Daniel Kehlmann - F

“How do I enter it on the books?”

“You’ll find a way.”

“That’s easy to say! How do you picture that? I can’t just pay twelve thousand euros back to the office!”

“Twelve?”

“I’d rather stay at home for three weeks. Three, yes?”

“Give the money back!”

He’s silent. “The absolution still holds, yes? I mean, independent of the penance? It’s not a … condition?”

“The Sacrament is fulfilled. But not paying the money back would be a new sin.”

“Then I’ll come back.”

“It doesn’t work that way!”

“Of course I could do it as a tax refund. But if there’s an audit, what do I do? I can’t re-credit it.”

He waits. I don’t respond.

“Goodbye, Father.”

The wood creaks, his footsteps recede. I would have liked to get a look at his face, but the sanctity of the confessional forbids it, and I stick to the rules. The Protestants have a God who wants to know what’s going on in your soul, but I’m a Catholic, and my God is only interested in what I actually do. I pick up the cube, and just as I’m wondering whether to use the classic approach or to start with a block of four, the wood creaks again.

“I drink.”

I put down the cube.

“I drink all the time. I can’t stop.”

I envy alcoholics. People make movies about them, the best actors star in them, articles and novels get written about them. But people who eat a lot? Thin people say it’s all a question of willpower, but maybe they’re just thin because they’re less hungry. Earlier, I bought two chocolate bars from the machine on the corner. Not to eat, just to have on hand. What a stupid idea.

“It’s all I want anymore. Just drink. My wife’s left me, I lost my job, nothing matters. I just want to drink.”

“I can only absolve you if you sincerely want to change.”

My telephone vibrates. I fumble it out and see Eric’s office number on the screen. That’s odd, because Eric never calls me. But I can’t answer it now.

“I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know.”

“You don’t know if you want to stop drinking?”

“I would love to not want to drink, but I want to drink.”

Is that a clever distinction or an absurdity? The telephone stops vibrating.

“Are you eating, Father?”

“No! Try not to drink for two days. That’s a start. Then come back!”

“Two days? I can’t.”

“Then I cannot absolve you.” The first bite was wonderful. The breaking chocolate, the fine prickling taste of the cocoa. But already you can taste that it’s too fat and far too sweet. That’s the way it is with most things, something Jesus overlooked. Buddha was more alert. Nothing is ever truly sufficient. Everything falls short, and yet you can’t get free.

“You’re eating!”

“Come back in two days.”

“Stop eating!”

“I’m not eating.”

“In the confessional!”

“In two days. If you haven’t had a drink. Then you should come back.”

The wood creaks, he leaves. I crumple the empty foil and think about the second bar. It’s still in my pocket, and that’s where it will stay.

I pull it out of my pocket.

But I haven’t unwrapped it. And even if it were already unwrapped, I wouldn’t have bitten into it. Everything is within my power. The mystery that is free will: I can bite into it or I can leave it be. It’s up to me. All I have to do for it not to happen is not to do it.

The second bar doesn’t taste good. I chew quickly and angrily. The second one never tastes good. The telephone vibrates. Eric’s office again. It must be important.

“I envy you,” said Ivan.

“That’s going overboard.”

We were sitting on a bench in the covered walk of the Eisenbrunn monastery. Trees swayed in the soft wind, birds sang, cooking smells were coming from the kitchen, and now and then a monk in his habit went past, head bowed. You could think you were in a different century.

I was happy to see Ivan. After a week of grueling spiritual exercises I was tired of the pious faces. My brother had surfaced unannounced, as was his way. The porter had wanted to shoo him off, but then finally let him in. Ivan was not someone it was easy to shoo.

“They even confiscated your cube?”

“Part of the exercises,” I said. I missed it to begin with, but in the meantime I had begun to wonder if what I had regarded as my favorite activity was merely an addiction.

“You met Lindemann?” I asked.

“It was totally unproductive. Not an interesting man.”

“But did he remember? Could he explain to you—”

“I told you, he’s not interesting.”

“But—”

“Martin, there’s nothing to tell! I wish I were like you. You know what you want. I’m not even suited to be an artist.”

“Rubbish.”

“It’s not modesty, and it’s not a crisis. I’ve realized I’m not cut out to be a painter.”

Three monks swathed in their habits came along the colonnade. The one on the left drank, the one in the middle watched sports programs for hours every evening on the old black-and-white TV, the one on the right had recently been given a warning about his collection of pornographic videos. But to Ivan, who didn’t know them, they must look like Illuminati.

“If need be, I can become a professor of art. Or a curator. If I kept on painting … I’d be average. At best, average. At best.”

“Would that be so terrible? Most people are average. By definition.”

“Exactly. But then think of Velázquez and the way he uses the white of the actual canvas as if it were a color. Or of Rubens and his skin tones. Or of Pollock’s sheer strength, his courage to paint like a lunatic. I can’t do that. I can only be me. And it’s not enough.”

“You’re right,” I said thoughtfully. “How can anyone live with the fact that they’re not Rubens? How does anyone come to terms with it? To begin with, everyone thinks they’re the exception to everything. But hardly anyone is an exception.”

“By definition.”

“Are you still looking for a topic for your dissertation?”

“Not a bad idea.” He scraped the toe of one shoe in the gravel, looked up, and smiled. “Not a bad idea at all. We don’t talk often enough. Have you received minor orders yet?”

“Not yet.”

“I mean it, I envy you. Leaving the world behind. Stepping away from it all. Simply no longer being part of it.”

“It would be nice.” Rays of sunshine came through the crowns of the tall trees, flecks of light danced on the pebbles. “But one is always part of it. Just differently. There’s no way out.”

“Pray for me.” Ivan stood up. “I fly to England tomorrow, maybe we’ll see each other at Christmas. Pray for me, Brother Martin. I am one of the people who need prayers.”

I looked after him. The gate to the monastery hummed as it opened. Things looked medieval here, but there was electric current everywhere, and security cameras, and more and more monks could be seen talking into tiny cell phones. Here, as everywhere, the world was changing unavoidably. I slowly got to my feet. The bells would start ringing at any moment for evening services.

For the first two days I thought the boredom would kill me, but then it got better, and along the way I managed to kneel in church for hours and listen to the rise and fall of the Gregorian chants. And hunger no longer plagued me constantly, so I could forget the pain in my knees, look up at the high windows, and be convinced that I was where I ought to be according to fate and providence.

It was just that I didn’t feel God.

I waited, prayed, waited and prayed. But I did not feel Him.