‘I don’t have any concrete opinion as yet, Frau Fischer,’ I said to Hanne. ‘And I’d like to point out that Herr Mencke hasn’t lost his leg, merely broken it.’
‘I don’t know what sort of knowledge you have of ballet, Herr Self,’ said Joschka. ‘At the end of the day, it’s the same with us as it is everywhere else. There are the stars, and the ones who will be stars one day, and then there’s the solid middle rank of the ones who’ve let go of their daydreams of glory but don’t have to worry about earning a living. And then there are the rest – the ones who have to live in constant fear of whether there’ll be a next engagement, for whom it’s certainly over when they start to get older. Sergej belongs to the third group.’
Hanne didn’t contradict. She let her defiant expression show how completely out of order she felt this conversation was. ‘I thought you wanted to find out something about Sergej, the person. You men have nothing in your heads beyond careers, really.’
‘How did Herr Mencke envisage his future?’
‘On the side he’d always done ballroom dancing and he told me once he’d like to start a dance school, a perfectly conventional one, for fifteen- and sixteen-year-olds.’
‘That also proves he couldn’t have done anything to himself. Think it through, Joschka. How’s he supposed to become a dance teacher minus a leg?’
‘Did you also know about his dancing school plans, Frau Fischer?’
‘Sergej played around with lots of ideas. He’s so brilliantly creative and has an incredible imagination. He could also imagine doing something completely different, breeding sheep in Provence, or something.’
They had to get back to rehearsal. They gave me their telephone numbers in case other questions came to me, asked whether I had plans for the evening, and promised to set aside a complimentary ticket for me at the door. I watched them go. Joschka moved with concentration and there was a spring in his step, Hanne trod lightly, as though walking on air. Admittedly, she’d talked, like, a lot of nonsense, but she walked with conviction, and I’d have liked to watch her dance that evening. But Pittsburgh was far too cold. I had a car take me to the airport, flew to New York, and got a return flight that same evening to Frankfurt. I think I’m too old for America.
5 So whose goose are you cooking?
Over brunch in Café Gmeiner I drew up a programme for the rest of the week. Outside, the snow was falling in thick flakes. I’d have to root out the scoutmaster of the troop Mencke had belonged to, and speak to Professor Kirchenberg. And I wanted to talk to the judge who’d sentenced Tyberg and Dohmke to death. I had to know whether the sentence had been influenced from above.
Judge Beufer had been elevated to the Appellate Court in Karlsruhe after the war. At the main post office I found his name in the Karlsruhe telephone directory. His voice sounded astonishingly young, and he remembered my name. ‘Master Self,’ he crooned in his Swabian accent. ‘Whatever became of him?’ He was willing to have me round for a talk that afternoon.
He lived in Durlach in a house on the hillside with a view of Karlsruhe. I could see the large gas tower with its welcoming inscription ‘Karlsruhe’. Judge Beufer opened the door in person. He had a soldier’s upright posture, was wearing a grey suit, beneath it a white shirt and a red tie with a silver tie pin. The collar of his shirt had become too large for the old, scraggy neck. Beufer was bald and his face had a heavy downward pull, bags under the eyes, jowls, chin. We’d always joked about his sticking-out ears in the public prosecutor’s office. They were more impressive than ever. He looked ill. He must be well over eighty.
‘So, he’s become a private detective. Isn’t he ashamed? He was a good lawyer, after all, a sharp prosecutor. I expected to see him back with us when the worst of it was over.’
We sat in his study and sipped sherry. He still read the New Legal Weekly. ‘Master Self hasn’t simply come to pay his old judge a visit.’ His little piggy eyes were twinkling shrewdly.
‘Do you remember the case of Tyberg and Dohmke? End of nineteen forty-three, beginning of forty-four. I was leading the investigation, Södelknecht was the prosecutor. And you were presiding over court.’
‘Tyberg and Dohmke…’ He spoke the names softly to himself a few times. ‘Yes, of course. They were sentenced to death and Dohmke was executed. Tyberg escaped. He went a long way, that man. And was a true gentleman, or is he still alive? Bumped into him once at a reception in Solitude, joked about old times. He certainly understood we all had to do our duty back then.’
‘What I’d like to know – was the court given signals from above regarding the outcome, or was it a perfectly normal trial?’
‘Why does that interest him? Whose goose is he cooking, that Master Self?’
The question was bound to come. I told him about a coincidental connection to Frau Müller and my meeting with Frau Hirsch. ‘I simply want to know what happened back then, and what role I played.’
‘To reopen the trial, what the lady told you is nowhere near enough. If Weinstein were still alive… but he isn’t. I don’t believe it anyway. A lawyer has his gut feeling, and the more clearly I remember, the more certain I am the verdict was right.’
‘And were there signals from above? I’m sure you won’t misunderstand me, Herr Beufer. We both know that German judges knew how to preserve their independence even under extraordinary conditions. Nevertheless, now and then some interested party would try to exert influence, and I’d like to know whether there was an interested party in this trial.’
‘Oh, Self, why won’t he let sleeping dogs lie? But if it’s essential for his peace of mind… Weismüller called me a few times back then, the former general director. His focus was to clear it out of the way and stop people gossiping about RCW. Perhaps the sentencing of Tyberg and Dohmke met with his approval, simply for that reason. Nothing clears up a case quite so effectively as a quick hanging. Whether there were other reasons he wanted the sentence… No idea, I don’t think so, though.’
‘That was it?’
‘Weismüller also had some business with Södelknecht. Tyberg’s defence counsel had brought forward someone from the RCW as a witness who talked himself blue in the face on the witness stand, and Weismüller intervened on his behalf. Hang on, that man also went a long way, yes, Korten is the name, the current general director. There we have them, the whole merry crew of general directors.’ He laughed.
How could I have forgotten? I had been glad not to have to bring my friend and brother-in-law into it myself, but then the defence had hauled him in. I’d been glad because Korten had worked so closely together with Tyberg that his participation in the trial could have cast suspicion on him, or damaged his career at least. ‘Was it known at court then that Korten and I are brothers-in-law?’
‘My word. I’d never have thought it. But you advised your brother-in-law badly. He spoke out so strongly for Tyberg that Södelknecht almost arrested him on the spot at the hearing. Very decent, too decent. It didn’t help Tyberg one bit. It smells just a little fishy when a witness for the defence has nothing to say about the deed and only spouts friendly platitudes about the accused.’
There was nothing left to ask Beufer. I drank the second sherry he poured me, and chatted about colleagues we’d both known. Then I took my leave.
‘Master Self, now he’s off to follow that sniffing nose again. The quest for justice won’t let go of him, eh? Will he show his face again at old Beufer’s? Be delighted.’
On top of my car were ten centimetres of fresh snow. I swept it off, was glad to make it safely down the hill, onto the autobahn. And once I was on that, I drove north in the wake of a snowplough. It had turned dark. The car radio reported traffic jams and played hits from the sixties.