Summer Lies (16 page)

The next morning my life resumed again. In the last weeks of the semester there’s an extra amount to do; over and above the classes and seminars and meetings there are the exams, plus on top of all that I had to catch up on everything I’d set aside because of the conference in New York. I had no time to think about my seatmate and his story. Yes, he was an interesting oddball and his story was an interesting story, but the whole thing was the affair of a single night, a night considerably shortened by the loss of six hours on the flight from west to east, then somewhat extended again by the stop in Reykjavik, but all in all a truncated night.

After a week my wallet came in the mail. I wasn’t surprised, I had been relying on my seatmate. But I was relieved; I had been in need of my debit card and my credit cards from time to time.

The note that my seatmate had stuck in the left inside pocket of my jacket I found only weeks later. “I would rather not have taken your wallet. You were a wonderful traveling companion. But I need your wallet and you don’t need the problem of deciding whether to say yes or no to me. Would you like to visit me in prison?”

The newspapers had already reported that he had surrendered and that the trial would soon resume. When they covered the trial, they also mentioned the old lady who claimed she had seen my seatmate not just push his girlfriend but force her over the balcony railing. She didn’t appear before the court; a few days before my seatmate had given himself up, she’d disappeared. But her statement to the police was read out. I would
have thought that a statement taken down and made watertight by the police would be more dangerous to the defendant than a statement in court that the defense attorney could pick apart. But the opposite turns out to be the case. It is harder to take apart a witness than to accuse a policeman of failing to ask this or that, thus getting a sworn statement that is one-sided and worthless.

She had disappeared a few days before my seatmate gave himself up. It didn’t sit well with me. Had he—No, I couldn’t imagine it. There are so many reasons why an old person can suddenly disappear. They can go too near the edge of a gully while out on a walk, and fall in. They can walk too far and lie down exhausted, they can have a heart attack in their holiday apartment and not be found for months or years. Such things keep happening.

My seatmate got eight years—some commentators felt this was too high and some too few. The court didn’t absolve him of negligent homicide but nor did they convict him of murder; they convicted him of manslaughter in the heat of an agonizing, already long-standing dispute that suddenly came to a head.

I don’t want to get into it. My professional specialty is traffic, not criminal law. I judge how the traffic in a city can be rescued from a coronary. Guilt is decided by judges who do nothing else, day in, day out.

But the verdict didn’t convince me. There is a rightness when someone who has taken a life gives up his own. To lock him up for the rest of his days makes no sense. What does life in a cell have to do with a life that has been extinguished? Because there are mistaken verdicts there should be no death penalty, I know that. But eight years? The punishment was laughable. Anyone who hands down a sentence like that doesn’t trust his
own judgment. Anyone who hands down a sentence like that would do better to let the defendant go free.

I thought about visiting my seatmate in prison. But I find visits to people in the hospital hard enough. If I feel sorry for the patient, I can’t find the right words to say, and if I don’t feel sorry for the patient, I can’t find any words at all. Get better soon—that’s never misplaced. But what do you say to a prisoner?

Five years later he was at my front door. It was summer again, a warm late afternoon. I took his bag, led him into the garden, opened two deck chairs, and fetched two glasses of lemonade.

“When did you get out?”

He stretched. “It’s so beautiful here! The trees, the flowers, the smell of new-mown grass, the birdsong. Do you mow the grass yourself? And were you the one who planted the hydrangeas? I’ve heard the color of hydrangeas changes according to the minerals in the soil. Isn’t it amazing that your blue and pink hydrangeas are growing so close to each other? When did I get out? Yesterday. My last years got commuted to probation under certain conditions, but none of them prevents me from flying to America for a few days to draw on my cash.” He smiled. “You’re sort of on my way to America.”

I looked at him. I could see no traces of the last years on his face. His hair was gray, but didn’t make him look older, just better. He talked as pleasantly, moved as easily, and sat as comfortably as he had back then.

“Was it bad?”

He smiled again, and his smile was also as quiet and gentle
as it had been before. “I brought the library up to date and read all the things I’d always wanted to read and did a lot of sport. I did some deals with people I would rather not have done deals with, but don’t we always have to do that in society?”

“What about the man in the pale suit?”

“He wasn’t outside the prison yesterday. I hope enough is enough.” He took a deep breath. “You know that when I borrow something, I return it. Can you help me? It’s hard to save money in prison, and I don’t know who else to ask for the money for the flight. My mother died right after the trial.”

“The old lady who saw you …” The words came out just like that. Then I didn’t know how to go on.

He laughed. “Would she lend me the money? I doubt it. And didn’t she disappear back then?”

“Did you …” Again, I didn’t know how to go on.

“Did I kill the incriminating witness?” He looked at me with friendly, forbearing mockery. “Why do you think so badly of me? Why is your first thought murder, and not that I used my money to buy the old lady off? That she didn’t disappear into the grave with it, but to the Balearics or the Canaries?” He shook his head. “Do you think you could have prevented the murder? That you should have prevented it? You’re right, once a murder has happened, questions arise.” He was still looking mocking. “But if one did happen, I can’t tell you. I have to tell you that it didn’t. You see—we’re at an impasse.”

We were indeed at an impasse. “How much money do you need?”

“Five thousand euros.”

I must have looked astonished, because he laughed and explained: “You will understand, I’m too old to fly toilet class and sleep in youth hostels.”

“I can write you a check.” I stood up.

“Could you give it to me in cash? I don’t know if anyone will pay out that amount of money to me without further ado.”

It was almost six o’clock and the banks were closed. But I could get the money together by using my debit card and my credit cards. “Then let’s go.”

“There’s no hurry. I was actually wondering if perhaps I could impose on your hospitality for a few days …”

He was hoping I wouldn’t let him finish the sentence. That I would be delighted to invite him to be my guest for a few days. And why not? It’s true that I dislike any kind of disorder in my house. But I have a guest room and a guest bathroom, and whatever disorder my guests introduce is rectified by the cleaning lady and I don’t notice it. I like it when I have someone I can share a glass with in the evenings and talk; it’s better than sitting on my own. But I didn’t respond right away.

“We would have a couple of nice days together. But unfortunately it won’t work. I have to leave, the sooner the better. Do you think you could take me to the airport?”

I drove him to the airport, withdrew five thousand euros from various cash machines, and gave them to him. We said goodbye, but with a handshake this time, not a hug. Should I invite him to visit me again? I couldn’t make up my mind in time. “Hope all goes well!”

He smiled, nodded, and went.

I looked after him until he disappeared into the hurly-burly. Then I left the airport and crossed the road to the parking garage, where I took the elevator up to the roof. I didn’t find my car right away, and when I did find it, I couldn’t feel the
key in my pocket. The sky had clouded over and a cold wind was blowing. I stopped hunting and stood looking at the other parking garages, the hotels, the airport, and the planes taking off and landing. My seatmate would soon be sitting in one of the planes as it rose from the runway.

That was the end of our encounter. When we said goodbye the first time, I hadn’t given any thought to whether we would see each other again. This time, I knew we wouldn’t. Would I find a letter with a check in my mail one day?

I was freezing. What had seemed so good when he was with me suddenly felt not good; what had felt so close and warm suddenly felt strange and cold. That I had listened to his story, sharing his hopes and fears. That I would have given him my passport if he hadn’t taken it, and my guest room if he hadn’t decided to fly. That I had been glad he had tricked the police when he arrived, and was able to visit his mother and consult with his defense attorney. That I had believed against all reason that the death of his girlfriend was an accident and the disappearance of the old lady a riddle.

What had I done? Why had I got involved with him? Allowed myself to be used by him? Just because he had a quiet, gentle smile, a pleasant manner, and a softly cut, softly creased suit? What was the matter with me? Where did I leave my rational self, that makes me an alert observer and a clear thinker and a good scientist and that I’m proud of? Normally, I’m a good judge of people. I admit I had illusions about my wife at first. But I soon realized there was nothing behind her pretty face and her nice manner, no thought, no strength, no character. And sweet as I found my daughter and much as I loved her, I still realized immediately, as she grew up, that all she wanted was to have things, and showed no commitment to anything and achieved nothing.

No, letting myself get caught up with this person was incomprehensible.

And that it took me so long till I finally—Had I finally only regained my senses because a cold wind was blowing? If it had stayed warm, would I still be …?

I watched a plane climb, a jumbo jet from Lufthansa. En route to America? Perhaps he’d gotten his ticket quickly and already caught this plane. Was he irritated to be sitting not in first class but in business?

The setting sun broke through the clouds for a moment, making the plane glisten, as if it were trying to turn into a fireball and blow itself apart. Nothing would remain of Werner Menzel or of my folly.

Then the sun disappeared behind the clouds, and the plane rose higher and higher in a curve, and then set its route. I found the key, got into the car, and drove home.

He was remembering his first semester as a professor in New York. The pleasure it gave him when the invitation came, when the visa was stamped into his passport, when he boarded the plane in Frankfurt and reached JFK with his luggage in the warmth of the evening and took a taxi into the city. He had even enjoyed the flight, although the rows were tight together and the seats were narrow; as they crossed the Atlantic he saw another plane in the distance, and he felt as if he were sitting on the deck of a ship that encounters another ship in mid-ocean.

He had been in New York before as a tourist or visiting friends or as a guest at conferences. Now he lived according to the rhythms of the city. He belonged. He had his own apartment, like everyone; it was quite central, not far from the park and the river. Like everyone, he took the subway in the mornings, slid the card through the slot, went through the turnstile and down the steps to the platform, pushed his way into a car, couldn’t move or turn the pages of his newspaper, and pushed his way out again twenty minutes later. In the evenings he managed to get a seat in the car, read the newspaper to the end, and did his shopping in the neighborhood. He could walk to the cinema and the opera.

He wasn’t bothered by the fact that he wasn’t an integral part of the university. His colleagues didn’t have the same conversations
with him they had with one another, and the students, who had him for only one semester, didn’t take him as seriously as their professors whom they had to deal with from year to year. But his colleagues were friendly and the students alert, his class was a success, and from the window of his office he looked out onto a Gothic church built of red sandstone.

Yes, he had looked forward to the semester and later looked back on it with pleasure. But while he was actually there he was unhappy. His first semester in New York was the first semester in which he hadn’t had to teach at his German university—and he would have liked to enjoy his freedom instead of teaching again. His apartment in New York was dark, and in the courtyard the sound of air conditioners was so loud that he had to use earplugs to be able to sleep. On the many evenings when he ate alone in cheap restaurants or watched bad movies, he felt lonely. In his office the air conditioning blew dry air into his face until his sinuses became infected and he had to have an operation. The operation was dreadful, and when he woke up from the anesthetic he found that he wasn’t in a bed but on a gurney with other patients on gurneys and was sent home shortly afterward with a pounding head and a bleeding nose.

He hadn’t admitted his unhappiness even to himself. He wanted to be happy, because he had made it from a little German university town to great New York and belonged there. He wanted to be happy because he had wanted this happiness so much and now it was here—or at least everything was here that he had always imagined it to consist of. Sometimes an inner voice raised itself to cast doubt on his happiness, but he silenced it. Even as a child, a schoolboy, and a student, he had struggled when he had to go on a trip and leave his world and his friends behind. How much he would have missed if he’d
always stayed at home back then! So he told himself in New York it was his fate to have to overcome doubts in order to find happiness where it didn’t seem at first to exist.

That summer an invitation to New York arrived again. He took the envelope out of the mailbox and opened it on the way to the bench where he always read his mail. The university in New York, which he’d been connected with for a quarter of a century now, was inviting him to organize a seminar next spring.