Self's deception by Bernhard Schlink

happens to be in the mood. After my meal I was slightly tipsy.
    In the old days, when I climbed the stairs up to my attic apartment, I only needed to stop once for a breather. Then it became twice, and now, on a bad day, I have to stop on every landing. Today was a bad day. I stopped, steadied myself on the banister, and could hear my heart pounding and my breath whistling. I looked up and saw that the landing in front of my apartment was dark. Was the lightbulb out?
    Then I attacked the last flight of stairs. We Prussians have fought the battles of Düppeler Schanzen, Gravelotte, and Langemarck and stormed greater heights. When I got to the last few stairs I took the key out of my pocket. There are three doors on my landing. One is to my apartment, the second to that of the Weilands, and the third up to the attic—I have my back to that one when I unlock my door.
    He had been standing in the doorway to the attic waiting for me. When I unlocked my door he came up behind me, laid his left hand on my shoulder, and with his right poked a gun into my side. “Don't try anything foolish!”
    I was too taken aback, and also too exhausted and drunk, to be able to dodge him or throw a punch. Maybe I'm also too old. I'd never been threatened with a weapon before. During the war I was in the tank division, but in a tank you're not threatened, you're simply hit. Our tank had been hit one beautiful day, the sky blue, the sun warm, little white clouds—bang.
    He remained behind me as I reached for the light switch in my front hall. It was gloomy out on the landing, and my win-dowless hall would be completely dark if the door closed before I turned on the light. An opportunity? I hesitated and waited for the door to fall shut. But he kicked me in the hollow of the knees and as I went down he closed the door and turned on the light. I staggered back to my feet, and he shoved the gun into my side again. “Keep walking!” In the living room he not only kicked me, but I also banged my shin against the coffee table. That really hurt. I sat down on one of my two leather couches and massaged my leg. “Get up!” he shouted, but I refused. So he fired. The thick leather of my couch comes from the broad nape of Argentinean buffalo and has stood its ground against my shoes, the embers of my cigarettes, and Turbo's claws. Faced with the projectile, it surrendered. I didn't. I remained seated, continued to massage my leg, and looked at my guest.
    The shot had only made a popping sound, but the gun with its silencer looked vicious. He was wearing his mirrored sunglasses again and had turned up the collar of his coat. He looked at the gun, then at me, and then at the gun again. Suddenly he burst out laughing and let himself fall on the couch opposite me.
    “We had trouble communicating earlier today, Herr Self, so I brought along an assistant, a therapist, so to speak.” He looked at his gun again. Turbo came into the living room, jumped up on the couch next to me, arched his back, stretched his paws, and began grooming himself. “I've also brought a lot of time with me. Perhaps our morning conversation simply suffered from a lack of time. You were in such a terrible hurry. Did you have an important appointment, or are you just obstinate as a mule? Do we have a pleasant or a difficult evening ahead of us? Whatever is obstinate and will not bend, ultimately breaks. How does Drafi Deutscher's song go? 'Marble breaks and iron bends …' I can assure you that there is a general rule behind that.” He raised his gun. I couldn't see where he was aiming—at me, over me, next to me—I could only see myself in the reflection of his sunglasses. He fired. Behind me, on the old pharmacy shelf where I keep my books and records, a bust of Dante's Beatrice, the work of an early-twentieth-century Munich artist, shattered. “See? That's how it is with marble,” he said. “And it isn't any different with everything that lives and breathes. Only there are no