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door at Schuler’s house was his niece. She had been crying and again burst into tears the moment she began to speak. “He smelled and grouched and nagged. But he was such a good person, such a good person. Everyone knew it, and his students liked him and came to see him, and he helped them every way he could.”
    She herself had been a student of his, as had her husband. They met when both happened to drop by one day to see Schuler.
    We sat in the kitchen, which she had tidied up a little. She had made some tea and offered me a cup. “There’s no sugar. When it came to sugar, I managed to talk some sense into him. As for alcohol, he wouldn’t listen.” The thought of this brought more tears to her eyes. “He wasn’t long for this world, but that doesn’t make it any better. Do you know what I mean? It doesn’t make it any better.”
    “What do the police say?”
    “The police?”
    I told her that her uncle’s accident had happened right outside my door. “I came to Schwetzingen right away to inform you, but the police were already here.”
    “Yes, the precinct in Mannheim called our local station, and they came by. It was a coincidence that I happened to be here. I don’t come every day. He wants … I mean, he wanted …” Again she began to cry.
    “Did the police say anything, or ask you anything?”
    “No.”
    “Your uncle was in a terrible state when he came to see me right before his accident. It was as if he’d suffered a shock, as if something had really frightened him.”
    “Why did you let him drive?” She looked at me reproachfully through her tears.
    “It all happened much too fast. Your uncle … He was here one minute, gone the next.”
    “But surely you could have held him back, I mean you could have …” She pulled out a handkerchief and blew her nose. “I’m sorry. I know how difficult he could be once he’d gotten something into his head. And here I am, practically accusing you. I didn’t mean to.” She looked at me sadly, but I reproached myself with everything she wasn’t reproaching me with. She was right: Why hadn’t I held him back? Why didn’t I at least try? This time it wasn’t only my emotions that had been too slow.
    “I …” But I didn’t know what to say. I looked at her as she sat bent forward, her hands weakly clasping the handker-chief, her face warm, innocent. She hadn’t asked me who I was, but had simply taken me for a friend of her uncle’s, a companion in grief. I felt as if I’d not only let Schuler down, but her as well, and I sought absolution in her face. But I could find none. Without confession there is no absolution.
     
     
     

— 16 —
     
No class
     
     
    W hen Brigitte and I arrived at the retirement party the Nägelsbachs were throwing at their place in the Pfaffengrund settlement, Nägelsbach was already tipsy and morosely cheerful.
    “Well, Herr Self? At first my colleagues didn’t want to hand your friend over to Forensics, but I had a word with them and they finally sent him over. Speaking of which, from now on you’ll have to make do on your own. I won’t be able to help you anymore.”
    His wife took Brigitte and me aside. “His boss asked me what kind of present he might like,” she said. “I’m afraid he’s thinking of turning up here uninvited. If he does come, can you intercept him? I don’t want him suddenly coming face-to-face with my husband.”
    She was wearing a long black gown—I couldn’t tell if it was for mourning at the end of her husband’s career, or because it was beautiful and suited her, or if she wanted to portray somebody: Virginia Woolf, Juliette Gréco, or Charlotte Corday on her way to the scaffold. She does things like that.
    The guests were crowded into the dining area and living room, which were connected by an open sliding door. I greeted this and that police officer I recognized from the Heidelberg headquarters. Brigitte whispered to me: “Forensics? Did he just mention forensics? Do