Daniel Kehlmann - Fame - A Novel in Nine Episodes

“Interesting,” said Leo with an expression that matched his thoughts.

The ambassador nodded. “Your first time here?”

“The last.”

“I see,” said the ambassador.

“I’m going to kill you,” said Leo.

“I’m so glad,” said the ambassador. “I know you’re in excellent hands.” He smiled at Mrs. Riedergott and vanished into the crowd.

A line of people formed for everyone to shake hands with him and Elisabeth. They came from Wuppertal and Hannover, Bayreuth, Düsseldorf and Bebra, and a very straight-backed and desiccated gentleman came from Halle an der Saale. After a little while Elisabeth asked herself if the only people in the entire country were Germans.

“That,” said Leo in the car, “is what becomes of art. Everything else is just illusion and propaganda. I’ve always said it. But I had no idea it was true!” She saw that he’d turned white. “All the work, all the struggle, all the worry, an entire life wrecked just for that. All for invitations from people who are brain-dead, all for handshakes, all so that the zombies have something to chatter about before they go to dinner.”

In the front seat, Mrs. Riedergott suddenly turned round.

“No offense,” cried Leo. “Dear Mrs. Riedergott, I was speaking in the most general terms.”

That night, in the bathroom again, she finally got through to the secretary of state. Sitting on the toilet seat, she held the phone tight against her ear.

An awkward situation, he said in broken English. Really, there was nothing he could do. And even if he could, the efforts required would be considerable.

“Financial efforts?”

“Also financial.”

That went without saying, she said. They also knew the value of his intervention and would be correspondingly grateful.

He couldn’t promise anything, he said. He would be in touch again.

As she groped her way back into the dark bedroom, she bumped into the night table. A glass fell to the ground and Leo woke up.

“Let’s run!”

“What?”

“I’m not going to the reception at the International Chamber of Commerce tomorrow. I’m going to disappear, and that’s that. We’ll fly to the pyramids. I’ve always wanted to see them.”

“Good.”

“What are they going to do? File charges?” He hesitated. “Could they? Theoretically, I mean. Could they bring charges against me?”

“I don’t think so.”

“Yes, but could they?”

She sank down into her pillow. She was too tired to answer. She felt him looking at her in the darkness, and she knew he’d have liked to touch her, but she was too tired even to tell him that she was too tired.

In the morning, they left. A taxi to the airport, then the next plane up into the mountains. She had to spend the entire flight reassuring him that there wouldn’t be consequences, that nobody would sue him, that nobody would end up in jail just for blowing off the German International Chamber of Commerce. Below them, the highest mountains she had ever seen slipped by, intensely green and covered in primeval forest.

“It’s like the old days,” he said, “when I skipped school.”

“You never once skipped school.”

“How do you know?”

“Did you?”

“Everyone did.”

“Maybe, but you?”

He turned away to the porthole and didn’t say a word till they landed.

The air on the upland plateau was so thin that it was hard to breathe and the heart raced with every movement of the body. Streets and houses glittered in an intense light that cut into them like knives, leaving no shadows, so that within minutes the skin was on fire. As their taxi honked its way through the crowds, she accessed a message from Moritz. Evidently the local government had intervened, he said, nothing definite, some rumors circulating that the hostages had been freed, others that they were dead. He promised to call as soon as he knew more.

They dropped their luggage at the first hotel they came to and hired a guide. He was tall and serious and taciturn. When Leo switched on his phone, there were seven messages from the cultural institute.

“I think there really is going to be trouble. What d’you think, are you sure they can’t file suit against me?”

Ask me that one more time, she thought, and that’s going to be it. One more time, and I’m on the next plane out.

But he didn’t, probably because he couldn’t catch his breath. They were climbing the slope behind their guide, hearing every hoarse gasp in his throat. Elisabeth’s pulse was thundering, the sheer effort distracted her from her fear. Their path took them through low grass, with spindly trees clinging to the rock here and there. Clouds had appeared out of nowhere, the air suddenly turned humid, the light fractured then diffused, and it began to rain.

They reached the pyramids in a torrential downpour. Thunderclaps echoed off the walls of the cliffs, lightning snaked across the horizon, and the only thing they could see in the mist were three stone peaks. Their guide was standing stock-still, water purling off his plastic poncho.

“Finally,” said Leo, “none of this interests me. I write. I invent things. I really don’t need to see stuff.”

“And I don’t want to turn up in a story.”

He looked at her.

“Don’t make me into someone. Don’t put me in a story. It’s all I ask.”

“But it wouldn’t be you in any case.”

“Yes, it would. Even if it’s not me, it would be me. As you very well know.”

The rain stopped and minutes later the sun tore a hole in the clouds. The swaths of mist became translucent, and suddenly they were looking at the flights of steps that climbed the huge edifices. The valley below them seemed to sink into the abyss, and she had the sensation that the crest on which they were standing was rising slowly into the sky. Somewhere a stream was gurgling. She wondered why she had the urge to cry.

“This is where they killed people,” said Leo. “Thousands of them. Every month.”

“And the universe still retains that memory,” said the guide impassively. “Close your eyes and you can feel it.”

“How come you speak German?”

“Heidelberg. I studied ethnology. Nine semesters.”

At that moment, her phone rang.

Of all my characters, she’s the most intelligent. Almost seventy years ago, Rosalie was young and good at school, then she went on to qualify as a teacher and taught for four decades. She married twice and had three daughters, long since grown, now she’s a widow, her pension covers her costs, and she’s never been one to harbor illusions about things, so she wasn’t surprised when her doctor told her last week that pancreatic cancer is incurable and she wasn’t going to live much longer.

“I’m sure you want to know the truth,” he said, looking at her as if she were a child who could be proud that an adult was taking her into his confidence. “The good news is that the bad pain doesn’t come till the very end.”

She really didn’t have a difficulty accepting the situation. She didn’t go through the famous seven stages: no rebellion, no denial, no slow struggle to arrive at an understanding—just a brief interval of incredulity followed by a night of the deepest sadness, then as soon as morning came, an Internet search for the Swiss association she’d heard about that helped people who wanted to hasten things along.

I’m sure you know this association really does exist; I didn’t invent it, it’s headquartered in a Zurich suburb, I’m not going to name it because my lawyer said not to. Several Swiss organizations offer assisted suicide; this one is the best known. If you haven’t heard of it until now, pay attention; you can learn things even from a short story. You have to join the association, pay a not-negligible fee, send your medical records, which a doctor then examines to confirm that your condition is indeed terminal. After this is complete, you go there, install yourself in their only piece of actual real estate, the so-called death apartment: a room with a sofa, a bed, and a table, on which a gentle employee sets a glass of sodium pentobarbital. You drink it. Unassisted, and of your own free will.