In Free Fall(86)

Congratulations, the screen flashes.

“The black king is mated,” the detective says.

“Yes,” Oskar says. “Mated.”

“You’re a genius.”

“Don’t tell me that this wasn’t planned.”

“I’ve only been playing for four weeks.”

“In that case,” Oskar says, squinting as if he is trying to focus on a particular point behind Schilf’s forehead, “it is most certainly you who are the genius. Can you get up now?”

Schilf wipes his face one more time and gives the cloth back to Oskar. With one hand on Oskar’s shoulder, he gets up. When they are standing in the middle of the room, he reaches for the cord hanging from the crow’s stomach.

“That’s been broken for a long time,” Oskar says.

In the hall, Schilf puts on his shoes but leaves the laces untied. Oskar has tugged the front door open over the rugs, and is holding it for him.

“I think you know everything that you need to know,” he says.

The smile they exchange in farewell is tinged with mild regret.


THE WIND HAS SUBSIDED. The lake looks so smooth and solid that the detective feels like trying to walk on water. The gravel crunches in greeting with every step he takes. Schilf stretches an arm out to one side and imagines that Julia is leaning her head on his shoulder as they walk, saying something lovely about the clouds parting and the stars twinkling. A bird utters a shrill cry of warning, but when nothing happens it lapses into silence and invisibility again. The detective walks to the station: there is just time to catch the last train.

He has left the small chess computer on Oskar’s sofa. He doesn’t need it anymore.

Life is a story with many floors, Schilf thinks. Or one with many chapters that close one after another without a sound.





CHAPTER 7, IN EIGHT PARTS


The perpetrator is hunted down. In the end, it is conscience that decides. A bird soars into the air.





[1]


FROM THE FIRST DAY THAT SCHILF MET HIS NEW GIRLFRIEND, when she expected a waiter and a menu at McDonald’s, he had decided never to introduce her to anyone he knew. Not that he’d be ashamed of her. But he fears that she might not survive the gaze of a third person, and would simply dissolve into thin air. He views her visit with mixed feelings.

Although Schilf has pulled himself together and is striding forward purposefully, his progress is slow, as if he were walking the wrong way along a people mover. He arrives at Freiburg Station a few minutes late. A woman runs toward him on the concourse. When he steps aside to make way for her, she stops in front of him. The detective clasps her hands and feels a pang of guilt. At first he did not recognize her. Without knowing it, he had actually been expecting to see Maike. He scrabbles around and finds one of the simple words that Julia likes so much: “Hello.”

She laughs and puts her arms around his neck. She does not have any bags with her, but she has brought him flowers, or something similar. Three brown, velvety bulbs swaying on stalks. They look like microphones that have accidentally got into the frame.

“Schilf,” Julia says, poking him in the ribs, “somewhat older than before.”

“Do you have the postcard with you?”

“Did you write to me?”

“Yesterday. It was important.”

“Yesterday was Sunday, Schilf. How could I have received the postcard this morning?”

She is right, as usual. The detective is relieved to realize that the result of his postcard experiment matters less and less to him the longer Julia is standing in front of him. He puts his arm around her shoulders, just like he practiced on the shore of Lake Geneva, and lowers his head to breathe in the scent of her hair. He remembers hearing somewhere that it is not possible to dream smells.

The sun breaking through the clouds turns the town into a silvery landscape. It must have rained again in the night; the puddles glisten like molten metal and Schilf has to screen his eyes against the sudden flashes from passing windshields. An old man in torn trousers calls out an airy greeting toward the other side of the road, where there is nobody at all. A young girl is standing at the corner of the street, motionless, holding on to an umbrella, her head tilted, as if she has forgotten where she wanted to go.

The detective decides to feel happy because it is delightful that there is someone who got up this morning to come visit him. It makes him happy to look at Julia’s face and watch her funny hands with their short fingers moving constantly. Looking at those hands, he understands why some people believe in the goodness of human beings. A species that includes someone like his girlfriend can be driven to do dreadful things only through some enormous misunderstanding.