Juli Zeh - Decompression

“What exactly are we talking about here?”

“About love, I assume.”

“Theo loves you, Jola.”

“How do you know that?”

“He told me so.”

She looked up at me thoughtfully. “Really?”

The relief I felt encouraged me. “When we went to dinner,” I explained. “He said that he couldn’t live without you. He said that you’re everything to him.” I didn’t remember his exact words, but that was their general sense.

“And that you can screw me if you want?”

“Of course he didn’t say that.” I tried to sound indignant.

“That he’s got no problem with you wanting me? Because more or less everybody wants me and he’s used to it?”

I said nothing. Jola laughed and then stood up as well. “You’re really sweet, Sven,” she said. She put her hands in the pockets of her bathrobe. The fishermen were openly staring at us. I had to assume they didn’t understand German.

“Don’t worry about it,” Jola went on. “We have time. We can simply wait and see how things develop.”

She started to take off her wet bikini under her robe. Apparently the conversation was over. Even though I didn’t know what conclusion we’d come to, I felt better. It was as if we’d assured each other that we wanted to remain friends.

A little later, she was sitting in the passenger seat. She’d tied her hair in a ponytail, and she appeared to be in an extremely good mood. “Let’s have lunch in Teguise,” she said. “After that I’d really like to visit the cactus gardens.”

I took my place at the steering wheel. “I’d rather go back to Lahora, if you don’t mind.”

She laughed as though I’d made a good joke. “Have you by any chance forgotten what I’m paying you for?” The laughing stopped. “Full service. Twenty-four seven. Drive on.”

It was eight in the evening. Antje was sitting in front of the television and I was at the computer when the doorbell rang. As a general rule, nobody rang our doorbell. You don’t arrive by chance at the ends of the earth. If the doorbell did ring, it was one of Antje’s Spanish girlfriends, picking her up to go shopping or dropping off a skinned rabbit. A ringing doorbell was no sign stimulus as far as I was concerned. Ordinarily I didn’t even raise my head. This time, it was pure instinct that made me say, “Stay there, I’ll get it,” and go to the door.

Theo was standing outside in the darkness, and he didn’t look as though he’d come over to borrow a cup of flour. He was wearing suit pants, no shoes, and a misbuttoned shirt. His eyes and nose were red. He smelled of alcohol. I stepped out of the house and closed the door behind me.

“Congratulations!” He sounded stuffed up. “My heartiest congratulations.”

“Theo,” I said. “Are you feeling better?”

“Who’d have thought it would happen so fast, huh?” He laughed.

“Who’s there?” Antje called from inside.

“It’s just Theo!” I called back through the closed door.

“May I step in again?” He pointed at the house. It was hard to tell how well he could be heard inside. His vocal pitch fluctuated between whispering and bawling. “And pay my respects to your little Antje, I mean.”

Theo began to stumble. I stepped aside. He bared his teeth. “You’re scared shitless of me,” he said.

Underwater I found it easy to remain calm in stressful situations. You could even say that the more critical things got, the steadier my nerves became. Unfortunately, this wasn’t the case on land. I felt a savage desire to slug Theo. As wobbly on his legs as he was, any child could have taken him. But he was my client.

“Shitless is the key word.” He pressed one nostril closed and blew out the other. The snot landed right next to the doormat. “Maybe you thought I wouldn’t keep my word, was that it? I told you you could have her. I’m only here to get something straight.” He pointed an index finger at me. “You’re a big dick attached to a coward. That’s what you are.” As he repeated this assessment, he nodded slowly.

“Look,” I said. “How about continuing this conversation tomorrow?”

“You see!” He was getting louder. “Scared shitless, like I said. Scared your Antje will hear me. You’re a coward, Sven. I came over here especially to point that out to you.”

“Now you have. That’s enough.”

“That’s enough, just like that? If you have the right to fuck my woman, I have the right to give you a piece of my mind.”

“I didn’t fuck your woman.”

“Ah!” It started out as a scream but after a few seconds turned into laughter. “That’s so lame, Sven! You’re such a chickenshit! At least stick to your guns!”

Suddenly his face was illuminated. His eyes, his shirt, his entire form radiated light. It took me a while to realize that the door behind me had opened.

“Is everything all right?” Antje asked.

I hated the feeling of losing control. Control was the objective of all human striving. Loss of control meant death. I felt my forehead grow cold.

“Voilà Madame!” Theo cried out joyously. “Good evening!”

Antje gave me a questioning look. As always, she was trying to establish an immediate understanding between us. My body did me the favor of shrugging my shoulders and contorting my mouth into a helpless grimace.

Theo turned to Antje. “Not much longer,” he said. Then he pointed his finger at me again: “You don’t dive because you think fish are fantastic. You dive because you feel safe down there.”

His tongue seemed to be loosening; he sounded less drunk. I wondered whether he was putting on an act.

“You think you’re a first-class individualist. A real man who had the balls to drop out. You weren’t going to be stupid and weak like everybody else, you weren’t going to play the game anymore. But you’re no special case. You didn’t even drop out, not really. You weren’t up to the challenge. You’re the overchallenged prototype of the overchallenged twenty-first century. A whole era of unmet challenges! Do you remember how things looked at the end of the last century? The big chance. The big freedom. Everybody wanted to make something out of it. And then, suddenly, everything was too much. Too much world, too much information, too many possibilities. Everyone’s gone into exile, my dear Monstercock. Some escape into bourgeois convention, others choose the countryside or a hobby or nostalgia or even this island. It’s an all-encompassing rearguard action, and you’re right in the middle of it.”

He wiped away some sweat. He’d worn himself out talking. His drunkenness had decreased, and so had his hatred. For a while he stared upward, squinting, at the night sky, as though considering whether concluding his speech would be worth the trouble. “Okay,” he declared in the end, “what I want to say is this: your turn’s coming. Dream about your personal plans, dream about complete independence. One day your turn will come, just as it comes to everybody else. When it does, you’ll think about my words. Good night.”

And with that he turned around, walked down the gravel path, and carefully closed the garden gate behind him. We watched him cross the sandlot and disappear into the Casa Raya.

“What was that about?” asked Antje.

“I don’t know,” I said.

She shrugged. “Probably Vicks NyQuil plus Nenad’s red wine.”

“That he got from you?”

“How could I know he’d drink it all at one sitting?”

I had to laugh. I was doing fine. I’d done nothing other than stand there, and nevertheless I’d emerged the victor. Or rather, precisely because of that. Everything under control. Antje looked up at me.