Bernhard Schlink - Self’s Murder

“You still have a few hours to think the whole procedure through again. The new manager tends to stay late, and I wouldn’t recommend your coming out of the broom closet before eight.” She explained how I should smuggle myself into the bank’s kitchen area and said, “Good luck!”

I parked my car on a side street and went into the Sorbian bank. I was to walk past the tellers and the cashier and enter a short hallway at the beginning of which were the restrooms and the kitchen area. It was quite straightforward. Nobody noticed me as I slowly made my way past the busy tellers and, in the hallway, quickly unlocked the door to the kitchen area with my skeleton key and pulled it shut behind me.

The closet was full. I had to rearrange the brooms, mops, buckets, and detergents so that I’d have enough space. It was uncomfortable; I had to stand at attention with the fuse box pressing into my back, my feet locked together, and my hands at my sides. There was a powerful smell of detergent-not the aroma of fresh lemons but a mixture of soap, ammonia, and rotting fruit. At first I left the closet door ajar, certain I would hear anyone approaching the kitchen. But when someone did come in, I noticed him only once he was already in the room, and if he had looked in my direction that would have been the end of me. So I shut the door. When the bank closed at four, the kitchen area livened up. The employees who had worked at the tellers’ counters and now had to tally their accounts all took a coffee break. I heard the coffeemaker hissing and gurgling, cups and spoons clattering, comments about customers, and gossip about colleagues. I felt quite uneasy in the closet. But time flew.

Otherwise it dragged on slowly. At first I went through what I had learned about the computer. But soon I could think of nothing but how to inch my legs into a different position and move my arms so they’d hurt less. I admired the soldiers who stood guard at Buckingham Palace or the Élysée. I also envied them for their spacious sentry boxes. From time to time I heard a sound, but I couldn’t tell if it was coming from the banking hall or the street, if a chair had banged against a desk or a car had rear-ended another or a plank had fallen off some scaffolding. Most of the time I heard only the rustling of my blood in my ears and a low, delicate piping noise that didn’t come from outside but was also in my ears. I decided that at eight I would climb out of the closet, open the kitchen door, and see if I could hear anything in the banking hall.

But at quarter to eight it was all over. I again heard a sound. While I was still trying to figure out where it was coming from and what it might mean, the kitchen door was abruptly opened. For a moment there was silence. The man who had entered stood still, as if he were running his eyes over the sink, the stove, the refrigerator, the table and chairs, the cabinets above the sink, and the broom closet next to the stove. Then he quickly strode toward the closet and tore open the door.

I was blinded by the light and could see only that someone was standing in front of me. I shut my eyes tightly, opened them wide, and blinked. Then I recognized him. Ulbrich was standing in front of me.

Karl-Heinz Ulbrich, in a dark suit and vest, a pink shirt and red tie, and silver-rimmed spectacles, over which he looked at me with eyes that were doing their best to seem resolute and menacing. “Herr Self.”

I laughed. I laughed, because the tension of the last minute and from having stood for so long was dissolving. I laughed at Ulbrich’s getup, and at the glare. I laughed at being caught in the broom closet as if I were the lover of the Sorbian bank and Ulbrich her jealous husband.

“Herr Self.” He didn’t sound resolute and menacing. How could I have forgotten what a sensitive little fellow Ulbrich was? I tried to cap off my laughing in such a way that he might interpret it as me laughing with him, not at him. But it was too late, and he looked at me as if I had hurt his feelings again.

“Herr Self, I wouldn’t be laughing if I were you. You have entered these premises illegally.”

I nodded. “Yes, Herr Ulbrich. It’s me. How did you find me?”

“I saw your car parked on a side street. Where else would you be, if not here?”

“Who’d have thought that someone in Cottbus would recognize my car! But perhaps I ought to have figured out that Welker would send you here as his new bank manager.”

“Are you hinting that… are you hinting that I… Herr Self, your insinuation that I might have blackmailed Herr Welker is an outrage! I protest most vigorously! Director Welker saw my merits, something you cannot claim to have done, and was delighted to put them to good use! Mark my words, he was delighted!”

I got out of the closet, my numb legs knocking over detergent bottles, buckets, and mops. Ulbrich looked at me reproachfully. Why was it that with him I always ended up sooner or later having a bad conscience? I wasn’t his father; I could not have let him down as his father. I wasn’t his uncle, cousin, or brother, either.

“I understand,” I said to him. “You are not blackmailing him. He is delighted that you are working for him. I want to go now.”

“You have illegally-”

“You’ve said that already. Welker doesn’t want any fuss in his bank. The police and I would amount to a considerable fuss. I imagine he doesn’t even want to know that I spent a few hours in his bank in the company of brooms and buckets. Forget my illegal entry. Forget it and let me go.”

He shook his head but then turned around and left the kitchen area. I followed him to the side entrance. He unlocked the door and let me out. I looked up and down the street and heard the door shut behind me and the key turn twice.

The side street was empty. I intended to head over to the old market square, but I went the wrong way and came to a wide street I didn’t know. Here, too, there was nobody about. It was a mild evening, perfect for a stroll, for sitting outside, for a chat over wine or beer, for flirting, but the people of Cottbus didn’t seem to be in the mood for any of this. I found a little Turkish restaurant with a table and two chairs out on the sidewalk. I ordered a beer and stuffed vine leaves and sat down.

Across the street two boys were messing around with their motorbikes, making the engines roar from time to time. After a while they sped off, riding around the block once, and then again and again. They finally pulled up across the street, their engines running, again making them roar from time to time, and after a while set off around the block once again. This went on and on. They looked like good kids, and what they were yelling to each other was harmless enough. Still, the roar of their bikes ripped violently through the air, like the sound of a dentist’s drill. Before you feel it in the tooth, you feel it in the brain.

“You’re not from these parts,” the owner of the restaurant said, putting the plate, glass, and bottle down in front of me.

I nodded. “How’s life here?”

“You can hear for yourself. Never a dull moment.”

Before I could ask him any further questions he went inside. There was no knife or fork, so I ate the stuffed vine leaves with my fingers. Then I poured myself a glass.

I didn’t think Ulbrich was blackmailing Welker. It was more likely that after I’d warned Welker he had given Ulbrich a call, invited him over, and then hired him. It wasn’t hard to see that Ulbrich valued a good position far more than anything he might be able to gain through blackmail.

Did Welker not care that a clueless Karl-Heinz Ulbrich was taking over from the very efficient Vera Soboda? Was that what Welker wanted? Did she know too much about what was going on? But how could he know how much she knew? Had the tracking device recorded her escapades in the system? If he knew this and had intentionally replaced her with the clueless Ulbrich so he could continue laundering money, then what did this tell me about Schuler’s death?