Indigo (38 page)

Robert wiped the mineral water bottle off on his coat, put it in his pocket, and walked on slowly.

He turned around. The man was still standing there.

Robert walked a bit faster, it wasn't much farther, he walked with his head turned slightly to the side so that he could hear any suspicious noise, not much farther, it had to be right up there—but then there were suddenly footsteps, faster than his, approaching him from behind. He turned around and saw the man. He was running with a hobble, but he was running. Toward him. And in his hand he was holding a bouquet of long-stemmed flowers.

When he started to run, Robert's bottle fell on the sidewalk again, but this time he didn't stop, but just kept running. He looked around briefly, saw that his pursuer had picked up the bottle and held it up. Shit. Robert ducked behind a tobacco kiosk. He looked around the corner. The man seemed to again be completely out of breath, he stood there, his mouth wide open, and began moving again only after he had rested a little and his chest rose and sank less dramatically than before. He was quite an old man. How ridiculous to be followed by such an old, out-of-shape guy.

Robert ventured out from behind the tobacco kiosk, and when he looked around he saw that the old man was moving again too on the opposite side of the street. However, he now seemed not to notice him, he was looking somewhere else entirely. Robert quickened his pace and tried at the same time to seem invisible, but then the man suddenly crossed the street. Robert jumped over the fluttering barrier tape of a construction site, a cyclopean camera eye on the brow of a large truck winked at him, he ran past a fence behind which a barking dog accompanied him a few yards, as if it were shouting after him to stay the course. Ridiculous, ridiculous, he thought in the double rhythm of his footsteps. Why was someone running after him? Ultimately he could simply stop and ask the man what he wanted. Probably the old man would then simply run past him, as if Robert were an advertising pillar. He looked back over his shoulder and saw the man with the bouquet of flowers at the end of the street. He couldn't tell whether the man was looking at him; in any case, he started running again, Robert too. Shit, shit, shit. And that stupid song was also stuck in his head,
stop the rock
, and it transformed into
the funk soul brother
, all that same nineties dance music crap, those endless repetitions.

He had shaken off the man.

Panting, he tried to orient himself. He pulled his cell phone out of his pocket, saw on the display that an iBall was right around the corner. Before he stepped in front of it, he adjusted his clothing and checked his hair in the mirror of a dark car window.

On the doorbell nameplate was written, in scrawly block letters, “SETZ.” Robert rang, an ascending melody, from some opera, Cordula had sometimes played it in her pillow. A woman opened the door.

– Yes?

– Yes, hello, said Robert. I was looking for Herr Setz.

– Oh, well . . . My husband isn't well.

– I've come all the way from—

– He can't receive any visitors at the moment.

– But . . . it would be very important to me to see him. I've brought a book too, here.

He took the book he had borrowed from Frau Rabl out of his pocket and held it out to the woman. She leaned forward to decipher the cover.

– Are you a journalist? she asked.

– No. A former student of his.

– Ah, I see. From Oeversee. What year?

– No, from Helianau.

The woman's pretty face hardened, but then relaxed again right away.

– Come in, she said softly.

On the chest of drawers right next to the door, hats were stacked in increasing size into a tower, in accordance with the apparently steadily growing head of their owner over the years.

Robert took off his shoes.

A cat was sleeping on a windowsill and lifted its head as the stranger passed.

The woman knocked on a door. Behind it something fell at the same moment on the floor, and a man's cursing could be heard.

In the math teacher's room was an old overhead projector, like an ostrich robot sleeping while sitting.

– Hello, said Robert.

– Hello, replied the man.

Robert recognized him immediately. The teacher, however, clearly didn't have the faintest idea who was standing in front of him.

– How can I help you? he asked, confused, looking at his wife.

– My name is Robert Tätzel, Herr Setz. Do you remember?

The man's face fell as if he had suffered a bilateral stroke.

– Yes, he said. I do, of course. How are you? What are you doing these days, Herr Tätzel?

The fact that the teacher addressed him as Herr Tätzel confused Robert. He tried to focus on the phrases with which he intended to explain why he had come. But all he saw when he looked into himself was a glass of milk from which a peculiar gleam of light emanated. Cordula. And the unpleasant man in the bank lobby. Then he realized that the teacher had asked him about his career. He pulled out of the inside pocket of his coat a few postcards on which he had had some of his paintings printed, among them the prizewinning painting entitled
M.

The teacher held them up in front of his face with interest.

Then he recoiled and looked for his wife, seeking help. He took off his glasses and pretended to keep looking at the paintings. But Robert could tell from his eyes that he was looking through the postcards. His focus was set to a distant point.

– Very interesting, said the teacher. And what brings you to me, Herr Tätzel?

Robert took the postcards from him and put them back in his pocket.

He had noticed that the math teacher's hands were trembling.

– Yes, I didn't want to bother you, said Robert. After you've been through so much. I mean, I want to say right at the outset that I was always convinced of your innocence. I also brought something along . . . for signing . . .

He held up the book. The teacher put his glasses back on. He shook his head.

– I can't concentrate, he murmured.

He felt around on himself as if he were searching for a lighter.

– My glasses, my glasses . . .

His wife came up to him and showed him that the glasses were in the middle of his face.

– Ah, he said.

– Did you hear? his wife asked him gently. He would like you to sign his book.

The man raised his head.

– What?

– I . . . , said Robert, blindly pulling from the fish pond the first phrase he caught hold of, I recently received a prize. For a painting.

Then he simply ran out of breath. He breathed in, out, this room had a peculiar atmosphere. It had been stupid to come here.

– Yes, so, what now?

– Everything will be fine, the woman said, stroking his head.

– Has he read my books? asked the teacher.

The woman gave Robert a questioning look.

He nodded.

– Well! Oh!

That seemed to make the teacher happy.

– I wanted to talk to you about . . .

– And now you would like to do something for me?

– Um, well, Herr Setz, said Robert, I've actually come to ask you something. I was recently at an award ceremony, and a man approached me there, and he said that he knows you. And that you had something to do with, um, what do I know . . .

– I don't know, the teacher said to his wife.

She put a hand on his shoulder. Robert's mind began to flutter. He looked into the teacher's face, which was overwhelmed by the situation, and searched for a word with which he could get through to him. He found it.

– Ferenz, he said. Interference. Does that name mean anything to you?

During the silence, which lasted nearly a minute, all that could be heard in the room was the buzzing of several mosquitoes. That was what a dentist's drill would sound like, thought Robert, if it had a soul.

– Okay, said the teacher, in a totally changed voice.

His face also no longer looked confused.

– How long have you been back? he asked Robert.

– What?

– Well, how long . . . ?

– I don't know what you mean.

– That is, you haven't just returned from . . . ?

– No.

– Oh, God, said the man. Oh, thank goodness.

The teacher laughed and shook his head. He put his hand to his mouth.

– Robert Tätzel, he said. I wouldn't have thought that you . . . And your zone, so it really is . . . ?

Robert made a tabula rasa gesture with both hands. The teacher nodded. He reached into his pants pocket.

Robert was afraid that he was about to slip him, like a bellboy who has lugged a heavy suitcase to the twelfth floor, a crumpled bill. But it was something else. Slowly and deliberately his former teacher placed an old telephone card in his hand. On the back of it someone had drawn a little party hat.

Thank you, Robert wanted to say, and he imagined the slightly distracted tone of his voice. But he said nothing. The card lay in his palm, he nodded and put it in his pocket. An unexpectedly relaxed feeling suffused him. He was suddenly totally at peace. Just like that time on the tram when the sign for a pastry shop had caught his eye. The clock hands of the world stopped between two seconds. Dead calm.

– Yes, all right, then, said the woman.

– Can you show him out, Julia? the teacher asked his wife with a soft voice.

He seemed suddenly very tired. With an exaggerated-seeming sigh he flopped down in his armchair. It was clearly acting, just like his confusion earlier. When Robert, disappointed with the short, unsatisfying meeting, left the room, the teacher briefly raised his hand. He returned the gesture.

Robert registered a trembling in the eyes of Setz's wife. Nystagmus. He thought of Alicia, but that couldn't be it, she didn't seem to be dizzy. So he asked her:

– Pardon my asking, but . . . what's the matter with your eyes?

– Oh, no one really knows, said the woman.

– And . . . can you see me?

She looked at him, reached out her arm, and her forefinger pointed to the middle of his face. Robert backed away.

– There, said the woman.

– What?

– There's your nose.

Robert laughed so that she would take her finger away.

– You know, you shouldn't upset him. You should see him when he . . . talks about the past, about his time at that horrible institute . . . Sorry. He collects these articles about . . . oh, what do I know, about all sorts of things, torture, really awful things are in them. He can't even look at them anymore. Puts them away in a folder. But I think your visit made him happy.

– Yes, I had actually wanted to ask him . . .

The woman had turned away from him slightly, as if she wanted to go back into the room. But then she reached out her hand again and put it on something invisible directly in front of her. Robert exhaled as heavily as if someone had given him a forceful push from behind. He got goose bumps.

– There, the woman said softly.

Her hand ran along the old contour.

– Blue, she said, shaking her head, as if someone had made a stupid remark. I've never understood why people always say: blue . . . indigo blue.

Robert didn't budge and followed the path of her hand. It was the most pleasant thing he had experienced recently. His chest seemed to widen, and he breathed twice as much air as usual. To suddenly feel it again, after such a long time . . .

– You can trust me, he said.

His own voice seemed to come from a muffled sound source in the middle of the room. The woman's hand slowly sank. And then she clutched her head and massaged her temples. The universal migraine gesture.

– There are books, said the woman, he can barely even touch them anymore. If he has to put them on a new shelf, because the old one is full, it looks like he has back pains. He walks like a tyrannosaurus. All bent forward.

She took a step toward the door. Robert noticed that she was about to bump into the dresser with her hip, and he held her back by the shoulder.

– Watch out, he said.

– Thanks, she said, and pretended to sneeze.

At the same moment the door to the study opened, and the teacher stood in front of him. He held some folders in his hand.

– All right, he said. Thanks for waiting. You can come in. Everything is ready.

Robert looked at the woman, then the teacher, the apartment door.

– Please, said the teacher, pointing the way into another room, which was somewhat farther back, in the more poorly lit interior of the apartment.

– It's a peculiar network, said the math teacher, and his voice was hoarse and longed for him to clear his throat, but he didn't. It seems not to matter at all who this person actually is. The name stays the same, only the spaceship in which the name sits is always a different one. Or no, spaceship is actually the wrong image. Yeah, what was I going to say . . . You know, my concentration isn't the best. Anyway, yeah, it's . . .

The acoustic equivalent of old tree bark. Robert didn't know what the man was talking about, but he was so preoccupied with listening to this voice longing for a throat-clearing that he didn't really mind.

– A peculiar network, in any case. It's unknown how long it's existed. The funny thing about it is that the name doesn't seem to change, only the man who bears it. He's like a new body module for the same idea. Ah, I didn't express that well. Mm-rrhm!

Finally! thought Robert. The throat-clearing, the release. The teacher's voice was clear again.

– I met him, you know.

Robert wanted to ask, Whom? And what the hell is this all about? But the teacher went on:

– And I'd like . . . Well, yes, here . . .

He handed Robert a green and a red-checkered folder.

– Pedestrian light system, said Setz. Green: Go. Red: No-go.

In the folders were photocopies, printouts, and a great number of handwritten pieces of paper. Robert blinked, the writing was tiny, all capital letters, pressed close together. Like a minimalist carpet pattern. From a certain distance they might as well have been zeroes and ones.