In Free Fall(58)

“Will you remember your promise?” Liam says.

“Do you know Oskar?”

“Yes, Oskar’s cool.”

“Do you think I should visit him?”

“Definitely.”

The detective raises a hand in farewell and Liam waves back.

Sebastian is still out in the hall. He hasn’t moved at all. He is overcome with confusion after hearing murmuring voices and laughter coming from Liam’s room. Schilf walks past him on his way to the front door.

“Good-bye,” the detective says and then repeats, “You’ve been very helpful.”

As Schilf shambles down the stairs to the street, tiles start coming off the roof above him. Beams and rafters and joists fly apart in all directions. The rapid crumbling of the walls runs along the top of the whole building like stitches unraveling in a sweater. The foundation disappears and the earth closes over. A pencil sucks up the lines of an architectural drawing until the piece of paper is blank. The idea of a four-story building in the Wilhelminian style evaporates into mist in the head of the architect. Somewhere in the distance, a cockatoo flies up into the air with a shrill cry of warning.





[6]


“ARE YOU ALL RIGHT NOW?”

“Yes. The heat. Thank you for the water.”

The detective has spent a lot of time recently telling people how he is feeling and thanking them for something or other. It is probably part of getting old, like waking up early.

The young woman bending over him has hair dyed a synthetic shade of red, and reminds Schilf of a film he saw some years ago, in which a girl is running all the time. He means to preface his next question with a gallant gesture, but it turns into a clumsy wave because of the way he is lying on the floor.

“Can you tell me where I am, please?”

“In Freiburg,” the young woman says. “Or were you asking about the name of the planet? Or the galaxy?”

Schilf tries to laugh but stops immediately, because his brain is sloshing around in hot fluid.

“I’m familiar with the constellations. What kind of shop is this?”

“This is the Gallery of Modern Art.”

“Very good. That’s where I was heading.”

“That’s probably why you walked in the door.”

“Very likely. Is Maike here?”

“She’s in the courtyard with the birds. Do you know her?”

“I’m a friend of her husband.”

Schilf allows the young woman to help him up, even though he feels quite steady on his feet by now. Her hair smells of mango, and the fair-skinned arm that she offers him smells of coconut. They pass affronted paintings, bad-tempered sculptures, and a few hostile installations; they get to the back door and linger at the threshold. Schilf feels as if he is looking into a piece of paradise. The walls of the small courtyard are covered in moss, and beams of light slant down through the leaves of an overhanging chestnut tree. The sunlight conjures up the familiar metallic shimmer on the head of the woman who is leaning over the hatch of a large aviary, just as she bent over to unlock her bicycle earlier. The caws of the parrots turn the courtyard into an exotic place, a bit of outback hidden in the midst of Freiburg’s town center.

“Maike, you have a visitor.”

Maike shakes seeds from a box into an earthenware bowl and distributes peanuts on little dishes as if she has heard nothing. Three of the yellow-faced birds flutter to the bottom of the cage and watch her. When she has finished feeding them, she stands straight.

The detective thought he was prepared for anything, but he is nevertheless shocked. Maike’s eyes are expressionless, her lips pressed together. Her face is stretched over her cheekbones like a mask that has grown too small. Her obvious reluctance to engage in conversation allows the detective a few seconds in which to feel moved. There is a shadow over her bright surface, and it seems to Schilf as if it has the shape of a tall man. Suddenly he wants to do everything possible to protect Maike. He wants to sacrifice himself in order to divert catastrophe from her, even though he has come here as catastrophe’s master of ceremonies. Maike stands stiff as a post in front of him—she is nothing more than the wife of a witness, a mere accessory to a case. Not for the first time, Schilf curses his job. The investigator does his work behind a glass wall, he frequently says in his lectures at the police college, always behind a glass wall. Other people’s lives are like his own past to him: he can look at them, but not enter them, and it is always too late to change things.

Schilf will address Maike with the formal Sie, ask her questions, and not reveal the tightening in his throat. He can’t speak clearly anyway.

I’ve got nothing against emotions, but they really don’t have to hit me with full force every time, the detective thought, the detective thinks.