Indigo (4 page)

– An emergency exit, said the lab technician.

The brown of the forehead was exquisite, a rare nuance. To re-create it, to track it down among all the possible mixtures of paint on the palette, would definitely take up the next few minutes. After he had tried out several shades of brown, he realized what he was doing, and he looked at the technician, who was sitting, bored or lost or satisfied with himself or in anticipation of some major disaster, in the office chair.

– You don't have to . . . , said Robert.

And because he couldn't gauge the reaction to his words, he gestured to the canvas.

The lab technician tilted his head as if Robert had said something very interesting that he had to think about.

– He got used to us, the technician finally said. That's quite normal for primates. In general, they don't see any great difference between related species. Did you see the parade yesterday?

Robert dabbed a little bit of paint on his left hand. He gazed at the spot and tried to extrapolate what impression the paint would leave on the canvas.

– No, he said, without looking at the technician. I didn't.

– Totally insanity, Herr . . . ?

– Tätzel.

– Herr Tätzel. Yeah, so it was total insanity, I mean, we had to close the windows. The worst part was those horns. When a hundred people are blowing into those little things, it bursts your eardrums.

Robert decided to face the technician and simply stare at him. The time for that had come.

But the technician had rested his forehead against the back of the chair, in which he was sitting backward.

– Parades, the technician murmured into the back of the office chair. No one knows what they're supposed to be good for. And the faces of those people . . .

He shook his head, and even though the wasp waist of the chair back was between his legs, he crossed them. Robert always found it unbearable to be presented with the soles of another person's shoes. Most of the time it happened in exactly this way: Someone formed a sort of roof with his upper leg, a shinbone lectern. At that point he would have liked nothing more than to punch that person. Luckily, it was primarily men who sat like that, but he was now and then cursed with a glimpse of a woman's soles too. What a disgusting sight, the pavement-gray tread and the pieces of strangers' lives stuck to it, that horrible documentation of everywhere someone has been. Unbearable, those people. Truly sensitive people didn't have things like shoe soles at all, they showed them of their own accord no more than men would show the sticky underside of their penis.

He wiped a small mistake from the corner of the eye in the sketchily pale monkey face on the canvas in front of him.
We don't make mistakes, we have happy accidents.

– Are you familiar with Bob Ross? he asked the technician.

– Uh, the painter?

– Yeah.

– Yeah, said the technician, I find it totally soothing, that show. I have some episodes on my iSocket.

– It always makes me aggressive, said Robert. But in a good way.

– And did you study art history too? asked the technician.

The
too
bothered Robert. Yes, he had tried it. Two semesters. And he hadn't liked it, okay? What business was that of this idiot nobody? He had to put down the brush and focus for a while on the monkey. His heartbeat slowed.
A thin paint will stick to a thick paint
,
Robin.

– We have drawing classes here pretty often, said the technician. Most of the time they're in the conference room, everyone sits in a circle . . . But they don't usually ask for monkeys. More for the mice.

– With the ear on their back?

– What?

– Oh, I just . . . , said Robert. There was once this article in a magazine, which my biology teacher gave me at the time, about a hairless lab mouse with a human ear on its back.

– Ah, said the technician. The Vacanti mouse. That wasn't a human ear, that's a misunderstanding. That was just cartilage they grew there and they just molded it into this special form, so that . . .

– Art, said Robert.

– Yeah. In a way.

– Where might the mouse be now? asked Robert.

And he felt a slight twinge in his chest. So soon.

– They don't live long, said the technician.

– Where do you think the mouse is buried?

Another slight twinge, this time higher, just under the Adam's apple. There was a pause. The technician drummed his fingers a few times on his knees.

– And you're doing a whole series of these? he asked.

– Yes.

Painting sounds, brush on canvas. The softest scraping in the world. Like the scratching of clawless paws on a closed door.

– Hm, said the technician. Is it okay if I . . .

Robert looked up briefly to see what this was about. The technician was holding up a cigarette. Robert nodded. Relieved sounds of a lighter, deep drag, silence. Why is the smell of a freshly lit cigarette so good? Cigars are an entirely different matter. Principal Rudolph. As if someone were carrying around a factory chimney in his mouth.

– I have nothing against it, said Robert.

– Thanks.

Silence. The monkey had fallen asleep.

– And you're really doing a whole series of these, huh?

– Yes, said Robert.

– What will that look like?

– Excuse me?

– Ah, I don't want to bother you. But I was just wondering, will they all be animals?

– Mainly, yes.

– Crazy.

– Do you think so?

– Oh, I'm sorry, that sounded worse than I meant it. Honestly. Sorry.

Robert liked it when people put up their arms as if they were being held at gunpoint. That gesture helped him imagine what it would be like to actually fire a gun at them. The cloud of smoke, the recoil of the weapon, the suddenly bursting abdomen, the reverberation of the shot.

– You're just doing your job, Robert said in a conciliatory tone.

– Um, well . . . yeah, I guess . . .

Robert had to restrain himself. A small window in the technician's attention had opened. He could have played with him now. This attention window, he was familiar with it, felt the draft coming from it. Just one or two well-placed sentences, and the guy might even start to cry.

Maybe another time.

– Do you think it looks like him?

– What?

– The painting. Here, take a look.

Robert turned the canvas slightly to the side so that the technician only had to crane his neck. Just don't show too much, maintain control. The window was still open. The technician's features looked intimidated, like the face of a child asking an adult stranger the time or the way home.

– Mm-hmm, the technician said with a nod.

– Looks like him?

– Yeah.

– But not photorealistic, right? Because that's not the way I paint.

– Like a photo? No, I wouldn't say it looks like a photo.

– Wonderful, said Robert.

He enjoyed the growing unease the technician was exuding. It was like that extremely high, buzzing sound that turned-on TV screens made. When he had passed a whole wall of those devices for the first time at the age of twenty-one, it had almost knocked him over.

He wondered whether he should say something that would completely horrify the technician, but still condemn him to silent attention and inactivity, something strange and yet logical, something like: Don't you have the feeling that the sky outside has turned red? Or: Have you ever let God into your life? It was that simple. He didn't even have to look at the technician's face.

– What's his name?

– The monkey? Didi.

– Nice name, said Robert.

And he added in the dubbed German voice of Adam West:

– So you see, Robin, it's always important to give animals a name. For they are our friends.

They were silent for a while. Then the technician said:

– Hm, that's funny. Do you ever paint from photos?

From his more composed voice—the anxiety window was slowly closing—Robert could tell that he had finished smoking his cigarette. Nothing brings back self-confidence as quickly as the stubbing out of a cigarette, while the world turns on its axis and somewhere far away suns shrink into red dwarves.

– I've taken photographs, said Robert. Sometimes. But I've stopped ever since some psycho has been sending me his photos. It started a year or so ago. They just come in the mail. Always from a different sender, all made up, of course, nonexistent.

– Crazy, said the technician. What are the pictures of?

Like lightning Robert went through a catalogue of the uncanny: sexual acts between faceless creatures, close-ups of human skin, photos of his own apartment taken from impossible angles, photos of family members who are long dead, photos of corpses on operating tables—but then he told the truth after all:

– Oh, nothing special, just landscape photographs. But strangely blurred, all the details fuzzy. You see only the general picture.

The technician made a hissing sound in acknowledgment, the unarticulated version of
crazy
.

– The letters frighten my girlfriend, Robert murmured. Well, anyway, that . . .

He broke off and let the paintbrush speak its ancient whispering idiom.

The wonderful inner peace, the first in a long while, dissipated immediately when he stepped out of the building. Twenty-nine years on the planet and in all that time probably four hours altogether of perfect peace. During the years at Helianau, it had most likely been no more than three minutes. Not counting sleep.

He had to carry the painting with some care to the car, but for the last few paces that care was so hard to maintain that he would have liked nothing better than to fling the painting like a Frisbee. The car chirped cheerfully as it felt him getting closer.

When he was sitting at the steering wheel, he tousled his hair with his fingers until he felt disheveled enough.

Then the car drove him home.

As always he rang his bell before unlocking the apartment door. That way the soft echo of the motif consisting of three notes descending in a D-major chord received him like a welcoming melody.

Welcome, you burnt-out lightbulb . . . your apartment is ready for you.

He stood at the window and looked down into the courtyard. The sky had become angry about something and now showed the earth the grim gray back of its head. The blue had disappeared. A storm announced itself. The white shirts hanging on the clotheslines in the courtyard gesticulated excitedly and tried like nervous dogs to break free from their bonds. The window shutters of the neighboring houses had come to life and began to knock, rattle, and squeal like prison inmates in adjacent solitary cells when the guard passes by; some were seized quickly from inside and subdued, others went on clattering grouchily or slammed shut with a bang, only to reopen shortly thereafter, slightly dazed and astonished that their pane had remained intact. On the old cobblestones (meanwhile endowed by the city council with a sort of landmark status, which was, however, nothing but a curse, because it forbade them from transplanting their exhausted medieval souls into new, fresh stones) the wind blew something around that looked like plastic utensils, pliable little knives, forks, and paper plates, accompanied by an agitated horde of fluttering napkins. Robert stood on tiptoe to take a look at his bike, which was probably not doing well in the approaching storm. He sensed the slowly inflating ball in his chest. With each breath the hollow space grew somewhat larger.

Some marmels with dull red, almost black snouts roamed around the garbage cans below.

Now he felt the first thunder, it was still inaudible, but the finer nerves of the buildings had caught it and passed it on. Robert began to feel aggressive. He had to turn away from the window—and instead went for the little bonsai tree on the kitchen table.
I shouldn't do this.
But the tree was so small, and besides, it was an insult to every eye trained in perspective, because no matter where it was in the room, it always appeared to be several hundred yards away, as if in that spot space had been bent and pulled into the distance with tweezers. A thing like that shouldn't even exist, he thought. And he also thought of the monkey, of its eyes, which had made him so calm, the little attempt at an emergency brake, but the monkey was painted, done, the peace was gone, and tons of water would soon fall from the sky, as heavy as studio rain in old silent films, liquid threads lashing wildly back and forth, capable of sweeping hats off bald human heads or knocking over sun umbrellas or within a few seconds turning whole façades into dark, shiny reflections of the street lighting.

Stop, stop.

Batman, I want to destroy this little tree. – Yes, you know, Robin, sometimes we have to do what our inner voice tells us to.

Just at that moment, as he reached for the ridiculously tiny cup in which the Japanese miniature tree existed, the melody of the bell sounded, the descending major triad, and the apartment door immediately exerted the strong magnetism emanating from a still-invisible visitor.

– Yes, who is it?

– Hello, Herr Tätzel. I'm the mother of . . . of the . . .

– Oh, yeah, okay, said Robert.

He didn't invite his neighbor in, but rather stood pointedly in the doorway. Her name was Rabl, he didn't know her first name. Or her son's—even though he knew well that this was about him. A few days ago the kids who played in the courtyard had backed away from Robert as he walked to his car and had shouted something at him. Okay, he hadn't really been angry about it. He hadn't even understood what they had said.

– Yes, said the woman, I wanted to apologize to you for my son.

– What did he do?

– Um . . . well, it's about last week . . . He confessed it to me only now, you know. And that's not the way I'm raising him, which is why I was appalled by it. By what he called you.