Bernhard Schlink - Self's Punishment

‘I’m grieved to hear that. Painful, taking leave of a friend. I’ve been there too. I remain grateful for your help with our little Richard. And one day my wife and I would like to have that coffee with you. Mum can come along, too. Any particular cake your favourite?’

‘My absolute favourite is sweet damson shortcake.’ I didn’t say it to be mean. It really is my favourite cake.

Schmalz handled it well. ‘Ah, plum with floury-butter crumble. My wife can bake it like no other woman. Coffee maybe in the quiet lull between the impending holiday and New Year?’

I said yes. We’d telephone regarding the exact date.

The evening with Philipp and Eberhard was one of melancholic gaiety. We remembered our last Doppelkopf evening with Willy. We’d joked then about what would come of our games circle if one of us were to die. ‘No,’ said Eberhard, ‘we’re not going to look for someone new to make up the four. From now on it’s Skat.’

‘And then chess, and the last one will meet himself twice a year to play solitaire,’ said Philipp.

‘It’s all very well for you to laugh, you’re the youngest.’

‘It’s nothing to laugh about. Solitaire? I’d rather be dead.’

Ever since I moved from Berlin to Heidelberg I’ve been buying my Christmas trees at the Tiefburg in Handschuhsheim. It’s been a long time since they were any different from those elsewhere. But I like the small square in front of the ruined castle with its moat. The tram used to turn around here on squealing tracks; this was the end of the line and Klärchen and I often set off on our walks on the Heiligenberg from here. These days Handschuhsheim has turned trendy and everyone who thinks of themselves as having a modicum of cultural and intellectual flair gathers at the weekly market. The day will come when the only authentic neighbourhoods are places like the suburban slums of the sixties.

I’m particularly fond of silver firs. But so far as my sardine cans went, I felt a Douglas spruce would be more appropriate. I found a beautiful, evenly grown, ceiling-height, bushy tree. Stretching from the right-hand corner on the passenger side to the back left-hand corner, it fitted in neatly over the reclined front seat and the folded-down back seat of my Opel. I found a space in the parking garage by the town hall. I’d made a little list for my Christmas shopping.

All hell was loose on the main street. I battled my way through to Welsch the jeweller and bought earrings for Babs. It’ll never happen, but I’d like to have a beer with Welsch one day. He has the same taste as me. For Röschen and Georg, from the selection at one of those all-pervading gift shops, I chose two of those disposable watches, currently modern among our postmodern youth, made of see-through plastic with a quartz movement and a heat-sealed face. Then I was exhausted. In Café Schafheutle I bumped into Thomas with his wife and three puberty-ridden daughters.

‘Isn’t a security man supposed to make a gift of sons to his Works?’

‘In the security field there’s an increasingly attractive range of jobs for women. For our course we’re estimating around thirty per cent female participants. Incidentally the conference of Ministers of Culture and Education is going to support us as a pilot project, and so the technical college has decided to establish a separate department for internal security. That means I can introduce myself today as the designated founding dean. I’m leaving the RCW on the first of January.’

I congratulated the right honourable dean on his office, the honour, the prestige, and the title. ‘What’s Danckelmann going to do without you?’

‘It will be difficult for him in the next few years until he retires. But I would like the department to provide consultation too, so he can buy advice from us. You’ll remember the curriculum you wanted to send me, Herr Self?’

Evidently Thomas already felt emancipated from RCW and was adapting to his new role. He invited me to join them at their table where the daughters were giggling and the mother was blinking nervously. I looked at my watch, excused myself, and dashed off to Café Scheu.

Then I embarked on round two of checking off my list. What do you give a virile man in his late fifties? A set of tiger-print underwear? Royal jelly? The erotic stories of Anaïs Nin? Finally I bought Philipp a cocktail shaker for his boat bar. Then revulsion for the Christmas din and commercialism swamped me. I was filled with immense discontent with the crowds and with myself. It would take me hours to shake it off at home. Why on earth had I launched myself into the Christmas mêlée? Why did I make the same mistake every year? Haven’t I learned anything in my life? What is the point of the whole thing?

The Opel smelled pleasantly of fir forest. When I’d fought my way through the traffic to the autobahn I heaved a sigh of relief. I shoved in a tape, fished out from way down the pile, as I’d heard the others too often on the journey to and from Locarno. But no music came.

A telephone was picked up, the dialling tone sounded, a number was dialled, and the recipient’s phone rang. He answered. It was Korten.

‘Hello, Herr Korten. Mischkey here. I’m warning you. If your people don’t leave me alone your past is going to explode around your ears. I won’t be pressured like this any longer, and I certainly won’t be beaten up again.’

‘I’d imagined you’d be more intelligent from Self’s report. First you break into our system and now you threaten blackmail. I have nothing to say.’ Actually Korten should have hung up that very second. But the second came and went, and Mischkey talked on.

‘The times are over, Herr Korten, where all it takes is an SS contact and an SS uniform to move people from here to there, to Switzerland and to the gallows.’ Mischkey hung up. I heard him take a deep gulp of air, then the click of the tape recorder. Music began. ‘And the race is on and it looks like heartache and the winner loses all.’

I turned off the player and pulled over to the hard shoulder. The tape from Mischkey’s Citroën. I had simply forgotten it.

I couldn’t sleep that night. At six o’clock I gave up and busied myself setting up and decorating my Christmas tree. I’d listened to Mischkey’s tape over and over. On Saturday I’d been in no state to think and order my thoughts.

I put the thirty empty sardine cans that I had accumulated into the sink of water. They shouldn’t still smell of fish on the Christmas tree. I looked at them, my elbows on the edge of the sink, as they sank to the bottom. The lids of some of them had been torn off as they were opened. I’d stick them back on.

Was it Korten, then, who’d made Weinstein discover the hidden documents in Tyberg’s desk and report him? I should have thought of it when Tyberg told us that only he, Dohmke, and Korten knew about the stash. No, Weinstein hadn’t come across them by accident as Tyberg supposed. They’d ordered him to find the documents in the desk. That was what Frau Hirsch had said. And perhaps Weinstein had never even seen the documents; the important thing was the statement, not the find.

When it started growing light outside I went out onto the balcony and fitted the Christmas tree to the stand. I had to saw and use the hatchet. Its top was too high. I trimmed it in such a way that the tip could be reattached to the trunk with a needle. Then I moved the tree to its place in the sitting room.

Why? Anything for one’s career? Yes. Korten couldn’t have made such a mark if Tyberg and Dohmke had still been around. Tyberg had spoken of the years following the trial as the basis for his ascendancy. And Tyberg’s liberation had been Korten’s reinsurance. It had certainly paid off. When Tyberg became general director of the RCW Korten was catapulted to dizzying heights.