Self's Murder

by Bernhard Schlink

  They sat there in silence for a while.

  “Why are you telling us all this?” Philipp asked.

  “Don’t you find it interesting?”

  “It is interesting. But to be perfectly honest, it’s the kind of thing I’d have preferred not to know,” Philipp said. I must have looked at him as if he were mad. “Don’t get me wrong, Gerhard. I’m a practical man. I’m interested in things you can do something about: operating on a heart, fixing my boat, cultivating my flowers, making Füruzan happy.” He laid his hand on hers and looked at her so devotedly that everyone laughed. “But we simply can’t not do anything!” Philipp continued. “We got involved, we helped Welker, we … Well, if it hadn’t been for us, Samarin would still be alive!” I understood Philipp less and less. “Didn’t you say that the world we thought was Samarin’s world and which we now know to be Welker’s, isn’t your world and that you don’t want to give up your world without a fight? Isn’t any of that true anymore?”

  “That was different,” I replied. “Back then we thought Welker was in danger and wanted to help him. Who do you want to help now? Who’s in danger? Nobody. And as for the world no longer being … Perhaps I went a little overboard. What I meant was about danger and helping.”

  Frau Nägelsbach eyed me quizzically. “Only a few weeks ago you were against—”

  “No, I wasn’t against informing the police. I only felt that your husband and Philipp both had to agree what they would do. The possible consequences were more serious for them than they’d have been for me.”

  Philipp shook his head. “My contract with the private hospital is as good as sealed. But what would happen if there were a scandal?”

  “I’m afraid, Herr Self, that we missed the right moment, if there ever was one,” Nägelsbach said. “Back then the lead was fresh and we were good witnesses. Today we’re bad witnesses. Why did we keep silent for so long? Why are we speaking up now? Furthermore, it was dark, we didn’t see Welker shoot Samarin, there were no prints on the murder weapon, and Welker will deny everything. As for Schuler’s murder, things look even bleaker. A public prosecutor might make a case against Welker for money laundering, but it wouldn’t be easy.”

  Nobody said anything, and in the silence I felt as if everyone was waiting for me to officially drop the subject, to leave them alone. But I couldn’t. “We know Welker has two murders on his conscience. Doesn’t that interest us? Don’t we have some kind of obligation?”

  Nägelsbach shook his head. “Haven’t you heard of the presumption of innocence? If Welker can’t be convicted, he can’t be convicted. It’s as simple as that.”

  “But we—”

  “Us? We should have gone to the police right away. We didn’t, and now it’s too late. Do you remember what I told you when this happened? How can you think I would ever agree to our taking justice into our own hands?”

  The silence in the room was oppressive until Philipp could no longer bear it. “Herr Nägelsbach—Rudi, if I’m not mistaken? Rudi, if I may call you that. Would you like to join Gerhard, me, and an old friend of ours in a game of Doppelkopf every two weeks, or perhaps even once a week?”

  Nägelsbach was uncomfortable. He is a man of old-fashioned, formal politeness. He tends to recoil at over-familiarity. Being addressed by his first name took him aback, and he was put out by the abrupt change of subject. But he made an effort. “Thank you, Philipp. That is very kind of you, and I would be delighted. But I do insist that when any of us holds the two aces of hearts—”

  “That they will be the piglets.” Philipp laughed.

  “Gerhard?” Füruzan said, so solemnly that Philipp stopped laughing and the others sat up.

  “Yes, Füruzan.”

  “I’ll come with you. Perhaps I can lend a hand when you bump off Welker or set fire to his bank. As long as you don’t do anything to his children, okay?”

  18

  Not God

  Brigitte came at eleven. “Where are your friends? You didn’t have a fight, did you?” She sat down on the arm of my chair and laid her hand on my shoulder.

  “Yes and no.”

  We had parted amicably enough, but our conviviality had suffered a bump, and we had all been a little awkward when saying our good-byes. I told Brigitte what I had reported to my friends, what I had hoped for, and how they had reacted.

  “Oh, Gerhard. I see their point and I also see yours, but they … Why don’t you go to the police and at least get Welker on money laundering?”

  “He’s got two lives on his conscience.”

  “What about his wife?”

  “We’ll never know that for sure. Everything points to the fact that she really had an accident and that he wasn’t the one who—”

  “That’s not what I meant. I’m quite aware that he ought to be convicted for murder. But there’s not enough to convict him on. It’s not as if he’s the only criminal running around free when he ought to be in prison. Do you want to hunt them all down?”

  “They’re nothing to me, but Welker—”

  “What’s Welker to you? Tell me. Your paths crossed, and that was that. I’d understand if there’d at least been a personal connection between you.”

  “Quite the opposite: if there was something personal, then I really wouldn’t have the right to …” I fell silent. Years ago, in Trefeuntec, I’d taken justice into my own hands. Was I now trying to prove to myself that I had done that on principle, and that I was not out to settle a personal score, either then or now?

  Brigitte shook her head. “You’re not God.”

  “No, Brigitte, I’m not God. I just can’t come to terms with the fact that Welker killed Schuler and Samarin, that he’s wealthy and content, and that’s all there is to it.”

  She looked at me sadly, concerned. She took my head in her hands and kissed me on the lips. She held my head and said, “Manu is waiting for me; I’ve got to go. Forget Welker.”

  She saw in my eyes how my powerlessness was tormenting me.

  “Is it so bad? Is it so bad because you think you’re old if you don’t do anything?” I didn’t reply. She searched my eyes for an answer. “Forget Welker. Only if … only if it’ll kill you if you don’t do anything. But in that case be careful, do you hear? I don’t give a damn about Welker, whether he’s alive or dead, doing well or badly. But I do give a damn about you.”

  She left and I went out on the balcony and smoked, looking into the night. Yes, Brigitte was right. My powerlessness was tormenting me because my age made me feel it. It seared my memory how often I had realized after the fact that I’d been too slow. It seared my guilt at Schuler’s death into my mind. It forever sealed that neither as a public prosecutor nor as a private detective had I left behind anything I could be truly proud of. It consumed me like a rage, a fear, a pain, an insult. I had to do something if I didn’t want it to devour me entirely.

  Before I went to bed I took from a drawer the revolver that had been there for years. I hadn’t had a weapon for many years, and hadn’t planned on having this one, either, but once I got this revolver I couldn’t throw it away. A client had given it to me to look after and failed to retrieve it. I put it on the kitchen table and eyed it: black, handy, deadly. I picked it up, weighed it in my hand, and put it back on the table. Should I put it under my pillow to get closer to it?

  19

  With siren and flashing blue lights

  It was still dark when I woke up, and I knew something was wrong. Something in my chest wasn’t right and was filling the space in which I breathe and in which my heart expands when it beats. It wasn’t a pain, but it was present: restricting, persistent, dangerous.

  All of a sudden my forehead and palms were covered in sweat. I was frightened—I felt as if whatever wasn’t right in my chest was fear, a tough, fluid, corroding mass of fear.

  I got up, walked a few steps, opened the window and then the door to the balcony, and took a deep breath. But whatever wasn’t right in my chest didn’t go away. It g
rew. It turned into a pressure, and my fear turned into panic.

  The pressure abated and I calmed down. Hadn’t my last heart attack sent a numbness along my left arm? I felt nothing in my left arm. At that moment I decided that in the future I would live a healthier life, not smoke anymore, not drink anymore, and get some exercise. If Philipp went for the gold, couldn’t I at least go for the bronze? I was immersed in pleasant and positive thoughts. Until the pressure returned and I again broke out in a sweat. I was gripped by panic when the pressure remained and increased, in a slow ebbing and flowing. I sat down on my bed, hugged my chest with both arms, rocked back and forth, and heard myself whimpering softly.

  But the pressure had been only a forerunner of pain. It, too, came in waves, sometimes slow, sometimes fast: there was no regular rhythm I could count on. The first onslaught was like an electric shock that made my chest seize up. It electrified my brain, and with full clarity I realized I had to do something. If I didn’t I would die. It was just after five in the morning.

  I called the emergency service and twenty minutes later two paramedics from the Red Cross arrived with a stretcher—twenty minutes in which the pain cut through me like waves. Like labor pains—at least what I imagined labor pains to be—and whenever the pain kicked in, I took a deep breath. The paramedics made a few soothing remarks, got me onto the stretcher, and hooked me up to a drip from which a blood thinner flowed. They carried me down the five floors and put me in the ambulance. They turned on the flashing blue lights; through the window I could see them flaring over the wall of the building. Then they turned on the siren and drove off. They didn’t drive fast. The drip and the plastic tube swung gently.

  Was there also a tranquilizer in the drip? The pain didn’t subside, but in its peaks and valleys my impressions became blurred and my fear disappeared into a whimpering resignation.

  In the emergency room a lady doctor put stronger medications into my drip. These were supposed to dissolve the clot in my heart. I choked on gall and wondered why my gallbladder didn’t like my thinning blood. The nurse didn’t wonder; she reached for a kidney-shaped pan and held it under my chin.

  After a while I was sent to intensive care. Corridor ceilings, swinging doors, elevators, doctors in green, nurses in white, patients and visitors. In a daze I took it all in, as if I were rolling on a silent train through a perplexing and seething swarm. At one point we went through a long corridor that was empty except for a patient in pajamas and dressing gown who followed me with his eyes, bored and without curiosity or pity. At times I managed to gag into the kidney-shaped pan that lay next to my head, at times I missed. It stank repulsively.

  The pain had settled into my chest as if it had sized me up when it had first arrived in rising and ebbing waves and now knew that it was the sole proprietor. The pain had become even, an even pulling, a pulling into and out of my chest. After a few hours in intensive care it subsided, as did the vomiting. I was only exhausted, so exhausted that I thought it possible simply to fade out.

  20

  Crimes for lost honor

  Philipp showed up in the afternoon and patiently explained to me what happens during an angiogram. Hadn’t it already been explained to me once before? A catheter is inserted and pushed all the way up to the heart so that pictures can be taken: of your beating heart, of good arteries, constricted arteries, and blocked arteries. If luck isn’t on your side the catheter irritates the heart, with the result that it can no longer maintain its rhythm. Or the catheter pries loose a thrombosis, which wanders off and blocks an artery at a vital point.

  “Do I have a choice?”

  Philipp shook his head.

  “Then you don’t need to explain all this.”

  “I thought you might find it interesting.”

  I nodded.

  I also nodded when, after the angiogram, the surgeon informed me that two bypasses would be necessary. I didn’t want to know why, how, or where. I didn’t want to act to the doctors or nurses—and definitely not to myself—as if I had a say in any of this.

  The surgeon told me of a colleague of his in Mosbach who’d had nine bypasses and then climbed the Katzenbuckel, the highest mountain of the Odenwald range. There was no need to worry; we’d just have to wait a few days until my heart had calmed down a little and was less vulnerable before we operated.

  So I waited, and my exhaustion slowly began to fade. I was still tired. The fatigue allowed me to live down the loss of my autonomy, the tubes hooked to my wrist, the face that looked back at me in the mirror, and the fact that whenever I peed, half went astray. I dozed.

  At times Brigitte sat by my bed, her hand resting on mine or on my forehead. She read to me but I got tired after a few pages. Or we would speak a few words, which I would often forget shortly afterward. I understood that Ulbrich was either still in Mannheim or that he had come back, and had been looking for me all over, and had finally found Brigitte; that he was agitated; that he wanted to talk to me at all costs, even if it meant here in the hospital. But the doctors wouldn’t let anyone see me except Brigitte or Philipp, and that was fine by me.

  Then came the time for me to start walking again. I made my way up and down the corridor, out into the garden, and around the pond, but I was worried that a rash movement might loosen whatever was clogging my arteries and send it wandering to an even more dangerous place. I knew this fear was foolish. But it was there. I was also afraid that the pain would return, that my heart might start beating irregularly, that it would stop beating altogether. I was afraid of dying.

  Needless to say, while I lay there waiting, images and scenes from my life came to my mind. My childhood in Berlin, my career as public prosecutor, my marriage to Klara, my work as private investigator, my years with Brigitte. I also mulled over my last case, which I hadn’t concluded the way I’d wanted to.

  “I’m glad you didn’t do anything to Welker,” Brigitte said. “It rattled you, but it didn’t kill you. You’ll get back on your feet again.”

  It was only later that I fully understood what Brigitte meant. I wasn’t reading the papers, nor watching or listening to the news. But one day I came across an old copy of the Mannheimer Morgen lying on a bench in the garden and the headline caught my eye: EXPLOSION IN SCHWETZINGEN. I read that a bomb had exploded in a bank in Schwetzingen. Nobody had been seriously injured, but there was extensive damage. The culprit, a recently fired employee, was detained on the scene with minor injuries by other employees and arrested by the police. The bomb seems to have gone off sooner than he expected. The lead article focused on the matter of the bomb: it was the wrong way to respond to a dismissal, regardless of whether the dismissal was justified or not. But the article pointed out that the culprit was from Cottbus, and that citizens from the former East Germany, after forty-five years of Communism, often found it difficult to come to terms with the open labor market and often regarded a dismissal as a stain on their honor. The article went on to make a few insightful remarks about crimes for lost honor.

  I sat on the bench and thought about Karl-Heinz Ulbrich. I would ask Brigitte to go visit him in prison and take him a good book, a good Bordeaux, and some fresh fruit. I wanted her to take him a chess set, too, and my Spassky vs. Korchnoi. Chess was widely played in the East. I wanted her to ask Nägelsbach to put in a good word with his former colleagues. Crimes committed because of a loss of honor—the writer of that article didn’t know how right he was.

  I had to return to my room, where the lady doctor handed me a release to sign absolving them of all responsibility. I thought that was all she wanted, but then she checked my heart, took my blood pressure, and examined my behind.

  The following morning one of the nurses shaved my chest, stomach, pubic hair, and thighs, which had been already shaved for the angiogram. Brigitte had to leave the room, as if this ultimate nakedness might reveal something dreadful. When I sat up and looked down at myself, I was moved by my hairless, defenseless organ. I was so moved that I was on the brink of
tears. I realized that they had put a sedative in my drip.

  Brigitte walked next to me as far as the elevator, and the male nurse wheeled me in at an angle from which I could still see her until the doors closed. She blew me a kiss.

  In the elevator I grew sleepy. I can still remember being wheeled out of the elevator through a corridor into the operating theater and being lifted onto the operating table. The last thing I remember is the harsh light of the lamp overhead and the doctors’ faces with masks and caps, with peering eyes whose expressions I couldn’t figure out. Perhaps there wasn’t anything to figure out. The doctors began their work.

  21

  In the end

  In the end I did head back there.

  Why? I knew all there was to know, and if I hadn’t, the Schlossplatz would not have told me anything. I already knew that Welker had fired half his staff and sold the Sorbian bank. That he had dissolved Weller & Welker. That his house in the Gustav-Kirchhoff Strasse is up for sale and that he’s moved away with his children—to Costa Rica, Brigitte says, and that his wife is still alive and waiting for him there.

  I also knew that Ulbrich hadn’t breathed a word to the police or the public prosecutor. Not a word. Brigitte had asked me: “Weren’t you a public prosecutor once? Can’t you defend him?” I made inquiries and found that I could get licensed as a lawyer. The fact that Welker had left town would make the defense easier.

  What was I looking for on Schwetzingen’s Schlossplatz? The end of this story? It had come to an end. None of the threads of fate had been left dangling. But though I knew at the end of a story justice didn’t always have to win out, I could not accept as an ending that Welker would get away with what he’d done while Ulbrich was in jail and Schuler and Samarin were dead and buried. Again I was tortured by the powerlessness of not being able to do anything anymore, not being able to fix things.