Self's Murder

by Bernhard Schlink

  “The silent partner … That’s an old story. Bertram’s right,” he told me. “His silent share was about half a million, about as large as that of both families, and stopped the bank from having to declare bankruptcy. We don’t know his name, and the Welkers and Wellers I’ve known in my time and who are now dead didn’t know, either. I’m not saying we knew nothing about him. He sent letters from Strasbourg and so must have lived there. He was in the legal profession, perhaps a company attorney or a lawyer, or maybe even a professor. When the syndicates came up in the 1880s Weller and Welker took an interest in them, and he clarified for them how to set one up legally, and what the legal aspects would be. In 1887, he thought about moving to Heidelberg; there’s a letter in which he seeks information concerning a house or apartment. But in lieu of a legible signature, we have only an initial—a C, L, or Z—and it’s unclear whether it stood for a first name or a surname, because though he seemed to be on the friendliest terms with both Weller and Welker, in those days one could be the best of friends with someone and still address him by his surname.”

  “There can’t have been that many men in the legal profession in Strasbourg. A hundred? Two hundred? What do you think?” I cut in.

  “Let’s say there were six hundred in all during the period in question. With those initials I’d say there’d be at most a hundred, half of whom can be eliminated since they did not live there the entire time. To follow up on the remaining fifty would be a lot of work, but it’s doable. Old Herr Welker didn’t think it was worth pursuing, which was my view, too. As for Bertram not being able to write the history of the bank without the silent partner’s name, that’s nonsense. One thing I’d like to know is why he didn’t come to me with his request, but to you?” Schuler was working himself into a rage. “In fact, why doesn’t anyone ever come to me? I sit in my cellar and nobody comes to me. Am I a mole, a rat, a wood louse?”

  “You’re a badger. Look at your burrow: caves, tunnels, entries and exits buried in a mountain of files.”

  “A badger!” He slapped his thighs. “A badger! Follow me; I’ll show you my other burrow.”

  He hurried out into the garden, waving dismissively when I pointed out that he had left the kitchen door ajar. He pulled the garden gate open and started his car. It was a BMW-Isetta, a model from the 1950s in which the front wheels are farther apart than the back wheels, and the front of the car is also the door, which claps open with the steering wheel—the kind of vehicle for which you need a driver’s license not for a car, but for a motorbike. I sat down next to him and we went chugging off.

  The old warehouse was not far from the Schlossplatz. It was an elongated three-story building with offices and apartments whose former function was no longer evident. In the eighteenth century the Wellers, when they were still sales and freight expeditors, had had their Palatine center here, with a countinghouse, stables, lofts, and a two-level cellar. Schuler had stored the boxes with the unexamined material in the lower cellar, while in the upper cellar the material he had already been through lined the shelves on the walls. There was again that sour, musty smell. At the same time the aroma of the glue Schuler used for his scrapbooks hung pleasantly in the air. There was bright daylight in the upper cellar. The lawn outside was so low-lying that there was space for a large window. This was where Schuler worked, and he had me sit at the table. I saw the abundance of files as an irredeemable jumble, but Schuler knew exactly what was where, reached for everything with ease, untied one bundle of files after another, and spread out his finds before me.

  “Herr Schuler!”

  “Here, for instance, we have—”

  “Herr Schuler!”

  He put the files down.

  “You don’t have to prove to me that what you said was true. I believe you.”

  “Then why doesn’t he believe me? Why didn’t he tell me anything, why didn’t he ask me?” Schuler was again talking himself into a rage, waving his hands and arms about and sending out waves of the odor of sweat.

  I tried to calm him down. “The bank is going through a crisis. Welker’s lost his wife and has had to send his children away—you can’t expect him to be thinking files and archives. He only sent me looking for the silent partner because he happened to meet me.”

  “You really think so?” He sounded doubting and hopeful.

  I nodded. “I bet all of this is very difficult for him. He doesn’t strike me as particularly hardy.”

  Schuler thought it over. “It’s true—late children are the delicate ones, and because they come along late in life they get fussed over all the more. When Bertram was born in 1958, his parents were over forty. He was a sweet boy, talented, somewhat dreamy, and quite spoiled. A child of Germany’s boom years, if you know what I mean. But you’re right: it can’t be easy for him without Stephanie and the children—and it was only a few years back that his parents died in a car crash.” He shook his head. “Here you have a man who had everything you could wish for in life, and then …”

  8

  Women!

  That evening I cooked some polenta with pork medallions and an olive-anchovy sauce for Brigitte and Manu. We sat at the large table in my kitchen.

  “A man has a wife and two children, and together with his wife a whole lot of money. One day husband and wife go hiking in the mountains. He comes back alone.”

  “He killed her,” Manu said, flicking his index finger across his neck. He’s always been outspoken, and even more so since his voice broke. This worries Brigitte and, single mother that she is, she expects me to stand by her and be a sensitive and steadfast male role model for her son.

  She eyed us severely. “Perhaps it was a tragic accident. Why are you both always jumping to—”

  “How come you didn’t cook spaghetti?” Manu cut in. “I don’t like this yellow stuff.”

  “It might well have been an accident. But let’s suppose that he did in fact murder her. Would it have been for the money?”

  “Might he have had a paramour?” Manu proposed.

  “What?” We had underestimated the range of Manu’s vocabulary.

  “Well, a woman he was screwing.”

  “Nowadays one doesn’t have to murder one’s wife because of a paramour. You can divorce your wife and marry the paramour,” Brigitte said.

  “But then there goes half the money. Gerhard just told us that they had a lot of money together. And why marry a paramour?”

  “I really like the polenta,” Brigitte said, “and the meat and the sauce, too—and you cooked for us and got the merlot I like. You’re such a sweetheart.” She raised her glass. “But you men are fools. He came back alone, you said?”

  I nodded. “That’s right. And her body was never found.”

  “There you go!” Brigitte said. “She’s not dead. She had a lover and went off with him. And as for the husband who never cared for her, serves him right.”

  “Nice try, Mom,” Manu chimed in. “But it doesn’t pan out. If everyone thinks she’s dead, how does she get at the money?”

  It was my turn. “That’s the last thing on her mind. Even if her lover is only a golf or tennis pro, he’s the love of her life, and love is worth more than all the money in the world.”

  Brigitte looked at me pityingly, as if among foolish men I were a particular fool. “It wasn’t just the money the husband and the wife had together; they also ran the business together. And the wife—I’m sorry to have to put it this way—happens to be the cleverer: she siphons off money behind his back and opens an account in Costa Rica. That’s where she’s living with her lover, a young painter. And because she can’t sit still, she’s back in business and has made a fortune supplying the Costa Rican market with chocolate marshmallows.”

  “Why Costa Rica?”

  “Astrid and Dirk went there and loved it. Why don’t we ever go to such places on vacation? Both Manu and I speak Portuguese, and the only thing down there that got on Astrid’s and Dirk’s nerves was that they had to speak E
nglish and everyone took them for gringos.”

  “Mom?”

  “Yes, Manu?”

  “What about the children? If the wife goes to Costa Rica with her lover, does she just forget her children?”

  Manu had been raised for many years by his father in Brazil. Brigitte has never discussed with him why she allowed his father to take him there, nor has Manu brought up how he felt about it, then or now. He peered at her with his dark eyes.

  She peered back at him, and then at her plate. When her tears dropped onto the polenta she said, “Oh, damn!” and picked up the napkin from her lap, put it beside her plate, pushed her chair back, got up, and left the room. Manu’s eyes followed her. After a few moments he got up, too, and went to the door. He looked back at me, shrugged his shoulders, and grinned. “Women!” Later, when Manu and Turbo had fallen asleep in front of the TV, we tucked Manu in and went off to bed, where we lay next to each other, lost in thought. Why had Welker hired me? Because he had murdered his wife on account of the money, and was now worried that a descendant of the silent partner might demand his share? Was he more worried about this than he had admitted? But why hadn’t he sent Schuler in search of the silent partner? For that matter, why hadn’t he sent me to Schuler? I could not imagine that Schuler and the archive had just slipped his mind, nor could I imagine that all this had to do with his writing the history of the bank. But it didn’t really make sense, either, that he’d have killed his wife. Does one murder one’s wife and then hire a private investigator, someone who’s notoriously inquisitive and wary, a regular snoop? Then I thought about the conversation we’d had at dinner and laughed.

  “Why are you laughing?”

  “You’re a wonderful woman.”

  “Are you about to propose?”

  “An old fool like me?”

  “Come here, you old fool.”

  She turned toward me and in her arms I felt as if I were being washed over by big waves, then soft ones, and then a calm sea.

  I felt her tears as she nestled up to me to go to sleep.

  “Things will work out just fine with Manu,” I whispered. “You’ll see.”

  “I know,” she whispered back. “And you? Your case?”

  I decided not to go to my old friend, Chief Inspector Nägelsbach, nor to look into Frau Welker’s death, nor to go looking for the father Welker had mentioned—and who, since Welker’s father was dead, would have to be old Herr Weller. I decided not to look into how the bank had recovered financially and what its current situation was. I would leave all that and, following the correct procedure for a fair-and-square private investigator, inform my client of the progress of my investigation and ask if he wanted me to follow the Strasbourg lead.

  “My case? I think I can handle it.”

  But she was already asleep.

  9

  An ongoing process

  At first the fact that I couldn’t reach Welker didn’t get on my nerves. I was invariably told, pleasantly enough, that he was in conference. Would I not like to speak to Herr Samarin instead? The following morning the friendly woman’s voice informed me that Herr Welker would be out of the office all day, but that I was welcome to try him again tomorrow—though she could put me through to Herr Samarin, if I liked. She renewed the offer the following day, and informed me regretfully that Herr Welker was still out of the office and wouldn’t be back till later.

  “When?”

  “I couldn’t say. But Herr Samarin might know. One moment, please.”

  “Hello, Herr Self? How’s your investigation coming along?”

  Though his accent came across stronger on the phone, I still could not place it.

  “It’s coming along fine. When’s your boss due back?”

  “We were expecting him yesterday and think he’ll be in today. Not that I can guarantee it; he might not be in till tomorrow. I suggest you call back next week. Unless I can be of service?”

  Later I got a call from Schuler, who was irate and fuming. “What did you tell Bertram Welker about me?”

  “Not a word. I didn’t even get to—”

  “Then may I ask why Gregor Samarin, his damn lackey, wouldn’t let me see him? I was Gregor’s teacher, too, and he was my pupil, even if quite a stubborn one. How dare he tell me in that tone that he knows everything and that he doesn’t need me, and Bertram doesn’t need me, either?”

  “Herr Welker has been out of the office for the past few days. Why—”

  “Balderdash! I saw Bertram and Gregor pulling up in their car when I got there. I don’t know if Bertram recognized me. I don’t think he did, otherwise he’d never have left me standing there.”

  “When was this?”

  “Just now.”

  I put another call through to the bank, but was again told that Herr Welker was away. Now my curiosity was piqued, and I drove over to Schwetzingen. The sun was shining, the snow was gone, and little snowdrops were blossoming in the gardens. Spring was in the air. On the Schlossplatz in Schwetzingen the first strollers were out and about; young men casually draped their sweaters over their shoulders, and the girls’ short blouses revealed their navels. The cafés had put out a few tables where people with warm coats could sit.

  I sat outside until the sun disappeared and it grew colder. I smoked and drank tea, Earl Grey, which goes well with my Sweet Afton cigarettes. I could see everyone who entered or left the bank, and all the bustling about in the large office area on the second floor: the back-and-forth, people getting up and sitting down. In Welker’s office the metallic chain curtains were drawn shut, revealing nothing. But as I got up to go inside the café to sit by the window, the curtains parted and Welker opened the window, leaned on the sill, and looked out over the square. I darted into the café, from where I could see him gazing into the distance. He shook his head, and after a while closed the window. The curtain was drawn shut again and the lights went on.

  There weren’t many pedestrians in the streets. The bank’s few customers mostly pulled up in their cars; they drove up to the gate, which swung open to let them in, and about half an hour later let them out again. At five o’clock, four young women left the bank, and at seven, three young men. In Welker’s office the lights remained on till nine thirty. I worried that I might not make it to my car fast enough to be able to tail him. But I stood on the square waiting in vain for the gate to swing open and for him to drive out or to emerge from the door within the gate. The bank lay in darkness. After a while I sauntered across the square and around the block. I didn’t find another entrance to the bank, but from a neighboring yard that was accessible from the street I got a rear view of the bank’s roof. It had been built out, and the windows and balcony door were brightly lit. I could make out paintings on some of the walls, and I could tell that the curtains were made of fabric. These weren’t more offices; this was an apartment.

  I didn’t head back home right away. I called Babs, an old girlfriend, a German-and French-language teacher. She never went to bed before midnight.

  “Sure, come by,” she said.

  She was grading papers, sitting over a second bottle of red wine and a full ashtray. I told her all about my case and asked her to contact a detective agency in Strasbourg for me and have them look into lawyers bearing the initials C, L, or Z who had lived in Strasbourg between 1885 and 1918. I don’t know any French.

  “What’s the name of the detective agency?”

  “I’ll let you know tomorrow morning. I once worked with them on a case back in the early fifties. I hope they’re still there.”

  “How did you manage to get by without knowing French?”

  “The guy I was working with knew German. But he was already of a certain age, so he can’t possibly still be with us. A young man from Baden-Baden had gotten involved with the Foreign Legion—he’d been abducted, by all accounts—and we managed to find out his whereabouts. It wasn’t us, though, who got him out. Heaven and earth had to be set in motion, ambassadors and bishops. We did, h
owever, give thought to how we might give it a try. Can you imagine a German-French commando going out on a mission just a few years after the war?”

  She laughed. “You miss the old times? When you were young and strong and on a roll?”

  “On a roll? Even during the war I wasn’t on a roll, let alone afterward. Or do you mean I’m preoccupied with growing old? In the past I used to think that one day one starts aging, and that a few years later one’s done and is old. But it’s nothing like that. Aging’s an ongoing process; you’re never done.”

  “I’m looking forward to my pension. I don’t like teaching anymore. The kids do their thing. They plod through school, and then through job training, and don’t let anything get to them: no book, no idea, no feelings of love. I no longer like them.”

  “What about your own kids?”

  “Them I love. You can’t believe how pleased I was when Röschen finally let her hair grow out and stopped coloring it green. You know she finished high school with honors and got a grant from the German National Academic Foundation? And after only two semesters of business administration she spent a year at the London School of Economics. Even as a student she’s already earning more than I am as a veteran teacher.”

  I shook my head in disbelief.

  “She’s set up a small and successful fund-raising firm. She’s built up and is expanding a mammoth database with the help of some students whom she pays minimum wage, because in fund-raising everything depends on whose birthday falls on what day, when a company is celebrating its anniversary, the personal interests of possible donors, and what kinds of lives their ancestors lived. The other day she said to me, ‘Mom, do you think it’s a good idea for me to rope in some Eastern European students who’re studying German? I could cut my labor costs in half.’”

  “So what did you tell her?”

  “‘Good idea,’ I said, and told her she might want to set up those students with computers instead of paying them wages, and let them pay off the computers with their work for her. Needless to say, old computers that are being phased out here—over in Eastern Europe they’ve no need for modern computers.”