Self's deception Read online

  The receptionist didn't come back alone.

  “I am Dr. Wendt. Who are you, and what is she to you?” He held Leo's picture in his hand and looked at me coldly.

  I handed him my card and told him of my search.

  “I am sorry, Herr Self, but we can only provide patient information to authorized individuals.”

  “So she is—”

  “That is all I am prepared to say. Who was it who commissioned you to undertake this search?”

  I had brought along Salger's letter and handed it to him. Wendt read it with a frown. He didn't look up, although he most certainly had finished reading it. Finally he got a grip on himself. “Please follow me.”

  A few doors down he showed me into a conference room with a round table. This room also faced the park. The workers had not finished renovating here. The old frames and glass had been removed from the windows, which were now sealed with a temporary transparent plastic sheet. A fine layer of white dust covered the table, shelves, and filing cabinets.

  “Yes, Frau Salger was a patient here. She came about three months ago. Somebody brought her here; he had picked her up…hitchhiking. We have no idea what happened before or during that car ride. The man just told us he'd picked her up and taken her along.” The doctor fell silent and looked pensive. He was still young, wore corduroys and a checked shirt beneath his open white gown, and looked athletic. He had a healthy complexion and his hair was artfully tousled. His eyes were too close-set.

  I waited. “You were saying, Dr. Wendt?”

  “As they were driving, she had begun to cry and simply wouldn't stop. That went on for over an hour. The man didn't know what to do, and finally decided to bring her to us. Here she continued crying till we gave her a Valium injection and she fell asleep.” Again he stared pensively.

  “And what then?”

  “Well, what do you think? I initiated her therapy.”

  “No, I mean where is Leonore Salger now? How come you didn't contact anyone?”

  Again he took his time. “We didn't have…well, it's only now that I find out from you what her real name is. If our receptionist”—he waved his hand in the direction of room 107—”hadn't happened to deal with her a couple of times…she doesn't usually get to see our patients at all. And then you come with a passport photo …” He shook his head.

  “Did you notify the police?”

  “The police?” He fished a crumpled pack of Roth-Händle cigarettes out of the pocket of his pants and offered me one. I preferred to smoke my own, and took out my pack of Sweet Aftons. Wendt shook his head again. “No, I don't like the idea of having the police here at our hospital, and in this case having her questioned by the police would have been utterly inappropriate from a therapeutic standpoint. And then she got better soon enough. She was here voluntarily and was free to leave any time she wanted. It's not like she was a minor.”

  “Where is she now?”

  He cleared his throat a couple of times. “I should inform you…I have to…um…Frau Salger is dead. She …” He avoided my eyes. “I am not exactly sure what happened. A tragic accident. Please extend my sincerest condolences to her father.”

  “But Dr. Wendt, I can't just call her father and tell him that his daughter died in some tragic accident.”

  “True…true. Well, as you see”—he pointed at the window—”we're installing new windows. Last Tuesday, she…On the fourth floor we have these large windows along the hallway from the floor to the ceiling, and she fell though the plastic cover down into the courtyard. She died instantly.”

  “So if I hadn't happened to come to see you now you'd have authorized her burial without informing her parents? What kind of a crazy story is this, Dr. Wendt?”

  “Of course her parents have been informed. I'm not certain of the exact procedure our office followed, but her parents were most definitely informed.”

  “How could your office have informed them if you only found out her name from me?”

  He shrugged his shoulders.

  “And what about the burial?”

  He stared at his hands as if they could tell him where Leo was to be buried. “I suppose that is waiting on the parents' response.” He got up. “I've got to go back to my station. You can't imagine the commotion this has created: Her fall, the ambulance sirens, our patients have been very shaken up. May I show you out?”

  I tried to take leave outside room 107 but he pulled me away. “No, our offices are now closed. Let me say how pleased I am that you came. I would be grateful if you would speak to her father at your earliest convenience. That was a point you had there—perhaps our office didn't manage to reach her parents.” We stood by the main entrance. “Goodbye, Herr Self.”

  7

  Scratch a Swabian and you'll find a small Hegel

  I didn't drive far. I stopped at the pond by Sankt Ilgen, got out of the car, and walked over to the water. I threw a couple of stones, trying to make them skip over the water. Even as a boy on Lake Wannsee I'd never got the knack. It's too late to learn now.

  All the same, I wasn't about to let some young kid in a white gown pull the wool over my eyes. Wendt's story stunk. Why hadn't the police been called in? A woman who's been in a psychiatric hospital for three months falls out of an unsecured fourth-floor window, and it doesn't cross anybody's mind that negligent homicide or worse might be at play and that the police should be called? OK, Wendt hadn't exactly said that the police hadn't come and investigated. But he'd only mentioned ambulances, no police cars. And if the police had been brought in on Tuesday, Salger would have been informed by Thursday at the latest, regardless of what name Leo might have registered under. The police wouldn't have taken long to figure out that Frau so-and-so didn't exist but that Leonore Salger was missing, and that consequently Frau so-and-so was none other than Leonore Salger. And if Herr Salger had been contacted on Thursday, he'd surely have called me by now.

  I had lunch in Sandhausen. It's no culinary Mecca. After lunch I got into my old Opel, which I'd parked on the market square in the sun, and the heat inside was stifling. Summer was just around the corner.

  At half past two I was back at the hospital. It was cat-and-mouse. The receptionist in room 107—a different receptionist from the one in the morning—had Dr. Wendt paged but couldn't find him. Finally she showed me the way to his station through long, high-ceilinged corridors in which footsteps echoed. The nurse was sorry, but Dr. Wendt was definitely not to be disturbed. And I'd have to wait in the reception area; waiting at the station was against regulations.

  Back in reception, I managed to barge all the way through to the office of Professor Eberlein, the director of the hospital, and explained to the secretary that Eberlein would doubtless rather see me than the police. By now I was fuming. The secretary looked at me uncomprehendingly. Could I please go to room 107?

  When I got back out into the corridor, a nearby door opened. “Herr Self? I am Professor Eberlein. I hear you are kicking up quite a fuss.”

  He was in his late fifties, small and fat, dragging his left foot and leaning on a cane with a silver knob. He studied me with deep-set eyes that peered out from beneath thinning black hair and bushy black eyebrows. His lachrymal glands and cheeks hung limply. In nasal Swabian he asked me to accompany him in his leisurely limping gait. As we walked, his cane tapped out a syncopated beat.

  “Every institution is an organism. It has its circulation, breathes, ingests and eliminates, has infections and infarctions, develops defense and healing mechanisms.” He laughed. “What kind of an infection are you?”

  We descended the stairs and went out into the park. The heat of the day had turned muggy. I didn't say anything. He, too, had only puffed and wheezed as he slowly negotiated the stairs.

  “Say something, Herr Self, say something! You'd rather listen? Audiatur et altera pars—You're on the side of justice. You are something like justice, aren't you?” He laughed again, a smug laugh.

  The flagstones came to an end and g
ravel crackled beneath our feet. The wind rustled through the trees of the park. There were benches along the paths and chairs on the lawn, and there were many patients outside, alone or in small groups, with or without white-gowned hospital staff. An idyll, except for the twitching, hopping gait of some of the patients, and the empty gazes and open mouths of others. It was noisy. Shouts and laughter echoed against the wall of the old building like the impenetrable confusion of voices in an indoor swimming pool. Eberlein periodically nodded to or greeted this or that person.

  I tried this approach: “Are there two sides to this matter, Dr. Eberlein? Either an accident or something else? And what might that something else be? Involuntary manslaughter? Or did somebody murder your patient? Or was it suicide? Are we dealing with a cover-up? I'd like some answers, but all my questions fall on deaf ears. And you come along and start talking about infections and infarctions. What are you trying to tell me?”

  “I see what you mean. Murder most foul, or at least suicide. You like dramatic effect? You like imagining things? We have a lot of people here who like imagining things.” He drew a wide arc with his cane.

  That was impudent. I didn't quite manage to swallow my anger. “Only patients, or doctors, too? But you're quite right: When the tales I'm being told have holes in them, I start imagining what might fit into these holes. The story your young colleague fed me had neither rhyme nor reason. What do you, as director of this institution, have to say about a young patient falling out a window?”

  “I'm no longer a young man, and wouldn't be one even if I still had my left leg. And you”—he looked me up and down with an affable expression—”aren't either. Were you ever married? Marriage is also a kind of organism where bacteria and viruses work, and sick cells grow and proliferate. 'Lay a brick, lay a brick, and your house will be built,' as we Swabians say, and let me tell you, bacteria and viruses are real Swabians.” Again the smug laugh.

  I thought about my marriage. Klärchen had died thirteen years ago, and my grief about our marriage long before that. Eberlein's image left me cold.

  “So what's festering inside the organism of this psychiatric hospital?” I asked.

  Eberlein stopped in his tracks. “It was a pleasure to meet you. Look me up whenever you have any questions. I've got into the habit of philosophizing a little. Scratch a Swabian and you'll find a small Hegel. You're a man of action, with clear sight and sober reasoning, but at your age you should be careful about your circulation in this weather.”

  He left without saying good-bye. I followed him with my eyes. His walk, his tense shoulders, the short jolting of his whole body as he swung his left leg forward around its axis, the hard thumping of the cane with the silver knob—there was nothing soft or limp about this man. He was a bundle of strength. If he was out to confuse me, he had done so.

  8

  Davai, Davai

  The first drops fell, and the park emptied. The patients ran to the buildings. The loud chirping of agitated birds hung in the air. I took refuge under an old, half-open bike shelter, between slanting rusty racks that had not seen a bicycle for a long time. There were lightning and thunder, and the pelting rain hammered on the corrugated iron roof. I heard a blackbird sing, leaned forward to catch a glimpse of the bird, and pulled my head back completely wet. The bird was sitting under the regimental coat of arms up in the corner of the old building. The first blackbird of summer. Then I saw two figures coming slowly toward me through the pouring rain. An attendant in a white gown was calmly talking to a patient in an oversized gray suit and gently pushing him along. The attendant was holding the patient's hand behind his back in a police grip that wasn't painful, but could quickly force one into submission. As they approached, I could understand the attendant's words, appeasing nonsense, along with an occasional sharp, “Davai, Davai!” Both men's clothes were sticking to their bodies.

  Even as they were standing next to me under the corrugated roof the attendant didn't let go of his patient. He nodded to me. “New here? Administration?” He didn't wait for my reply. “You guys up there have it easy while we here have to do all the dirty work. Nothing personal, I don't even know you.” He was broad and heavy and towered over me. He had a massive, rough nose. The patient was shivering and looking out into the rain. His mouth formed words I didn't understand.

  “Is your patient dangerous?”

  “You mean because I've got a tight grip on him? Don't worry. What do you do up there?”

  There was a flash of lightning. The rain was still streaming down, drumming on the corrugated roof and splashing up from the gravel onto our legs. Rivulets poured over the shelter's concrete floor, and a smell of wet dust hung in the air.

  “I'm from outside. I'm looking into the accident of that female patient last Tuesday.”

  “You're from the police?”

  The thunder came roaring over us. I flinched, which the attendant might well have taken for a nod, and me for a policeman.

  “What accident?”

  “Over in the old building—a fatal fall from the fourth floor.”

  The attendant looked at me blankly. “What are you talking about? That's the first I've heard about a fall last Tuesday. And when I don't know a thing, it never happened. Who's supposed to have fallen?”

  I handed him Leo's picture.

  “That girl? Who told you such bullshit?”

  “Dr. Wendt.”

  He gave me back the picture. “In that case, I didn't say anything. If Dr. Wendt… if the director's golden boy said so”—he shrugged his shoulders—”then I guess we had an accident. A fatal fall from the fourth floor of the old building.”

  I put off acknowledging what the attendant had retracted. “And your patient here?”

  “He's one of our Russians. He gets into a crazy mood now and then. But he needs his fresh air, too, and I've got a good grip on him. Right, Ivan?”

  The patient became agitated. “Anatol, Anatol, Anatol…” He was shouting the name. The attendant tightened his grip and the shouting stopped. “There, there, calm down, Ivan, nothing will happen to you, it's just thunder and lightning, there, there, what will this nice policeman think?” He spoke in the kind of crooning voice with which one reassures children.

  I took my pack of Sweet Aftons out of my pocket and the attendant took one. I offered the patient one, too. “Anatol?” He cringed, looked at me, clicked his heels together, bowed, and, turning his head away, fished a cigarette out of the pack.

  “Is his name Anatol?”

  “How am I supposed to know? You can't get anything out of these guys.”

  “And who are 'these guys'?”

  “We've got all kinds here. They're left over from the war. They were workers in the Third Reich, or foreign volunteer helpers, or fought for some Russian general. Then we've got those from the concentration camps, both inmates and guards. When they're crazy, they're all the same.”

  The rain grew weaker. A young attendant, his coat billowing, ran past us, jumping over puddles. “Hey, hurry up,” he called. “It's almost time to clock out.”

  “I guess we ought to go.” The attendant next to me let his cigarette fall, and it went out on the wet ground. “Come on, Ivan. Time to grab some grub.”

  The patient had also let his cigarette fall, trod it out, and with his foot carefully buried it in the gravel. Again he clicked his heels together and bowed. I watched the two men slowly make their way to the new building at the other end of the park. The thunder rumbled in the distance, and the rain rustled with gentle monotony. Figures appeared in the doors, and from time to time a doctor or attendant with an umbrella crossed the park with quick steps. The blackbird was still singing.

  I remembered the senior public prosecutor's note that had crossed my desk in 1943 or 1944 at the Heidelberg Public Prosecutor's Office, which had decreed that any Russian or Polish workers not meeting their quotas were to be sent to forced labor in a concentration camp. How many had I sent? I stared into the rain. I shuddered. The air
after the storm was clear and fresh. After a while I only heard the drops falling from the leaves of the trees. The rain had passed. The sky split open in the west, and pearls of water sparkled in the sun.

  I returned to the main building, crossed the stairwell, passed the main entrance, and went out through the columns of the portal. It was five o'clock, change of shift, and employees were streaming out. I waited, keeping a lookout for Wendt, but he didn't appear. The attendant from before was one of the last to come out, and I asked him if he wanted me to drop him off somewhere. In the car on our way to Kirch-heim he reiterated that he hadn't said anything.

  9

  It was only later

  It was only later that the shock of Leo's death kicked in, and then, even later, relief that the information could not be right. If the attendant didn't know something, it never happened. I believed him. Also Eberlein would have reacted differently had the fatal fall from the window really taken place. Was he merely trying to provoke me in order to probe me? Be that as it may, in our exchange he'd found out more about me than I had found out about him. I was angry that I hadn't realized this, too, until later.

  When I got back home I called Philipp. Sometimes it's a small world—perhaps Philipp, as a surgeon at the Mannheim Municipal Hospital, might know something about the State Psychiatric Hospital and its doctors. He was on his way to a house call and promised to get back to me. But an hour later the doorbell rang and there he was. “I thought I'd better drop by. We don't see enough of each other.”

  We sat on the leather couches in my living room, which also served as my study, the door to the balcony open. I uncorked a bottle of wine and told Philipp about my investigation at the psychiatric hospital. “I can't make heads or tails of it. Wendt with his silly lies, sinister old Eberlein, and the attendant's hints about Wendt being the director's golden boy—do you see rhyme or reason in any of this?”