When the houses of Carhaix-Plouguer were behind me, I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw the first streak of dawn. Another seventy kilometres to Trefeuntec. In Plonévez-Porzay the bar and the bakery were already open and I ate two croissants along with my milky coffee. At a quarter to eight I reached the bay of Trefeuntec. I drove the car onto the beach, still wet and firm from the tide. Beneath a grey sky the grey sea rolled in. It crashed against the high coast to the right and left of the bay with dirty white crests. It was even milder than Paris in spite of the strong westerly wind that drove the clouds before it. Shrieking gulls were swept aloft on its current before they dropped in a plummeting dive to the water.
I began the search for Korten’s house. I drove a little inland and came to a field-track on the craggy northerly coast. With its bays and cliffs rising from the shore it stretched as far as the eye could see. In the distance I could make out a silhouette, it could be anything under the sun, from a water tower to the large windmill. I left the car behind a wind-buffeted hut and made for the tower.
Before I saw Korten, his two dachshunds saw me. They rollicked towards me, yapping. Then he emerged from a dip. We weren’t far from one another but between us was a bay that we each headed round. Along the narrow path that ran along the cliff top, we walked towards one another.
18 Old friends like you and me
‘You look terrible, my dear Self. A few days’ rest here will do you a world of good. I hadn’t expected you yet. Let’s walk a bit. Helga’s preparing breakfast for nine. She’ll be glad to see you.’ Korten linked his arm through mine and prepared to continue. He was wearing a light loden coat and looked relaxed.
‘I know everything,’ I said, stepping away.
Korten looked at me enquiringly. He understood immediately.
‘It’s not easy for you, Gerd. It wasn’t easy for me either, and I was happy not to have to burden anyone with it.’
I stared at him speechlessly. He stepped up to me once more, took my arm, and nudged me along the path. ‘You think it had to do with my career. No, in the whole mess of those last years of the war what mattered most was sorting out real responsibility and making clean decisions. Things wouldn’t have gone well for our research group. Dohmke consigning himself to the sidelines that way – I was sorry back then. But so many people, better people, lost their lives. Mischkey had his choice too, and dug himself deeper and deeper into trouble.’ He stood still and grabbed my shoulders. ‘You have to understand, Gerd. The Works needed me to be the way I became in those difficult years. I always had great respect for old Schmalz. He was simple but he could understand these tricky connections.’
‘You must be crazy. You murdered two men and you talk about it as though… as though…’
‘Oh, those are big words. Did I murder them? Or was it the judge or the hangman? Old Schmalz? And who headed the investigation against Tyberg and Dohmke? Who set the trap for Mischkey and let it snap shut? We’re all entangled in it, all of us, and we have to recognize that and bear it, and do our duty.’
I broke loose from his hold. ‘Entangled? Perhaps we all are, but you pulled the strings!’ I was shouting into his placid face.
He stood still, too. ‘That’s just child’s stuff – “he did it, he did it.” And even when we were children we never really believed it; we knew perfectly well that we were all involved when a teacher was being goaded, or one of our classmates bullied, or the other side in the game was being fouled.’ He spoke with utter concentration, patiently, didactically, and my head was dazed and confused. It was true, that’s how my sense of guilt had eroded, year by year.
Korten was still talking. ‘But, please – I did it. If that’s what you need – yes, I did it. What do you think would have happened had Mischkey gone to the press? That sort of thing doesn’t end with an old boss being replaced by a new one, and everything goes on as before. I needn’t tell you the play his story would have got in the USA, and England and France, or talk about what it would do when we’re fighting our competition inch by inch, or about how many jobs would be destroyed, and what unemployment means today. The RCW is a large, heavy ship going at breakneck speed through the drift-ice despite its bulk and if the captain leaves and the steering is loose, it will run aground and be wrecked. That’s why I say yes, I did it.’
‘Murder?’
‘Could I have bribed him? The risk was too high. And don’t tell me that no risk is too high when it’s about saving a life. It’s not true. Think of road deaths, accidents in the workplace, police who shoot to kill. Think of the fight against terrorism: the police have shot as many people by accident as the terrorists have intentionally – is that a reason to give up?’
‘And Dohmke?’ I suddenly felt empty inside. I could see us standing there, talking, as though a film were running without a soundtrack. Beneath the grey clouds, a craggy coastline, a mist of dirty spray, a narrow path and the fields beyond, and two older men in heated discussion – hands gesticulating, mouths moving – but the scene is mute. I wished I wasn’t there.
‘Dohmke? Actually I don’t have to comment on that. The years between nineteen thirty-three and nineteen forty-five are supposed to remain a blank – that’s the foundation on which our state is built. Fine, we had to – still have to – produce some theatre with trials and verdicts. But in nineteen forty-five there was no Night of the Long Knives, and that would have been the only chance of retribution. Then the foundation was set. You’re not satisfied? Okay then, Dohmke couldn’t be trusted; he was unpredictable, a talented chemist maybe, but an amateur in everything else. He wouldn’t have lasted two minutes at the front.’
We walked on. He hadn’t needed to link arms with me again; when he continued I’d stuck by his side.
‘Fate may talk that way, Ferdinand, but not you. Steamships that set a course, solid foundations, entanglements in which we’re all mere puppets – you can tell me all about the powers and forces in life but none of it alters the fact that you, Ferdinand Korten, and only you-’
‘Fate?’ Now he was furious. ‘We are our own fate, and I don’t offload anything on powers and forces. You’re the one who never sees things through to the end, nor leaves them well and truly alone. Get Dohmke and Mischkey in a mess, yes, but when what inevitably happens next does, you find your scruples and you don’t want to have seen it or done it. My God, Gerd, grow up at last.’
He stumped on. The path had narrowed and I walked behind him, cliffs to the left, a wall to the right. Beyond it, the fields.
‘Why did you come?’ He turned round. ‘To see whether I’d kill you, too? Push you over?’ Fifty metres below the sea seethed. He laughed, as though it were a joke. Then he read it in my eyes before I said the words.
‘I’ve come to kill you.’
‘To bring them back to life?’ he mocked. ‘Because you… because the perpetrator wants to play judge? Do you feel innocent and exploited? What would you have been without me, without my sister and my parents, before nineteen fortyfive, and all my help afterwards? Jump yourself if you can’t deal with it.’
His voice cracked. I stared at him. Then that grin came to his face, the one I’d known, and liked, since we were young. It had charmed me into shared escapades and out of fatal situations, understanding, winning, superior.
‘Hey, Gerd, this is crazy. Two old friends like you and me
… Come on, let’s have breakfast. I can smell the coffee already.’ He whistled to the dogs.