The Execution of Justice

by Friedrich Duerrenmatt

  “Commandant,” he shouted with outrage, his napkin still in his hand, “they tell me Dr. Isaak Kohler committed this murder!”

  “Correct,” the commandant answered testily.

  “That’s simply impossible!”

  “Kohler must have gone crazy,” the commandant answered, taking a seat on a chair beside the dead man and lighting one of his everlasting Bahianos. The prosecutor dried his brow with his napkin, pulled a chair over from the next table, likewise took a seat, so that the huge corpse now lay, head on plate, between the two massive, heavy officials. And so they waited. Deathly silence in the restaurant. No one was eating now. Everyone stared at the ghostly group. But then a fraternity entered the room, and confusion reigned. Singing loudly, they took over the place and, since they did not realize the situation right off, went on singing at full strength, then fell silent in embarrassment. Finally Lieutenant Herren arrived with his staff from the homicide squad. A policeman took pictures, a forensic physician stood around helplessly, and a local prosecuting attorney who had been brought along kept apologizing to Jämmerlin for being there. Orders, instructions in low tones. Then the dead man was set upright, gravy in his face, foie gras and green beans in his beard, laid on a stretcher, and put in the ambulance. It was Ella who, once she was allowed to clear the table, first discovered his gold rimless glasses in the home fries. And then the first witnesses were questioned by the local prosecuting attorney.

  Possible Conversation I: As the waitresses came back to life and the guests slowly and hesitantly sat back down, some of them beginning to eat again, as the first journalists started to move in, the public prosecutor and the commandant withdrew to the pantry next to the kitchen for a conference. The prosecutor wanted to speak with the commandant alone for a moment, with no witnesses. A Last Judgment had to be organized and carried out. The brief conversation next to shelves of bread, canned food, bottled oil, and sacked flour took an unfortunate course. According to the account that the commandant later gave before parliament, the prosecutor demanded a massive deployment of police.

  “What for?” the commandment objected. “Anyone acting the way Kohler did is not about to flee. We can quietly arrest him at home.”

  Jämmerlin became more emphatic. “I can expect, I presume, that you will treat Kohler like any other criminal.”

  The commandant was silent.

  “The man is one of the richest and best-known citizens of this city,” Jämmerlin continued. “It is our sacred duty” (one of his favorite turns of phrase) “to proceed with the utmost rigor. We must avoid every appearance of partiality.”

  “It is our sacred duty to avoid unnecessary expenses,” the commandant declared calmly.

  “No all-points bulletin?”

  “I wouldn’t think of it.”

  The prosecutor stared at the bread-slicer he was standing next to. “You’re a friend of Kohler’s,” he suggested finally, not maliciously at all, simply routinely and coldly. “Do you not think it possible that under the circumstances your objectivity might suffer?”

  Silence. “Lieutenant Herren,” the unruffled commandant answered, “will take over the Kohler case.”

  And that’s how the scandal came about.

  Herren was a man of action, ambitious and thus overhasty when he acted. He succeeded within a few minutes in alarming not only the entire police force but the whole population as well, managing to launch a special report of the canton police just before the seven-thirty radio news. The apparatus was moving full steam ahead. They found Kohler’s villa empty (he was a widower, his daughter, a stewardess with Swissair, was in the clouds, his cook at the movies). They concluded he was attempting to flee. Patrol cars stalked the streets, border stations were informed, foreign police forces notified. From a purely technical standpoint, all this was quite praiseworthy, except that they were forgetting the one contingency that the commandant had suspected all along: They were searching for a man who had no intention of fleeing. And so disaster had already struck when, shortly after eight, news came in from the airport that Kohler had delivered the English minister to his plane and then had been driven at a leisurely pace back to the city in his Rolls-Royce. The prosecutor was hit especially hard. Reassured that the mighty machinery of state was functioning, and buoyant following his victory over the detested commandant, he was getting ready to listen to the overture to Mozart’s Abduction from the Seraglio, was stroking his cropped gray beard with great pleasure as he leaned back in his seat. Mondschein had just raised his baton when, at the side of one of the richest and also most unsuspecting widows of our fair city, the Dr.h.c., sought and hunted with every modern device known to the police, came striding down the center aisle of the Tonhalle, past the packed rows of the audience, calm and self-assured as ever, with the most innocent air, as if nothing had happened, and sat down beside Jämmerlin, even shaking the incredulous man’s hand. The stir, the whispers and, sad to say, the giggles as well were considerable, the overture fell not unnoticeably flat, since the orchestra had taken note of the event; one curious oboist even stood up, Mondschein had to give the downbeat twice, and the prosecutor was so flummoxed that he sat there frozen stiff, not just for the Seraglio overture but for the second piano concerto of Johannes Brahms, which followed. He did, it is true, finally comprehend the nature of the situation, but only after the pianist had started in; then, not daring to interrupt the Brahms, his respect for culture being too great, he was painfully aware that he ought to have intervened, and that now it was too late, and so he sat there until intermission. Then he acted. He shoved his way through the curious crowd encircling the canton deputy and ran to the telephone booth but had to come back to get some change from one of the women checking coats. He called the police station, got hold of Herren, a major deployment came swooping down. Meanwhile Kohler played the unsuspecting innocent, buying the widow champagne at the bar, and even had the outrageous good luck of the concert’s second half beginning before the police arrived. So that Jämmerlin, along with Herren, had to wait behind closed doors, while inside Bruckner’s Seventh was presented, endlessly. The prosecutor stomped back and forth irritably, had to be reminded several times by an usherette to keep quiet, and was generally treated as if he were a barbarian. He cursed the entire Romantic movement, cursed Bruckner, they still hadn’t got beyond the adagio, and when finally at the end of the fourth movement the applause began—it likewise seeming to know no end—and the audience came streaming out through the cordon of deployed police, no Dr.h.c. Isaak Kohler appeared. He had vanished. The commandant had ushered him through the artists’ exit and into his car and had driven with him to police headquarters.

  Possible Conversation II: At police headquarters, the commandant took the Dr.h.c. to his office. They had not spoken a word to each other during the drive, and the commandant led the way down the empty, dimly lit corridor. In his office he pointed without speaking to a comfortable leather armchair, bolted the door, took off his jacket.

  “Make yourself comfortable,” he said.

  “Thanks, I’m already comfortable,” the canton deputy answered, having taken a seat.

  The commandant placed two glasses on the table between the two armchairs, fetched a bottle of red wine from the cupboard. “Winter’s Chambertin,” he declared and poured, sat down himself, stared into space for a while, then began carefully to wipe the sweat from his brow and the back of his neck.

  “Dear Isaak,” he finally began, “tell me for heaven’s sake why you shot that old ass.”

  “You mean—” the canton deputy answered somewhat hesitantly.

  “Have you any clear notion of what you’ve done?” the commandant interrupted him.

  The other man took a long, slow drink from his glass and did not answer on the spot, instead regarding the commandant with some astonishment, but with gentle mockery as well.

  “But of course,” he then said. “But of course I’ve a clear notion.”

  “All right, why did you shoot Winter?”<
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  “Ah, I see,” the canton deputy answered and appeared to ponder something, then laughed. “Ah, so that’s it. Not bad.”

  “What’s not bad?”

  “The whole thing.”

  The commandant didn’t know what to reply, was confused, angry. Whereas the murderer had turned downright cheerful, laughing to himself softly several times, apparently amused for some incomprehensible reason.

  “Well. Why did you murder the professor?” the commandant began questioning him stubbornly again, insistently, and again wiping sweat from his neck and brow.

  “I have no reason,” the canton deputy admitted.

  The commandant stared at him, perplexed, thinking he hadn’t heard right, then emptied his glass of Chambertin, poured himself some more, spilling some wine.

  “No reason?”

  “None.”

  “That’s utter nonsense, you must have some reason,” the commandant shouted impatiently. “That’s utter nonsense!”

  “I beg you, do you duty,” Kohler said and carefully emptied his glass.

  “My duty is to arrest you,” the commandant explained.

  “Just so.”

  The commandant was desperate. He loved clarity in all things. He was a sensible fellow. To him, a murder was an accident over which he pronounced no moral judgment. But as an orderly man he had to have a reason. A murder without a motive was for him not a contravention of morals but definitely one of logic. And there was no such thing.

  “The best thing would be for me to put you in an asylum for observation,” he declared in a rage. “There is no such thing as your committing murder for no reason.”

  “I’m quite normal,” Kohler responded coolly.

  “Shall I call Stüssi-Leupin?” the commandant suggested.

  “What for?”

  “You need a defense lawyer, for chrissake. The best we have, and Stüssi-Leupin is the best.”

  “A public defender will do for me.”

  The commandant gave up. He unbuttoned his collar, took a deep breath.

  “You must be crazy,” he gasped. “Give me the revolver.”

  “What revolver?”

  “The one you shot the professor with.”

  “Don’t have it,” the Dr.h.c. declared and stood up.

  “Isaak,” the commandant implored, “I hope you’ll spare us a body search!”

  He was about to pour himself some more wine. The bottle was empty.

  “That damned Winter drank too much,” the commandant growled.

  “So get on with it, have them march me off,” the murderer proposed.

  “As you like,” the commandant responded, “and you’ll be spared no indignity.” He got up as well, unbolted the door, then rang.

  “Take this man away,” he said to the policeman as he entered. “He’s under arrest.”

  Belated Suspicion: In trying to reproduce these conversations—“possible” because I was not personally present for them—I do so not with the intention of writing a novel but rather from the necessity of delineating an event as faithfully as possible. But that is not the real difficulty. The wheels of justice turn, in fact, behind the scenes for the most part, and behind the scenes jurisdictional authorities that seem so clearly defined to the outside world become blurred, roles are exchanged or divided up differently, conversations occur between people who appear in public as irreconcilable enemies—on the whole, a different tone is predominant. Not everything gets put down in black and white and added to the records. Information is handed on or suppressed. And so, for instance, the commandant has always been candid with me, talkative, telling me everything voluntarily, letting me have a look at important documents, and often going beyond his authority, and even today is generally well-disposed toward me. Why, even Stüssi-Leupin was quite civil to me, even long after I had joined the other camp; only recently the wind has shifted, though for a totally different reason, to be sure. So that I don’t have to invent these conversations, but rather to reconstruct them. At worst, to surmise them.

  No, my “auctorial” difficulties lie elsewhere. Though I am well aware that even the murder and suicide I’m planning can provide no strict proof of my credibility, nevertheless, I continue to be seized by the mad hope that I can establish it by recording these events: by discovering, for instance, how Kohler’s revolver was disposed of. The murder weapon has never been found. At first, a secondary matter. It played no role at the trial. There was no doubt who the culprit was, there had been witnesses enough: the staff and customers of the Du Théâtre. And though at the start of the investigation the commandant left no stone unturned to recover the revolver, he did so not to further incriminate Kohler—for which there was no need whatever—but for the sake of order; it was part of his criminological style, so to speak. But the commandant had no success. Inexplicably. Dr.h.c. Kohler’s route from the Du Théâtre to the Tonhalle was known, its tiniest details verified. As we know, after shooting the professor in mid-gulp of tournedos rossini, he had immediately climbed into his Rolls-Royce and sat down beside the minister, floating mid-dream in whiskey. At the airport, the murderer and the minister got out of the car, the chauffeur (who of course knew nothing of the crime) did not notice a revolver, nor did the Swissair official who had hurried over to greet them. They had chatted in the lobby, dutifully admiring the architecture, or better, its interior design, then sauntered to the plane, with Kohler giving the minister a helping hand. Formal farewell, return with the official to the lobby, a final brief glance at the taxiing plane, a purchase at the kiosk, Neue Zürcher Zeitung and National-Zeitung, traversal of the lobby, still in the company of the Swissair man, though without a glance at the interior design, then into the waiting car, from the airport to Zollikerstrasse, two honks of the horn in front of the house of the unsuspecting widow, who appeared at once (time pressed), from Zollikerstrasse straight to the Tonhalle. No trace of the weapon. The widow had not noticed anything either. The revolver had vanished in thin air. The commandant ordered a meticulous search of the Rolls-Royce, then of the route Kohler had followed, plus his villa, his garden, the cook’s room, the chauffeur’s apartment on Freiestrasse. Nothing. The commandant pressed Kohler several times, thundered, tried hour-long interrogation. In vain. The Dr.h.c. passed with flying colors; only Hornusser, the pretrial judge who took over the interrogation, suffered a collapse. Then a protest from the prosecutor that the police and the pretrial judge needn’t be so pedantic—with revolver, without revolver, it was not all that important, to continue the search was a waste of taxpayers’ money, the commandant and the pretrial judge would have to abandon the search; and the vanished weapon took on meaning only later, via Stüssi-Leupin. That the weapon instills me with new hope these days is another story, is part of the difficulty of my enterprise. My role as Savior of Justice is a wretched one. I can do nothing but write, and if in the distance I spot some other possible way to intervene, some other mode of action, I abandon my Hermes portable, run to my car (a VW again now), start it up, roar off—like the day before yesterday, in the morning, to see the personnel manager of Swissair. An idea had struck me, a grand solution. I drove in a frenzy, it was a miracle that I reached the airport unhurt, and that others were unhurt. But the personnel manager would give me no information, wouldn’t even see me. The return trip proceeded at a moderate tempo; at one intersection a policeman yelled at me: Did I intend to push my car through town? I felt as if once again I had played out my hand. It was impossible to hire Lienhard, the private detective, for further research; he cost too much and would, well, as things stood, probably not be interested—who gladly slices into his own flesh? So there was nothing for it but to try Hélène herself. I called her. Was out. Had “gone into town.” So I just take off, hit or miss, on foot, think, check the restaurants or the bookstores, and I run into her, right into her, except she’s sitting with Stüssi-Leupin, in front of the Select, having a cappuccino. I saw the two of them only at the last moment, was standing right in front of the
m, in some confusion, since I had been looking for her only, and angry that Stüssi-Leupin was sitting with her, but what difference did it make, the two had probably been lying in the same bed together for a good while, the sweet daughter of a murderer and her father’s savior, she my former lover, he my former boss.

  “If you please, Fräulein Kohler,” I said, “I’d like to have a word with you for a moment. Alone.”

  Stüssi-Leupin offered her a cigarette, put one in his own mouth too, lit them.

  “Is that all right with you, Hélène?” he asked her. I could have punched the star lawyer.

  “No,” she answered without looking at me, although she did put down the cigarette. “But he can speak if he likes.”

  “Good,” I said, pulling over a chair and ordering an espresso.