“At ease,” said Rheinhardt, amused by their reaction.
He introduced himself and explained that he wished to speak to them individually and that in due course he would summon them one at a time. Then, instructing Albert to sit in the corridor (where the old veteran would no doubt fall asleep), he entered the same classroom that he had made use of on his previous visits. Settling himself at the teacher's table, he took out his notebook and examined his list of names, all of which were associated—to a greater or lesser extent—with the idea of hunting or predation.
Jäger, Fuchs, Falke, Wolf…
Prior to that moment, Rheinhardt had been excited by the prospect of conducting these interviews. Yet, now that he was sitting there, about to proceed, he felt a certain uneasiness that shaded into despondency. The boys next door had all been selected because of Isidor Perger's responses to Liebermann's inkblots. The young doctor's rationale had sounded very persuasive at the time—his vocabulary carrying with it the imprimatur of scientific authority: projection, involuntary imagination, the unconscious. All very impressive; however, in the absence of Liebermann's advocacy, the whole enterprise seemed less certain, its suppositions wanting, the outcome more uncertain. Thus, when Rheinhardt went to call the first boy, he was feeling far from optimistic and, perhaps, faintly ridiculous.
Rheinhardt s despondency deepened over the course of the first four interviews. The two Fuchses on his list—Ferdinand and Lear— were big, gangly, amiable fellows. They were respectful, quick to smile, and completely devoid of vulpine cunning. Penrod Falke turned out to be a rather small, and frankly effeminate, first-year student, and Moritz Jäger was an unlikely persecutor of scholarship boys—being one himself. None of them had known Zelenka very well, all denied the existence of bullying at Saint Florian's, and all shook their heads—apparently mystified—when Rheinhardt asked them about “doing the night watch.”
The fifth boy, Kiefer Wolf, was quite different.
At first he behaved impeccably, but very soon he began to show signs of boredom and impatience—he sighed, toyed with his sabre, and looked around the room in a distracted fashion.
“Did you know Thomas Zelenka?”
“No.”
“You must have spoken to him.”
“No—I don't think so.”
“But he was in your year.”
“There are many people in my year whom I don't speak to.”
“Why's that?”
“I don't know. I just don't.”
“Perhaps there is something about them?”
“Possibly.”
“Perhaps you feel that you have nothing in common?”
“Perhaps.”
“That they do not come from very good families?”
“Their origins are of no consequence to me.”
“Then why don't you speak to them?”
“One cannot be familiar with everyone.”
“You don't dislike them, then?”
“Dislike them? I am indifferent to them.…”
There was nothing particularly incriminating about the boy's answers, except a general evasiveness; however, his facial expressions were becoming increasingly provocative. An ugly smirk occasionally disturbed the neutrality of his thin mouth, and his declarations of ignorance were delivered in a tone rich with sarcasm. It was an accomplished performance, in which tacit mockery never quite amounted to insult—but came very close.
The boys who were still waiting in the next room had been getting progressively louder. Rheinhardt could hear squeals of delight, the sound of scraping chairs, and running. They seemed to be playing a game of some kind. Strange, thought Rheinhardt, that those same young men (who only an hour before had been smoking and playing cards like hardened campaigners) were now enjoying the infantile pleasures of tag. Such was the peculiarity of their age.
Wolf raised his hand to his mouth as if politely covering a yawn— but his steady gaze and relaxed neck muscles showed that the gesture was pure artifice.
“Are you tired?” asked Rheinhardt.
“Yes,” Wolf replied, without inflection. “We were practicing drill—at sunrise.”
The boy smiled.
Rheinhardt watched the bloodless lips curl, and, as they twisted, he observed in their convolution, in their counterfeit charm, something unsettling.
Policeman's intuition…
He had trusted his instincts before, and he must trust them again.
This was not an ordinary smile. This was a cruel smile, a malignant smile. This was the smile of a sadist.
“You tortured Zelenka, didn't you?” said Rheinhardt softly. “You and your friends. You held that poor boy down, and you cut him.”
A peal of good-humored laughter sounded through the walls.
Wolf's smile did not vanish—if anything, it intensified.
“That is a very serious allegation,” he said calmly.
“I know,” said Rheinhardt.
“The kind of allegation,” Wolf continued, “that one should make only when one has sufficient evidence. And I know for a fact, Inspector, that you have nothing of the kind.”
Rheinhardt was unnerved by the boy's confidence. By his steady, silky delivery.
“My uncle,” added Wolf, “will be most aggrieved when he hears about your conduct.”
“Your uncle?”
“Yes. My uncle Manfred.”
“What has your uncle got to do with this?”
“A great deal.” Wolf's lips parted, showing his even teeth. “He is not only my uncle but your superior. He runs the security office: He is Commissioner Manfred Brügel.”
30
LIEBERMANN SAT, HIS CLENCHED FIST against his cheek, his forefinger extended, tapping his temple, while the old jurist again discoursed at length on the principle of plurality as revealed to him by the angelic being from Phobos. But the young doctor was not really listening. His mind was wholly occupied by the events of the preceding evening. A monochrome re-creation of Miss Lyd gate repeatedly surrendering herself to the mysterious stranger's embrace flickered in his head like the moving images of a kinetoscope. This harrowing, cruel coup de théâtre was accompanied by an interminable torrent of inner speech: Why didn't she tell me about him? Why should she? She was not obliged to tell you anything! Her private life is no concern of yours.… But she must have known that I… that I… You were indecisive—you dithered and procrastinated. Unforgivable. And so it continued throughout the morning—an endless stream of questions, remorse, and self-recrimination.
After the old jurist, Liebermann saw a young woman with a pathological fear of spiders, a civil servant who derived pleasure from dressing in his wife's clothing, and an utterly miserable “comic” actor. The peculiar and ironic condition of the latter would ordinarily have piqued his interest, but Liebermann was completely unable to focus on what the man was saying. Eventually, the young doctor was forced to concede defeat. There was no point in proceeding—he was in no fit state to practice. He fabricated an excuse that would account for his absence, and retired to a nondescript coffeehouse located behind the hospital.
On entering the establishment, he felt somewhat ashamed of his white lie—particularly so on observing that all the other patrons were absconding medical students trying to recover after a night of excessive drinking.
Liebermann stirred his schwarzer and sank into a state of ruminative abstraction. In the play of light on the surface of his coffee he saw—once again—a trembling suggestion of Miss Lyd gate falling into the arms of her lover.
Although the notion was unjustified, Liebermann could not rid himself of the feeling that he had been deceived, and the longer he sat, ordering schwarzers, smoking Trabuco cheroots, and thinking, thinking, thinking, the less unreasonable his position seemed. Miss Lyd gate had given him the impression that she was a bookish intellectuaclass="underline" refined, elevated, untroubled by baser instincts, with little or no interest in gentlemen. The young doctor tapped his cigar, and a long cylinder of fragile ash dropped onto the tabletop, creating a star-burst of white ash. How could he, the most astute judge of character, have been so wrong! (Like all psychiatrists, he had immense difficulty grasping the fundamental truth that self-understanding is considerably more problematic than understanding others.)