Me and Kaminski (12 page)

“Why did you never come?” she asked.

“Dominik said you were dead.”

“Dominik?” I said. “You insisted you didn’t even know him.” He frowned, Therese looked at me in surprise, they both seemed to have forgotten I was there.

“Did he?” she said. “Why?”

Kaminski didn’t reply.

“I was young,” she said. “One does the oddest things. I was someone else.”

“You certainly were.”

“You looked different. You were taller and . . . you had such strength. Such energy. If I spent enough time with you, I felt dizzy.” She sighed. “Being young is a disease.”

“The fever of reason.”

“La Rochefoucauld.” She laughed softly. Kaminski smiled for a moment, then leaned forward and said something in French.

She smiled. “No, Manuel, not for me. Basically everything started after that.”

There was silence for a few moments.

“So what did you say?” he asked hoarsely. “On your birthday?”

“If only I knew!”

Holm came back. “She didn’t want to come in, she said she’ll wait. Would you like coffee now?”

“It’s late already,” said Kaminski.

“Very late,” I said.

“But you just got here!”

“We could watch TV together,” she said. “It’s almost time for
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire.
”

“Schmidt is a good moderator,” said Holm.

“I’ve read somewhere that he’s getting married,” she said.

Kaminski leaned over and gave me his hand. I helped him to his feet. I had the impression there was something he still wanted to say; I waited, but nothing came. His hold on my arm was weak, almost imperceptible. In my pocket I could feel the tape recorder, I’d almost forgotten it, still running. I switched it off.

“Are you often in the neighborhood?” asked Holm. “You must come again. Mustn’t they, Little Therese?”

“And I’ll introduce you to Lore. And her children. Moritz and Lothar. They live in the next street.”

“That’s nice,” said Kaminski.

“What kind of art do you actually do?” asked Holm.

We went out into the hall. Holm opened the front door, I turned around, Therese was following us. “Safe trip, Miguel!” she said, crossing her arms. “Safe trip!”

We went out through the front garden. The street was empty, except for a woman loitering around. I noticed that Kaminski’s arm was trembling.

“Drive carefully!” said Holm, and shut the door.

Kaminski stood still and lifted the other hand, the one that held the stick, to his face. “I’m sorry,” I said quietly. I couldn’t bring myself to look at him. It had turned cold, I closed my jacket. He was leaning heavily on my arm.

“Manuel!” I said.

He didn’t reply. The woman turned around and came toward us. She was wearing a black coat and her hair fluttered in the wind. I was so surprised I let go of Kaminski.

“Why didn’t you come in?” asked Kaminski. He didn’t seem surprised at all.

“He said you were almost finished. I didn’t want to prolong things.” Miriam looked at me. “And now give me the car keys!”

“Excuse me?”

“I’m taking the car back. I had a long talk on the phone with its owner. I am to tell you that if you make any difficulties, you’ll be accused of theft.”

“I didn’t steal it!”

“The other car, our car, has been located, meanwhile. In the parking lot of a rest stop, with a very polite note of thanks. Do you want it?”

“No!”

She took her father’s arm, I opened the door, she helped him into the backseat. He moaned softly, his lips moved but no sound came out. She slammed the door. Nervously I held out the cigarette pack. There was only one left inside.

“I shall allow myself to present you with the bill for my airplane ticket and the taxi fare to get here. I promise you it will not be cheap.” The wind whipped through her hair, and her fingernails were chewed down to the quick. The threat didn’t bother me. I had nothing left, so she could take nothing away from me.

“I haven’t done anything wrong.”

“Of course not.” She leaned on the car roof. “This is an old man who’s been made the ward of his daughter, right? No one has ever told him that the love of his youth is still alive. You just wanted to help.”

I lifted my shoulders. In the car, Kaminski’s head was rocking backward and forward, and his lips were moving.

“That’s how it is.”

“And how do you think I know this address?”

I stared at her, confused.

“I’ve known it for a long, long time. I visited her already ten years ago. She gave me his letters and I tore them up.”

“You
what
?”

“That’s what he wanted. We always knew that someone like you would come along.”

I took another step back and felt the garden fence on my back.

“He didn’t actually want to see her ever again. But after the operation he became sentimental. He asked all of us, me, Bogovic, Clure, everyone he knows. He doesn’t know that many people anymore. We wanted to spare him. You must have said something that made him come back to the idea.”

“What did you want to spare him? Meeting that silly old woman? And that idiot of a man?”

“That idiot of a man is clever. I assume he tried to save the situation. You don’t know how easily Manuel cries, and how much he enjoys it. You don’t know how bad it could have become. And this old woman got free of him a long time ago. She had a life in which he was totally insignificant.” She frowned. “Not many people have achieved that.”

“He’s weak and he’s ill. He doesn’t manipulate anyone anymore.”

“No? When you spoke about a prison, I had to laugh. That’s when I knew you were just as much in his hand as the rest of us. Didn’t he get you to steal two cars and drive him halfway across Europe?”

I put the cigarette between my lips. “For the last time, I didn’t . . .”

“Did he tell you about the contract?”

“What contract”

As she turned her head, for the first time I suddenly saw her resemblance to her father. “I think he’s called Behring, Hans . . .”

“Bahring?”

She nodded. “Hans Bahring.”

I grabbed the fence. A metal spike stabbed itself into my hand.

“A series of articles in some magazine. About Richard Rieming, Matisse, and postwar Paris. Memories of Picasso, Cocteau, and Giacometti. Manuel talked to him for hours.”

I threw away the cigarette unlit, and held tight to the fence, tighter, as tightly as I could.

“Which doesn’t mean you rummaged through our house in vain.” I let go of the fence, and a thin stream of blood ran over my hand. “Perhaps we should have told you sooner. But you’ve still got the rest: his childhood, that long time in the mountains. And all his late work.”

“He has no late work.”

“Right,” she said, as if this had just occurred to her. “Then it’s going to be a thin book.”

I forced myself to breathe calmly. I looked into the car: Kaminski’s jaws were working, his hands clasped the stick. “Where are you going now?” My voice sounded as if it were coming from a long way away.

“I’m looking for a hotel,” she said. “He’s . . .”

“Missed his midday nap.”

She nodded. “And tomorrow we’re driving back. I’ll return the car, then we’ll take the train. He . . .”

“Doesn’t fly.”

She smiled. As I looked back at her, I realized that she envied Therese. That she had never lived a life apart from him, that she too had no history. Just like me. “His medicines are in the glove compartment.”

“What happened to you?” she asked. “You look different.”

“Different?”

She nodded.

“May I say good-bye to him?”

She stepped back and leaned against the fence. I opened the driver’s door. My knees still felt weak, it was good to sit in the car. I closed the door so that she couldn’t hear us.

“I want to go to the sea,” said Kaminski.

“You talked to Bahring.”

“Is that what he’s called?”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“A friendly young man. Very cultivated. Is it important?”

I nodded.

“I want to go to the sea.”

“I wanted to say good-bye to you.”

“You’re not coming with us?”

“I don’t think so.”

“This will surprise you. But I like you.”

I didn’t know what to say. It really did surprise me.

“Do you still have the car key?”

“Why?”

His face crumpled, and his nose looked very thin and sharply drawn. “She won’t take me to the water.”

“And?”

“I’ve never been to the sea.”

“Impossible.”

“Never happened when I was a child. Later it didn’t interest me. In Nice all I wanted to see was Matisse. I thought I had plenty of time. Now she won’t take me. It’s my punishment.”

I looked over at Miriam. She was leaning on the fence and watching us impatiently. Carefully I pulled the key out of my pocket.

“Are you sure?” I asked.

He nodded. I pushed the “lock” button and all four doors closed themselves with a click. I stuck the key in the ignition and started the engine. Miriam leapt forward and grabbed for the door handle. As we moved forward, she rattled it, as I accelerated she slammed her fist against the window, her lips formed a word I couldn’t understand, she ran with us for a few steps, then I could see her in the rear-view mirror, standing there as she let her arms fall and watched us go.

“Move it!” said Kaminski.

The street stretched away, the houses slid past us, already we’d reached the end of the village. Meadows opened up. We were in open country.

“She knows where we’re headed,” said Kaminski. “She’ll get a taxi and follow us.”

“Why didn’t you say anything about Bahring?”

“It was only about Paris and poor Richard. You get everything else. Surely that’s enough.”

“No, it’s not.”

The street headed into a long curve, and in the distance I could see the artificial sweep of a dike.

“Well, you’re just going to have to write about someone else,” said Kaminski, looking unmoved. “Pity about your big closing scene.”

“
Who Wants to Be a Millionaire,
” I said. “Bruno and Uwe. Mr. Holm and his herbal products.”

“And that sunrise.”

He laughed and against my will I laughed too. I replayed it in my head: the living room, the carpets, Holm’s chitchat, the old woman’s face, the painting in the hall.

I hit the brake, almost choking the engine. “Just a moment. How do you know?”

“About what?”

“You understood me. How did you know about the picture?”

He took off his glasses and turned his head toward me.

“Oh, Sebastian.”

XIII

A
WEB OF CLOUDS
had spun itself across the sky. An umbrella with a broken shaft was stuck in the sand; a hundred yards away from us a boy had just gotten a kite up into the air and was letting out the string. A dock reached out over the water. Kaminski walked cautiously beside me, it was hard for him to keep his balance, with sand sticking to his shoes. Everything smelled of seaweed. The beach was strewn with broken mussels.

“I want to sit down,” said Kaminski. He had put on the dressing gown again, the creased material fluttered around him. I held him as he carefully lowered himself to the ground. Then he pulled his legs up and laid the stick down beside him. “Hard to believe. I could have died without ever having been here.”

“You’re not going to die any time soon.”

“Rubbish!” He tipped his head back, the wind tugged at his hair, a big wave slung a shower of spray at us. “I’m going to die soon.”

“I have to go back one more time.” It was hard to make myself heard over the roar of wind and water. “To get my suitcase.”

“Is there anything in it you need?”

I thought. Shirts, pants, underwear and socks, photocopies of my articles, writing stuff and paper, a few books. “I have nothing.”

“Then throw it away.”

I nodded. Then I stood up and walked out onto the dock. The planks groaned under my feet. Out at the end I stopped, opened my bag, and pulled out my notepad. Page after page, tightly written in my messy scrawl, interleaved with dozens of photocopies from books and old newspapers, and everywhere the letters, underlined in red,
M.K.
I hesitated for a moment, then let it fall. I thought it would float away slowly, but the water swallowed it at once.

As I went back onto the beach, I reached into the bag and pulled out the camera.

I weighed it in my hand. The entire series of his last paintings. I put my thumb on the buttons that would erase all the pictures from the card.

I hesitated.

My thumb lifted itself again as if of its own volition, and I put away the camera. Tomorrow was another day; time enough to think. I sat down next to Kaminski in the sand.

He reached out his hand. I gave him the car key. “Tell her I’m sorry.”

“Which her?”

“Both.”

“What will you do now?”

“I don’t know.”

He raised his head, and for a moment he laid his hand on mine. “That’s good, Sebastian.”

I stood up and left, the sand crunching under my shoes. As I looked back, Kaminski was stretching his legs. The sky was low and wide. High tide was flooding in.

A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Daniel Kehlmann was born in 1975 in Munich, the son of a director and an actress. He attended a Jesuit school in Vienna, traveled widely, and has won several awards for previous novels and short stories, among them the 2005 Candide Award, the 2006 Kleist Award, and the 2008 Thomas Mann Award. His works have been translated into more than forty languages, and his novel
Measuring the World
became an instant best seller in several European countries, selling more than 1.5 million copies. Kehlmann lives in Vienna and Berlin.

A NOTE ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR

Carol Brown Janeway’s translations include Bernhard Schlink’s
The Reader,
Jan Philipp Reemtsma’s
In the Cellar,
Hans-Ulrich Treichel’s
Lost,
Zvi Kolitz’s
Yosl Rakover Talks to God,
Benjamin Lebert’s
Crazy,
Sándor Márai’s
Embers,
Yasmina Reza’s
Desolation,
and Daniel Kehlmann’s
Measuring the World.