Daniel Kehlmann - Fame - A Novel in Nine Episodes

Only hours later did I begin to suspect I had done a really dumb thing. Real names, real addresses, the IP. I was now a whole load visible. Very bad feeling, and for real. Was chain-ganging again and no way to brainwave: major fight going on with lonebulldoggy on Thetree.com and at the same time I had to check through some Achtung from the technical department about mess-ups in the phone number bank that the boss had slapped on my desk. I’d had it for two days. Had forwarded it to Hauberlan, who obviously felt he had to send it on upstairs, probably just to darken me, the Überswine is in league with Lobenmeier. And suddenly the boss calls.

Result: general brown-trouser alert and whole load of heartrace. Of course thought: must be the IP thing already. Stand up, go, tell myself to stay cool as a fridge. I’m not a No-gump, have already written things in the German Chancellor’s online Guestbook but they got all erased no one can just flatten me like that, I can dish it out to anyone when I have to.

So am standing in front of the boss, and he’s looking at me. Piercingly. Like Saruman. Or Vorlone-Kosh from Babylon 5. Looking at me and me looking back. Fridgeorama. Two men, one look. Giant screen encounter.

Blahblahing about Congress of European Telecommunications Providers, Startgo day after tomorrow. Wanted to go himself, couldn’t. Department had to be represented, also presentation made: National versus European frequency norms.

Took me some time to figure out. Oh fuckingshit. What? You have to know I hate the travel thing a whole load. The seats in the trains are crazy narrow so that normal human person can’t get backside into them. And a presentation in front of strangers, I don’t think so.

Me in sequence: no, and won’t work, and have other plans, but him: nonsense, you have to, you’re the best. So what to say? Me: “Okay boss!” And him: “You’re my man!” and me: “no, no stop!” and him: “but it’s true!” and so on back and forth and back again, then me back in my office.

On the way home to tranquilize, the new book by Miguel Auristos Blanco. Writes that you shouldn’t take things to heart: learn to accept. Bingo! Which is better, to cover the earth with a carpet or to put on shoes? Must write that down. Wow. Where does someone like that find that stuff?

Then more row with mother. Away whole weekend, oh really, and how would she spend her time, and if I don’t care.

Me: “So go out. Go to a movie!”

“Don’t know, don’t want to! And don’t believe you, you’re meeting a tramp.”

Me: “Rubbish, nothing there” and so on.

Her: “Don’t pretend. You’re meeting one. And me alone at home. If only I’d known that thirty-seven years ago, you were such a darling, so little.”

Me: “So move out if it doesn’t suit you!” What I always say to her, now you know.

“And who will cook for you?”

Okay. Point for her. So leave her standing, slam the door, lock myself in. Leaf through Auristos Blanco and try parallel move to get into Moviechat with DotB. No chance of course, server overloaded, everyone trying, logical outcome. Become one with things, one with becoming one, one with your oneness with them, one with your anger too, and if the atom bomb should fall, then become one with the bomb. Big Bang Theory. I know, I’m too busy, too much work, too much day-in-day-out, but the super-thoughts, recognize those asap, soon as I see them. Then distracted by lordoftheflakes, usual bullshit, and by proctor, zheligoland, and pearfriend who’ve got hits on his site, and two new posters I don’t know at all and have to bellyslash right there. (Could also be that lordoftheflakes had new Nicks. Sort of thing drives me nuts, disgusting. Have three other names, me too of course, but only use them when baddest bad guys leave me no choice.) Transparent that I ought to have prepared my presentation, but it wasn’t until the day after tomorrow and I couldn’t concentrate right now. Shortly before midnight, a couple more private sites. Sweet, if you understand one, none of those brutal ones, they’re not for me and then went to bed.

Next day: train trip. Felt sick, seats too narrow— surprise—but not full-full so I could lift armrest and spread over two. Out there little house, roads, meadowswamp things, the whole view-from-the-train bit. Then exit, escalator down, escalator up, hard to breathe, sweating like a pig. But made my connection, more meadowswamps, farmhouses, fields of mustard. Six hours, already crazy-nervous could barely remember last time offline for so long. Finally arrive, driver with minibus to collect me and other Congress types. All ties and briefcases, the usual.

“Traveling: hell,” I said to the neighboring nerd along the way. “And for what! We could do everything from home by V.IP! I’d see you, you’d see me, everything easy-peasy, no stress.” But the nerd just stared and then slid away along the seat.

At Reception, I demanded instant Internet. The woman looked at me like an obelisk. “Internet! Hello, Internet!”

Her: “not working right now.”

“Pardon, what, how, huh?”

Her: yes, so sorry, service interrupted at the moment, usually the rooms have wi-fi, but not for now.

Me: just stared. Couldn’t get it.

“It’ll be fixed next week.”

Me: Fanbloodytastic. Really helps me. What’s the prob?

Stared at me blank. Sarcasm: new territory for her. So shocked felt faint. Hotel parked in booniest boondocks. No village, no Internet café, so either someone lent me his HSDPA card, or situation pitch-black. And come on, nobody lends you their Internet card, everyone’s afraid you’ll download movies at company expense. So: catastrophe. Catacombs. Night night.

Dinner. No need to describe it to you, you know it: food-fight at buffet, pushing, shoving. Everything good already gone when you want some. Then at table: to my right, a bearded type from T-Mobile talking about his new wooden floor, to my left a female skeleton from Vodaphone has a cousin of her brother-in-law’s who’s scored an Opel at rock-bottom price. Me: radio silence. Never say anything in front of strangers. Can’t, won’t, no app. Went back to buffet instead, then again, then I would toss, then out into parking lot, nicotine fix. Not allowed to smoke inside, not allowed to smoke anywhere. Telling you, no worse under the Nazis.

Rain, a whole load. Under porch roof, man with a cigarette. Almost dark by now, so at first only saw his outline and luminous red dot. Asked for a light, and while he groped nervously, recognized him.

“Leo Richter!”

Jumped. Looked at me. It was him!

Okay. So I’m asking you: What would you have done? Pre-amble: been a fan of his for years, totally crazy. That one book, don’t remember title, Lara Gaspard teaching in Paris meets these totally wasted types and then in the last story goes down to the Underworld. Read it, totally crazy, couldn’t believe it, mega-trip. The style, the wit, smokin’ good, but most of all, the woman. Have to add have never been winner with opposite sex, all that roundabout stuff and blablah and then always “Leave me alone, you’re a nice guy but not that way, now go!” and so on, all the bullshit you guys know, and on FindyourLove, even if it was all A-1 to begin with, the moment I put my photo online, blackout. Contact gone? But Lara, for sure, wouldn’t have happened that way with her. She’s not superficial. And though she looks crazy-good, she’s also so smart she doesn’t care about a man’s outsides. And she thinks like me! And me like her. Know you’re not supposed to read books that way, but sometimes … well, seem crazy to you?

I mean, I know she’s a made-up person. And that—of course I googled as soon as I’d read it—Leo Richter wrote it when he was in Paris himself and then when his wife gave him the boot came the three stories where Lara leaves her husband, The Moon and Freedom, Herr Müller and Eternity , forget the title of the third. So, the shit that happens to him then happens to her, what he does, she does later, and whoever meets him can surface in story. In the Literaturehouse chat room, somebody called this autobiographical narcissism , but I flamed him and he won’t ever chat again about stuff he doesn’t get, dumpster dog. Only story I didn’t like was the one about the old lady going to Switzerland to throw the poison down, he wasn’t in it anywhere, and the ending made no sense, no idea who could see through it, not me for sure.