In Free Fall(88)
“And who is who?”
The detective does not answer.
He enjoys watching the program a second time. The presence of the two men is even stronger on the larger screen. Transfixed, Schilf notes every look and every gesture, observes Oskar’s predatory elegance and Sebastian’s nervous watchfulness, and registers the fluctuations in tension. Julia yawns and looks bored.
“One universe,” Oskar says. “With no possibility for escape. That’s what you should be researching. That’s where you should be living.”
When the discussion gets livelier, Julia sits up.
“What are they fighting about?”
“That’s not a scientific argument,” Sebastian shouts. “That’s moralistic dogmatism!”
“Wait a minute,” the detective says.
He turns the volume up. A glass of water hits the glass table with the force of a gunshot.
“In your double worlds you live a double life,” Oskar says.
Julia presses both hands to her ears with a scream.
“What’s going on?” she says angrily.
Sebastian’s Adam’s apple moves up and down in close-up. Schilf takes hold of his girlfriend’s wrists and forces her to uncover her ears.
“Listen.”
“Let me put it in Orwell’s words,” Oskar says.
As he stands up, the murmuring in the audience swells to a roar that makes the floor of the apartment vibrate. The rustling of clothing. Oskar’s leather soles on the wooden rostrum. How dare he, hisses the television host. Oskar’s microphone is lying on the glass table and it is difficult to hear what he is saying. He is pointing at Sebastian with an index finger.
“Now,” Schilf says, leaning forward.
The microphones in the auditorium have picked up Oskar’s voice. He sounds as if he is speaking from a great distance.
“That is Dabbelink,” the detective hears him say.
“Turn it off now,” Julia orders.
Schilf has dropped the remote control; Julia reaches for it and pauses the tape. On the screen the host freezes with his arms raised; all three figures are united in one trembling statue. Next the host would probably attempt to point to the physicists’ excitement as proof of his program’s importance. Afterward he would continue the discussion. If Julia allowed him.
The detective’s blood has gone to his feet. He feels his pale cheeks with his fingers in an unconscious movement.
“I don’t get it,” he groans. “My head is bursting.”
Julia settles back into the sofa contentedly and takes her cup off the armrest.
“What strange methods of investigation you have.”
When Schilf grabs her by the shoulder, coffee spills onto her bare legs and leaves a dark spot on the sofa cover.
“Hey!” Julia shouts. “Are you crazy?”
He lets go of her immediately and his elephant eyes look her in the face.
“What did the man say?” he asks pleadingly.
An artistic work of transformation plays over Julia’s features: first indignation, then astonishment, and finally mockery.
“What do you mean?” she says. “It was perfectly clear.”
She looks first into one of the detective’s eyes, then into the other, before a glow of realization dawns on her face.
“I see,” she says. “You haven’t read Orwell!”
“So?” the detective prompts.
“That is doublethink,” Julia says. “It means holding two contradictory beliefs in one’s mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. In Orwell that is a practice of totalitarian systems.”
“No,” Schilf says. It sounds like a cry for help. Julia takes his hand, looking concerned.
“What’s the matter? Don’t you think it works?”
“Yes, yes.”
“There you go. And that guy there,” she indicates Oskar, who is still pointing his finger and smiling devilishly, “thinks that guy there”—Sebastian, sitting next to the host, is flickering on the screen—“is particularly good at it.”
“Doublethink must go,” the detective says.
He can’t stop staring at his girlfriend; his frozen gaze needs somewhere to land. His heart is beating like a drum. The black king has forced itself into the farthest corner of H8. The white king has fallen off the edge of the board. Chess pieces whirl around and sixty-four squares have torn themselves apart, clattering onto the hard ground.
Is the existence of mankind in the world not enough of a misunderstanding? the detective thinks. Must aural misunderstandings add to the confusion?
And: When branches surface at two different places in a pond, they can absolutely belong to the same bough.
He feels gentle fingers stroking his cheek. This time they are not his own.