17
In response to an official request
I was back in Mannheim at four thirty. On my way there I had still not figured out what to make of all this. I wanted to talk to Salger, but not on the phone and definitely not by way of his answering machine. It was clear that he knew more than he had led me to believe.
I drove straight over to the Max-Joseph-Strasse. Brigitte greeted me as if our spat had never taken place. We embraced. She felt good, warm, and soft, and I only let go of her when Manu tugged at us jealously.
“Why don't the two of you take Nonni out?” she suggested. “And come back around seven thirty. I'll finish my tax returns and cook something—the sauerbraten should be ready by seven thirty.”
Nonni is Manu's dog, a tiny creature, a fluffy toy. Manu put him on a leash and we made a grand tour of the town: the Neckar embankment, the Luisenpark, the Oststadt, and the Water Tower. We made slow progress. In general I have my doubts when it comes to evolution and progress, but the fact that erotic attraction between humans doesn't involve sniffing tree trunks and corners is without doubt a clear sign of evolutionary progress.
I called Salger from Brigitte's place. The answering machine wasn't on. Was Salger back in Bonn? The phone rang futilely. I tried again at nine and at ten, but still nobody picked up.
On Sunday, too, and even Monday morning at eight my attempts were futile. At nine I took Manu to school and Brigitte to her massage practice at the Collini Center, and then drove on to the main post office to look through the regional phone books. If Salger was back in Bonn, he had to be back at work, too. I found Bonn in phone book number 53, and under Federal Government found the number of the chancellor and seventeen federal ministries. I started with the Federal Chancellery and the Press and Public Relations Office. They didn't have an Under-Secretary Salger. There was no Salger at the Federal Ministry for Work and Social Services, nor at any of the other ministries listed. At the Federal Ministry for Justice nobody picked up until ten fifteen, at which point the lady on the phone, though sounding rested and exceptionally friendly, had never heard of an Under-Secretary Salger. I turned to phone book number 39 and called the various departments at the state government in Düsseldorf. It didn't seem too farfetched that Salger might be living in Bonn but working in Düsseldorf. But no regional minister of Nordrhein-Westfalen had an under-secretary by the name of Salger.
I drove over to the Municipal Hospital. It was time to find out a few things. I wanted to pin down my client: the mysterious under-secretary without a department, the owner of a phone number that was listed nowhere, the sender of letters containing five thousand marks without a return address. I had his telephone number, but Information will only disclose a subscriber's name and address in response to an official request or in a case of an emergency. A doctor who finds nothing but a telephone number in the pockets of an unconscious patient and needs to know his name and address can call Information and put in his request, and he will be called back. Philipp had to help me make this request official.
Philipp was still in the operating theater, and the head nurse showed me into his office. I had intended to ask him to put the call through to Information, but then I decided to save him the trouble and do my own lying.
“Hello, this is Dr. Self, Mannheim Municipal Hospital. We have an accident patient without ID. All we have is a number in Bonn: 41-17-88. Can you please provide me with the name and address for this number?”
I was put on hold twice. Then they promised to check and call me back. I gave them Philipp's number. Five minutes later the phone rang.
“Hello.”
“Dr. Self?”
“Speaking.”
“41-17-88 belongs to a Helmut Lehmann …”
“Lehmann?”
“Ludwig, Emil, Heinrich, Marta, Anton, Nordpol, Nordpol. The address is Niebuhrstrasse 46a in Bonn, District 1.”
I made a cross-check, calling Information in Bonn and asking for the number of Helmut Lehmann, Niebuhrstrasse 46a, and was given 41-17-88.
It was twenty past twelve. I checked the train schedule: There was an intercity train from Mannheim to Bonn at 12:45.I didn't wait for Philipp.
By 12:40 I was standing in the long line in front of the only open ticket window. By 12:44 the bored clerk and his boring computer had served four passengers, and I could see that I wasn't going to get to my ticket before 12:48. I rushed out onto the platform. No train came at 12:45, 12:46, 12:47, 12:48, or 12:49. At 12:50 there was an announcement that intercity train 714 was running five minutes late, and it pulled into the station at 12:54. I get worked up, even though I know that this is how things are nowadays with the train system, and that getting worked up isn't good for me. I remember the railways in the old days, punctual and treating passengers with sober, firm, Prussian respect.
I won't waste any words on the lunch in the restaurant car. The ride along the Rhine is always beautiful. I like seeing the railway bridge from Mainz to Wiesbaden, the Niederwald Memorial, the Kaub Castle on the island, the Loreley, and Castle Ehrenbreitstein. At 2:55 I was in Bonn.
I won't waste any words on Bonn either. A taxi took me to Niebuhrstrasse 46a. The narrow house was, like most houses on that street, a product of the mid-nineteenth century Gröünderzeit period with columns, capitals, and friezes. On the ground floor, next to the entrance, was a tiny shop in which nothing was on display or being sold anymore. The pale black lettering on the gray frosted glass above the door announced HABERDASHERY. I ran my eye over the names on the buzzers: There was no Lehmann.
I didn't find a Lehmann on the buzzers of Niebuhrstrasse 46 or 48 either. I read the buzzers of number 46a once more but found no further information. I was on the point of giving up, but then I hesitated, perhaps because I had glimpsed something from the corner of my eye that had been picked up by my subconscious. The tiny plaque by the door of the shop read HELMUT LEHMANN. Helmut Lehmann—nothing more. The door was locked. Inside the shop there were a counter, two chairs, and an empty display stand for pantyhose.
On the counter stood a telephone and an answering machine.