“Are you French?”
“No.”
“We used to play a game when I was a boy. One player had to think something up, while the others had to figure out what it was by asking all kinds of questions, to which he could only answer 'yes' or 'no.' The first one to guess what he was thinking was the winner. When there are a number of people playing, the game can be quite amusing. But when there are only two players it's no fun at all. So how about speaking in full sentences?”
The young man straightened up with a jolt, as if he'd been dreaming and had suddenly woken up. “Full sentences? I've been working on my dissertation for two years now, and for the past six months I've been writing nothing but full sentences, and I'm getting more and more lost. You seem to think that-”
“How long have you been living here?”
He was visibly disappointed by my prosaic question. But I found out that he'd been living in the apartment before Leo had moved in and had sublet it to her. The landlady lived on the floor below and had called him in February to say she was worried that there had been no sign of life from Leo-or her rent money-since the beginning of January. He was now staying in this apartment for the time being, as he couldn't get any work done at his new place because of his noisy roommates. “And then when Leo comes back she'll still have the apartment.”
“Where is she?”
“I've no idea. I'm sure she knows what she's doing.”
“Hasn't anyone come looking for her?”
The young man ran his hand over his smooth hair, pressing it down even flatter, and hesitated for a moment. “You mean for a job? You mean if someone like you…no, nobody's been here.”
“What do you think-could she handle a job interpreting for a small technological conference, twelve participants, from German to English and English to German? Would she be up to it?”
But the student didn't let himself be drawn into a conversation about Leo. “You see?” he said. “Full sentences are of little if any use. Here I am, telling you in full sentences that she isn't here, and you ask me if she can handle a small conference. She's gone…disappeared…flown off…” He flapped his arms. “OK? If she happens to show up I'll let her know you came by.”
I handed him my card-not the one from my office, but the one with my home address. I found out that he was working on a dissertation in philosophy on catastrophic thought, and that he'd met Leo at a university residence hall. Leo had given him French lessons. I had already started down the stairs when he again warned me against full sentences. “You mustn't think you're too old to grasp the idea.”
4 Her dear old uncle-how sweet!
Back at the office, I gave Salger a call. His answering machine recorded my request that he call me back. I wanted to know the name of the residence hall in which Leo had lived so I could look into who her friends were and where she might be-not a hot trail, but I didn't have many options.
Salger called me back that evening just as I stopped by my office on my way home from the Kleiner Rosengarten restaurant. I had gone there too early. There was hardly anyone there, my usual waiter Giovanni was on vacation in Italy, and the spaghetti gorgonzola was too heavy. My girlfriend, Brigitte, could have made me a better meal. But the previous weekend she'd seemed a little too hopeful that I might learn to let her spoil me: “Will you be my cuddly old tomcat?” I don't want to become some old tomcat.
This time Salger was exquisitely polite. He expressed his deepest gratitude that I was taking on the case. His wife was grateful, too. Would it be all right if he gave me a further payment next week? Would I inform him the moment I found Leo? His wife begged that I…
“Could you tell me Leo's address before the Häusser-strasse, Herr Salger?”
“Excuse me?”
“Where did Leo live before she moved to the Häusser-strasse?”
“I'm afraid I can't tell you that offhand.”
“Could you take a look, or ask your wife? I need her old address. It was a university residence hall.”
“Oh yes, the residence hall.” Salger fell silent. “Liebigstrasse? Eichendorffweg? Schnepfengewann? I can't think of it right now, Herr Self; the names of all kinds of streets are going through my head. I'll talk to my wife and take a look at my old address book-we might still have it somewhere. I'll let you know. Or I should say, if you don't find a message from me on your answering machine tomorrow morning, that means we couldn't find it. Would that be all? In that case, I wish you a good night.”
I couldn't say I was warming up to Salger. Leo was leaning on the small stone lion, looking at me, pretty, alert, with a determination in her eyes that I felt I understood, and a question or a spark of defiance that I could not interpret. To have such a daughter and not know her address-shame on you, Herr Salger!
I don't know why Klara and I never had any children. She never told me she'd gone to see a gynecologist, nor had she ever asked me to take a fertility test. We were not very happy together; but no clear links have ever been drawn between marital unhappiness and childlessness, or marital happiness and an abundance of children. I'd have liked to have been a widower with a daughter, but that is a disrespectful wish, and I've only admitted it to myself in my old age, when I no longer keep any secrets from myself.
I spent a whole morning on the phone till I finally located Leo's residence hall. It was on Klausenpfad, not far from the public swimming pool and the zoo. She'd lived in room 408, and after crossing some grungy stairwells and hallways I found three students drinking tea in the communal kitchen on the fourth floor-two girls and a boy.
“Excuse me, I'm looking for Leonore Salger.”
“There's no Leonore here.” The young man was sitting with his back to me and spoke over his shoulder.
“I'm Leo's uncle. I'm passing through Heidelberg, and this is the address I've got for her. Could you-”
“A dear old uncle visiting his dear young niece-how sweet! Hey, what d'you say to that, Andrea?”
Andrea turned around, the young man turned around, and all three of them eyed me with interest.
Philipp, an old friend of mine who's a surgeon at the Mannheim Municipal Hospital, works a lot with young interns and tells me how well behaved the students of the nineties are. My ex-girlfriend Babs has a son who's studying to be a lawyer, and he's polite and serious, too. His girlfriend, a nice girl studying theology, whom I always addressed as “Frau,” as the women's movement has taught me to do, corrected me gently, telling me that she is a “Fräulein.”
These three students seemed to have missed this trend- were they sociologists? I sat down on the fourth chair.
“When did Leo move out?”
“Who says she ever-”
“It was before your time,” Andrea cut in. “Leo moved out about a year ago, to somewhere on the west side, I think.” She turned toward me. “I don't have her new address. But they must have it over at the registrar's office. I'm going there-want to come along?”
She led the way down the stairs, her black ponytail swinging, her skirt swaying. She was a robust girl, but quite pleasing to the eye. The office had already closed, as it was almost four. We stood irresolutely in front of the locked door.
“Do you happen to have a recent picture of her?” I went on to tell her that Leo's father, my brother-in-law, had a birthday coming up, and that we were going to have a party on the Drachenfels, and that all her aunts, uncles, and cousins would be coming from Dresden. “One of the reasons I want to see Leo is because I'm putting together a photo album of family and friends.”
She took me up to her room. We sat down on the couch, and she pulled out of a shoebox a student's life of carnivals and end-of-term parties, vacations and field trips, a demonstration here and there, a weekend work study, and pictures of her boyfriend, who liked to pose on his motorbike.