2

In the Blue Salon

In Mannheim and Ludwigshafen we live beneath the gaze of the Rhineland Chemical Works. It was founded in 1872, seven years after the Baden Aniline and Soda Factory, by Professor Demel and Entzen, His Excellency, both chemists. The Works have grown since then, and grown and grown. Today they encompass a third of the developed land of Ludwigshafen and boast around a hundred thousand employees. In collaboration with the wind, the rhythm of RCW production determines whether the region, and which part, will reek of chlorine, sulphur, or ammonia.

The executive restaurant is situated outside the grounds of the plant and enjoys its own fine reputation. Besides the large restaurant for middle management, there is a separate area for directors with several salons still decorated in the colours that Demel and Entzen synthesized in their early successes. And a bar.

I was still standing there at one. I’d been informed at reception that the general director would unfortunately be somewhat delayed. I ordered my second Aviateur.

‘Campari, grapefruit juice, champagne, a third of each.’ The red-haired, freckled girl helping out behind the bar today was happy to learn something new.

‘You’re doing a great job,’ I said.

She looked at me sympathetically. ‘The general director’s keeping you waiting?’

I’d waited in worse places, in cars, doorways, corridors, hotel lobbies, and railway stations. Here I stood beneath gilded stucco and a gallery of oil portraits where Korten’s face would hang one day.

‘My dear Self,’ he said, approaching. Small and wiry, with alert blue eyes, grey crew-cut, and the leathery brown skin you get from too much sport in the sun. In a band with Richard von Weizsäcker, Yul Brynner, and Herbert von Karajan he could take the Badenweiler, Hitler’s favourite march, play it in swing, and he’d have a worldwide hit.

‘Sorry to be so late. You’re still at it, the smoking and the drinking?’ He frowned at my pack of Sweet Aftons. ‘Bring me an Apollinaris! How are you?’

‘Fine. I’m taking it a little slower these days, not surprising at sixty-eight. I don’t take every job any more and in a couple of weeks I’ll be sailing the Aegean. And you’re not relinquishing the helm yet?’

‘I’d like to. But it’ll take another year or two before anyone can replace me. We’re going through a sticky patch.’

‘Should I sell?’ I was thinking of my ten RCW shares deposited at the Baden Civil Servants’ Bank.

‘No, my dear Self,’ he laughed. ‘In the end these difficult phases always turn out to be a blessing for us. But still there are things that worry us, long term and short term. It’s a short-term problem I wanted to see you about today and then put you together with Firner. You remember him?’

I remembered him well. A couple of years ago Firner had been made director, but for me he’d always remain Korten’s bright-eyed assistant. ‘Is he still wearing Harvard Business School ties?’

Korten didn’t respond. He looked reflective, as though considering whether to introduce a company tie. He took my arm. ‘Let’s go to the Blue Salon. It’s ready.’

The Blue Salon is the best the RCW has to offer its guests. An art-deco room, with table and chairs by van de Velde, a Mackintosh lamp, and on the wall an industrial landscape by Kokoschka. Two places were set. When we were seated a waiter brought a fresh salad.

‘I’ll stick to my Apollinaris. I’ve ordered a Château de Sannes for you. You like that, don’t you? And after the salad a Tafelspitz?’

My favourite dish. How nice of Korten to think of it. The meat was tender, the horseradish sauce without a heavy roux, but rich with cream. Korten’s lunch ended with the crunchy salad. While I was eating, he got down to business.

‘I’m not going to get well acquainted with computers at this point. When I see the young people sent to us from university these days, who take no responsibility and are incapable of making decisions without consulting the oracle I think of the poem about the sorcerer’s apprentice. I was almost glad to hear the system was acting up. We have one of the best management and business information systems in the world. I’ve no idea who’d want to know, but you could find out on the terminal that we’re having Tafelspitz and salad in the Blue Salon today, which employees are currently training on the tennis court, which marriages among the staff are intact and which are floundering, and at what intervals which flowers are planted in the flowerbeds in front of the restaurant. And of course the computer has a record of everything that was previously housed in the files of payroll, personnel, and so on.’

‘And how can I help you with this?’

‘Patience, my dear Self. We were promised one of the safest possible systems. That means passwords, entry codes, data locks, Doomsday effects, and what have you. All of this is supposed to ensure no one can tamper with our system. But what’s happened is just that.’

‘My dear Korten . . .’ Addressing each other by our surname, a habit from schooldays, is something we’d held on to, even as best friends. But ‘my dear Self ’ annoys me, and he knows it. ‘My dear Korten, as a boy even the abacus overwhelmed me. And now I’m supposed to tinker about with passwords, entry codes, and data what-do-you-call-them?’

‘No. All the computer business is sorted out. If I understand Firner correctly, there’s a list of people who could have created the mess in our system. Our sole concern is finding the right one. That’s exactly where you come into it. Investigate, observe, shadow, ask pertinent questions – the usual.’

I wanted to know more, but he fended me off.

‘I’m none the wiser myself. Firner will go into it with you. Let’s not spend all of lunch talking about this miserable situation – there’s been so little opportunity to meet since Klara’s death.’

So we talked about the old days: ‘Do you remember?’ I don’t like the old times, I’ve packed them away and put a lid on them. I should have sat up and paid attention when Korten was talking about the sacrifices we’d had to make and ask for. But it didn’t occur to me until much later.

So far as the current day went we had little to say to each other. I wasn’t surprised his son had become a member of parliament – he had always seemed precocious. Korten seemed to hold him in contempt but was all the prouder of his grandchildren. Marion had been accepted into the Student Foundation of the German People, Ulrich had won a ‘Young Research’ prize with an essay about the twinning of prime numbers. I could have told him about my tomcat, Turbo, but let it go.

I drained my mocha, and Korten officially ended the meal. The restaurant supervisor bid us farewell. We set off for the Works.