Lindner did not judge himself harshly at all. He forgot that he had embezzled money and accepted bribes. He only remembered how, out of the goodness of his heart, he had been slack in his efforts to impound certain items.

  For this kindness he had been severely punished. For his empathy he had been jailed. His benevolence had destroyed him. He was convinced of that. He felt sorry for himself and considered himself a victim, essentially a martyr on the altar of kindness.

  Today, however, his sorrows were especially great.

  They had conducted a search of his house, because he had again been suspected of theft. They hadn’t found anything, and he was in fact innocent. Moreover, he was deeply moved by his own innocence. They had rummaged through everything, refusing to believe his assurances. In the process, however, his landlady had discovered that he had a criminal record and was no longer a court bailiff, and she had given him notice then and there.

  He was innocent and had been evicted!

  The former Court Bailiff Lindner had been sent packing by some woman as if he were an ordinary person, a common tramp! That cut him to the quick, because despite an outward severity, Lindner was a softhearted person. Softhearted and full of understanding. At least for himself.

  He had to drink to forget his misfortune. And just as conscientiously as he had drilled the new recruits in the sweltering summer heat of the barrack yard, he proceeded to drink himself into oblivion.

  Minchen took her leave with a cool goodbye, but Lindner did not let that get to him. That was the way of the world. She was a young thing, and he was an old, broken man. He couldn’t demand understanding from her. She was an ordinary person, but he was an extraordinarily unhappy one.

  Such were Lindner’s thoughts as he mournfully ordered another beer.

  THIRTY-FOUR

  Wilhelm stood beside the piano and watched as the man pounded the keys. It must be hard to play the piano, he mused; it was bound to require a lot of expertise. The man was reading the notes, adding sound to the black dots and bar lines. He was banging it out, as they said in Berlin, with uncanny accuracy. He was banging it out, but he was doing so nicely, Wilhelm decided. That must be hard, he thought again. That was something he couldn’t do. He could whistle, but only from memory, not from notes.

  In school they had singing lessons. As a young boy he had sung patriotic anthems such as “Heil dir im Siegerkranz,” and later “Siegreich wollen wir Frankreich schlagen.” By then the war had been three-quarters lost. Later he had sung working-class songs, such as “Brüder, zur Sonne, zur Freiheit” and others, but he always sang with more conviction than musicality. Nor had the 1929 Liederkranz done much to advance his musical education.

  The notation he had learned in school was long forgotten. Back then he had also been less interested in reading music than in procuring potatoes. Now he regretted that. If he understood music, he thought, he could compose hit songs.

  He envied the piano player, who was hammering the keys, his face bright red. In turn the piano player envied the dancers, who didn’t have to plunk away every day well into the night. He was no genius, just a working student, whose modest musical skills paid for his studies. One thing, however, he had sworn to himself: Once I finally finish my medical studies and have my own practice, I’ll never touch the piano again!

  The piano player was plunking away to gain his freedom. By tackling the keys, he felt he was tackling his life. While he had hardly refined his skill in these past three years, he had nonetheless completed half of his studies. He wasn’t playing any better than in the beginning, but he could now play by heart. He played as mechanically as a worker on an assembly line. The music producers churned out the hits, and even as he pounded their compositions onto the piano, he was carrying out operations in his head, performing cesarean sections and craniotomies.

  The piano player had an open, pleasant face. Wilhelm would have gladly struck up a conversation, but he didn’t dare. If I start talking to him, he thought, he might not be able to keep playing. Wilhelm imagined that playing the piano involved a kind of clairvoyance, and that clairvoyants, fortune tellers, and spiritualists shouldn’t be disturbed, or it would bring bad luck.

  I’ll talk to him after he’s finished or else tomorrow, Wilhelm decided. Maybe together we can compose a hit. Hit songs always make money. He’d read in the paper that a popular songwriter makes more money in a single year than Mozart had in his entire life. He didn’t know Mozart but assumed the man had earned quite a lot, since the article had referred to him as “the great Mozart.” Great people always earn a lot: That much he knew.

  Then he saw Minchen coming and put music aside for the moment. With such a pleasant person as Minchen Lindner, even Herr von Sulm forgot about his business and how it needed to be modernized. Wilhelm, however, was younger and consequently more ardent than the business magnate. He ran toward her and again embraced her.

  Minchen was in a bad mood, as she always was when she’d been with her father. She found him depressing.

  “Are you angry with me?” Wilhelm wanted to know.

  “That, too,” said Minchen, sticking to monosyllables.

  “Why?”

  “You talk too much.”

  Wilhelm wondered what she might mean by that. She must want more action on his part.

  At that moment a man ran past them. A man holding a knife in his fist.

  Minchen gave a cry and shrank back. Wasn’t that the man who had told her that her father was here?

  The man’s mouth was agape, and his eyes were wide open. A terrible fear showed on his face. He was flying through the hall, pursued by two men. The dancers mistook his fear for fury, so they nervously stepped aside when they caught sight of him. The man was racing toward the door. He was panting from exertion as well as fear. Leaping more than running, he crossed the taproom in great, light-footed bounds.

  The two men chased after him, their faces contorted as they uttered unintelligible words. One of them had a knife of his own, which he opened while he was running. The entire chase flickered by in a blur.

  “Stop the music!” shouted an agitated voice.

  The dancing came to a halt.

  “I think he’s gone berserk,” Minchen Lindner whispered. She was shaking and snuggled up close to Wilhelm.

  He put his arms around her to protect her, but the man had already left the hall, and everyone was rushing to a group of people who were excitedly standing around something.

  “That man killed somebody,” said Wilhelm soberly.

  “How horrible,” whispered Minchen.

  “He bumped somebody off, I’m sure.”

  “He looked so horrible! Here he’s murdered someone, and earlier he tried to get personal with me.” Minchen’s knee was shuddering.

  So that’s what a murderer looked like, a real criminal. Nothing at all heroic about him! He was undoubtedly as cowardly as he was vile.

  “How can a person just kill someone?” Minchen asked, horrified.

  She had even spoken with the man. True, he had been an unpleasant type, but a murderer? She had imagined a murderer entirely differently!

  “Isn’t it gruesome how a person can suddenly turn into a murderer? I know him! He’s the one who told me where my father was sitting, and he definitely wanted to dance with me, too. He seemed just like everybody else.”

  “Let’s see what’s going on,” Wilhelm suggested.

  They went over to the group. The crazy old lady was seated on a chair, with someone steadying her from behind. Minchen wanted to ask her what had happened, but the woman was unconscious. Then she spotted a man lying on the floor.

  Wilhelm recognized him. “That’s Sonnenberg!”

  Minchen couldn’t see because people were blocking her view. She tried pushing past them. But suddenly she was shoved aside.

  Herr Hagen was thrusting his way through the crowd. “What’s going on here? Is the man dead?”

  A woman screamed frantically, “He’s been murdered!”

  Hagen winced. “Goddammit, that’s all I needed. Can’t people stab themselves somewhere else?”

  Then he saw Frau Fliebusch. “What does she have to do with all this? Was she hurt, too?”

  “Hardly,” a man muttered. “She just fainted.”

  Hagen nudged Handsome Wilhelm and pulled him aside.

  “Listen, go next door and tell them what’s going on. I have to call the police! They need to clear out now!”

  Wilhelm did as he was told. “Wait for me,” he said, excusing himself from Minchen, then headed to the meeting room.

  Hagen meanwhile set out on the difficult path to the telephone. This was the third incident this month. Hopefully it wouldn’t cost him the concession!

  The man who’d been blocking Minchen’s view turned to leave. He had seen enough.

  Minchen now saw Sonnenberg’s face. It seemed to her that his mouth was still twitching. That was too much for her nerves. She started to cry.

  I have to get out of here, she thought. I can’t bear to see that face anymore!

  She turned away.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  There are very few things that are truly once in a lifetime.

  But there are two events that can be experienced only once: being born and dying.

  A person is born without awareness. He is alive, of course, but he isn’t thinking yet or at least not yet capable of connecting impressions and thought and putting them in context. Meanwhile a person who is dying doesn’t relinquish his capacity to think as long as his brain is still able to function. Such a person is therefore able to perceive his own dying. This capacity to think may last only fractions of a second or it may last much longer, and physical paralysis or loss of consciousness does not necessarily progress hand in hand with mental decline.

  Sonnenberg’s death came very quickly.

  Nevertheless, something must have been on his mind as he was dying. He tried speaking several times, but in vain. Presumably these were words of hate that were on the tip of his tongue. While alive he had been a good hater, and it was unlikely that he had loving things to say before his death.

  The people standing around had watched in horror as the dying man tried to speak. But the words that served as a bridge between his brain and the onlookers had been taken from him.

  In the moment of death, Sonnenberg’s face had appeared extremely disgruntled. When his muscles slackened and the twitching subsided, a further change occurred. While he was alive, his eyelids had covered his eyes, which had died years before. Now, in death, they sprang wide open. The corners of his mouth were turned down, giving his face a pained expression.

  His spirit had undoubtedly passed more quickly than his body, although his actual death had only occurred just as Minchen Lindner caught sight of him.

  Fundholz had witnessed every phase of Sonnenberg’s dying. Purely on instinct he was not inclined to believe in a higher justice, nor did he conceive of life as something especially valuable. But even for someone who had often witnessed it, death was still startling. Provided he wasn’t completely desensitized.

  Fundholz may have been quite desensitized to life, but never before had he been so aware as he watched someone die. Never in his life had he experienced each stage of dying as he did with Sonnenberg. As he studied the face of the blind man, it was as if he were seeing beyond it, as if it wasn’t Sonnenberg wrestling with death, but he himself.

  Fundholz didn’t say anything. He was unable to. But he was thinking as he had rarely ever done.

  So that’s how it is. A person dies, but he’s still alive while he’s dying. Fundholz had never thought about what might lie between life and death. You were alive, and then you weren’t—that was what he’d always thought. But now he felt there was something else between those two states. Dying didn’t just entail the external physical process, which left behind nonliving flesh. It was also about some driving force, a life spark that was extinguished.

  And it was this act of extinguishing, this state between light and dark—at once so brief and so long—that Fundholz believed to have felt in his own body as he witnessed Sonnenberg’s death.

  He was an old man and therefore closer to death than young people. He had long ago accepted the idea that the day would come when he would no longer exist. So for him, Sonnenberg’s dying was different from what it was for most of the people who were still standing around the blind man. For them it was a disturbing incident, but for Fundholz it meant more: He was struggling to grasp the entire concept of dying.

  His was not a complex mind, which was why this experience could occupy him so completely. He did not hugely mourn Sonnenberg. But as he looked at the blind man, he trained his thoughts beyond. And as he did so, the dead man kept him firmly in his grip. Fundholz was trying to comprehend the elemental force of death, even though his brain was not equipped, or no longer equipped, to deal with such difficult thinking. So it was hard for him, and his thoughts were not pleasant. Nevertheless, he went on thinking, thinking so hard he felt his head would explode.

  Tönnchen poked him.“Tönnchen wants to leave,” he whined.

  Fundholz turned around, as if released. The thoughts of dying had vanished. Only the thought of Sonnenberg was left. But he was able to get past that thanks to his life philosophy, which stated: The less you think about things that can’t be changed, the better and easier it is to get over them.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Grissmann’s courage had lasted only as far as his knife had reached and ended when the deed was done. After he had withdrawn the blade, he realized that he was a man who had destroyed his life. A man who was still alive but standing under the blade of the guillotine. Only after he had committed the deed did he see the consequences.

  The murder was easy, but the aftermath proved difficult. Just after he pulled the knife across the blind man’s throat, he felt a surge of fear that this could result in his own death. And just as he had believed he could solve all problems with a slash of his knife, now, in the wake of the deed, he believed his life lay in the swiftness of his legs.

  Men who easily trample on the lives of others, who easily take another person’s life, generally harbor an all-encompassing love of themselves. For them, every limb, every bone in their body is something sacred, valuable beyond measure. And what they love most is their own head.

  Of course we don’t always appreciate what we have until we’re in danger of losing it, when what we take for granted is challenged. Grissmann’s life was now being challenged.

  And only now, when the deed was already done, did he recognize how enormously valuable his life still was to him. He was no longer pitted against Sonnenberg or even the guests at the Jolly Huntsman, but against all of civilized mankind. Society wanted to capture him, either to exterminate him or to render him harmless. His life lay in his legs, so he believed. And given the immediate danger, he forgot what lay beyond.

  As he was fleeing through the Jolly Huntsman, the entire danger seemed to lie in his two pursuers. Faced with these two men, he hadn’t given any thought to the police or other agents of society. And that was still the case, now that he had reached the street. Still running, he turned around and saw that one of his pursuers was also brandishing a knife. Grissmann’s fear increased even more. He was afraid the man would kill him without further ado. From then on he only looked ahead.

  I’ll outrun them, he thought with steeply rising optimism. But behind him they were crying, “Murderer! Stop him!”

  Grissmann winced as though he’d been whipped. His fear became more desperate. Just don’t die. Survive at any cost!

  If he knew that he’d just be sent to prison. But it was equally possible they’d take his head. They were bound to condemn him to death!

  None of them understood him. If they catch me, I’ll have to die. They can’t catch me! Run, run, I have to run a lot faster! And anyone who tries to stop me will have to answer to me!

  People stopped. They heard the wild shouting behind Grissmann, but they also saw the knife in his hand. No one wanted to risk his life. What were the police for?

  A car caught up to Grissmann, passed him, and then braked ten meters ahead of him. The driver jumped out and ran toward him. Grissmann held up his knife, ready to defend himself. The man stepped aside and let him go.

  Grissmann raced ahead. Then he felt something hit his lower back. He stumbled, fell, and dropped his knife. The man had thrown a wrench at him, and then he caught up and wanted to overpower him. But Grissmann no longer resisted.

  The other pursuers came up. The driver handed Grissmann over, and they took hold of him.

  “I’d like to be there when they take your head off,” said one.

  Grissmann howled.

  The men, still panting, spoke with the driver and told him what had transpired.

  “Well, how about me? Do I get a reward?” he asked coolly.

  He gave the men his name, and for a moment considered whether he should give Grissmann one more kick, but he didn’t. He climbed back in his car and drove off. Then he immediately phoned all the papers and told them about the murder and how he had caught the murderer. Each of them promised to pay him something. Afterward he drove home, feeling quite pleased. He wouldn’t have to drive his cab anymore that night. He had earned enough.

  Grissmann, however, was dragged back to the Jolly Huntsman, where they intended to hand him over to the police.

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  Wilhelm yanked the door open. “Everybody scram!” he yelled. “Someone was just bumped off here! The police are on their way!”

  Everyone jumped up, excited. Sommer immediately grasped the situation. “Quiet!” he shouted. “Whoever hasn’t paid for his beer can pay me tomorrow morning. I’ll pass on the money.

 

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