In Free Fall(85)

The detective is looking at a holiday snap, a postcard like the ones on his fridge. But there is one essential difference. The other side of this particular card is not blank. There is writing on it: “It’s fantastic!” or “We were here!”

Schilf decides to take this card with him. Sebastian would certainly not object. A man, a woman, and a happy child. He will hang it over the hole in the story of his life. A life is so fragile. Something lurches out of its tracks, and instead of three people there is one, and only half of that person, too. The detective had practiced remembering for a while, then he had trained himself to forget. It had been unbearably sad to think about the life of his that had ended. Now he realizes that there is nothing easier than calling another person’s past to mind.

Anyone who wants to die has to be whole, the detective thought, the detective thinks.

Oskar speaks in the room somewhere behind him. “Knowing Sebastian has taught me to fear the whims of the gods.”

Schilf has closed his eyes. His fingers close around the edge of the windowsill as if holding on to the crow’s nest in a storm-tossed ship.

“Yesterday, I would have claimed to know one thing for certain,” Oskar says. “That I would give my life for him.”

“And today?” Schilf asks through clenched teeth.

“Today I am an old man.”

Oskar takes a breath. When he speaks again, his voice is even deeper. Cold.

“Did you know that Sebastian was with me yesterday evening?”

“I suspected it.”

“I asked him to leave the country with me.”

“And he refused?”

“He turned down everything that I had to give. It seems that he has finally made his decision. I can do nothing more for him.”

“You’re wrong, Oskar. You will do something for him. I promise you that.”

When the detective opens his eyes, the city has returned to its former self. It is night and there is no man, no woman, and no happy child. Even the pillar of water from the Jet d’Eau cannot be seen from here. Only the stubborn wind is still there, rattling the beams of the roof. Schilf turns around. Oskar is standing in front of him with his arms stretched out, as if he wants to embrace him. The detective would take a step backward if it weren’t for the pitched roof behind him, and behind that an abyss, a free fall. Their eyes meet.

There is a wave of human scents. Starched cotton, expensive aftershave, and a strange happiness. An arm is draped across the detective’s shoulders. Oskar pulls him close.

“Come. Let me help you.”

He conducts the detective back to the sofa, nudges his head onto the armrest, and presses something cool and moist to his neck. When Schilf looks down at himself, he sees a large red patch decorating his chest. He touches his face: nosebleed. There are flecks of red on Oskar’s white cuffs.

“I’ve messed up your shirt,” the detective says.

“Anyone wearing a white shirt is a doctor.” Oskar wipes the blood off his hands and passes the wet cloth to Schilf. “That’s what I thought when I was a child, anyway.”

“You’ve helped me a good deal.” The detective tries to sit up, but falls back down again. “Will you do me another favor?”

Lying down, he gropes in his back pocket for the chess computer. When the display lights up, Oskar kneels down next to the sofa.

“What have we got here?”

He looks at the sixty-four squares intently. Schilf knows exactly what he sees: a catastrophic situation in which everything that is still alive is pressing into one half of the playing field. Oskar scrutinizes the screen for a long time before he looks up.

“Interesting,” he says. “You’re playing black against the computer.”

“Certainly not,” Schilf says. “I’m white.”

Oskar knits his brows and looks at the game again.

“I repeat, Detective,” he says. “You’re an unusual person. You seem to love destroying yourself for the narrow chance of victory. Did you mean to tell me something with this game?”

Schilf shakes his head in which a slowly cooling mass rolls from side to side. He passes Oskar the stylus.

“You want me to finish this thing for you?” Oskar twirls the stylus in his fingers. “You want to watch me win this game for you?”

Schilf does not answer. Oskar strokes his chin and looks around. Finally he puts the chess computer on the detective’s stomach and props him up so that he can see the display.

“The knight goes here. The black queen is forked, and now your castle can move.” The stylus taps the display. Every move jiggles the small chess computer against the detective’s shirt buttons. “The pawn reaches the final row and is converted. Check. The king has to move. The rook moves in next to him. Et voilà.”