Self's deception by Bernhard Schlink Page B

imagine that you are a dedicated therapist, conscious that the relationship between your client and her father is the core issue, are working on it, have successes, setbacks, and finally a breakthrough that will bring your client back on the right track. And then suddenly a private investigator appears, and through that private investigator the father raises his fist—Wendt simply reached for the first lie he could think of to shake you off and shield his client.”
    “So where is she?”
    “I have no idea, Herr Self. I also do not know if things happened as I told you. The reason for my telling you this is so you can understand what might drive a doctor like Wendt to invent a foolish story like that.”
    “So it could have been altogether different?”
    He ignored my question. “I liked that girl—a cheerful spirit beneath a depressive veneer, not to mention her good pedigree. I hope she'll make it.” He thought a while. “Be that as it may, I have neglected my wife long enough. Let's go back.”
    He got up and I followed him. The band had begun to play, and couples were whirling over the floor. We didn't have to force or edge our way through the crowd—standing and dancing couples spontaneously parted before Eberlein. We found the others. I danced with Frau Eberlein after he tapped his cane against his wooden leg and gave me a prompting glance, and then with Füruzan, and with a woman who approached me during ladies' choice and towered a head above me. By eleven thirty the crowd became too much for me, the room too small, the music too loud.
    I found Brigitte on the terrace. She was flirting with a nobody in a turquoise suit and with an oily slick of hair.
    “I'm leaving. Are you coming along?” I asked her.
    She stayed. I drove home. At six thirty in the morning the doorbell rang, and there was Brigitte with a packet of fresh rolls. I didn't ask her where she'd just come from. Over breakfast I was going to propose to her, but as she got up to get the eggs from the stove she stepped on Turbo's tail.

16
Wider, straighter, faster
    After lunch things suddenly fell into place. I'd swum a few laps at the Herschelbad on account of my back, and then, returning from the market, saw Giovanni standing outside the door of the Kleiner Rosengarten restaurant.
    I greeted him. “You back? No more Mama-mia and Sole-mio ?” But he wasn't in a mood to play our German-con verses-with-immigrant-worker game today. He had a lot to tell me about things back home in Radda, and found it easier to do so in his fluent German than in our bumbling pidgin. Then he brought out my food, which finally was again the way I liked it. He himself had gone shopping in the morning to the market and the slaughterhouse. The veal cutlet was juicy and the sauce had been pureed from fresh tomatoes and seasoned with sage. He brought me espresso and sambuca without my having to ask.
    “Do you count in Italian?” I asked him. Giovanni was standing next to my table with his pad, adding up my order.
    “You mean, even though I speak good German? I think when people count, they fall back into their mother tongue. Even though numbers aren't really that difficult.”
    I thought of the Hopfen family's au pair. One, two, three…she had counted twenty Smurfs. In German, despite her thick accent and her slipping up on nouns and verbs. Brigitte's son, Manu, who had lived for a long time in Brazil with his father but by now speaks good Mannheim German, still counts in Portuguese, even when I'm helping him with his homework and math problems. On the other hand, Lea might have been counting in German just to settle the children's argument.
    I wanted to see her. Only I couldn't remember where I'd parked my car. At the Herschelbad? The market square? At home? It's sad when you have to use your detective's nose to make up for the shortcomings of age. The price tag on the shampoo bottle gave me a clue. It came from a drugstore in Neckarstadt. I remembered that I had