It was time for Anke to leave again. She would phone me, she promised. I took them to the station. On the way, we talked about other things. I told Anke that I had received a letter from somebody who had known or who knew where Franz Kern was. I told her I would be going back down to Nuremberg soon.
I walked on to the platform with them. I made sure they got on the train all right and waved at them when the train began to pull out. Alex didnt move. Anke took his hand and waved it for him. It was the last time I saw him.
Then I got my own train back to Düsseldorf. I couldnt stop seeing this image of Alex, waving. I had this imaginary view from the air of two trains speeding away from each other in opposite directions, Anke and Alex on one, myself on the other, all of us staring out at the fields, at the flat landscape of the Ruhr valley.
40
For weeks, Anke had stayed at home every day with Alexander. I told her it would be better for her not to come down to Dusseldorf any more until Alex was better. She said he wasnt going to get better. Anke was on the phone to me almost every day to give me the details. She was sick with sadness. Jürgen had been putting forward his proposal again to give Alex a peaceful, premature death. They couldnt bear to see him suffering any more.
Anke was unsure about the idea. I could see that she had second thoughts; stronger feelings of doubt and guilt. She kept asking me what to do. I told her it was unfair for me to influence her one way or the other. It was so easy for me to say something on the phone.
The next day she rang up and said she was coming to Düsseldorf the following day. She needed to discuss the whole thing; she was racked by indecision and Jürgen was placing her under pressure. The nurse would look after Alex. She dismissed any danger of Jürgen arriving home unexpectedly and counting the hours she was away. She insisted she had to meet me. I agreed to meet her at Düsseldorf station this time, on the Intercity arriving at 11.
I left the apartment early the next morning. It plagued me to think of Alexander. Somehow it seemed that Anke wanted my consent. My blessing. All I had to say to Anke was, yes, Anke, I believe youre doing the right thing, and it would be over. Why would she not leave me out of this?
By 10.30 on Wednesday I stood waiting for her in the underground aisle of the Hauptbahnhof, walking up and down, past the flowersellers, the bookshop, the magazine shop, every now and again passing the escalator to platform 13, from where she would emerge. I had waited there so often for her to spring into view suddenly at the top of the escalator. Lately, there was a distraught look in her eyes; even though she smiled, I could see she was thinking back to Münster and her son.
I heard the announcements spilling down from the platforms. The Intercity from Osnabrück and Münster arrived. Passengers came rushing down. I kept searching the faces for Ankes. Ready to embrace her and lead her away. But she wasnt there. Instead, almost the last passenger to come down the escalator, I saw Jürgen.
Jesus, I said, almost out loud.
My first impulse was to run, or to hide. I thought it was some coincidence. But then Jürgen had seen me. He came down with his hands in his pockets, smiling. Then he extended his arms towards me. He embraced me, his hands clapping my back. He had a tearful expression.
I am glad to see you. Its been so long.
I couldnt believe this was true. I might have expected him to show only resentment and hostility at this stage. I was taking Anke away from him. I might have expected Jürgen to kill me, maybe to plunge some gynaecological instrument straight into my back. Instead I felt the warmth of his friendship.
I came instead of Anke. She stayed at home with Alex. We are very worried about him.
He led me away with his arm around my shoulder. I kept asking myself questions. Why didnt Anke phone and warn me? Maybe she did. Then Jürgen answered for me.
Anke tried to phone you, but you were out.
Jürgen was wearing a suit. It looked as though he had taken his white coat off and come straight from the surgery.
How is Alex? I asked.
Thats what Ive come to talk to you about, Jürgen said. Im not going to talk about you and Anke. I know that you meet. But I havent come here to talk about that. There is not much I can say anyway
Ive come to talk to you as a friend. Can we go somewhere for lunch around here?
I suggested an Italian place close by, where I had intended to bring Anke. It felt so strange to be walking with Jürgen. I was still getting over the fright. But I was glad to talk to him. I had missed him.
Has Anke told you? he asked.
Yes. About Alex, you mean?
Jürgen knew the restaurant. He could have looked around and thought to himself: so this is where they meet. He could have run a hostile imagination over the Italian décor, over the menu, over the waiters and the stone busts which were placed all around, at the doors and at the wine bar. Instead, he showed none of that. It was as though he had a deeper imagination. As though Anke and I were only on the surface, or as though he understood what we did without malice.
The waiter took the order for cannelloni and brought wine. Jürgen sipped the wine calmly and began to talk. He leaned forward towards me.
Ive come here because I want to ask you something. I want your advice. You know that I am going to go ahead with this act of mercy for Alex. We cannot bear to see him suffer any longer like this. You have met him yourself. What would you do?
I was surprised, both by the direct question and by the fact that he knew so much about Anke and myself; even about Alexs trip to Gelsenkirchen. I had thought about my answer. It was the same as what I would have said to Anke.
I know youre not doing it for yourselves, I said. I know you are doing it for Alex. It kills me to hear it. I thought he looked terrible when I met him. Maybe it is for the best. But I dont know the medical background. I dont know what his chances are. But if his life has become as pointless as you say, then I am behind you.
He has no chance, Jürgen said, looking down at the table.
Jürgen began to explain the whole background to me. He did it like a doctor, without any emotion, without any hint of personal attachment. He weighed everything up and made it very clear; basically it was all down-hill for Alex. There was no hope for leukaemia cases like this. Then he began to explain his plan to spare him the pain of slow death.
Its easy for me to talk about it, as a medical expert. It detaches me from the real tragedy, he said. I am driven only by the urge to cut short his agony.
But how are you going to do it? I wanted to know.
It is very simple. Its done on the drip, you know, intravenously through the arm. First sugar, then pain-killers, morphine, then potassium. It could be done with morphine alone at this stage. But that is the best way. Basically, Alex will just fall asleep.
Jürgen said it all without enthusiasm, as though he couldnt stomach the idea himself. He hated the efficiency of his plan, but saw no way out.
Of course, the whole thing is very risky for me. If this is discovered, my life is finished as a gynaecologist. I have thought about all of this. If somebody found out, or exposed me to the public, I would become a household name, for the wrong thing. The press would seize on something like this
But I dont care. I want to do this for Alex. There is no way out.
There was no way that anything I would say was going to stop him. I trusted him. I told him it wasnt my decision, but that I was fully behind him. I didnt want him to risk his profession. I told him I was on his side.
I dont know when exactly it will have to be done. I will phone you. Or Anke will phone you.
We walked back to the station, up to platform 13 for the Intercity to Münster. Jürgen said that after all this was over I would have to come and visit them again. He would definitely take the time off to teach me hang-gliding.
41
Three weeks later, I was on my way to Nuremberg again to meet the real Franz Kern. The woman, Frau Jazinski, who had answered my ad in the Frankfurter Allgemeine, tried at first to establish my reasons for wanting to meet him. She wouldnt even say whether he was alive or not. She asked me to give my reasons in writing in the most specific terms. I remained evasive in my next letter, stressing that I had nothing to do with researching war crimes or anything. All I wanted was to pass on a message from somebody, a colleague who had been in Laun with Franz Kern.
Eventually, Frau Jazinski gave me a cautious invitation. I phoned her and set up a date to travel to Nuremberg. She still gave little information about Kern, and I had the feeling that she was acting as a go-between, that it was really Franz Kern who had seen the ad and asked her to vet me on his behalf.
I stayed at the Pension Sonne again.
Another market survey? the owner Frau Schellinger asked with a broad smile. She told me straight out that she liked it when her old guests came back again.
The following afternoon I went to visit Frau Jazinski at the address she had given me, a large house close to the city centre. She answered the door herself and searched me with her eyes. I could see she had her suspicions about me. She turned out to be Franz Kerns daughter, his only child. She offered me some coffee and told me that her father had just recently come out of hospital and that he was still unwell. With that, she asked me to give the message to her so that she could pass it on to him.
I told her it was personal. I could only pass it on myself. All this was beginning to sound far too clandestine and intriguing. I wished she werent so suspicious and that everything would be more simple. I assured her again that I had nothing to do with war-crimes detection. I had no interest in the holocaust. I would leave that to somebody with a clean slate.
By the time she agreed to drive me over to her fathers apartment I realized that she had been kept completely in the dark. She wanted to find out something for herself before I met Kern. He had told her nothing about Laun. And nothing about the journey home either.