Self's punishment by Bernhard Schlink Read Free Book Online

buffet was good. I’m amazed there’s anything left over. But seeing there is – could you pack a little something for a picnic tomorrow?’
    ‘How many in your party?’ She bobbed an ironic curtsy.
    ‘For two, if you have time.’
    ‘Oh, can’t do that. But I’ll have something packed for two nonetheless. Just a moment.’
    She disappeared through the swing-doors. When she returned she had with her a largish box. ‘You should have seen the face of our chef. I had to tell him that you’re peculiar but important.’ She giggled. ‘Because you’ve dined with the general director he took it on himself to add a bottle of Forster Bischofsgarten Spätlese.’
    When Frau Buchendorff saw me with the carton she raised an eyebrow.
    ‘I’ve packed the Chinese security expert. Didn’t you notice how petite and dainty she is? The delegation leader shouldn’t have let her go with me.’ In her presence all I could think of were stupid jokes. If this had happened to me thirty years ago I’d have been forced to admit I was in love. But what was I to make of it at an age where falling in love no longer happens?
    Frau Buchendorff drove an Alfa Romeo Spider, an old one without the ugly rear spoiler.
    ‘Should I put the roof up?’
    ‘I usually ride my motorbike in swimming trunks, even in winter.’ It was getting worse and worse. And on top of it, a misunderstanding – she was putting up the roof. All because I hadn’t dared say that I could think of nothing finer than to be on the road on a mellow summer night with a beautiful woman at the wheel of a cabriolet. ‘No, leave it, Frau Buchendorff, I like driving in a sports car with the top down on a mellow summer night.’
    We drove over the suspension bridge, below us the Rhine and the harbour. I looked up at the sky and the cables. It was a bright and clear starry night. When we turned off the bridge and before we were submerged in the streets, Mannheim with its towers, churches, and high-rises lay before us for a moment. We had to wait at a traffic light and a heavy motorbike drew up alongside. ‘Come on, let’s drive out to the Adriatic,’ shouted the girl on the back of the bike to her boyfriend. In the hot summer of 1946 I’d often been out at the gravel pit, its name, Adriatic, imbued with Mannheimers’ and Ludwighafeners’ yearning for the South. Back then my wife and I were still happy and I enjoyed our companionship, the peace, and the first cigarettes. So, people still went out there, more rapidly and easier these days, a quick dip in the water after the movies.
    We hadn’t spoken throughout the journey. Frau Buchendorff had driven fast, and with focus. Now she lit a cigarette.
    ‘The blue Adriatic,’ she mused ‘when I was small we sometimes drove out in our Opel Olympia. There was coffee substitute in the thermos flask, cold cutlets, and vanilla pudding in the preserving jar. My big brother was streetwise, a rocker, as they called it; on his moped he soon went his own way. Back then the notion of going for a quick dip in the night was just getting fashionable. It all seems so idyllic now, looking back – as a child I always suffered those outings.’
    We’d reached my house but I wanted to savour a little longer the nostalgia that had engulfed us both.
    ‘In what way suffered?’
    ‘My father wanted to teach me how to swim but had no patience. My God, the amount of water I swallowed.’
    I thanked her for the ride home. ‘It was a beautiful drive.’
    ‘Goodnight, Herr Self.’

11
    Terrible thing to happen
    A glorious Sunday saw the last of the good weather. At our picnic by the Feudenheim Locks my friend Eberhard and I ate and drank much too much. He had brought a miniature wooden crate with three bottles of a very decent Bordeaux, and then we made the mistake of downing the RCW Spätlese, as well.
    On Monday I woke up with a blazing headache. On top of that the rain had coaxed out the rheumatism in my back and hips. Perhaps that’s why I