Decompression (7 page)

Theo and Jola insisted on inviting me to share their meal. The incident that morning was still fresh and I didn’t much feel like letting them take me out, but it was a part of our agreement that I must be available for any free-time activities they chose, twenty-four hours a day. After driving them to the Lobster’s and accompanying them to the entrance, I could hardly decline their invitation and wait outside.

They made a genuine effort. Theo held the door open and then held Jola’s chair for her. She was wearing a blue band in her hair that made her look sweet and a little old-fashioned. Delighted to be able to discuss the wine list with a connoisseur like Theo, Geoffrey brought us the bottle he ordered along with a second bottle for us to try. Despite my protests, Theo poured me a glass, and I had to confess that the wine tasted remarkably good.

Then they started to talk about things back home. Or rather, Theo talked while Jola looked at him attentively with both hands on the table, like a well-behaved spouse. The wine and her gaze combined to set him off; he talked like a waterfall.

As a writer, Theo said, he was basically a sort of big businessman. Thousands of people lived off his work. Publishing-house employees, booksellers, librarians, copy editors, critics, translators, printers, cultural program directors for television and radio, to say nothing of the entire dramatic profession, including actors, dramaturges, directors, and stage technicians, as well as anyone involved in the movie business—all those occupations existed solely for the commercial exploitation of texts. And what’s the author? A nothing. The weakest link in the food chain. Despised, ridiculed, rarely
acclaimed, mostly ignored. A nobody who tortures himself at his writing desk in the dead of night, only to be derided in the end as a loser by the artistically impotent.

Jola laid a hand on his arm and remarked that many reviewers referred to him not as a loser but as a writer of great promise.

Theo insisted that it was a matter of principle. How does a man who has no artistic accomplishments get the right to judge someone else’s work? Even a critic who hands down a positive judgment thinks himself more important than the author he’s assessing, Theo said. It’s an upside-down world, and it teaches you repugnance as a form of being.

I knew the feeling. When I imagined the life Theo lived as a cog in the gears of the big judgment machine, the thought made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

Basically, Jola said, Theo was right. Her case was similar, she said. Every moron who cowered in fear at the very thought of having to get up on a stage felt perfectly entitled to go on the Internet and criticize her ability.

“We need a law!” Theo cried out. “Anyone who criticizes someone else without exposing himself to criticism is to be prohibited from speaking for a period of not less than two years.”

They shared a confidential laugh. I was happy to listen when clients bad-mouthed Germany. In my ears they sounded like soldiers on leave from the battlefront, reporting on conditions in the war zone. They reminded me of what I’d run away from and made me feel I’d been right to do so. When Theo tried to refill my glass, I put my hand over it and switched to mineral water. The food came. We spurned the side dishes and plunged up to the elbows in lobster juice.

Jola asked why I’d left Germany. I told my story about Brunsberg and Montesquieu. Theo and Jola laughed hard, holding their sides. While I was gazing at Jola—who didn’t look like an actress anymore, but simply like a high-spirited young woman—I thought about that morning. The incident with the closed valve suddenly seemed less dramatic.

Still laughing, I asked them why they didn’t just stay on the island, like all those who’d grown tired of living with pointless stress and lousy weather. Theo dipped his hands in lemon water and answered me seriously. He said he envied and pitied me at the same time. Then he cracked open another lobster tail, removed a bit of intestine, took the choicest piece from the middle, and gave it to Jola.

“Jola could buy a luxury
finca
with her family’s money,” said Theo. “On the prettiest basalt hill. Boat included.”

Jola made a face. You could physically feel the mood capsize. She said, “I’m not my family.”

“I can live off her here or in Berlin, it makes no difference at all to me. Then again, maybe here
would
be better. Less humiliating.” Theo laughed as though he’d just made a joke. When he tried to kiss Jola, she shoved him away. The first bottle of white wine was empty.

“But I can’t leave the battlefield without putting up a fight,” said Theo. “Jola and I, we’re born fighters. Isn’t that right?”

Jola looked in another direction. Geoffrey broke into the ensuing silence with a second bottle, which we hadn’t ordered, asked us what we thought about the American government’s debt policy, and left the table before anyone could answer his question. He always did that. Jola began to talk about the United States,
which she believed she knew well because of a theater workshop she’d attended in New York. I was used to thinking I couldn’t save people, so I leaned back and listened. After all, it was better that way. A paradise stops being a paradise if half the world moves there. And that goes especially for islands.

After dinner a windstorm came up, a predictable sequel to the morning’s calm. On the way back to the van, the blow whipped our pants legs and bit our faces. We laughed, bracing ourselves against it. As they walked, Theo kept one arm around Jola’s waist. “So you don’t fly away!” he shouted before kissing her hair.

They insisted on visiting the Mirador del Río, the famous café and viewing platform that the island artist César Manrique built out of the lava rock on the highest point of the Famara massif. Antje used to call Manrique a poor man’s Hundertwasser. The whole island was filled with the bulky, large-scale trash he created. But tourists loved his naive figures, stood in long lines outside his buildings, and bought postcards featuring his “toilet people,” male and female restroom symbols with outsize sexual parts. Manrique had fortunately died before he could turn the whole island into a multimedia artwork.

My objection, namely that there was nothing to see from the Mirador at ten o’clock in the evening—the café was closed and protected by walls on all sides—was judged inadequate. In that case we’ll just take a nice digestive walk, they said. Jola dissembled the fact that she’d already purchased my acquiescence by making a pretty-please face.

We walked on the road that ran along the cliff coast. On the sea side was a knee-high wall. Behind it lay a stretch of bare earth, beyond that the edge of the steep cliff. Five hundred meters of
perpendicular rock, and below it the raging sea. A half-moon inside a wreath of white light shone in the sky. Scraps of black cloud rushed past. It was as though we were watching the earth hurtle through space.

All of a sudden, Jola reached out a hand and drew me to her side. The three of us walked along in a close embrace. Jola, warm and safe in the middle, looked up to each of us in turn. I felt her fingers on my hip and couldn’t avoid contact between my arm and Theo’s. It was absurd and beautiful.

Then my cell phone rang. I knew it was Antje, wanting to know how the evening had gone, when we were coming home, and what preparations, if any, she should make for tomorrow. It was a habit of hers to call me several times a day, no matter whether there were things that needed coordinating or not. Normally I had nothing against that; after all, the logistics of our business required a lot of cooperative effort. At that moment, however, it seemed like she was disturbing us on purpose. I detached myself from Jola and ran back a few steps, looking for the lee of the wind in the Mirador’s gateway. I shouted into the phone that everything was fine and we’d be heading home soon. I could barely understand what Antje said.

When I got back to the road, Theo and Jola had disappeared. For a while I ran back and forth, calling out their names, as distraught as a ewe that’s lost her lambs. Then I stopped, stood in one place, and considered. In the moonlight, I could see over to the rocky cliff, several hundred meters away. I’d been on the phone two minutes at most, so they couldn’t have gone very far. The terrain was flat, with good visibility in all directions. Except for the part occupied by the Mirador.

I jumped over the roadside barrier and followed the Mirador’s outer wall to the edge of the cliff. Through the pales of the locked gate at the end of the wall, you could see the café’s terrace, which served as a viewing platform. By day, sweaty tourists struggling with high-tech equipment would photograph their wives standing beside the balustrade (“But not against the sun, Robert!”), with the stunning view of the neighboring island, La Graciosa, in the background.

I saw them right away. They’d climbed over the gate and were standing on the terrace. Or, more precisely, on the balustrade of the terrace. They were stepping one behind the other, holding their arms out like tightrope walkers. To their left was a free fall of half a kilometer. The onshore wind was playing its usual tricks, blowing harder and harder and then suddenly dying down, causing the two bodies on the balustrade to stagger. I forbade myself to climb over the gate and run after them; the danger of scaring them was too great. I thought about the wine bottles in the Lobster’s Paradise. My arms were trembling; I’d pulled myself halfway over the gate, and both fists were clamped around the metal struts. I didn’t even dare to call out. Theo caught up with Jola at the end of the balustrade and embraced her with both arms. At first I thought they were kissing, but then I realized I was witnessing a struggle. I heard a scream and in the same moment perceived that I was the screamer. Jola heard me. She spun around, dragging Theo with her. For a few seconds it wasn’t clear which side they were going to fall toward. Then they landed almost simultaneously on the tiled floor of the viewing platform.

I didn’t wait for them to get up. I ran back to the van alone in the dark. Only after I got in did I realize that I was soaking wet. It
had begun to rain, the moon had vanished, and the high plateau was crosshatched as though by a draftsman’s hand. I felt a mighty urge to simply drive away. Instead of doing that, I sat motionless behind the steering wheel, shivering and staring into the rain until Theo and Jola came running up. They yanked the side door open and climbed in. I started the engine without a word.

During the drive I tried hard not to look into the rearview mirror. In the backseat, Theo and Jola were kissing each other hungrily. I didn’t want to know what their hands were doing. I kept my eyes fixed on the road and considered what should happen next. The nitrox compressor in the garage wasn’t paid off yet, and the Casa Raya was in urgent need of new windows. But were things so desperate that I had to let myself be bought? As a rule, I didn’t have to worry very much about my diving students’ reliability. The Atlantic instilled respect. Normally. However, I reflected, the very last thing I required of people was that they should fit the normal case. Admittedly, a big part of my job was making sure that nobody died. But underwater. On land, they could bash each other’s heads in, as I’d already told them. Whatever they did above water was no concern of mine.
Stay out of it
. I felt myself growing calmer.

The windshield wipers fought frantically against the torrents of water. The headlights barely reached fifty meters ahead. A drenched fox crouched on the roadside. He looked pathetic. As far as I know, there are no foxes on the island.

JOLA’S DIARY, THIRD DAY

Monday, November 14. Two
A.M
.

I had to get out. I couldn’t breathe inside. The storm has shredded all the clouds, and it’s not raining anymore. I’m thinking it’s been seven years since we met for the first time. It was the traditional summer party at the country house. Three hundred guests, lots of them familiar faces: the brightest stars in the German acting firmament. Daddy risked muscle cramps from spreading out his arms so much. The smile on his face stretched from the east wing to the west wing. Not long before, he’d gotten me the part in
Up and Down,
I’d promised to make a real effort, and I’d come through the first couple of episodes with flying colors, which made me suppose I was at the beginning of a brilliant career. I was twenty-three years old, and I had on a high-necked dress with a leopard-skin pattern. The other actresses’ eyes tickled the back of my neck. To this day I can feel how beautiful I was that evening
.

Daddy appeared on the stage in the garden, opened his arms wide, and said something about celebrating someone’s debut. A writer went up onto the stage. Not a handsome man. He stationed himself behind the lectern, swaying awkwardly as he shifted his weight from one leg to the other. He gave a reading. Sentences like neurotoxins. I stood there, unable to move
.

“There are days when I’d like to answer all questions with my own name.”

“I sense mortality everywhere in my body.”

I love those sentences to this day. It makes no difference what an asshole their author is
.

When I expressed my enthusiasm, he grimaced. Then he leaned on a bar table and stared at the dance floor but didn’t participate. In anything at all. He was twelve years older than me, I learned. He explained that actors had to be stupid so that there would be room in their empty heads for their characters’ identities. He said that actors inherently admired writers, because writers provided the texts that they—actors—parroted every day. I danced with a couple of my
U & D
colleagues and wandered through the rooms of the house and kept going back to the writer leaning on the bar table. As if he were a fixed star and I had slipped into orbit around him. The next thing he told me was that he’d been impotent ever since his publisher started calling him regularly to ask about his progress on his new manuscript. By two
A.M.
, we were screwing in my parents’ bathroom. While we were at it we broke a perfume bottle, and so for the rest of the night we smelled like Mama’s Chanel No. 5
.