In Free Fall(24)
When he stands up to get a glass out of the cupboard, his spine bears the memory of his tensed posture. The distilled water tastes of nothing, a liquid corpse. Sebastian suppresses his revulsion and drinks. After the second glass he is able to cry. He drinks a third, and his tears flow into his collar. The sound of crockery rattling in the apartment below comes through the open balcony door, marking the boundary beyond which an alien everyday is progressing relentlessly. If it were within his power to do so, Sebastian would silence the clinking plates, the hands that are stacking them, the twittering of the birds, the distant grumble of car engines, and the entire, bright harlequin world outside with a single blow.
As he stands there motionless, letting his damp cheeks dry naturally, enjoying the brief moment of peace after his outburst, his exhausted brain tosses forth something else Oskar has said. For you, my diligent friend, thinking is hard labor. A solution that is obvious the moment it springs to mind is best.
Sebastian leaves the apartment and walks down the stairs to the cellar, where his seldom-used tools are kept.
[3]
SEBASTIAN HAD NOT NEEDED THE MOBILE PHONE alarm to wake him up. He had not taken his eyes off the clock on the dashboard. The Volvo is parked on a track in the woods. Darkness has turned the bored pine trees into a wall. When Sebastian leans forward he can see the shaft of Ursa Major against a little patch of sky. He has always thought that this constellation ought to be replaced with a new and more interesting one. When he opens the car door, the smell of the forest hits him: plants that suck up nourishment from the rotting wastes of past generations. His foot lands on springy subsoil, a contact so natural that the next movement follows from it. Sebastian takes the rucksack out of the trunk and sets off.
A forest considers various processes going on in it to be perfectly normal. It does not strike Sebastian as odd to be climbing a mountain away from the road at half-past three in the morning. He can concentrate entirely on not stumbling over tree roots, carefully untangling thorny blackberry branches from his sleeves, and fighting the fatigue that is tempting him to lie down on the cool ground and see in the break of day peacefully. When he reaches the edge of the forest, the night has already withdrawn between the tree trunks. Dawn is breaking over the broad, grass-covered hollow high above, which is hugged by the Schauinsland road. A cow raises its head, and turns back to its endless munching when Sebastian lays a finger on his lips. He climbs through the barbed wire and keeps a respectful distance from the animals. Just as he has crossed the meadow in a diagonal line and entered the cluster of trees opposite, sun slants across the crevice between the tops of two mountains. The air is clear as glass, casting every contour into sharp relief. Every tree is an individual, every pebble is in its right place. Shafts of light pierce the patches of even ground. Grass grows wherever there is room. Insects circle over sunny patches. From a distance come the workshop noises of a woodpecker. All creation belongs to the animal world at this time of day, and every man is like the first or last on earth.
Sebastian has already walked this route during the dress rehearsal, no more than three hours ago. But knowing the ground does not make the final leg any less difficult. There are dead branches to stumble over everywhere and thick undergrowth that forces him to make detours. Sebastian has to use his hands to help him up the steepest inclines. After five hundred meters he is soaked with sweat and sits down on a tree stump to rest. He has barely taken off his jacket and tied it around his waist when the midges land on his arms: three on the left and seven on the right. He slaps them dead but the swarm is instantly replaced. Hundreds of midges dance around him jostling for position, landing and sticking their nozzles into his skin. Only female midges bite, Oskar once told him on the bank of Lake Geneva. Females fight, feed, and sting. That is why “ant,” “wasp,” and “midge” are all feminine in German. Sebastian squashes the tiny bodies between his hands, mixing them with his own blood.
When he cranes his neck to look up the mountain, he can already see the bushes lining the road. Two wind turbines murmur in the distance, the placid rotors turning above the forest canopy, looking out over the whole of Freiburg. A group of scouts are whispering their way through the forest, carrying cooking equipment and folding spades on their narrow backs. They gather at the edge of a clearing two hundred kilometers farther east, so Sebastian knows nothing of this.
But as he takes a sip of dead water, out of the corner of his right eye he catches a glimpse of something moving. The ferns are rustling. Something large is coming nearer. Sebastian jumps up. His stretched nerves conjure images of brown bears. Suggestions for an appropriate reaction do not follow. He watches as a figure unfolds in the ferns, but it does not swell into the threatening mass of a bear, only the trim form of a little man. Agewise, he could be Sebastian’s father. His face is hidden in the shadow of a floppy hat, his eyes looking around restlessly from under the brim. It is a while before Sebastian takes in this apparition. The man is festooned with equipment: a large net sticking up over his right shoulder, two cameras dangling from the left, a lantern-shaped cage in the crook of his arm, and a butterfly net in his hand. He purses and stretches his lips constantly, turning his head this way and that, as if he is greeting everything he sees with air kisses. Finally he stretches his arms out, as if he has realized that he was expecting to meet Sebastian here.