Daniel Kehlmann - F

I clear my throat in an empathetic sort of way, climb into my trousers, button my shirt, tie my tie without using a mirror, and manage to look as though I knew what she’s talking about.

“Don’t worry,” she says. “You’ll make it. You’re stronger than you think.”

“I know.”

She smiles, as if she’d made some enigmatic joke. I smile too and go out of the room. I rush down the stairs and run along the street. There’s an office building on the other side, I take the back entrance, ride up to the second floor, go into Starbucks, and get a soy milk cappuccino with extra froth, so that Knut will see I really have been in the building. Then I ride down again and leave by the other exit. I see Knut immediately.

He’s having an argument with a street sweeper and it looks serious. The man has lifted his broom to use as a weapon, Knut is making fists, and both are emitting an uninterrupted torrent of curses. It’s the heat, everyone is on edge today. Interested, I listen.

“Pig!” roars Knut.

“Son of a bitch!” roars the street sweeper.

“Shithead!”

“Son of a pig!”

“Pig, pig, pig!”

I’m enjoying this, but I don’t have time. So I swallow a mouthful of coffee, put the container on the ground, and approach Knut.

“Lousy, old, greasy, fat pig!” screams Knut. “Baldy! Pig shit!”

I push him at the driver’s door, then get into the backseat.

It’s blissfully cool in the car. As Knut starts to drive, still cursing quietly, my phone vibrates. I see the number and take the call, apprehensively.

“Mother?”

“Be quiet and listen. I—”

“How’s the practice?”

“Far too successful. The whole country wants to have me as their doctor. All because of the broadcast. I—”

“It’s a very interesting program.” I’ve only seen it once. “We never miss a follow-up.”

“I’m an eye doctor. I understand absolutely nothing about all these illnesses. All I do is tell people they should go and see their doctor.”

“I didn’t notice.”

“I wanted to propose an investment to you.”

“A … aha.”

“It’s about some property. My — below our house. Someone wants to buy it, to build on. We have to beat them to it. It would ruin the view.”

“Ah.”

“It would be a good investment.”

“I don’t know.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

I try to think about the previous minutes on the carpet. About Sibylle’s breath next to my ear, about her body in my arms, her hair, her smell. But none of it helps. I have to be back with her again immediately, naked on the carpet again immediately, and probably not even that would suffice.

“Why don’t you say something?” Mother asks. “Why is it impossible to have a normal conversation with you?”

“I can’t hear you anymore!” I call. “Bad connection!”

“I hear you perfectly well.”

“What are you saying?” I hit the Disconnect button.

“Bad connection,” I say to Knut. “It’s become impossible to have a telephone call these days.”

“They should all be locked up!”

“Why?”

“They’re all nuts!”

“Who?”

“All locked up, I said. Nuts, all of them!”

The phone vibrates. I put my thumb on the Disconnect button, but then I answer anyway.

“Do you hear me better now?” she asks. “It’s become impossible to have a telephone call these days.”

“The connection was fine. I hung up.”

“You didn’t.”

“Yes I did.”

“You wouldn’t just simply hang up if you were talking to your mother. You wouldn’t do it.”

“Buy the property yourself. You’re making enough money with the program.”

“But it’s a good investment.”

“How can it be a good investment? You say I’m not allowed to build anything.”

“Do you want to ruin my view? What do you want to build?”

“I don’t want to build. I don’t want to have it at all!”

“Don’t you scream at me! When your mother asks you—”

I hit the Disconnect button. A few seconds later the phone vibrates again. I ignore it. Then I think for a while, stare at the phone, rub my eyes, and call back.

“You hung up!” she said. “I know. Don’t lie!”

“I have no intention of lying.”

“I wouldn’t believe that either.”

“So.”

“Don’t ever do that again!”

“I’ll do what I want. I’m an adult.”

She gives a mocking laugh, and I hit the Disconnect button with a shaking hand.

I wait, but she doesn’t call again. To be on the safe side, I switch the gadget off. I remember that Sibylle recently said something astonishingly astute about my mother, which was all the more surprising because she knows nothing about my mother; it was so obviously accurate that I must have had to suppress it immediately, for all I remember about it is that it was so to the point.

Knut begins to tell a story about a Marine, an ancient monkey, and a gardener from Thailand, and it also features a watering can, a plane, and, if I’m getting it right, a professor of numismatics. I nod from time to time and become convinced the whole thing would make no sense whatever even if I were paying attention. When we get there, it’s ten past four. The conference has already begun.

I get out of the car, walk through the heat into the cool of the lobby, and enter the elevator. Perhaps they’ve actually been waiting for me.

The elevator is already starting its ascent. It stops at the fourth floor, no one gets in. It’s just going up again when my knees give way and my head slams against the wall.

I hear something. It’s all dark around me. What I’m hearing is sobbing. I manage to straighten up a little. Slowly the shadow dissolves. I grope my head: no blood. Now I can see the dirty green threads in the carpeting. The person sobbing in here is me. I don’t know what it is, but something terrible has happened. Something that should never have been allowed to happen. Something that will never come good again.

I stand up. I’m not the only thing swaying, the elevator cabin is swaying too: seventh floor, eighth floor, ninth floor. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. I wipe away my tears and check my watch: fourteen minutes past four. Note the day, note the time: August 8, 2008, fourteen minutes past four. You’ll find out what this means soon enough. The cabin stops, the doors open. At the last moment before they close again, I leap out.

I have to stay leaning against the wall for a bit, then I walk through the office in a daze. Everything seems different from the way it was before, every desk, every face, every object. I enter the conference room and murmur my excuses, because of course they have started without me. I take off my jacket, throw it over an empty chair, sit down, and manage to look as if everything is in order. At this I am an expert.

The sight of my colleagues depresses me even more than usual: all that lethargy, all that mediocrity. Possibly it is also to do with the fact that I only hire mediocre people. The last thing I need is someone who sees through me. Lehmann and Schröter are here, Kelling, whose daughter is my godchild, Pöhlke, whom I’d fire in a moment if only he gave me an excuse, because I just don’t like him. Maria Gudschmid is here, and so is the guy whose name I can never remember. And Felsner. I like him, but I don’t know why. When I came in, Lehmann had just been speaking. Now they’re all still, looking at me and waiting.

I take a breath. I’m hoarse and I feel as if I might burst into tears again, but I still have to say something. So I stammer out a few phrases about pleasurable working conditions and the good things we make, and I quote the Bhagavad Gita: Here you stand, Arjuna, so do not ask, stand up and fight, for God hates the lukewarm. Not a bad address, I think. They don’t know that they will soon be unemployed; some will be suspected of having collaborated, but the truth will come out: they are not criminals, they are merely incompetent.