Bernhard Schlink - Self's Punishment

‘Murder?’

‘Could I have bribed him? The risk was too high. And don’t tell me that no risk is too high when it’s about saving a life. It’s not true. Think of road deaths, accidents in the workplace, police who shoot to kill. Think of the fight against terrorism: the police have shot as many people by accident as the terrorists have intentionally – is that a reason to give up?’

‘And Dohmke?’ I suddenly felt empty inside. I could see us standing there, talking, as though a film were running without a soundtrack. Beneath the grey clouds, a craggy coastline, a mist of dirty spray, a narrow path and the fields beyond, and two older men in heated discussion – hands gesticulating, mouths moving – but the scene is mute. I wished I wasn’t there.

‘Dohmke? Actually I don’t have to comment on that. The years between nineteen thirty-three and nineteen forty-five are supposed to remain a blank – that’s the foundation on which our state is built. Fine, we had to – still have to – produce some theatre with trials and verdicts. But in nineteen forty-five there was no Night of the Long Knives, and that would have been the only chance of retribution. Then the foundation was set. You’re not satisfied? Okay then, Dohmke couldn’t be trusted; he was unpredictable, a talented chemist maybe, but an amateur in everything else. He wouldn’t have lasted two minutes at the front.’

We walked on. He hadn’t needed to link arms with me again; when he continued I’d stuck by his side.

‘Fate may talk that way, Ferdinand, but not you. Steamships that set a course, solid foundations, entanglements in which we’re all mere puppets – you can tell me all about the powers and forces in life but none of it alters the fact that you, Ferdinand Korten, and only you-’

‘Fate?’ Now he was furious. ‘We are our own fate, and I don’t offload anything on powers and forces. You’re the one who never sees things through to the end, nor leaves them well and truly alone. Get Dohmke and Mischkey in a mess, yes, but when what inevitably happens next does, you find your scruples and you don’t want to have seen it or done it. My God, Gerd, grow up at last.’

He stumped on. The path had narrowed and I walked behind him, cliffs to the left, a wall to the right. Beyond it, the fields.

‘Why did you come?’ He turned round. ‘To see whether I’d kill you, too? Push you over?’ Fifty metres below the sea seethed. He laughed, as though it were a joke. Then he read it in my eyes before I said the words.

‘I’ve come to kill you.’

‘To bring them back to life?’ he mocked. ‘Because you… because the perpetrator wants to play judge? Do you feel innocent and exploited? What would you have been without me, without my sister and my parents, before nineteen fortyfive, and all my help afterwards? Jump yourself if you can’t deal with it.’

His voice cracked. I stared at him. Then that grin came to his face, the one I’d known, and liked, since we were young. It had charmed me into shared escapades and out of fatal situations, understanding, winning, superior.

‘Hey, Gerd, this is crazy. Two old friends like you and me

… Come on, let’s have breakfast. I can smell the coffee already.’ He whistled to the dogs.

‘No, Ferdinand.’

He looked at me with an expression of utter incredulity as I shoved against his chest with both hands. He lost his balance and plummeted down, his coat billowing. I didn’t hear a cry. He thudded against a rock before the sea took him with it.

The dogs followed me to the car and frolicked alongside, yapping, until I turned off the field-track, onto the road. My whole body was trembling and yet I felt lighter than I had in a long time. On the road a tractor came towards me. The farmer stared at me. Had he been high enough to see me as I pushed Korten to his death? I hadn’t even thought about witnesses. I looked back; another tractor was ploughing its furrows in a field and two children were out on bikes. I drove west. At Point-du-Raz I considered staying – an anonymous Christmas abroad. But I couldn’t find a hotel, and the cliff line looked just like Trefeuntec. I was going home. At Quimper I came to a police roadblock. I could tell myself a thousand times that it was an unlikely spot to be searching for Korten’s murderer, but I was scared as I waited in the queue for the police to wave me on.

In Paris I made the eleven o’clock night train. It was empty and I had no trouble getting a sleeping car. On Christmas Day towards eight o’clock I was back in my apartment. Turbo greeted me sulkily. Frau Weiland had laid my Christmas mail on the desk. Along with all the commercial Christmas greetings I found a Christmas card from Vera Müller, an invitation from Korten to spend New Year’s Eve with him and Helga in Brittany, and from Brigitte a package from Rio with an Indian tunic. I took it as a nightshirt, and went to bed. At half past eleven the telephone rang.

‘Merry Christmas, Gerd. Where are you hiding?’

‘Brigitte! Merry Christmas.’ I was happy, but I could hardly see for weariness and exhaustion.

‘You grouch, aren’t you pleased? I’m back.’

I made an effort. ‘You’re kidding. That’s really great. Since when?’

‘I arrived yesterday morning and I’ve been trying to reach you ever since. Where have you been hiding?’ There was reproach in her voice.

‘I didn’t want to be here on Christmas Eve. I felt very claustrophobic.’

‘Would you like to eat Tafelspitz with us? It’s already on the stove.’

‘Yes… who else is coming?’

‘I’ve brought Manu with me. I can’t wait to see you.’ She blew a kiss down the telephone.

‘Me too.’ I returned the kiss.

I lay in bed, and felt my way back to the present. To my world in which fate doesn’t control steamships or puppets, where no foundations are laid and no history gets made.

The Christmas edition of the Süddeutsche lay on the bed. It gave an annual balance sheet of toxic incidents in the chemical industry. I soon laid the paper aside.

The world wasn’t a better place for Korten’s death. What had I done? Come to terms with my past? Wiped my hands of it?

I arrived far too late for lunch.

Christmas Day brought no news of Korten’s death, nor did the next. Sometimes I was fearful. Whenever the doorbell rang, I was frightened and assumed the police had arrived to storm the apartment. When I was relaxing happily in Brigitte’s arms, alive with her sweet kisses, occasionally I wondered anxiously if this might be our last time together. At times I imagined the scene with Herzog, telling him everything. Or would I prefer to give my statement in front of Nägelsbach?

Most of the time I was easy in myself, fatalistic, and enjoyed the last days of the year, including coffee and plum-with-flourybutter-crumble-cake at the younger Schmalzes’. I liked little Manuel. He tried valiantly to speak German, accepted my morning presence in the bathroom without jealousy, and hoped staunchly for snow. To begin with the three of us went on our expeditions together, visiting the fairytale park on Königstuhl and the planetarium. Then he and I set out on our own. He liked going to the cinema as much as I did. When we came out of Witness we both had to fight back tears. In Splash he didn’t understand why the mermaid loved the guy although he was so mean to her – I didn’t tell him that’s always the way. In the Kleiner Rosengarten he figured out the game Giovanni and I played, and played along. There was no teaching him a sensible German sentence after that. On the way back from ice skating he took my hand and said, ‘You always with us when I come back?’