In Free Fall(94)

“Quick, quick, quick,” they quack.

Schilf cannot speak, but raises his hand to thank them before he enters the building.

The walls of the stairwell mimic his panting. Schilf pulls himself up by the handrail, step by step. He has not given any thought to how he will get the door to the apartment open in case of emergency. When he gets to the second floor, the door is open. Schilf checks the lock; it is undamaged. Either his colleagues have made a very clean job of it or they were admitted voluntarily. In any case, the open door is no longer a technical problem, but an invitation.

Although Schilf first visited the apartment no more than two days ago, he has difficulty recognizing it even from where he stands in the doorway. Paper is strewn everywhere, the carpets have been rolled up, and the pictures taken off the wall. Everything gives the impression of forced departure and homelessness. Schilf does not have to think long about where to find Sebastian. Certain things always happen in the kitchen, which is the stomach of an apartment, just like the hallway is its legs, the living room its heart, and the study the convolutions of its brain.

All is still in the kitchen. The wire noose hanging from the ceiling casts a sharp shadow on the floor. The ceiling lamp has been removed and placed on top of the table like a suction cup. A chair had been knocked over and its legs are lying against the oven door. The contents of the drawers are scattered on the floor: cutlery lying between candles, string, plastic wrap, and cleaning cloths. Pots and pans are piled up on the windowsill. Sebastian’s body blends seamlessly into the picture. He is sitting at the table, motionless, bent over like a question mark, staring blankly at an empty glass decorated with a picture of two nuzzling parakeets.

“Goodness gracious,” the detective says.

He drops the briefcase and hurries over to Sebastian with both arms stretched out as if he is trying to take something heavy from him. Sebastian lifts his gaze, but does not quite manage to look the detective in the eye.

“Liam gave it to his mother for her birthday this year,” he says, lifting his finger ever so slightly to point at the glass. “We stumbled upon it in a department store. Maike was very pleased with it.”

“How lovely,” the detective says.

“I thought it would be easier. It was quite simple with Dabbelink. Steel cable is steel cable, I thought.”

“That is not just a bad solution,” Schilf replies. “It’s no solution at all.”

“Oskar once said that life is an offer that you can also refuse. But I wasn’t in a position to decide then. Same story my whole damn life.” Sebastian’s laugh turns into a coughing fit. “What brings you here?”

“I have a message for you.”

Sebastian finally raises his head.

“From Maike?”

“No.” Schilf clears his throat. “You’ll find out very soon who it’s from.”

An ambulance siren draws closer, grows louder, and shrieks a high-pitched warning. Its frequency decreases as the vehicle passes.

“The Doppler effect,” Sebastian says. “A great example of how everything is relative.”

Together, they listen to the sound ebbing away. Schilf feels like a surgeon who is allowing his patient a few moments of peace before he cuts away an abscess without anesthetic. This abscess is a mistake. It is the final, the biggest, and the most painful mistake that Schilf wants to cut out and replace with the steel instrument called truth, which will function as a sterile foreign body in the organism of the patient. The detective wishes an anesthetist were present.

“This is going to hurt for a bit,” he says. “Get ready.”

Sebastian looks at him, waiting.

“Doublethink must go,” the detective says.

“What the …”

Sebastian starts to jump up, but sinks back into the chair when the detective places two heavy hands on his shoulders.

“Listen carefully,” Schilf says. “Doublethink must go.”

At first nothing happens. Almost a minute passes before Sebastian lifts his head again and thrashes toward Schilf like a drowning man toward his rescuer. The detective bends over Sebastian and braces himself to withstand the attack.

“No!” Sebastian screams.

“Doublethink must go,” the detective repeats.

“Leave me Oskar! Let the whole disaster at least make sense!”

The uproar ends as suddenly as it started. Sebastian has collapsed and is lying on top of the kitchen table, lifeless. Suicide would have been quite logical in his situation. A man who has lost everything throws his shoulders back, picks up his hat, and leaves the scene. Logic must mean honor. But now there is a new three-word sentence that is much worse than that. “Dabbelink must go” was the tragic command to destroy his own life. “Doublethink must go” is a farce. A grotesque coincidence, a poison that has made everything that resulted from it ludicrous.