In Free Fall(11)

Now he stands and walks around the table to pour more wine.

“Maike doesn’t like talking about Dabbelink’s involvement in the scandal,” he says. His jokey tone falls flat, as if he has played a note on a badly tuned instrument. He almost crashes into his wife as she stands up, still chewing, to collect the salad plates. The muscles beneath her temples are tensing visibly.

“That’s not funny,” she says. “Ralph is Schlüter’s favorite anesthetist. They get along well in operations and at conferences. Now everyone thinks that Ralph knows something about suspicious contacts with pharmaceutical firms. And that if he talks, the entire hospital will collapse.”

“I see.” Oskar’s eyebrows are raised in sympathy. “Has the poor man been threatened?”

“Yes indeed, he has,” Maike says. “When you try, you can even be quite sensitive.”

She carries the pile of plates to the door, and all is silent until she tells them that they can have a cigarette before the next course. As soon as she leaves, Liam runs into the next room, where there is a plate of biscuits on top of the television. Sebastian watches him through the half-open door, while Oskar sits with his head thrown back, blowing smoke sculptures into the air. For a few minutes, the silence is tender and good.

“What I said before I meant seriously, cher ami,” Oskar says now. “Our colleagues are laughing about your forays into popular science. If public attention is so important to you…”

Sebastian makes an angry gesture with his hand and Liam, who has come back with crumbs on his lips, thinks it is meant for him. He forces himself onto Oskar’s lap with a cheeky grin.

“Aren’t you getting too old for this now?”

“Not me,” Liam says. “You may be.”

“Do you know,” Oskar says to Liam, “that every time you sneak a biscuit, another world opens up, in which you haven’t stolen one?”

“Parallel universes.” Liam nods. “When Mom asks if I’ve had a biscuit, I always say yes and no. But that doesn’t work with her.”

Oskar starts laughing, and has to wipe his eyes with the backs of his hands. “How right you are!” he says. “If you’ll let me, I’m going to quote you tomorrow evening.”

“Tomorrow evening?” Sebastian asks.

“What are you doing over the weekend?”

Sebastian gets up to fetch him an ashtray.

“He’s taking me to scout camp on Sunday,” Liam says.

“And after that,” Sebastian says, crashing the ashtray down on the table, “I’m barricading myself in my study and turning our understanding of the world upside down.”

“What’s the work of genius going to be called?”

“‘A Long Exposure: or, On the Nature of Time.’”

“That suits you.” Oskar suppresses another fit of laughter. “And what’s Maike doing?”

“Three weeks’ cycling in Airolo. So, what’s going on tomorrow night?”

Oskar waves his hand mysteriously.

“In Airolo?” he repeats. “Alone?”

“Did you think I was bringing my senior registrar along, too?”

Maike has come back unnoticed, and is placing a bowl of tortellini on the table. Sebastian raises a palm and she gives him a high five, glancing sideways at Oskar at the same time. Unhappy that he is no longer the center of attention, Liam kicks his legs impatiently and slides off Oskar’s lap. Oskar stands up and, ignoring the ashtray, walks over to the window and watches as his cigarette butt falls into the canal and is carried away by the current. Bonnie and Clyde are nowhere to be seen.

“While we’re on the subject of holidays, perhaps you need a break, too.” Maike helps Liam light the candles—the flames are almost invisible in the evening light. “You don’t look as well as you normally do.”

Oskar strolls back to the table, hands in his pockets. “Insomnia,” he says.

“I’ll pull out the bed in the study for you. It’s quiet there.”

“The doctor has given me something.” Oskar taps his chest on the left side, as if he were wearing a jacket with inside pockets.

“Me too!” Liam shouts, running out of the room before anyone can stop him. A door slams, and a drawer in the bathroom is pulled open. When Liam returns, he is carrying a little plastic case in his palm.

“Travel sickness,” Maike says. “He gets as sick as a dog on longer journeys.”

“One for the way there, and one for the way back,” Liam says proudly.

Oskar looks at the tablets earnestly. “They look exactly like mine. Conditions like ours are the price to pay for extraordinary genius.”