Plastic bags rustled behind him. Then came a cry and a blow to the back. The impact ought to have pushed him into the abyss. He imagined himself falling, but felt no fear, only a great longing, so great that when he had taken a step forward and found firm ground beneath his feet, he turned to his attacker with an expression of deep disappointment. The woman laughed when she saw his face, shook her head cheerfully, and did not apologize. Instead, when the detective set off again, she followed him.
He had neither extended his hand nor introduced himself. He pulled her like a drag anchor all over the city center. After his visit to the doctor he had intended to do something normal, like buy a slice of pizza. But now all he wanted was to get rid of his new friend. She was carrying plastic bags in which—as became clear later—she had everything she needed to survive, and she followed the detective without asking why they kept walking past the same spots. Schilf had too little imagination, and the pedestrian zone was too small, to make such a long walk more varied. While they were waiting at the same traffic light once again, crossing the same streets, and glancing into the same shopwindows, the woman spoke unaffectedly about herself in a constant stream of chatter.
She had started modeling for life-drawing classes when she was sixteen, and soon earned so much money from it that she did not see the need for a so-called decent education. Over time, the painters became more famous and the wages higher. She had quickly realized that she was not being paid for her nakedness but for a feat of strength—her ability to remain motionless for hours. She perfected the control of physical pain in utterly dull rooms, enlivened only by the scratching of charcoal, the sharp intakes of breath, and the occasional sighs of the artists. To the delight of the painters, she was able to stand in a kind of acquiescent trance for a whole afternoon in the attitude of someone who had just received a shock. Word of her talent got around and she was never short of work. There were so many pictures of her that she never had to ask herself who she was. While other people crouched over desks in gloomy offices, she sat with her cup of café au lait in the garden of her favorite coffeehouse, feeling the breeze on her cheeks. She admitted to the detective that she had not really reckoned with having to change anything about this extremely comfortable lifestyle. That is, until an orthopedic surgeon had told her that she must never model again if she wanted to prevent the constant holdingstill from ultimately destroying her back, her knees, and her elbows.
What did the detective think of this story? the woman asked as they stopped in front of the glass doors of the McDonald’s on Schlossplatz, as if by mutual agreement. The detective had not realized that her tirades had constituted a story. A person who does not have to ask herself who she is can have little talent for the art of storytelling.
He had said this out loud, and the woman liked it. She laughed. At their feet, sparrows hopped after sweet wrappers and cigarette butts that were rolling away; it was a windy day. The long walk had exhausted the detective so much that the prospect of something edible and a cup of coffee made him feel intensely happy. They walked into McDonald’s together in the best of moods. Schilf held the glass doors open for the woman, sensing that the people coming toward him on their way out were looking at him strangely, and followed the determined steps of his companion to a table in the corner. She slumped onto the bench and shrugged off her jacket with a smooth movement of her shoulders. After the orthopedic surgeon’s diagnosis, she said, her savings had barely lasted for a couple of weeks. Like the cricket in the fable, during an endless summer she had not bothered herself with thoughts of the harsh winter days to come. That was why she was now looking for someone to take care of her.
The detective understood what was going to happen. He sat down, stood up again, and asked if he could get her something. A hamburger, perhaps, an apple pie, or chicken scraps in oily batter. With a reproving yet almost tender look, the woman asked him to sit back down again like a civilized person and look out for a waiter from whom they could request a menu. Now the detective not only knew what was going to happen. He was overcome by the firm suspicion that this woman, who had been sent to him quite by chance along with the death sentence, really did not exist at all. Someone who asks for a menu in McDonald’s fitted too well into the strange form of his imaginative power. In her position, nothing would be easier than simply to go mad, the woman said, still looking at him with those eyes that reflected everything. But what life had to offer was still more appealing to her than insanity.
Even before the detective walked up to the counter to order a meal for two from a pale girl, he had given the woman his address and the key to his apartment. When he came back from work that evening, she had tidied up, vacuumed, made the bed, and cooked some soup. As they ate together for the second time that day, she revealed her name: Julia.