing but cooperation during my investigation. Your unwillingness to lend your support makes you, I’ll be perfectly honest, a suspect. All the more so as your biography contains phases of criminal entanglement.’

‘But I put a halt to the gambling years ago.’ He lit a cigarette. His hand was trembling. He took some hasty drags. ‘But, okay, I was at home in bed and we often unplug the telephone at the weekend.’

‘But Herr Schneider. Security was round at your house. There was nobody home.’

‘So you don’t believe me anyway. Then I won’t say another word.’

I’d heard that often enough. Sometimes it helped to convince the other person I believed whatever he said. Sometimes I’d understood how to address the deep-seated trouble at the source of this childish reaction so that everything came gushing out. Today I was capable of neither one nor the other. I’d had it.

‘Right, then we’ll have to continue our discussion in the presence of Security and your superiors. I’d have liked to spare you that. But if I don’t hear from you by this evening . . . Here’s my business card.’

I didn’t wait for his reaction, and left. I stood under the awning, looked into the rain and lit a cigarette. Was it also raining on the banks of the Sweet Afton? I didn’t know