In Free Fall (7 page)

After nights like those, he barely knows which world he is in when morning comes. At breakfast, he sat down not as a husband next to his wife, but as someone who is shocked to find two strangers in his own home. Liam suddenly seems far too old, his childish laughter false, his beloved face unfamiliar. Sitting with his family, Sebastian feels as if he has stumbled into an unknown universe by mistake. This terrible feeling of being a guest in his own life has been with him for a long time. Since Liam’s birth, there have been many moments when he has felt like an impostor, as if he has cheated his way to some good fortune which was not his by right, and for which he would be severely punished. At times like this, he wants to put aside his skin like a borrowed coat, and destroy everything he loves before it can be taken away by some counterbalancing force of justice. It is only recently that he has begun to think that this feeling is not a personal problem, but a matter of physics.

He had once described these confused feelings to Oskar as the side effects of a big idea. Oskar had pointed an index finger at him sternly.
Don’t trouble yourself with your neuroses
, he said.
You’ll never be a great man. Everything that has meaning for you bears your surname. That’s how you can recognize it
.

Sebastian was incandescent with rage about this remark at the time. Now he finds Oskar’s words calming. As a child, he often lay in bed tortured by the question of whether, faced with a barbaric murderer, he would save his father or his mother. Now, if he had to choose
between Maike and physics, or even between Maike and the rest of the world (with the exception of Liam), his wife would have absolutely nothing to fear, despite all his scientific and other obsessions.

He took her to the station in the afternoon. When the train drew alongside the platform, he grasped her arm and told her he loved her. She patted him on the back like a good horse, told him to take care of himself, and passed her lightweight racing bike to the conductor. She blurred into a light patch behind the carriage window, and Sebastian’s arm started to ache with waving. He felt himself getting smaller, shrinking constantly until he disappeared behind the long curve of the tracks.

This holiday is an exception, he thinks now. After this, he will not endanger his family’s happiness any longer in pursuit of a frenzied obsession. He will forget last night’s pathetic TV program and complete “A Long Exposure.” And he will ring Oskar and ask him not to visit on the first Friday of the month any longer.

As soon as he has decided this, he feels free, as if a thorn has been pulled from his flesh. He checks on Liam in the rearview mirror and looks at his peaceful sleeping face for a long time. A wide-tailed buzzard is tearing white intestines from the next piece of roadkill by the edge of the pavement. Since Sebastian started noticing birds of prey, he has counted more than fifteen of them. They sit in the trees, or even by the roadside, staring at the traffic with eyes unadorned by lashes. It seems to him that there are an unnatural number of them. Or, worse still, it is always the same one.

At Geisingen the Volvo leaves the country road and moves onto the A81.

[4]

THE PUMP GURGLES AS IF IT IS SUCKING PETROL
out of the tank instead of filling it. While the digits race over the price display, Sebastian uses a sponge to scratch the yellow and purple bodies of flies from the windshield. He buys a chocolate bar at the counter and drops it into the side pocket of his door when he gets back to the car, as Liam is still asleep. He turns the key in the ignition gingerly, as if this will dampen the noise of the starting engine. The car moves slowly around the petrol station.

The parking lot behind the building is almost empty. A couple is sitting on camping stools next to a caravan, having their dinner. A young woman is walking her dog on the strip of grass, a light wind blowing her hair across her face. The sun is slanting through the tops of the trees; as the light hits the branches it breaks into mawkish stars. Sebastian stops the Volvo once again, next to some dirty trucks. He has started out of an empty blackness several times over the last few kilometers. Asleep for a split second. He needs a rest.

The air smells of axle grease and cooling engines. Swinging his arms and hopping from one leg to another, Sebastian goes over to the edge of the service area. The wind sings in chorus through the railings. In the valley there is an insignificant little south German town—its roads shine like rivers. Lake Constance is not yet in sight, but it will
appear between the trees in half an hour at most. They will drive its length and cross the invisible border to Austria at the easternmost end before they reach their destination near Bregenz. Latitude 47°50′ N and longitude 9°74′ E. He has looked up the coordinates in an atlas with Liam. There is always a vast amount of information in the world, just not the information you might need in order to know what will happen in the next second. To avoid having to stop again, Sebastian decides to go to the toilet.

He is washing his hands when the phone rings. He dries his hands on his trousers hurriedly, wedges his mobile between shoulder and ear, and leans against the door to push it open. In the hallway a fat woman in a surgical green housecoat points at a plate with a single coin lying in the middle of it.

“Maike?” Sebastian ignores the toilet attendant and walks down the corridor with his head bent. “Did you get there all right? How is the hotel?”

“I’m sorry to disturb you. I’d like to ask you to stand still for a minute and listen to me.”

The voice in the distance sounds familiar to Sebastian. It is young enough to belong to one of the few female students in the institute. He takes the phone from his ear so he can look at the display. Unknown number.

“Who is this?”

“Vera Wagenfort.”

In his head, Sebastian goes through all the women in his faculty. There is no Vera. “Listen, this is not a good moment for me. I’m just leaving a public toilet, if you must know.”

“I’m saying this for the last time. Stand still. For your own sake.”

This woman is not trying to sell anything; she has also not dialed the wrong number. A cold shock cements Sebastian’s legs to the tiled floor. There is a glass case in front of him, filled with colorful stuffed animals, watches, and toy cars. Liam loves these machines. One euro sets in motion a claw, which can be steered and lowered with two buttons.
It’s generally possible to grab hold of something, but when the arm moves back, it bumps into the edge of the chute, and the prize almost always falls back into the case. Liam never lets lengthy explanations of the chances of success spoil his fun. If he were here now he would certainly be cajoling a stray coin out of Sebastian.

“First, I must ask you to keep calm at all costs. My employer thinks that you can do that.”

The woman sounds as if she is reading from a piece of paper.

“The most important thing is: tell nobody. Do you understand?
No-bo-dy
. Leave the building now. I’ll call you back immediately.”

The line goes dead. Sebastian shakes the phone as if he is hoping an explanation will fall out of it. His eyes meet those of a pink toy dog, which seems to be looking at him pleadingly. He finally tears himself free, clears the final stretch of tiled floor, and opens the door to the outside.

Inside the air-conditioned service station, he has forgotten how warm the evening is. Images from the journey still fill his head. When he closes his eyes, the broken white line flies toward him, a bird of prey looks on, a dead cat is at the side of the road. Sebastian walks around the building and stands on the spot surveying the parking lot. There are the trucks. The caravan is gone. And the space where the Volvo was is also empty. Sebastian does not wonder for a moment if he might have parked elsewhere. He knows exactly where he left his car. The space is unbearably empty, emptier than anywhere else on the planet. It takes several seconds for him to understand this.

He walks in an arc across the asphalt divided by white lines, and although his stride gets longer with every step, he feels unable to move from his spot, as in a nightmare. It is only when he gets to the exit ramp, and is looking at the autobahn with its shiny cars disappearing at high speed over the hill, that the rise and fall of the occasional horn brings him to his senses. The frequency of sound waves, Sebastian often explains to his students, depends on the relative motion
between the observer and the source. The Doppler effect. It’s the same with light. If Sebastian’s senses were a little sharper, he would register that the vehicles moving away from him are red while those coming toward him are blue. Every one blue, like the Volvo that he has lost.

He runs across the grass, past overturned bins and crudely made picnic tables. Some distance away, two truck drivers are standing next to the raised hood of an engine, cradling cups of coffee in front of their stomachs, watching him. For some reason, Sebastian has his hands in his trouser pockets, which slows him down as he runs. His mouth is already open and he wants to shout, but something clicks in his brain.
Tell no-bo-dy
.

“Lost something, mate?”

The fat one’s voice is too high for his girth. Sebastian waves the question aside and forces himself to slow down to an innocuous stroll. He has to dictate every movement to his limbs and he almost stumbles; he must look like a madman. He comes to a halt again in the middle of that ghastly void where his car had been. His heart feels constricted in his body—it is looking for a way out through his left lung. Growing in the hollows of a manhole cover is a fleshy plant that Sebastian has seen in Japanese rock gardens. The parking lot swims around him in a blur. This is what the world looks like from one of the roundabouts that Liam preferred over everything else in the playground before he grew too old for them.

Sebastian’s temples are cold as ice. Time is a card index with an infinite number of cards. He starts flicking through it, looking for the parallel universe in which he had not left Liam sleeping in the car. Or one in which Maike had not come up with the idea of scout camp. Or even one in which he had studied mechanical engineering and lived in America. He takes a step to one side to make room for the Volvo, which any moment now will emerge from thin air in the spot where it was parked before. Sebastian grips his forehead. The truck behind him shakes and rattles like a beetle before takeoff, angles its nose to one
side, and rolls toward the exit. Vera Wagenfort.
Wagen fort
. Car gone. Jokers, jokers everywhere. All will be revealed.

A family is returning to its yellow Toyota. Two children climb into the backseat. The girl is Liam’s age.

Sebastian’s phone rings.

[5]

THIS TIME HIS BODY
does not require specific instructions—it reacts before it has received any orders. Lips, tongue, and teeth crash together and scream into the mobile.

“What do you want? I can get anything!”

A hand lands over his mouth and stops him from speaking; it is his own hand. There is an uncertain pause on the other end of the line. A woman clears her throat.

“Herr Professor, I’ve been instructed to give you a message. A single sentence. I’ve been told you will understand. Are you ready?”

“My son,” Sebastian groans.

“Excuse me, I don’t know what this is all about. I just have to make sure that you understand the sentence. Shall we continue?”

It is the woman’s friendliness that does it to him. He never knew that pain could come from so deep within the human body. He never knew how it could claw at his throat, desperately trying to reach his brain. Vera Wagenfort takes a breath. Then she says it.

“Dabbelink must go.”

The sun has set behind the treetops and taken the shadows with it to preserve them till the next day. There are still a few cars parked here and there, but not a soul in sight. A random wind races over the ground, chasing empty paper cups in circles and flapping his trousers.
Sebastian looks at his watch as if he had an important appointment and no time for further chat. Just after nine thirty. The time tells him nothing. He has never felt so alone.

“Would you repeat that?” he asks.

“I’ve been told to add this when questions are asked: ‘Then everything will be all right.’ Did you get that?”

“You can’t do this,” Sebastian says. “I’m begging you.”

“Apart from that, you probably know the rules: No police. Not a word to anyone. Not even to your wife.”

There is a pause, as if they are in the middle of a difficult personal conversation and don’t know how to continue. The caller’s voice is not unpleasant. Sebastian imagines her to be a healthy young woman. Perhaps, he thinks, we would get along well under different circumstances.

“Go into the restaurant in the service station,” the woman says, rustling her piece of paper. “Are you still listening?”

“Yes.”

“There is a service station and a restaurant where you are right now, isn’t there?”

“Yes.”

“Sit down near the counter. Get a beer and a newspaper. It might be a while before I call again. Keep your phone on.”

“Wait!” Sebastian shouts. “I will—We can—”

The buttons on his phone have always been too small for his fingers. At last he finds the list of calls received. Two calls from “Unknown number.” He would have liked to ring back and explain that he has absolutely no experience with such things, that he needs a few tips. He also wants to ask why he of all people has been chosen. What he should do now. And how. And when. Just as Vera Wagenfort suspected, the rules are actually clear to him. They are shown several times a week on television in those badly lit thrillers Sebastian has never been able to stand. Absurdly, none of the films ever taught you what you were supposed to think and feel in such a situation. They also did not teach you what to do with a three-word sentence. It is always
three-word sentences that change the life of a human being in a decisive manner.
I love you. I hate you. Father is dead. I am pregnant. Liam has disappeared. Dabbelink must go
. After a three-word sentence, one is totally alone.