Daniel Kehlmann - F

At some point he never got up again. The television stayed on, he stayed in bed and kept talking quietly to himself. Mostly he was telling a story that dated from his youth, over and over again: there was a drinking session in it, a test of courage among soldiers, and a game of Russian roulette. I heard it every day while I fed him chicken soup, while I helped him on the toilet, while I plumped up his pillows and covered him up like a child. He became thin, his eyes clouded, and all of a sudden he had also forgotten his stories. I often sat by his bed and wondered if the man I’d known was really still hiding in this crumpled, shrunken body.

For there were still some moments of clarity. Once I found him sitting up; his head turned toward me, he seemed to recognize me, and he asked when we were flying to Paris. He advised me to dedicate myself to my own painting again too. He actually said that: my own painting again too . Then he sank back into himself with his deceptively wise tortoise smile, a little trickle of spit ran down his chin, and when I changed the sheets, the look on his face was so blank it was as if he hadn’t uttered a word in ages.

Another time he suddenly asked for his bank account number. I had to write it down on a piece of paper, because he wanted to call the bank, and when I said that it was impossible at two o’clock in the morning, he began to scream and beg and threaten me. When I did bring him the phone, he had no idea what to do with it.

I often heard his voice in my dreams. When I woke up and heard him snoring beside me, I would be certain that he really had spoken to me, but whenever I tried to remember what it was he’d said, all I knew was that he’d asked for something and I’d said yes. But to what, I no longer knew.

As he lay dying, I sat at his side uneasily, painfully moved, and asked myself what this moment demanded. I wiped his brow, not because it was necessary but because wiping someone’s brow in this situation seemed the right thing to do, and again there was something he wanted to tell me: his lips formed words, but his voice would not obey, and by the time paper and pencil had been located, he was too weak to write anything. For a while his eyes stared at me as if he were trying to transmit thoughts by sheer willpower, but it failed, his eyes broke contact, his chest sank, and I thought, This is what it looks like, this is how it is, this is what happens. This.

Since then, unknown paintings by Eulenboeck come onto the market quite regularly. In the hands of another heir, things could have taken a bad turn, but he had no family. No aunt from overseas and no distant cousin surfaced; luckily there was only me.

I must be on my way, looking after an estate is a full-time job. Today I still have a date for coffee, a dinner, and then a second dinner: conferences, projects, more conferences. I look down at the street again doubtfully, where the three young men are just starting to move. A fourth, blond, wearing a red shirt, is coming toward them, and the three of them surround him.

I turn away from the window and look at Holiday Snap No. 9 as if I were seeing it for the first time. The colors I used are more than thirty years old, as is the canvas: one of several I bought during Heinrich’s lifetime and set aside in his studio. He handled them at the time: if a forensic expert ever examines them, he’ll find the master’s fingerprints.

I unlock the door, go out, and lock it again behind me. The better part of the day is already over, the rest will consist of administration and talk. The elevator grinds its way down toward the bottom.

I step out onto the street. It’s hot. The four young men up ahead are no more than silhouettes, the brightness makes it hard to get a clear look at any of them. I just have to make it to the subway, and it’ll be cooler down inside. I wish I could call a taxi, but unfortunately there are no phone kiosks anymore. Sometimes it would be an advantage to have a cell phone.

Something’s not right. They’re fighting. The three of them have got the fourth in the middle, and now one of them is grabbing his shoulder and giving him a shove while another catches him and shoves him back again. He’s surrounded. And I have to get past them.

Meanwhile I can hear what they’re saying, but I don’t understand it, the words make no sense. My heart is thumping in an odd way: suddenly I no longer feel hot, and my head is clear. It must be the atavistic responses triggered by the proximity of violence. Should I go back the other way or keep going as if nothing were happening? It looks as if they’ll pay no attention to me, so I keep walking toward them. “I’ll kill you!” one of them yells quite openly and shoves the one in the middle again, and one of the others yells something as he shoves him back, like “ I’m going to kill you,” but it could be something else too, and I want to call out to the one in the middle that he should pack it in, there are three of them, there’s only one of you, give up, but he’s big and strong and has a large chin, and — I give him a sideways glance as I go past — oxlike, empty eyes. And because it can’t just stay that way, with a shove and then another shove and no escalation from there, one of the three lashes out with his fist and hits the one in the middle on the head.

But he doesn’t fall down. That’s not the way things happen in reality, someone doesn’t fall down right away. He just bends over and covers his face with his hand while the one who hit him whimpers and clutches his fist. It could look quite funny, but it doesn’t.

I’m already past them. They’ve paid no attention to me. I hear a scream behind me. I keep going. Don’t turn around. Another scream. Just keep going. And then I do turn around.

My pathetic curiosity. See, see everything, so see this too. Now it’s only the three of them standing there, the one in the middle has disappeared, like some magic trick, I think. They seem to be dancing, one of them forward, the other one backward, and it takes a few seconds for me to understand that the one in the middle hasn’t disappeared, he’s lying on the ground, and they’re kicking him and kicking him and kicking him.

I stand still.

Why are you standing still, I ask myself. Vanish, so that they don’t realize you’re a witness. That’s exactly what shoots through my brain: Don’t be a witness! As if I were dealing with the Mafia and not with some adolescents. I check the time, it’s shortly before four, and I tell myself that I must move on quickly, this kind of thing must happen all the time, as you can see if you have a secret studio in the worst neighborhood in the city.

They’re still kicking the one who’s on the ground. From here, he’s just a huddled shadow, a bundle with legs. Keep going, I command myself, don’t get curious, disappear! So I keep walking, step by step — fast, but not at a run.

But it’s in the wrong direction. I’m walking toward them again. Never have I felt so strongly that I’m not one person but several. One person who’s walking and one who’s giving futile orders to the one who’s walking, telling him to turn around. And I realize that it’s not just that I’m curious. I’m going to interfere.

I’m just reaching them. It’s taken longer than I expected because with every step I take, time stretches out longer: I cover half the distance that separates me from them, then half of the distance that remains, and then half of that again, like the tortoise in the old story — and suddenly I’m almost certain I’ll never get there at all. I see their legs and heavy shoes flashing forward and backward, I see their arms rising and falling. I see their faces clenched with exertion, I see a television antenna glinting high above them, I see a plane way above that, I see a colorless beetle running its tiny way along a crack in the asphalt, but I see neither cars nor other pedestrians, the five of us are alone, and if I don’t interfere, no one else is going to do it.