The Quarry Read online

  THE QUARRY

  FRIEDRICH DUERRENMATT

  NEW YORK GRAPHIC SOCIETY GREENWICH, CONNECTICUT

  1962

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NO. 62-7252

  © NEW YORK GRAPHIC SOCIETY 1961

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. NO PART OF THIS BOOK MAY

  BE REPRODUCED IN ANY FORM WITHOUT PERMISSION IN

  WRITING FROM THE PUBLISHER, EXCEPT BY A REVIEWER

  WHO MAY QUOTE BRIEF PASSAGES IN A REVIEW TO BE PRINTED IN A MAGAZINE OR NEWSPAPER.

  FIRST PUBLISHED IN “ESQUIRE,” MAY, 1961

  FIRST PUBLISHED IN BOOK FORM 1962

  PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

  FIRST PART: THE QUARRY

  In the beginning of November, 1948, Commissioner Barlach had been committed to the Salem—the hospital from which one looks down on the old city of Bern and its town hall. A heart attack had delayed the urgent operation for two weeks. When the difficult task was finally undertaken, it was performed successfully, but the pathological report showed the hopeless disease the doctors had suspected. Things looked grim for the Commissioner. His boss, Dr. Lutz, had twice now expected his death, and had twice been given new hope, when, finally, shortly before Christmas, improvement set in. The old man slept through the holidays, but on the twenty-seventh, a Monday, he was awake and looking at old issues of Life magazine from the year 1945.

  “They were beasts, Samuel,” he said that evening, when Dr. Hungertobel entered the room to make his visit. “They were beasts,” and he handed him the magazine. “You as a doctor can fully comprehend it. Look at this picture from the Stutthof concentration camp! The camp doctor Nehle is performing a stomach operation on an inmate without anesthesia, and somebody photographed him.”

  “The Nazis did that sometimes,” said the doctor, and looked at the picture. He turned pale just as he was about to throw it aside.

  “What’s the matter?” the sick man asked, surprised.

  Hungertobel did not reply immediately. He dropped the open magazine on Barlach’s bed, reached in the right upper pocket of his white coat, and pulled out a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. The Commissioner noticed that his hands shook when he put them on. Then he looked at the picture a second time.

  Why is he so nervous? thought Barlach.

  “Nonsense!” Hungertobel finally said angrily, and put the magazine on the table with the others. “Come, let me have your hand. We want to check your pulse.”

  There was silence for a minute. Then the doctor let go of his friend’s arm and looked at the chart over the bed.

  “You’re doing fine, Hans.”

  “One more year?” Barlach asked.

  Hungertobel was embarrassed. “We won’t talk about that now,” he said. “You’ll have to be careful and come in for checkups.”

  “I’m always careful,” scoffed the old man.

  “That’s fine,” said Hungertobel, and bade him good-by.

  “Give me that Life," the sick man said, in a seemingly bored tone. Hungertobel gave him a magazine from the pile on the night table.

  “Not that one,” said the Commissioner, and looked scornfully at the doctor. “I want the one you took away from me. I’m not that easily diverted from a concentration camp.”

  Hungertobel hesitated for a moment, blushed when he saw Barlach’s inquisitive glance, and handed him the magazine. Then he left quickly, as if there was something that distressed him. A nurse entered. The Commissioner had the other magazines removed.

  “How about this one?” asked the nurse, and pointed to the magazine lying on Barlach’s blanket.

  “No, not this one,” said the old man. After the nurse had left, he scrutinized the picture again. The doctor who was conducting the ghastly experiment appeared in his calm like a terrible god. Most of his face was hidden under the surgical mask.

  The Commissioner carefully put the magazine into the drawer of the table and folded his arms behind his head. His eyes were wide open, and he watched the night which more and more filled the room. He did not turn on the light.

  Later the nurse came with food. It was still not much and still part of a diet—oatmeal soup. He did not touch the lime-blossom tea, which he loathed. After he had finished the soup, he turned out the lights and looked again into the darkness, into the impenetrable shadows.

  He loved to watch the lights of the city fall through the window.

  When the nurse came to prepare the Commissioner for the night, he was already asleep.

  Around ten o’clock in the morning, Hungertobel came.

  Barlach was lying in bed, hands behind his head, and on the blanket was the magazine—opened. His eyes searched the doctor. Hungertobel saw that it was the picture from the concentration camp the old man had in front of him.

  “Won’t you tell me why you turned pale as death when I showed you this picture in Life?” the sick man asked.

  Hungertobel stepped to the bed, took down the chart, studied it more carefully than usual, and hung it back in its place. “It was a ridiculous error, Hans,” he said, “not worth mentioning.”

  “Do you know this Doctor Nehle?” Barlach’s voice sounded strangely aroused.

  “No,” answered Hungertobel. “I don’t know him. He just reminded me of somebody.”

  “The resemblance must be great,” said the Commissioner.

  The doctor admitted that the resemblance was great, and again looked at the picture. And again he was upset, as Barlach could clearly observe. But the photograph only showed half the face. “All doctors look alike when they operate,” Hungertobel said.

  “Whom does that beast remind you of?” the old man insisted without pity.

  “But it doesn’t make sense,” answered Hungertobel.

  “I’ve already told you it must be a mistake.”

  “Nevertheless—you’d swear it was he, wouldn’t you, Samuel?”

  “Well, yes,” replied the doctor. He would swear to it were it not for the fact that it could not be the man he suspected. They were better off leaving well enough alone. It was not a particularly good idea to thumb through old Lifes right after an operation which had been a matter of life and death.

  “That doctor there,” he continued after a pause, looking at the picture again as if hypnotized, “could not be the one I knew, because the doctor I knew was in Chile during the war. So the whole thing is nonsense, anybody can see that.”

  “In Chile, in Chile,” said Barlach. “When did he return, this doctor of yours who could not possibly be Nehle?”

  “In forty-five.”

  “In Chile, in Chile,” Barlach repeated. “And you don’t want to tell me who this picture reminds you of?”

  Hungertobel hesitated. The whole affair was very painful to the old doctor.

  “If I tell you the name, Hans,” he finally volunteered, “you’ll become suspicious of the man.”

  “I am suspicious of him,” answered the Commissioner.

  Hungertobel sighed. “You see, Hans,” he said, “that’s what I was afraid of. I don’t want it, do you understand? I’m an old doctor and I don’t wish to harm anybody. Your suspicion is sheer insanity. You can’t just suspect somebody on account of a mere photograph, especially if it shows so little of his face. And besides, he was in Chile. That’s a fact.”

  “What was he doing there?” the Commissioner interrupted.

  “He directed a clinic in Santiago,” said Hungertobel.

  “In Chile, in Chile,” Barlach repeated again. “That’s a fascinating refrain and a difficult fact to check. You’re right, Samuel, suspicion is something terrible and comes from the devil. Nothing makes man as evil as suspicion,” he continued. “I know it, and I’ve often cursed my profession for it. A man shouldn’t ever have to think like th
at. But now I do have a suspicion, and you gave it to me. I’d like to give it back to you, old friend, if you were able to forget it yourself. But you’re the one who can’t shake it off.”

  Hungertobel sat down on the bed. Helplessly he looked at the Commissioner. The sun fell through the window. It was a beautiful day outside, as so often in this mild winter.

  “I cannot,” the doctor finally said into the silence of the sickroom. “I cannot. God help me, I cannot get rid of the suspicion. I know him too well. I studied with him, and twice he took over my practice for me. It’s him in the picture—even the scar above the temple from the operation is there. I know it, I operated on Emmenberger myself.”

  Hungertobel took off his glasses and put them in his right upper pocket. Then he wiped the perspiration off his forehead.

  “Emmenberger?” the Commissioner asked calmly after a while. “Is that his name?”

  “Now I’ve said it,” Hungertobel answered distressed. “Fritz Emmenberger.”

  “A medical doctor?”

  “A medical doctor.”

  “And he lives in Switzerland?”

  “He owns the clinic Sonnenstein on the Zurich mountain,” answered the doctor. “In thirty-two he emigrated to Germany and then to Chile. In forty-five he returned and took over the clinic. One of the most expensive clinics in Switzerland,” he added in a low voice.

  “Only for the rich?”

  “Only for the very rich.”

  “Is he a good scientist, Samuel?” asked the Commissioner.

  Hungertobel hesitated. Finally he said that it was difficult to answer that question. “At one time he was a good scientist, only we don’t really know whether he remained one. His methods appear questionable to us. As yet, we still know dishearteningly little about the hormones in which he specializes. All kinds of people are invading his field, as in any about to be conquered by science. Scientists and quacks—often combine in one person. But then, what do you want, Hans? Emmenberger is liked by his patients, and they believe in him as they do in God. To me, that seems the most important point for such wealthy clients who want even their illnesses to be a luxury. Nothing can be accomplished without faith—least of all when it involves hormones. So he has success, is loved, and makes money. After all, why else would we call him the ‘heir apparent’?”

  Hungertobel suddenly stopped talking, as if he regretted having uttered Emmenberger’s nickname.

  “The heir apparent. Why that nickname?” asked Barlach.

  “The clinic has inherited the fortunes of many patients,” answered Hungertobel, obviously plagued by a bad conscience. “Willing one’s estate to it seems to be the fashionable thing to do there.”

  “So you doctors noticed this?” said the Commissioner.

  The two did not speak. The silence bore something unspoken, of which Hungertobel was afraid.

  “You mustn’t think what you’re thinking,” he suddenly exclaimed, horrified.

  “I’m only thinking your thoughts,” answered the Commissioner calmly. “We want to be precise. What we’re thinking may be criminal—yet, we ought not to be so afraid of our thoughts. Only if we admit them to our consciousness can we test them and—if we’re wrong—overcome them. What are we thinking now, Samuel? We’re thinking that Emmenberger forces his patients to leave him their fortunes. He forces them by methods he learned in the Stutthof concentration camp. And later he kills them.”

  “No!” Hungertobel cried with feverish eyes. “No!” Helplessly he stared at Barlach. “We mustn’t think that! We’re not beasts!” he called again, and jumped up to pace around the room, from the wall to the window, from the window to the bed.

  “My God,” groaned the doctor. “This is one of the most terrible hours of my life.”

  “Suspicion,” said the old man in the bed, and then once more, mercilessly, “suspicion.”

  Hungertobel stopped at Barlach’s bed. “Let’s forget this talk, Hans,” he pleaded. “We went too far. Naturally, we all like to play around with possibilities at times. But it’s bad. Let’s drop Emmenberger. The more I see the photograph, the less it looks like him—honestly, I’m not making up an excuse. He was in Chile and not in Stutthof, and so our suspicion is senseless.”

  “In Chile, in Chile,” said Barlach, and his eyes sparkled greedily for a new adventure. He stretched his body, then he lay motionless and relaxed, hands behind his head.

  “You must go to your patients now, Samuel,” he said after a while. “They’re waiting for you. I don’t wish to detain you any longer. Let’s forget our talk. You’re right, it’s best this way.”

  When Hungertobel, on his way out, suspiciously turned toward the sick man, the Commissioner was already asleep.

  THE ALIBI

  The next morning at seven-thirty Hungertobel found the old man studying the City Gazette. He was surprised, for the doctor had come earlier than usual and Barlach was usually asleep again at this hour or at least dozing, his hands behind his head. Also, it seemed to the doctor that the Commissioner was friskier, and the old vitality seemed to gleam in his eyes.

  “How’re you doing?” Hungertobel greeted the sick man.

  He was sniffing the morning air, was the evasive answer.

  “I came earlier than usual, and I’m not really here officially,” said Hungertobel and stepped to the bed. “I’m just bringing a heap of medical journals. The Swiss Medical Weekly, a French one and, since you understand English, too, a number of issues of Lancet, the famous British medical journal.”

  “It’s ever so nice of you to assume I’m interested in this stuff,” answered Barlach, without looking up from the Gazette, “but I don’t know that it’s quite the proper literature for me. You know perfectly well I’m no friend of medicine.”

  Hungertobel laughed. “And that from somebody we’ve helped.”

  “Well,” said Barlach, “that doesn’t make it any less of a nuisance.”

  Hungertobel asked him what he was reading in the Gazette.

  “Advertisements for stamps,” answered the old man.

  The doctor shook his head. “Nevertheless, you’ll look at these journals, even though you generally won’t have anything to do with us doctors. I’m determined to prove that our talk yesterday was folly, Hans. You’re a criminologist and I feel you’re capable of having our fashionable doctor and all his hormones arrested out of a clear blue sky. I can’t understand how I could have forgotten it. It’s easy enough to prove that Emmenberger was in Santiago. He published articles from there in various medical journals, including British and American ones, mostly concerning questions of internal secretion, and made a name for himself. Even as a student he had distinguished himself as a writer with a witty and brilliant style. As you can see, he was a competent and conscientious scientist. His present leaning toward the fashionable, if I may call it that, is all the more regrettable; for what he’s doing now is distinctly questionable, any way you look at it. The last article appeared in Lancet in January of forty-five, a few months before his return to Switzerland. That’s certainly evidence that our suspicion was regular idiocy. I promise you solemnly never again to play criminologist. The man in the picture cannot be Emmenberger, or the photograph is forged.”

  “That would be an alibi,” said Barlach, and folded the newspaper. “You may leave those journals.”

  When Hungertobel returned around ten for his regular visit, the old man was lying in bed, diligently reading the journals.

  “Medicine does seem to interest you all of a sudden,” the doctor said, surprised, and checked Barlach’s pulse.

  The Commissioner said that Hungertobel was right. The articles did come from Chile.

  Hungertobel was happy and relieved.

  “You see! And we already had Emmenberger a mass murderer!”

  “Mankind has made the most astonishing advances in that art today,” Barlach answered dryly. “Progress, my friend, progress. I don’t need the English journals, but leave the Swiss ones here.”
r />   “But Emmenberger’s articles in Lancet are much more important,” contradicted Hungertobel, convinced that his friend really was interested in medicine. “They’re the ones you must read.”

  “But in the Swiss Medical Weekly Emmenberger writes in German,” Barlach retorted rather ironically.

  “And?” asked the doctor, who understood nothing.

  “I mean that I’m occupied with his style, Samuel, the style of a doctor who once wrote with elegance and now writes in a most awkward manner,” said the old man cautiously.

  And what did that indicate, asked Hungertobel, still unsuspecting, busy with the chart above the bed.

  “It’s not that easy to furnish an alibi,” said the Commissioner.

  “What are you driving at?” the doctor explained, thunderstruck. “You mean you still haven’t gotten over your suspicion?”

  Thoughtfully Barlach looked into the face of his dismayed friend—into this old, noble, wrinkled doctor’s face. He was a doctor who had never in his life taken his patients lightly, yet knew nothing about human beings. And then he said: “You’re still smoking your ‘Little Rose of Sumatra,’ Samuel, aren’t you? It would be nice if you offered me one. I imagine it would be very pleasant to light one after my boring oatmeal soup.”

  THE DISCHARGE

  But before lunch was served, the sick man, who had been reading Emmenberger’s article about the pancreas over and over, received his first visitor since the operation. It was the “boss,” who came in around eleven o’clock and nervously sat down by the bed, without taking off his overcoat, holding his hat in his hand. Barlach knew exactly the meaning of this visit, and the boss knew exactly how things were going for the Commissioner.

  “Well, Commissioner,” Lutz began, “how are you? For a while there we had to expect the worst.”

  “It’s coming along slowly,” answered Barlach, and clasped his hands behind his neck.

  “What are you reading?” Lutz asked. He disliked coming to the point of his visit and was looking for a diversion. “Well, what do you know, medical journals.”