Self's Murder by Bernhard Schlink

slowly lowered them again. “When a woman looks at me, I look back. I’m like an old circus horse. When he hears all the commotion and fanfare, he goes trotting around the arena. But he’d much rather be in his stable, munching oats. And just as the public can tell that the circus horse is old, even though he goes trotting around the arena, women notice it in me, too, even though I look at them and flirt and know what they like to hear and how they like to be touched.” He stared into the distance.
    “Did you see it coming?” I asked.
    “I always thought that when the time comes all my memories would compensate me for what the present would be depriving me of. But remembering doesn’t work. I can tell myself what was, and how it was, and that it was great; I can conjure up pictures in my inner eye. But I can’t conjure up the feeling. I know that a woman’s breasts felt really good, or her bottom, or that she had a certain way of moving when she was on top of me that was just … or that she would … But I only know it, I don’t experience it. I don’t feel the feeling.”
    “Well, that’s the way of the world. Memories are memories.”
    “No!” he countered vehemently. “When I remember how furious I was when they remodeled our operating theater, I’m furious all over again. When I remember what pleasure I had when I bought my boat, I relive that pleasure. Only love eludes memory.” He got up. “You have to get some sleep. Don’t do anything foolish tomorrow.”
    I lay there staring into the twilight. Did love elude memory? Or was it desire? Was my friend mixing up love and desire?
    I decided I was not going to call Welker the following day. As it was, I hadn’t decided what to tell him or what to threaten him with or how to stop him. I would sleep and get some rest. I would give Turbo the can of mackerel I had brought him from Cottbus. I would read a book and play a game of chess with Keres or Euwe or Bobby Fisher. I would cook. I would drink red wine. Philipp hadn’t said anything about my antibiotic clashing with red wine or red wine clashing with my antibiotic. I’d postpone my heart attack to some other time.
     
     
     

— 23 —
     
Cat and mouse
     
     
    B ut at nine o’clock I was awakened by a call from Welker.
    “Where did you get my number?” My number has been unlisted for five years.
    “I know it’s Sunday morning, but I must insist that you drop by my office. You can park inside the gate, that way it’ll be …” He broke off. I already knew the game well enough: Welker would start talking, the receiver would then be covered, and suddenly Samarin would be on the line. “We’ll be expecting you around noon. Twelve o’clock.”
    “How do I get inside the gate?”
    He hesitated. “Ring three times.”
    So that was that as far as catching up on my sleep was concerned, or getting some rest, cooking, reading, or playing chess. I filled the tub, sprinkled some rosemary into the water, and got in. Turbo appeared, and I irritated him with a few well-aimed drops. Some water on the thumb, flicked off with the index finger: with a little training you can become quite a champion. And I have many years of training behind me.
    Why did I hesitate about how to handle my client’s money laundering? I didn’t really have much of a choice. The TV channels might not be interested in the Russian Mafia—which has no class, no style, no tradition, no religion, and presumably no sense of humor—but the police most certainly would be, which was only right. Why didn’t I give them a call? Why hadn’t I called them yesterday? I realized that I just couldn’t bring myself to do that as long as Welker was still my client.
    So the early call and the appointment at noon did have a good side: I could close my case. I brought the phone to the bathtub and called Georg, who told me the rest of the sad tale of the Laban family. Laban’s niece died of tuberculosis in the 1930s in Davos, and his nephew