Self's Punishment

by Bernhard Schlink

  She left the car in the parking lot at Kornmarkt. ‘I called ahead. Peter shared the apartment with a friend who works at Darmstadt Technical University. I do have a key but didn’t want just to turn up.’

  She didn’t notice I knew the way to Mischkey’s apartment. I didn’t try to play dumb. No one answered our ring and Frau Buchendorff opened the front door. The lobby contained cool air from the cellar: ‘The cellar goes down two levels into the hillside.’ The floor was made of heavy slabs of sandstone. Bicycles were propped against the wall decorated with Delft tiles. The letterboxes had all been broken into at some point. Only a faint light trickled through the stained-glass windows onto the worn stairs.

  ‘How old is the house?’ I asked as we climbed to the third floor.

  ‘A couple of hundred years. Peter loved it. He had lived here since he was a student.’

  Mischkey’s part of the apartment consisted of two large interlinking rooms. ‘You needn’t stay here, Frau Buchendorff, while I’m looking around. We can meet afterwards in a café.’

  ‘Thanks, but I’ll manage. Do you know what you’re looking for?’

  ‘Hmm.’ I was getting my bearings. The front room was the study with a large table at the window, a piano and shelves against the remaining walls. In the shelves files and stacks of computer printouts. Through the window I could see the rooftops of the old town and Heiligenberg. In the second room was a bed with a patchwork quilt, three armchairs from the era of the kidney-shaped table, one of the aforementioned tables, a wardrobe, television, and a stereo system. From the window I looked left up to the castle and right to the advertising column I’d stood behind weeks ago.

  ‘He didn’t have a computer?’ I asked in astonishment.

  ‘No. He had all sorts of private stuff on the RCC system.’

  I turned to the shelves. The books were about mathematics, computing, electronics, and artificial intelligence, films and music. Next to them an absolutely beautiful edition of Green Henry and stacks of science fiction. The spines of the files indicated bills and taxes, product registration forms and instruction manuals, references and documents, travel, the public census, and computer stuff I barely understood. I reached for the folder of bills and leafed through it. In the references file I discovered that Mischkey had won a prize in his third year of high school. On his desk was a pile of papers that I looked through. Along with private mail, unpaid bills, programming notes, and sheet music, I came across a newspaper cutting.

  RCW honoured the oldest fisherman on the Rhine. While he was out fishing yesterday on the river, Rudi Basler, who had turned ninety-five years old, was surprised by a delegation from the RCW headed by General Director Dr H. C. Korten: ‘I didn’t want to pass up the opportunity of congratulating the grand old man of Rhine-fishing personally. Ninety-five years old and still as fresh as a fish in the Rhine.’ Our photo captures the moment in which General Director H. C. Korten shares the happiness of the celebrated man and presents him with a gift hamper…

  The picture had a clear shot of the gift hamper in the foreground; it was the same one I’d received. Then I found a copy of a short newspaper article from May 1970.

  Scientists as forced labourers in the RCW? The Institute for Contemporary History has picked up a hot potato. The most recent monograph from the Quarterly of Contemporary History deals with the forced labour of Jewish scientists in German industry from 1940 to 1945. According to this, renowned Jewish chemists among others worked in degrading conditions on the development of chemical war materials. The press officer of the RCW pointed to a planned commemorative publication for their 1972 centenary in which one contribution will deal with the firm’s history under National Socialism, including the ‘tragic incidents’.

  Why had this been of interest to Mischkey?

  ‘Could you come here for a moment?’ I asked Frau Buchendorff, who was sitting in the armchair in the other room, staring out of the window. I showed her the newspaper article and asked her what she made of it.

  ‘Yes, recently Peter had started asking for information on this or that about the RCW. He never had before. Regarding the matter of the Jewish scientists I even had to copy the article from our commemorative publication.’

  ‘And where this interest stemmed from he didn’t say?’

  ‘No, nor did I push him to tell me anything because talking was often so difficult towards the end.’

  I found the copy of the commemorative publication in the file entitled ‘Reference Chart Webs’. It was next to the computer printouts. The R, the C, and the W had caught my eye as I was casting a resigned farewell glance at the shelves. The file was full of newspaper and other articles, some correspondence, a few brochures and computer printouts. So far as I could see, all the material was linked to the RCW. ‘I can take the file with me, can’t I?’

  Frau Buchendorff nodded. We left the apartment.

  On the homeward journey on the motorway the roof was closed. I sat with the file on my knees and felt like a schoolboy.

  Suddenly Frau Buchendorff asked me, ‘You were a public prosecutor, Herr Self, weren’t you? Why did you actually stop?’

  I took a cigarette from the packet and lit it. When the pause grew too long I said, ‘I’ll answer your question, I just need a moment.’ We overtook a truck with a yellow tarpaulin, ‘Fairwell’ on it in red letters. A great name for a removal firm. A motorbike droned past us.

  ‘At the end of the war I was no longer wanted. I’d been a convinced National Socialist, an active party member, and a tough prosecutor who’d also argued for, and won, the death penalty. There were some spectacular trials. I had faith in the cause and saw myself as a soldier on the legal front. I could no longer be utilized on the other front following my wound at the start of the war.’ The worst was over. Why hadn’t I simply told Frau Buchendorff the sanitized version? ‘After nineteen fortyfive I first worked on my in-laws’ farm, then in a coal merchant’s, and then slowly started doing private investigations. For me, my work as a public prosecutor didn’t have a future. I could only see myself as the National Socialist I’d been, and certainly couldn’t be again. I’d lost my faith. You probably can’t imagine how anyone could believe at all in National Socialism. But you’ve grown up with knowledge that we, after nineteen forty-five, only got piece by piece. It was bad with my wife, who was a beautiful blonde Nazi and stayed that way till she became a nice, round Economic Miracle German.’ I didn’t want to say any more about my marriage. ‘Around the time of the Monetary Reform they started to draft incriminated colleagues back in. I could have returned to the judiciary then, too. But I saw what the efforts to get reinstated, and the reinstatement itself, did to my colleagues. Instead of feeling guilt they only had a sense that they’d been done an injustice when they were expelled and that this reinstatement was a kind of reparation. That disgusted me.’

  ‘That sounds closer to aesthetics than morality.’

  ‘It’s hard to tell the difference any more.’

  ‘Can’t you imagine anything beautiful that’s immoral?’

  ‘I see what you mean, Riefenstahl, Triumph of the Will and so on. But since I’ve grown older I just don’t find the choreography of the masses, the bombastic architecture of Speer and his epigones, and the atomic blast brighter than a thousand suns beautiful any more.’

  We had stopped by my door and it was approaching seven. I’d have liked to invite Frau Buchendorff to the Kleiner Rosengarten. But I didn’t dare.

  ‘Frau Buchendorff, would you care to dine with me in the Kleiner Rosengarten?’

  ‘That’s nice of you, many thanks, but I won’t.’

  7 A raven mother

  Quite against my principles I’d taken the file with me to dinner.

  ‘Working and eating izza no good. The stomach is ruined.’

  Giovanni pretended to seize the file. I clung to it tightly. ‘We always work, we Germans. Not the dolce vita.’

  I ordered calamari with rice. I abstained from spaghetti because I
didn’t want to get any sauce stains on Mischkey’s file. Instead I spilled some Barbera on Mischkey’s letter to the Mannheimer Morgen with which he’d enclosed an advertisement.

  Historian at the University of Hamburg looking for oral evidence from workers and employees of the RCW from the years before 1948 for a study of social and economic history. Discretion and reimbursement of expenses. Replies to box number 379628.

  I found eleven responses, some in spidery handwriting, some laboriously typed, that answered the ad with not much more than name, address, and phone number. One response came from San Francisco.

  Whether anything had come of the contacts wasn’t revealed by the file. It contained no notes by Mischkey at all, no clue as to why he’d put this collection together, and what his intentions were. I found the contribution to the commemorative publication photocopied by Frau Buchendorff, and further on the small brochure of an anti-chemical-industry action group – ‘100 Years RCW – 100 Years Are Enough’ – with essays on work accidents, suppression of strikes, the entanglement of capital and politics, forced labour, union persecution, and party contributions. There was even an essay about the RCW and the church with a picture of the Reich Bishop Müller in front of a large Erlenmeyer retort. It struck me that during my Berlin student days I’d got to know a Fräulein Erlenmeyer. She was very rich and Korten said she came from the family of the aforementioned retort. I’d believed him, the similarity was undeniable. What had become of Reich Bishop Müller? I wondered.

  The newspaper articles in the file dated back to 1947. They all bore reference to the RCW but otherwise appeared to be ordered randomly. The pictures, sometimes blurred in the copies, showed Korten first as a simple director, then as general director, showed his forerunner General Director Weismüller, who had retired shortly after 1945, and General Director Tyberg whom Korten had replaced in 1967. The photograph of the hundred-year anniversary had captured Korten receiving Chancellor Kohl’s congratulations and next to him he seemed small, delicate, and distinguished. The articles were full of news about finance, careers, and production, and now and again about accidents and slip-ups.

  Giovanni cleared my plate away and placed a sambuca in front of me without a word. I ordered a coffee to go with it. At the neighbouring table a woman of around forty was sitting, reading Brigitte. From the cover I saw its lead article was ‘STERILIZED – AND NOW WHAT?’ I gathered my courage.

  ‘Yes, indeed, now what?’

  ‘I’m sorry?’ She looked at me in confusion and ordered an amaretto. I asked her if she came here often.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘After work I always come here to eat.’

  ‘Are you sterilized?’

  ‘Believe it or not, I am sterilized. And after my sterilization I had a child, the sweetest little boy.’ She laid down Brigitte.

  ‘Incredible,’ I said. ‘And does Brigitte approve of that?’

  ‘The case doesn’t crop up. It’s more about unhappy women and men who realize they want children after they’ve been sterilized.’ She nipped at her amaretto.

  I crunched a coffee bean. ‘Doesn’t your son like Italian food? What does he do in the evenings?’

  ‘Would you mind if I joined you rather than screeching the answer through the entire restaurant?’

  I stood up, pulled back a chair invitingly, and said I’d be delighted if she – well, the usual things you say. She brought a glass with her and lit a cigarette. I looked at her more closely, the somewhat tired eyes, the stubborn mouth, and the tiny wrinkles, the lacklustre ash-blonde hair, the ring in one ear and the Band-Aid on the other. If I didn’t watch out I’d be in bed with this woman within three hours. Did I want to watch out?

  ‘To come back to your question – my son is in Rio with his father.’

  ‘What’s he doing there?’

  ‘Manuel is eight years old now and goes to school in Rio. His father studied in Mannheim. I almost married him, because of the residence permit. When the child arrived he had to return to Brazil and we agreed he’d take him with him.’ I frowned at her. ‘Now you consider me a raven mother. But I didn’t get sterilized for the fun of it.’

  A raven mother, indeed. Or at least an irritating one. According to German fairy tales, raven mothers and fathers push their fledglings from the nest. I never found out whether this does justice to real ravens, but it seemed to apply to her and I didn’t have any particular desire to keep flirting. When I remained silent, she asked, ‘Why the interest in the sterilization thing anyway?’

  ‘First something clicked in my mind, because of the cover of Brigitte. Then you interested me, how composed you were as you dealt with the question. Now it feels too composed, the way you talk about your son. Perhaps I’m too old-fashioned for this kind of composure.’

  ‘Composure can’t be imparted. A shame that prejudices are always confirmed.’ She took her glass and wanted to leave.

  ‘Could you just say first what RCW brings to mind?’ She gave me a frosty look. ‘I know, it’s a stupid-sounding question. But the RCW has been in my mind all day and I can’t see the forest for the trees.’

  She responded earnestly. ‘A whole lot comes to mind. And I’ll tell you, because there’s something about you that I like. RCW to me stands for the Rhine Chemical Works, contraception pills, poisoned air and poisoned water, power, Korten-’

  ‘Why Korten?’

  ‘I massaged him. I give massages as it happens.’

  ‘So you are a masseuse?’

  ‘Masseuses are our impure sisters. Korten came for six months with back problems and he spoke a bit about himself and his work during the sessions. Sometimes we got into proper discussions. One time he said, “It’s not reprehensible to use people, it’s just tactless to let them notice.” That stayed in my mind for a long time.’

  ‘Korten was my friend.’

  ‘Why “was”? He’s still alive.’

  Yes, why ‘was’? Had our friendship been buried in the meantime? ‘Self, you sweetheart’ – again and again the words had gone through my head in the Aegean and sent a shudder down my spine. Submerged memories had resurfaced, blended with fantasy, and forced their way into my sleep. With a cry, I’d awoken from the dream bathed in sweat: Korten and I hiking through the Black Forest – I knew very well that it was the Black Forest in spite of the high cliffs and deep gullies. There were three of us, a classmate was with us, Kimski or Podel. The sky was deep blue, the air heavy and yet surreally clear. Suddenly stones crumbled and bounced away silently down the slope, and we were hanging from a rope that was fraying. Above us was Korten and he looked at me and I knew what he expected of me. Still more of the cliff tumbled silently into the valley; I tried to claw my way up, to secure the rope and pull up the third man. I couldn’t do it and tears of helplessness and despair came to my eyes. I got out my penknife and started to cut through the rope beneath me. I have to do it, I have to, I thought, and cut. Kimski or Podel fell into the ravine. I could see it all at once, flailing arms, getting smaller and smaller in the distance, gentle mockery in Korten’s eyes, as though it were all a game. Now he could pull me up and when he almost had me at the top, sobbing and bleeding, ‘Self, you sweetheart’ came once again, and the rope broke…

  ‘What’s wrong? What’s your name, by the way? I’m Brigitte Lauterbach.’

  ‘Gerhard Self. If you didn’t come in your own car – may I after this bumpy evening offer you a lift home in my jolting Opel?’

  ‘Yes, please. I’d have taken a taxi otherwise.’

  Brigitte lived in Max-Joseph-Strasse. The goodbye peck on the cheek turned into a long embrace.

  ‘Would you like to come up, stupid? With a sterilized and raven mother?’

  8 An everyday sort of blood

  While she fetched wine from the fridge I stood there in her living room with all the awkwardness of the first time. You’re still wary about what might not grate: a canary in a cage, a Peanuts poster on the wall, Yevtushenko in the bookshelves, Barry Manilow on the turntable
. Brigitte was guilty of none of the above. Yet the wariness was there – perhaps it’s always in one’s self?

  ‘Can I make a phone call?’ I called through to the kitchen.

  ‘Go right ahead. The phone’s in the top drawer of the bureau.’

  I opened the drawer and dialled Philipp’s number. It rang eight times before he picked up.

  ‘Hello?’ His voice sounded oily.

  ‘Philipp, Gerd here. I hope I’m disturbing you.’

  ‘You bet, you crazy dick. Yes, it was blood, blood type O, rhesus negative. An everyday sort of blood, so to speak, age of the sample between two and three weeks. Anything else? Sorry, but I’m tied up here. You saw her yesterday, remember, the little Indonesian in the elevator. She brought her friend along. It’s all action.’

  Brigitte had come into the room with a bottle and two glasses, poured it, and brought a glass over to me. I’d handed her the extension, and Brigitte looked at me in amusement at Philipp’s last sentences.

  ‘Do you know anyone at forensics in Heidelberg, Philipp?’

  ‘No, she doesn’t work at forensics. At McDonald’s at the Planken, that’s where she works. Why?’

  ‘It’s not Big Mac’s blood type I’m after, but Peter Mischkey’s – he was examined by forensics at Heidelberg. And I’d like to know if you can find out. That’s why.’

  ‘But it doesn’t have to be right now. Come round instead, let’s talk about it over breakfast. Bring someone with you though. I’m not slogging my guts out so you can come along and lick the cream.’

  ‘Does she have to be Asian?’

  Brigitte laughed. I put my arm round her and she snuggled into me demurely.

  ‘No, my home is like a Mombasa brothel, all races, all classes, all colours, all lines of business. And if you’re really coming, bring a bottle.’