I understand what you’re saying. Maybe I can’t immediately adapt to the way the authorities think, but I understand.
Although my visit is a private one, we can’t put ourselves outside the law, Kienast said, and this time Döhring remained silent. From that moment we met at the scene of the crime, we haven’t been private persons, and I must in no uncertain terms correct your ideas about this.
He wasn’t sure Döhring understood him.
I am the one you called, your trust in me is truly touching, but I am the police.
This too had no response.
True, I had a free evening, or I made myself free for this evening, that’s also a fact. But anyway, based on your calls and no matter what the nature of your worries was, my professional responsibility told me I shouldn’t leave you by yourself.
Maybe then you’ll have time for me. You don’t have to leave so quickly.
This was so unexpected, sounded so gentle and convincing, so full of pure human hope, that Kienast was alarmed.
I can’t demand more time or attention than you are willing to grant me, I wanted to warn you about this.
But you wouldn’t give any more, either.
That’s something you don’t need to ask about. My personal feelings and professional sense of responsibility are not so far apart.
You must be every inch a democrat.
No need to mock me. A thing like this doesn’t happen to you every day.
No, it doesn’t.
Then how can you miss the personal sympathy, or empathy.
I know what you mean.
There, you see.
But you should know, said Döhring, embarrassed, that I’m a strange bird, a man locked into himself, restless, thinking, and I’m not a great democrat. I’m not on confidential terms with other people, I have only limited experience — I mean in the intimacies among people.
I can assure you right now that you’re not alone in this. Everyone has to learn anew on each occasion — I mean, how to gain someone’s confidence.
But this entire human confidence thing is nothing but a bad game, sheer hypocrisy.
Mostly it is, yes.
Like stepping into a terrible tunnel of mirrors. Nobody trusts anybody. It’s best for one to stay outside. It bothers me especially that people talk too much because they are incapable of even the smallest abstraction.
That’s almost completely true.
They keep lying senselessly.
No reason to reproach them, they need to defend themselves.
I can’t speak of anything but myself, of course, and why should this interest you or anyone.
So as not to hear one’s own lies, people are afraid of that too.
Yes, something like that.
You may think it’s a sin, but no one can exist without lies, I guarantee it.
I don’t know whether several needs don’t combine to do the thinking in one person. Whether one doesn’t have several selves, all at the ready all the time, and one can neither choose one nor express all of them at once — only one in place of another, or one after the other, or one in opposition to another.
The faces of young people are most revealing; he must consider this. Their instinct to hide tends to expose them.
Maybe you should sit where you sat before, please.
Thanks for your kindness, but I’d rather get up. Before you say anything you think is essential, it is my official duty to tell you that nothing you say to me here may be considered as a confession.
I understand, the young man replied, though at that moment what he truly did not understand was what, if that’s how things stood, the Creator’s intentions might be.
He was ready to make a confession, against his own family, to save all of humankind, and perhaps the Creator might say that he would not accept the confession as valid.
He faltered, shook his head as though trying to shake this disturbing formulation out of his skull, out of his brain, much as a helpless sick animal would.
No matter how much I’d like to change the situation, he moaned at last — his voice very loud or rather very penetrating, because he knew this was an obstacle — I can’t be familiar with anyone.
You may be disturbed by anyone’s physical proximity.
I guess you can put it that way, said Döhring, as if suddenly relieved.
Our being distrustful is mutual, if that’s any reassurance.
But I feel it’s better than dissembling.
I understand.
I know you do.
I must tell you a lot of things so you can see clearly and understand the connections.
I’ll try to understand them, anyway.
Though my case can’t have much to do with the case you’re investigating.
If that is so, you are making me especially curious.
May I ask something of you.
First let’s hear your request, then I can decide whether you may ask it.
Would you tell me what I am suspected of.
That’s a rash question. If the occasion arises it would have to be asked not by you but by your lawyer. But I can give you a clear answer.
Please do.
Suspicion arises when factually and objectively we know what happened. I am free to suspect someone when the evidence allows me to raise charges against him or her. It’s not worth doing before then.
This would be the paradox of your profession.
I don’t know about that, but this way it’s practical. Otherwise one goes astray. One should not shut out other possibilities because of one possibility, and this is a basic premise not just in our profession.
But I had the impression I was under suspicion. Maybe not by the others, but you suspected me. And I must admit that really got to me. As if I were truly the culprit.
You’d probably find it flattering if it were so, but I had no reason to do that.
I know what I’m talking about, I don’t need you to flatter me with such things, I’ve been preparing for a murder for years.
I understand, I should have known.
To be precise, I’ve been getting ready for it for two years.
You probably want to share this compulsion with me so you won’t have to commit it.
There isn’t necessarily a causal relationship between the two.
How should I understand that.
It’s hard to explain, or rather, impossible. I’ve never talked about it seriously. I’ve no experience in it. And I hate people gushing about themselves.
You despise them, you’ve already said that.
I despise them, but I also hate them. I know I should be ashamed, others are ashamed of it, but I’m not. I can hate them individually, but I especially hate them collectively.
That is why I’ve come, you made me curious to know where you’ve acquired so much strength to despise people.
I see you’re at home in psychology, you’re trying to calm me down.
I studied it for two and a half years, to have some idea of it.
Or to learn a few tricks of the trade. When you say I’m strong, for example, you can count on my growing weak.
There’s hardly anyone who wouldn’t grow weak from that.
That I should be easy prey for you.
When we use tricks in our conversation, that doesn’t necessarily mean our intentions are false or treacherous.