Indigo (15 page)

(
FROM
: J
AMES
G
EORGE
F
RAZER
,
The Golden Bough,
Chapter LV,
On Ill Effects at a Distance,
§ 4, p. 790-791)

8.
Holodeck

– Yeah, the supremacy of American culture and especially American television series, said Robert. All that's getting totally out of hand. For fifty years or so it's been getting out of hand. When I paint, I often see those waves, like on old TV sets.

– Out of hand, Elke repeated. Where does that phrase actually come from? Out of hand . . .

She held her own hands in front of her face and contemplated them as if they could reveal the answer to her. Willi reminded her how the two of them, in a stoned state, had discussed for over an hour whether the plural of still life was still lives or still lifes. They had seen on television a British painter who had actually said still lives. That had made Elke anxious, because she didn't like it when she had been saying something incorrectly for so many years. That was, she remarked, as if she were being retroactively stripped of the word.

– In the end I had no idea why that was so important to you, said Willi.

– You always say my English is perfect, Elke replied. And then I watch TV once, and boom!

– But you were high, said Willi.

– Yeah, you watched quite a lot of TV as a kid too, Cordula said to Robert, stroking his head.

Robert would have liked most to utter soothing Batman words of wisdom. Nothing in reality could compare to the bizarre inner light of those clever sayings. But then he swallowed them and said instead:

– Oh, I just mean, Wild West culture is quite simply getting out of hand; in every normal television series the screenwriters manage to smuggle in some sort of Wild West episode, someone takes a time machine and lands in the Wild West, or a brick falls on someone's head and he dreams he's in the Wild West, or he enters the holodeck and ends up in a Wild West story there, and the computer goes haywire and won't let him out of the holodeck anymore!

– Who? asked Elke.

– Worf and Alexander, said Robert.

– Wasn't that Picard? asked Cordula.

– Oh, give me a break with him! He has a French name and so seems European, sophisticated, and wise, but of course all from an American point of view, which makes the whole thing stupid and false. And he plays the flute.

– That's gay, said Willi.

– The holodeck, said Robert, that's one of those things too, of course, you can't touch holograms, and yet they perform operations on people, it's, well, it's—

– Hey, is it bad if I'm now totally lost? asked Elke.

– No, said Robert, it's not bad, but I don't understand how anyone can be lost, I'm talking about television series, not about art, so it has to mean something to you, doesn't it? The subject. I mean, in itself.

– Well . . .

– Take MacGyver. In one episode a flower pot falls on his head and he wakes up in the Wild West. They regard that as a logical plot development.

– More salad, anyone? asked Cordula.

Elke shook her head, her face as perplexed as that of an infant who feels pain for the first time.

– But you guys have eaten the salad from only one side, the cucumbers are here on the left and are still totally untouched.

– I'm sorry, said Elke.

– Oh, whatever, it was my fault, said Cordula. We should have turned the salad bowl more often while we were eating. Then that wouldn't have happened.

She took two forks and tossed the salad, mixing the cucumbers with the corn and beans.

– A flower pot, said Robert. Falls on his head, just like that.

– But wasn't that with King Arthur or something?

– What?

– When he woke up, said Cordula. I saw the episode back then too. The flower pot fell on his head, and he awakes and is in the time of King Arthur and performs miracles there.

– MacGyver?

– Yeah.

– No, definitely not.

Robert bent, without the others seeing it, the neck of a teaspoon.

– Yes, I'm sure, said Cordula, he performs various miracles there, because he has this enormous technical knowledge, of course, and he only barely survives his head injury, and in the end he returns from the Arthurian time to the present, that is, to the eighties or whenever the show was made.

– Now I'm confused, Robert admitted.

– But it's true, Elke said suddenly, again looking at her palms. You're right. These television series really do always include Wild West episodes.
Superman
, for example. In that one, it's a time machine's fault, I think, that they fall so far back and then they're there for quite some time too and can't get back to the future, even though that always really bothered me about the series, because: Here's someone who has superpowers, right? He can do anything, right? Absolutely anything—and then he has more problems than anyone, there's practically nothing at all he can do, because there's always kryptonite somewhere. Why tell this story at all? Here's Superman, and he has superpowers, but no, he actually doesn't have them after all, because everything is always made of kryptonite. That's crazy!

– Yeah, said Robert. Maybe it's also some sort of parable. For the historical situation back then.

– For . . . ?

– Well, Superman in German is
Übermensch
, right?

Elke nodded intently.

– Of course, she said.

– And of course they live in Metropolis, which is of course the name of that Fritz Lang film.

– Which Fritz Lang film?

–
Metropolis
, said Robert. And it's made by a German and it's about fantasies of omnipotence, about empires and so on.

– Hey, did you used to do nothing but watch TV, or what? Willi laughed, and Robert stared at him until Willi made an apologetic gesture and said: You know so many series that I watched as a kid, even though you were born only—

– And about the future, Cordula suddenly added. They have robots and such.

– This is starting to get weird, Elke said with a giggle, shifting around in her chair. You mean it's all just codes?

– Of course. Because . . . Hollywood was full of refugees and emigrants who had fled from the Nazis or ended up there due to historical circumstances in some other way, so . . . I assume they couldn't help . . . sort of . . . working in their own story.

– Sure, said Elke.

– But what I still don't get, said Cordula. Why is the holodeck not just a room full of holograms, but another world in which everything is as solid as in ours? Do the holograms even know that they're holograms? If not, then that would be freaky, in a way, wouldn't it? I mean, Picard often enters the holoca—oh, shit, the holodeck, and rides around on a horse in there. I mean—

– A woman who knows her
Star Trek
! said Willi, raising his wine glass.

– True, the thing with the holograms is unclear, said Robert. In the one episode only Data knows that they're in the hologram world, because he . . . well, he's a robot and has no human imagination like the others, and that's why he can—

– Wait, who?

– Data. No, means nothing to you?

– Mm-mm, Elke said, shaking her head.

She was too young. Only twenty.

– Data is a robot that looks like a human, except he's very pale, that is, his face is all pasty white. You've really never seen him?

– No, I don't think so.

– He has that white face, but he acts completely normal, like a human, he even has this emotion chip he can turn on and off . . . Or no, wait, he has that only later. At first he has no emotions at all.

– Awful, said Elke.

– Yes, but he has a brother who looks exactly like him. They're twins, and the brother is sort of the evil brother, you know? He looks the same, but he laughs nastily, and he has emotions and craves power, and he attacks Data and wants to kill him.

– Who?

– The brother.

– He wants to kill the brother?

– Yes, he wants to kill Data, because he has no emotions or . . . oh, I've forgotten what the reason is, probably the world isn't big enough for both of them, one of them has to go. But . . . God, where was I? . . . Right, once, in one episode, okay? The two of them are fighting each other, that is, the evil Data ties the good Data up and is going to give him emotions so that he becomes evil too, but he implants them in himself by mistake, and the two of them have switched places.

– Wait, I didn't follow that, said Elke.

– Me neither, Cordula said with a laugh.

– Okay, one more time, said Robert, forming two figures with his hands. Here's Data, my left hand, and here's the evil Data, my right hand. And the evil one comes to the good Data and ties him to a dentist's chair and infuses emotions into him, and suddenly the two of them are standing there, their places reversed, and this one here (left hand) says: Hey, suddenly I'm here, tied up, can't get out. And this one here (right hand) says: That's right, evil Data, you shouldn't have messed with me.

Cordula, Elke, and Willi burst out laughing and clapped their hands. Robert had to restrain himself to keep from laughing too. His diaphragm cramped, and he urgently had to go to the bathroom. Always the same thing, damn it. The painful memory of that day in the classroom returned. The old biology teacher, Professor Ulrich, had stared at him and had then come closer, and from his face you could tell that he was inwardly
counting
. The zone countdown. Robert's laughter stuck in his throat. It's okay, he had said to the teacher. I have a weak bladder, everything's okay, it happens to me sometimes. The looks of his classmates sitting several yards away. Like stuck elevators.

Robert took a sip of his beer—and spat it all over his own shirt. He excused himself, stood up quickly, and walked out.

– Hey, Robert, said Willi, it's okay, you don't have to—

After some time Cordula came to him in his room. She approached carefully from behind. She cleared her throat so that he wouldn't be startled, then asked quite casually, as if it were about a newspaper subscription:

– Are you still taking your Sviluppal?

– Sviluppal, Robert said calmly.

He pressed his pillow against the wall the way you hold a framed painting to see if it will fit. Then he punched it.

– Ulipol, Trimco, Sviluppal. The names of medications always sound like they're from fantasy novels, he murmured, punching the pillow again.

Cordula took a step back. Robert sensed it, even though he wasn't looking at her—the first sign that he actually had to start taking that shit again. Warning level one.

– Would you like . . . me to bring you a fresh shirt?

Robert looked down at himself.

– It's not what you think, he said.

– Sure, okay, said Cordula, turning slightly to the side.

– Stop, said Robert.

– Doing what?

– Stop being afraid of me. That makes me totally nervous.

He heard a slapping sound and turned around.

– I just swatted a mosquito on my arm, Cordula said, holding up her arm. There.

– It's all right, said Robert. You don't have to . . .

Then he realized what he looked like. While guests were sitting in the next room, he was standing in his bedroom and holding his anger pillow in his hand. His anger pillow. Like a baby. He considered taking off all his clothes, just to change the channel, but then he decided against it. Cordula left the room and brought him a new shirt, which came fresh from the drying rack. The smell was almost too much for Robert. With his eyes closed, he put it on and then lay down on the bed.

When she sat down with him a bit later, he said:

– Gillingen. There's a world-famous cable car there, did you know that?

Cordula displayed a kind smile that struck him as bold and submissive at the same time. He looked at her silently and seriously, until she said:

– So when are you going there?

He turned to the wall.

– Hey, I have something for you here, look.

Robert grunted and then put the pillow over his face.

– Clemens Jo . . . what does that say? Jodokus . . .

She tapped the newspaper. The image came into focus.

– Clemens Johann Setz? Do you know him?

The pillow fell on the floor as Robert sat up.

– What?

– Does that name mean anything to you?

– He was my math teacher. Why?

– Here, look.

– Is he dead?

– No, he's here . . . Oh, see for yourself.

She gave Robert the newspaper. He enlarged the image with thumb and forefinger. The newspaper chirped. A smiling face appeared, bespectacled, greasy hair. Looked exactly the same as back then. Just a bit rounder. The eyes a tad more owlish. And the eyebrows still slowly growing together.

– Shit, said Robert, skimming the text.

Acquittal in a trial for the violent death of a man from Romania. Kept his dogs in a dungeon for years. Severe abuse. Death by slow flaying. Prime suspect Setz free as of today. The family of the victim, a small picture. People standing there sadly. In recent years mainly science fiction novels, a turn away from literature. Currently living as a freelance writer near—

– It says in the article that he worked at your school, Cordula began.

Robert interrupted her:

– You know what? They threw him out, because he was always coming to class drunk. You couldn't tell at all, but in hindsight that made perfect sense, he was always very nervous, never stuck to the subject, often just rambled on about this and that for hours . . .

– And now he's apparently been acquitted, said Cordula.

– He stripped off the damn skin of an animal abuser?

– No, actually, he—

– Fuck!

– He was acquitted today.

– Shit, he once visited us at home! said Robert. That was shortly after . . . But you know what? That was totally off, I mean, his behavior. He was totally gone, I mean, completely out of it. My parents invited him because he . . . oh, I don't know, he was such an odd duck . . .