Self's punishment (4 page)

8

Yes, well then

I washed down the chlorine taste with a glass of milk and tried to change the bandage. The telephone interrupted me.

‘Herr Self, was that you leaving the RCW with Herzog? Have the Works called you in for the investigation?’

Tietzke, one of the last honest journalists. When the
Heidelberger Tageblatt
folded, he’d got a job with the
Rhine
Neckar Chronicle
by the skin of his teeth, but his status there was tricky.

‘What investigation? Don’t get any wrong ideas, Tietzke. I had other business at the RCW and I’d be grateful for you not to have seen me there.’

‘You’ve got to tell me a little bit more if I’m not supposed simply to write what I saw.’

‘With the best will in the world I can’t talk about the job. But I can try to get you an exclusive interview with Firner. I’ll be calling him this afternoon.’

It took half the afternoon before I caught Firner between two conferences. He could neither confirm sabotage nor rule it out. Schneider, according to his wife, was in bed with an ear infection. So Firner, too, had been interested in why Schneider hadn’t come to work. He reluctantly agreed to receive Tietzke the next morning. Frau Buchendorff would get in touch with him.

Afterwards I tried calling Schneider. No one picked up, which could mean anything or nothing. I lay down on my bed. In spite of the pain in my arm I managed to fall asleep and woke up again in time for the news. It was reported that the chlorine gas cloud was rising in an easterly direction and that any danger, which had never really existed anyway, would be over in the course of the evening. The curfew, which had never really existed either, would be lifted at ten o’clock that night. I found a piece of gorgonzola in the fridge and used it to make a sauce for the tagliatelle I’d brought back from Rome two years ago. It was fun. It took a curfew to make me cook again.

I didn’t need a watch to know when ten o’clock came around. Out on the streets a din broke out as if a Mannheim football team had won the German championship. I put on my straw hat and walked to the Rose Garden. A band calling itself Just For Fun was playing golden oldies. The basins of the terraced fountains were empty, and the young folk were dancing in them. I fox-trotted a few steps – gravel and joints crunched.

The next morning in my letterbox I found a bulk mail delivery from the Rhineland Chemical Works that contained a perfectly worded statement on the incident. ‘RCW protects life,’ I discovered, also that a current focus of research was the conservation of the German woodlands. Yes, well then. The delivery included a small plastic cube with a healthy fir-seed suspended in it. How cute. I showed the object to my tomcat and put it on the mantelpiece above the fireplace.

Out on my stroll around the neighbourhood I picked up my week’s provision of Sweet Afton, bought a warm meatloaf sandwich, with mustard, from the butcher on the marketplace, visited my Turk with the good olives, watched the Green Party members at their info-stand on Parade-Platz fruitlessly trying to disturb the harmony between the RCW and the population of Mannheim and Ludwigshafen. Among the bystanders I noticed Officer Herzog being supplied with fliers.

In the afternoon I sat in Luisenpark. It costs something, just like Tivoli. So at the beginning of the year, for the first time, I’d acquired a year’s pass. I wanted to get my money’s worth out of it. When I wasn’t watching pensioners feeding the ducks I read Keller’s
Green Henry
. Frau Buchendorff ’s first name had led me to the Judith in the book.

At five o’clock I went home. Sewing a button onto my dinner jacket took me a good half-hour with my dodgy arm. I took a taxi from the Wasserturm to the RCW restaurant. There was a banner stretched over the entrance with Chinese characters on it. On three masts flew the flags of the People’s Republic of China, the Federal Republic of Germany, and the RCW, flapping in the wind. To the right and left of the entrance were two Rhineland maidens in folk costume, looking about as authentic as Barbie dolls dressed as Munich beer-maids. The procession of cars was in full swing. It all looked so upright and dignified.

9

Groping the décolleté of the economy

Schmalz was standing in the foyer.

‘How’s your little son doing?’

‘Good, thank you. I would like to talk and thank you later. I’m tied up now.’

I went up the stairs and through the open double-doors into the large reception room. People were clustered in small groups, the waitresses and waiters were serving champagne, orange juice, champagne with orange juice, Campari with orange juice, and Campari with soda. I ambled around a bit. It was like any other reception before the speeches were given and the buffet is opened. I sought familiar faces and found the red-haired girl with the freckles. We smiled at each other. Firner drew me into a circle and introduced me to three Chinese men whose names were made up of various combinations of San, Yin, and Kim, as well as Herr Oelmüller, head of the computer centre. Oelmüller was trying to explain computerized data protection in Germany to the Chinese. I don’t know what they found so funny about that but in any event they laughed like the Hollywood Chinese in a Pearl S. Buck adaptation.

Then came the speeches. Korten was brilliant. He covered everything from Confucius to Goethe, left out the Boxer Uprising and the Cultural Revolution, and touched on the former RCW branch in Tsingtao solely to weave in the compliment to the Chinese that the last head of branch there had learned a new process for the production of ultramarine from the Chinese.

The Chinese delegation leader replied no less elegantly. He recounted his university years in Karlsruhe, took his hat off to German culture and the economy, from Böll to Schleyer, spoke technical jargon I didn’t understand, and closed with Goethe’s ‘The Orient and Occident can no longer be divided’.

After the president of the Rhineland-Palatinate’s speech even a less superb buffet would have seemed exciting. For my first helping I chose the saffron oysters in a champagne sauce. Good thing that there were tables. I hate the stand-up receptions where you have to juggle cigarette, glass, and plate – really you should be spoon-fed at them. I spotted Frau Buchendorff at a table with a free chair. She was looking charming in her raw-silk, indigo-coloured suit. The buttons of her blouse were there in their entirety.

‘May I join you?’

‘You can get another chair, unless you plan on perching the Chinese security expert on your lap straight away?’

‘Tell me, did the Chinese pick up on the explosion?’

‘What explosion? No, seriously, they were up at Castle Eltz first thing yesterday, and then they tried out the new Mercedes on the Nürburg Ring. When they got back, everything was over. Today the press has really been going at it, mainly from the meteorological angle. How’s your arm? You’re something of a hero – that couldn’t get into the papers, of course, though it would have made a lovely story.’

The Chinese lady appeared. She had everything that German men who dream of Asian women could dream of. Whether she was in fact a security expert I wasn’t able to establish either. I asked whether there were private detectives in China.

‘No plivate plopethy, no plivate detectives,’ she answered, and asked whether there were also female private detectives in the Federal Republic of Germany. This led on to observations about the waning women’s movement. ‘I’ve lead almost evelything published in Gehmany in the way of women’s books. Why is it that men in Gehmany ahrite women’s books? A Chinese man would lose face.’

Fohtunate China.

A waiter brought me the invitation to Oelmüller’s table. On the way I selected a second course of sole roulades, Bremenstyle.

Oelmüller introduced me to the gentleman at his table, who impressed me with his skill in arranging his sparse hair over his head: Professor Ostenteich, head of the law department and honorary professor at Heidelberg University. No coincidence that these gentlemen were dining together. Well, back to work. Since my talk with Herzog, a question had been bothering me.

‘Could the gentlemen explain the new smog model to me? Herr Herzog of the police talked about it, said it is not entirely uncontroversial. What, for example, am I to understand by the direct recording of emissions?’

Ostenteich felt called upon to lead the discussion. ‘That is
un
peu délicat
, as the French would say. You should read the expert opinion by Professor Wenzel that most meticulously lays out the relevant distribution of powers, and unmasks the legislative hubris of Baden-Württemberg and the Rhineland-Palatinate.
Le pouvoir arrête le pouvoir
– the Federal law on Emissions Protection blocks any special paths the states might choose. Added to that is freedom of property, protection of entrepreneurial activity, and a company’s privacy. The legislature hoped to disregard that with a single stroke of the pen. But
la vérité est en marche
, the Federal Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe still exists,
heureusement
.’

‘And how does this new smog alarm model work?’ I looked at Oelmüller invitingly.

Ostenteich didn’t relinquish his lead quite so easily. ‘It’s good that you enquire about the technical side of things, too, Herr Self. Herr Oelmüller can explain all that to you in a minute. The crux,
l’essence
, of our problem is: the state and the economy only have a mutually beneficial arrangement if a certain distance prevails between the two. And, please allow me this rather bold metaphor: here the state has overstepped itself and groped the décolleté of the economy.’ He roared with laughter, and Oelmüller dutifully joined in.

When quiet had again descended, or, as the French would say,
silence
, Oelmüller said, ‘Technically the whole thing isn’t a problem at all. The basic process of environmental protection is the examination of the vehicles of emissions – water, or air – to check the concentration of harmful substances. If an emission exceeds the accepted levels, one attempts to trace its source and shut it off. So, smog may be created if some factory or other emits more than their allowance. On the other hand, smog may also be created if the level of the emissions at the individual factories remains within the stated limits, but the weather cannot cope.’

‘How does whoever’s in charge of the smog alarm know what sort of smog he’s dealing with? He surely has to react quite differently to each.’ The business was beginning to enthrall me. I postponed my next trip to the buffet, and shuffled a cigarette out of the yellow packet.

‘Correct, Herr Self, indeed both sorts require a different reaction, but they’re difficult to tell apart using conventional methods. It’s possible, for example, that traffic has to be stopped and factories have to grind to a halt because a single coal power station that drastically oversteps its accepted emission level can’t be identified and stopped in time. What makes the new model irresistible is that, theoretically at least, problems like the one you raised can be avoided. Via sensors, emissions are measured where they originate and transmitted to the Regional Computing Centre that consequently always knows where which emissions are occurring. Not only that, the RCC feeds the emissions data into a simulation of the local weather expected in the next twenty-four hours – we call it a meteorograph – and the smog can be to a certain extent anticipated. An early-warning system that doesn’t look as good in practice as it sounds in theory because, quite simply, meteorology is still in its infancy.’

‘How do you view yesterday’s incident in this respect? Did the model prove its worth?’

‘The model worked all right yesterday.’ Oelmüller tugged the end of his beard, contemplatively.

‘No, no, Herr Self, here I must expand upon the technicians’ perspective to present the broader picture. In the old days, quite simply, absolutely nothing would have happened. Yesterday instead we had chaos with all the loudspeaker announcements, police controls, curfews. And to what purpose? The cloud dispersed, without any assistance from environmentalists. Yesterday’s event just fanned the flames of fear and destroyed trust and damaged the image of the RCW –
tant de bruit pour
une omelette.
I think this is the very case to make clear to the Federal Constitutional Court how disproportionate the new law is.’

‘Our chemists are checking whether yesterday’s counts really justified the smog alarm,’ Oelmüller inserted. ‘They immediately began to evaluate the emissions data, which we also record in our MBI, management and business information, system.’

‘At least they deigned to grant the industry online access to the state emissions analysis,’ Ostenteich interjected.

‘Do you consider it possible, Herr Oelmüller, that the accident and the incidents in the computer system are in some way connected?’

‘I’ve thought about it. Here practically all production processes are controlled electronically, and there are multiple links between the process computers and the MBI system. Manipulations via the MBI system – I can’t completely discount it, in spite of all the built-in security measures. Regarding yesterday’s accident, however, I don’t know enough to say whether a suspicion in that direction makes sense. If so, I would hate to think what could be in store for us.’

Ostenteich’s interpretation of yesterday’s accident had almost made me forget my arm was still in a sling. I raised my glass to the gentlemen and made my way over to the buffet. With a loin of lamb in its herb crust on my pre-warmed plate, I was steering my way to Firner’s table when Schmalz came up to me.

‘May my wife and I invite the doctor to coffee?’ Schmalz had evidently dug out my title and gladly adopted it to neutralize another sibilant.

‘That’s extremely kind of you, Herr Schmalz,’ I thanked him. ‘But I’ll hope you’ll understand that until the end of this case, my time is not my own.’

‘Oh, well, another time, maybe.’ Schmalz looked downcast, but understood the Works came first.

I looked around for Firner and found him on his way to his table with a plate from the buffet.

He stood still for a moment. ‘Greetings, have you found out anything?’ He held his plate awkwardly at chest level to hide a red-wine stain on his dinner shirt.

‘Yes,’ I said simply. ‘And you?’

‘What’s that supposed to mean, Herr Self?’

‘Let’s imagine there’s a blackmailer who wants to demonstrate his superiority, first of all by manipulating the MBI system and then by creating a gas explosion. Then he demands ten million from the RCW. Who in the company would be the first person to get that demand on his desk?’

‘Korten. Because he’s the only one who could decide about sums of that size.’ He frowned and glanced instinctively at the slightly raised table where Korten was sitting with the head of the Chinese delegation, the president, and other heavyweights. I waited in vain for an appeasing remark like ‘But Herr Self, whatever are you thinking?’ He lowered his plate. The red-wine stain did its bit to reveal a tense and uncertain Firner beneath the veneer of relaxed serenity. As though I were no longer there, he took a few steps towards the open window, lost in thought. Then he pulled himself together, rearranged the plate in front of his chest, nodded curtly at me and moved in a determined fashion to his table. I went to the toilet.

‘Well, my dear Self, making progress?’ Korten arrived at the next stall and fumbled with his fly.

‘Do you mean with the case or the prostate?’

He peed and laughed. Laughed louder and louder and had to put a hand out on the tiles to support himself, and then it came back to me, too. We’d stood next to each other like this before, in the urinals at the Friedrich Wilhelm. It had been planned as a preparatory measure for playing hookey, and then, when the teacher noticed we were missing, Bechtel was to stand up and say, ‘Korten and Self were feeling sick and went to the lavatory – I can go in quickly and check how they are.’ But the teacher checked on us himself, found us there having a great time, and, as a punishment, left us standing there for the rest of the lesson, supervised by the janitor.

‘Professor Barfeld with the monocle will be here any minute,’ snorted Korten. ‘Barfing Barfer, here comes Barfing Barfeld.’

I remembered the nickname, and we stood there, trousers open, clapping each other on the shoulder. Tears sprang to my eyes and my belly hurt from all the laughing.

Back then things almost took a nasty turn. Barfeld reported us to the headmaster and I had already imagined my father raging and my mother weeping and the scholarship evaporating into thin air. But Korten took it all on his shoulders: he had been the instigator and I’d just joined in. So he got the letter home, and his father only laughed.

‘I’ve got to go.’ Korten buttoned up his fly.

‘What, again?’ I was still laughing. But the fun was over and the Chinese were waiting.