Guilt by Ferdinand von Schirach Read Free Book Online Page A

and became viscous. Later he would remember every image, the butter floating in ice water, the colorful yogurt cartons, the red napkins and the slices of sausages on the white hotel plates. Paulsberg thought the other man looked like one of those blind amphibians he’d seen as a child in caves in Yugoslavia. He’d caught one once back then, and carried it all the way back to the hotel, wanting to show his mother. When he opened his hand, it was dead. The other man’s head was shaved bald; watery eyes, thin eyebrows, thick lips, almost blue. The lips had kissed his wife. The other man’s tongue moved in slow motion, pushing against the inner surface of his front teeth as he said his name. Paulsberg saw the colorless threads of spittle, the pores on his tongue, the long thin hairs in his nostrils, the larynx pressing hard against the reddened skin from the inside. Paulsberg didn’t understand what the other man was saying. He saw the girl in the blue-and-white bathing suit from the picture in the hotel; she turned around towards him, smiled, then pointed to the thin man kneeling over his wife. Paulsberg felt his heartbeat stop; he imaginedhimself falling over, dragging the tablecloth down with him. He saw himself lying dead between the sliced oranges, the white sausages, and the cream cheese. But he didn’t fall. It was only a moment. He nodded at the other man.

    There were all the usual speeches at the association meeting. They looked at presentations, and there was filter coffee out of silver vacuum jugs. After a few hours nobody was listening any more. It was nothing special.
    That afternoon the other man came to his room. They drank the beer he’d brought with him. He also had some cocaine and offered Paulsberg a line; he tipped the powder onto the glass table and inhaled it through a rolled-up banknote. When he went to the bathroom to wash his hands, Paulsberg followed him. The other man was standing at the basin, bent over to wash his face. Paulsberg saw his ears and the yellowed edge of his white shirt collar.
    He couldn’t help himself.
    Now Paulsberg was sitting on the bed. The hotel room was like a thousand others he had slept in. Two slabs of chocolate in the brown minibar, vacuum-packed peanuts, yellow plastic bottle opener. A smell of disinfectant, liquid soap in the bathroom, the sign on the tiles saying please support the environment by reusing your towels.
    He closed his eyes and thought about the horse. He hadwalked across the bridge that morning and then to the stone steps leading to the water meadows by the Rhine in the early mist that was rising from the river. And suddenly there it was, right in front of him, steam coming off its coat, its nostrils soft and bright red.
    He would have to call her at some point. She would ask him when he was coming back. She would tell him about her day, the people in the office, the cleaning lady who banged around the garbage cans too noisily, and all the other things that made up her life. He would say nothing about the other man. And then they would hang up and try to go on with their lives.
    Paulsberg heard the other man in the bathroom, groaning. He threw the cigarette into a half-full glass of water, took his traveling bag, and left the room. When he was paying his bill at reception, he said it would be a good idea for the room to be made up quickly. The girl behind the counter looked at him, but he didn’t say anything else.
    They found the other man twenty minutes later. He survived.

    Paulsberg had done it with the ashtray in the bathroom.
    It was a 1970s piece, thick and heavy, made of dark smoked glass. The medical examiner later categorized it as blunt-force trauma; the edges of the wounds could not be clearly distinguished. The ashtray was identified as the weapon.
    Paulsberg had seen the holes in the other man’s head as the blood poured out of them, brighter than he had expected.He’s not dying, he thought as he kept hitting the skull. He’s