Daniel Kehlmann - F

“No,” said Arthur.

“Nothing?”

“I told you, it doesn’t work on me.”

But that was not enough, said Lindemann. Over. The end. As he’d already said, he didn’t want to waste anyone’s time with such tricks. Now he was going to get to something interesting without any further delay, namely, the direct manipulation of the powers of the mind. The lady and the gentleman here on the floor had already been following his instructions for some time. They were happy. Right here and now, in full view of everyone, they were experiencing the happiest moments of their lives. “Sit up!”

Awkwardly, they hauled themselves up into a sitting position.

“Now look,” said Lindemann to the woman in the middle.

She opened her eyes. Her bosom rose and fell. There was something unusual about the way she was breathing and the way her eyes moved. Ivan didn’t really understand it, but he recognized something large and complex. He noticed a woman in the row in front of him turning her eyes away from the stage. The man next to her shook his head indignantly.

“Eyes closed,” said Lindemann.

The eyes of the woman on the stage closed immediately. Her mouth was open, a thin stream of saliva was running out of it, and her cheeks shone in the spotlights.

Alas, said Lindemann, nothing lasted forever, and the best things always ended first. Life could seem immense and miraculous now, but the truth was that nothing lasted, everything rotted away, everything died, without exception. One almost always repressed that fact. But not now, no, not at this particular moment. “Now you know it.”

The bearded man groaned. The woman slowly sank backward and held her hands over her eyes. The other man sobbed quietly.

But, said Lindemann, one could still feel cheerful. Life being a short day between two endlessly long nights, one should enjoy the bright moments even more and dance for as long as the sun still shone. He clapped his hands.

Obediently this trio stood up. Lindemann clapped the beat, slowly at first, then faster. They leapt like marionettes, throwing their limbs this way and that, and spun their heads. There was absolute silence, no one coughed, no one cleared their throat, the audience seemed transfixed by horror. The only sound was the stamping and panting coming from the stage, and the creaking of the boards.

“Now lie down again,” said Lindemann. “And dream!”

Two of them immediately sank to the floor, while the man furthest to the left still remained standing, and seemed to grope with his hands — but then his knees also buckled, and he stopped moving. Lindemann bent down and looked at him closely. Then he turned to face the audience.

He said he now wanted to conduct a difficult experiment. Only a handful of practitioners could pull it off, it required the highest skills. “Dream deeply. Deeply, deeper than ever. Dream a new life. Be children, learn, grow up, fight, suffer, and hope, win and lose, love and lose again, grow old, grow weak, grow frail, and then die, it all goes so fast, and when I tell you, open your eyes and none of it will have happened.”

He folded his hands and stood there silent for a long moment.

This experiment, he finally said, didn’t always work. Certain subjects woke up and had experienced nothing. Others, by contrast, begged him to erase their memories of the dream because the experience was too disturbing, in order to regain the ability to trust both time and reality. He checked the time. But meantime, in order to occupy themselves while they were waiting, a couple of simple things perhaps? Any children in the audience? He went up on tiptoe. That boy there in the fifth row, the little girl on the end, and this boy in the third row, the one who’s the spitting image of the boy right next to him. Come up!

Ivan looked to the right, then the left, and behind him. Then he pointed to himself questioningly.

“Yes,” said Lindemann. “You.”

“But you said he only calls grown-ups onto the stage,” whispered Ivan.

“Well, I was wrong.”

Ivan felt the blood rush into his face. His heart pounded. The other two children were already on their way to the stage. Lindemann fixed him with his eyes.

“Just stay where you are,” said Arthur. “He can’t order you around.”

Ivan slowly got to his feet. He looked around. Everyone was looking at him, everyone in the auditorium, every single person in the entire theater. No, Arthur was wrong, there was no way to refuse, it was, after all, a hypno-show, and whoever had come had to take part. He heard Arthur say something else, but he didn’t understand it, his heart was thumping too loudly, and he was already starting toward the stage. He pushed past the knees of the people in the seats and went up the center aisle.

How bright it was up here. The spotlights were unexpectedly powerful and the people in the audience mere outlines. The three grown-ups were lying motionless, no sign of life, no sign of breath. Ivan looked out into the orchestra but couldn’t locate Arthur or his brothers. Lindemann was already right there in front of him, down on one knee, pushing him back a step very carefully, as if he were a fragile piece of furniture, and looking into his face.

“We’re going to do it,” he said softly.

Up close, Lindemann looked older. There were furrows around his mouth and eyes, and his makeup was sloppy. Anyone painting his portrait would have had to concentrate on the eyes, deep-set and hooded behind the horn-rims: restless, unreadable eyes, giving the lie to the cliché that hypnotists stared so intensely that a subject would lose himself in their gaze. In addition, he smelled of peppermint.

“What’s your name?” he asked in a slightly louder voice.

Ivan swallowed and told him.

“Relax, Ivan,” said Lindemann, his voice now loud enough to carry to the people in the front few rows. “Fold your hands, Ivan. Clasp your fingers.”

Ivan did so, wondering how anyone was supposed to relax on a stage in front of so many people. Lindemann couldn’t mean it seriously; he was just saying it to confuse him.

“That’s right.” Lindemann was now addressing all three children, loud enough to be heard anywhere in the theater. “Absolutely quiet, absolutely relaxed, but you can no longer separate your hands. They’re stuck to each other, you can’t do it.”

But it wasn’t true! Ivan could easily have separated his hands, he felt no resistance and no blockage. But he didn’t feel like blaming Lindemann. He just wanted it to be over.

Lindemann talked and talked. The word relax kept being repeated, and he kept saying something about listening and obeying. Maybe it was working with the other two, but it was having no effect on Ivan. He felt no different than before, there was absolutely no question of a trance. It was just that his nose itched. And he needed to go to the toilet.

“Try,” said Lindemann to the boy next to Ivan. “You can’t let go, you can’t, try, you won’t be able to.”

Ivan heard a deep rumbling noise; it took him a few moments to realize that it was laughter. The audience was laughing at them. But not at me, thought Ivan, he must have noticed that it’s not working on me, that’s why he’s not asking me questions.

“Lift your right foot,” said Lindemann. “All three of you. Now.”

Ivan saw the other two lift their feet. He could feel all eyes on him. He was sweating. So what could he do? He lifted his foot. Now they’d all think he was hypnotized.

“Forget your name,” said Lindemann to him.

He could feel the anger rising in him. It was all becoming truly stupid. If the man asked him again, he’d show him up in front of everyone.

“Say it!”

Ivan cleared his throat.

“You can’t, you’ve forgotten it, you can’t. What’s your name?”