Free Self's punishment by Bernhard Schlink Page B

bottle-green with gleaming chrome and a cream-coloured hood. That’s where the loan money had gone. My own car I parked in the hairpin bend of Neue Schlossstrasse from which steep, straight stairs lead to Burgweg. Mischkey’s car was facing uphill; if he were to drive off I ought to have time enough to be in Unteren Faulen Pelz when he arrived. I positioned myself in such a way that I could watch the entrance without being visible from the house.
    At half past eight a window opened at eye-level in the house I had taken to be the neighbour’s and a naked Mischkey stretched out into the already mild morning air. I just had time to slip behind the advertising column. I peered out. He was yawning, doing some forward bends, and hadn’t seen me.
    At nine o’clock he left the house, walked to the market by Heiliggeist Kirche, ate two salmon rolls there, drank a coffee in the drugstore in the Kettengasse, flirted with the exotic beauty behind the bar, made a phone call, read the
Frankfurter
Rundschau
, had a quick game of power chess, bought some more stuff, went home to drop off the shopping, and came out again with a big bag and got into his car. Now it was time to go swimming, he was wearing a T-shirt with ‘Grateful Dead’ printed on it, cut-off jeans, Jesus sandals, and had thin, pale legs.
    Mischkey had to turn his car but the gate below was open so I had real trouble getting my Opel behind him in time, one car between us. I could hear the music blasting from his stereo at full volume. ‘He’s a pretender,’ sang Madonna.
    He took the motorway to Mannheim. There he drove at eighty past the ADAC pavilion and the Administrative Court, along Oberen Luisenpark. Suddenly he braked sharply and took a left. When the oncoming traffic allowed me to turn I could no longer see Mischkey’s car. I drove on slowly, and kept an eye out for the green cabriolet. On the corner of Rathenaustrasse I heard loud music die out all of a sudden. I nudged forward. Mischkey was getting out of his car and going into the corner house.
    I don’t know what struck me, or what I noticed first, the address or Frau Buchendorff’s silver car gleaming in front of Christuskirche. I rolled down the right-hand window and leaned over to take a look at the building. Through a cast-iron fence and an overgrown garden I looked up at the first-floor balcony. Frau Buchendorff and Mischkey were kissing.
    Of all people, the two of them had to be involved! I didn’t like it at all. Tailing someone you know is bad enough, but if you’re discovered you can always pretend it’s a coincidental meeting and extract yourself reasonably well. Theoretically that could also be the case for two people, but not here. Would Frau Buchendorff introduce me as private detective Self, or Mischkey as freelance journalist Selk? If things progressed to swimming I’d be staying outside. Too bad, I’d been looking forward to it and had packed my Bermudas especially. They were kissing fervently. Was that something else I didn’t like?
    I assumed they would set off in Mischkey’s car. It was waiting with the top down. I drove a little further into Rathenaustrasse and parked so that the garden gate and Citroën were reflected in my back mirror. Half an hour later they drove past me, and I hid behind my newspaper. Then I followed them through what we call the Suez Canal to Stollenwörth-Weiher, a little lake in the south that boasts two beaches.
    Frau Buchendorff and Mischkey went to the Post Office beach. I stopped my car outside the entrance. How long do young people in love go swimming these days? In my day at Müggel Lake it could go on for hours, probably that hadn’t changed much. I had dismissed the idea of swimming but the prospect of sitting in the car, or leaning propped against it for three hours made me cast about for a different solution. Was this beach within sight of the other one? It was worth a shot.
    I drove round to the beach opposite and packed my Zeiss binoculars