Guilt by Ferdinand von Schirach Read Free Book Online Page B

bleeding but he’s not dying.
    Paulsberg finally jammed the other man in between the bathtub and the toilet and laid him facedown on the toilet lid. He’d wanted to hit him one last time, and raised his arm to strike. The other man’s hair had clumped together; it looked stiff with blood, black wires like pencils on the pale skin of his head. Suddenly Paulsberg found himself thinking about his wife, and the way they’d said goodbye for the first time, in January ten years ago; the sky was made of ice and they’d stood on the road outside the airport, freezing. He thought of her thin shoes in the slush, and of her blue coat with the big buttons, and the way she’d turned up the collar, holding the lapels together with one hand. She’d laughed; she was lonely and beautiful and wounded. After she’d got into the taxi, he’d known she belonged to him.
    Paulsberg set the ashtray down on the floor. The officers found it later among the red smears on the tiles. The other man had groaned quietly again as he left. Paulsberg no longer wanted to kill him.

    The trial began five months later. Paulsberg was accused of attempted murder. According to the prosecutor, he’d tried to kill the man from behind. The indictment stated that cocaine was at issue. The prosecutor couldn’t have known better.
    Paulsberg gave no reason for his act and said nothing about the other man. “Call my wife” were his only words to thepoliceman after his arrest. Nothing more. The judges were looking for a motive. Nobody simply batters another man in his hotel room. The prosecutor had been unable to find any connection between the men. The psychiatrist said Paulsberg was “absolutely normal”; no drugs were found in his system and nobody believed he’d tried to kill out of sheer bloodlust.
    The only person who could have provided the information was the other man. But he kept silent too. The judges couldn’t force him to testify. The police had found cocaine in his pocket and on the glass table; preliminary proceedings had been initiated against him, and this allowed him to remain silent—he could have incriminated himself by making any statement.
    Of course judges do not have to know the motives of a defendant in order to be able to sentence him. But they want to know why people do what they do. And only when they understand can they punish the defendant in a way that is commensurate with his guilt. If that understanding is lacking, the sentence will almost always be longer. The judges didn’t know that Paulsberg wished to protect his wife. She was a lawyer; he had committed a crime. Her office had not yet fired her: no one can do anything about an insane husband. But the partners in the law firm would not be able to accept the truth about all the unknown men, and so she would have been unable to continue in her job. Paulsberg left the decision up to his wife. She was to do what she thought was right.
    ——
    She appeared as a witness without legal counsel. She seemed fragile, too delicately spun a creature to belong with Paulsberg. The presiding judge instructed her that she had the right to remain silent. Nobody believed anything new was going to come out now in this trial. But then she started to speak and it all changed.
    In almost every jury trial there is this one moment when everything suddenly becomes clear. I thought she was going to talk about the unknown men. But she told a different story. She spoke for forty-five minutes without interruption, she was clear, explicit, and did not contradict herself. She said she had had an affair with the other man and Paulsberg had found out. He had wanted to separate; he was crazed with jealousy. The guilt was hers, not his. She said her husband had found the film she and her lover had made. She handed the bailiff a DVD. Paulsberg and she had often made similar films. This one came from the encounter with the other man. The video camera had been on a tripod next to the bed. The public was asked