“Hello, Ebling,” said Rogler. “Everything okay?”
“Sure.” Ebling switched off the phone.
The whole afternoon, he couldn’t focus. The question of which part in a particular computer was defective, and how anyone could have arrived at the errors described in the dealers’ cryptic reports—customer says re-set activ. imm. bef. display but indic. zero—just didn’t interest him today. It was the same feeling you got when something was making you happy.
He prolonged the moment. The phone stayed silent during the subway ride home, it stayed silent while he shopped for cucumbers in the supermarket, and all during dinner with Elke and the two children, who kept kicking each other under the table, it slumbered in his pocket, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it.
Then he went down to the cellar. It smelled of mildew, there was a pile of beer crates in one corner, and the component parts of a temporarily disassembled IKEA wardrobe in another. Ebling switched on the phone. Two messages. Just as he was going to listen to them, the gadget vibrated in his hand: someone was calling.
“Yes?”
“Ralf?”
“Yes?”
“Now what?” She laughed. “Are you playing games with me?”
“I’d never do that.”
“Pity!”
His hand shook. “You’re right. In fact, I’d … like to …”
“Yes?”
“… play with you.”
“When?”
Ebling looked around. He knew this cellar better than any place in the world. He had put every object in it there himself. “Tomorrow. You say when and where. I’ll be there.”
“You mean it?”
“Up to you to find out.”
He heard her take a deep breath. “Pantagruel. Nine o’clock. You make the reservation.”
“Will do.”
“You know this is crazy?”
“Who’s to care?”
She laughed and hung up.
That night he reached for his wife for the first time in a very long time. At first she was simply incredulous, then she asked what had come over him and had he been drinking, then she gave in. It was quick, and even as he felt her still underneath him, it seemed to him that they were doing something transgressive. A hand tapped his shoulder: she couldn’t breathe! He apologized, but it was another few minutes before he pulled away and rolled over on his side. Elke switched on the light, gave him a disapproving look, and retreated to the bathroom.
Of course he didn’t go to Pantagruel. He left the phone switched off all day, and at nine o’clock he was sitting in front of the TV with his son watching a second division soccer match. He felt an electrical prickling, it was as if he had a doppelgänger, his representative in a parallel universe, who was entering an expensive restaurant at this very moment to meet a tall, beautiful woman who hung on his words, who laughed when he said something witty, and who brushed her hand against his, now and again, as if by accident.
At half time he went down to the cellar and switched on the phone. No message. He waited. No one called. After half an hour he switched it off again and went to bed; he couldn’t go on pretending that soccer interested him.
He couldn’t get to sleep, and shortly after midnight he got up and groped his way back into the cellar, barefoot and in his nightshirt. He switched on the phone. Four messages. Before he could listen to them, the phone rang.
“Ralf,” said a man. “Sorry I’m calling so late … but it’s important! Malzacher is insisting that the two of you meet tomorrow. The whole project may be on the skids. Morgenheim will be there too. You know what’s at stake!”
“I don’t care,” said Ebling.
“Are you nuts?”
“We’ll see.”
“You really are nuts!”
“Morgenheim’s bluffing,” said Ebling.
“You’ve certainly got balls.”
“Yes,” said Ebling. “I do.”
When he wanted to listen to his messages, his phone rang again.
“You shouldn’t have done that!” Her voice was hoarse and forced.
“If you knew,” said Ebling. “I had a terrible day.”
“Don’t lie.”
“Why should I lie?”
“It’s all because of her, isn’t it? Are you two … together … again?”
Ebling said nothing.
“At least you could admit it!”
“Don’t talk nonsense!” He wondered which of the women whose voices he knew was the one she meant. He would like to have known more about Ralf’s life; after all, it was now, to a small extent, his life too. What did Ralf actually do, how did he make a living? Why did some people get everything and other people almost nothing? Some people achieved so much and other people didn’t, merit had nothing to do with it.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “It’s often … hard with you.”
“I know.”
“But someone like you—you’re not like everyone else.”
“I’d love to be like everyone else,” said Ebling. “But I’ve never understood how to do it.”
“So, tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow,” said Ebling.
“If you don’t show up again, we’re over.”
As he crept soundlessly back upstairs, he wondered whether Ralf actually existed. Suddenly he found it unbelievable that Ralf was living out there, going about his business, oblivious to him, Ebling. Perhaps Ralf’s life had always been intended for him, and some mere accident had switched their destinies.
The phone rang again. He picked up, listened to a couple of sentences, and cried, “Cancel it!”
“Excuse me?” asked a woman, her voice shocked. “He came specially, we’ve worked so hard for this meeting, so that …”
“I’m not dependent on him.” Who could this be about? He would have given a lot to know.
“Of course you are!”
“We’ll see.” A rush of euphoria such as he had never felt before surged through him.
“If you say so.”
“I certainly do!”
Ebling had to fight the temptation to find out what all this was actually about. He had worked out that he could say anything provided he didn’t ask any questions, but that people got suspicious the moment he wanted to know something. Yesterday a woman whose throaty voice he particularly liked had accused him directly of not being Ralf—all because he’d asked where in Andalusia they’d been together on summer vacation three years ago. That way he’d never learn more about this man. Once he’d stopped in front of a poster for the new Ralf Tanner movie, imagining for a few dizzying seconds that maybe he had the legendary actor’s phone number, and it was his friends, his colleagues, and his mistresses he’d been talking to for the past week. It was just possible: Tanner’s voice and his own were quite similar. But then he’d shaken his head with a lopsided smile and gone on his way. In any case, it couldn’t go on much longer. He had no illusions, sooner or later the mistake would be corrected and his phone would go silent.
“Ah, you again. I couldn’t come to Pantagruel. She’s back.”
“Katja? You mean—you’re back with Katja?”
Ebling nodded and scribbled the name on a scrap of paper. He thought the woman he was talking to was named Carla, but he didn’t yet have enough clues to risk calling her that. It was unfortunate that nobody announced themselves on the phone anymore: the numbers came up on the screen and everyone went on the assumption that the other party already knew who the caller was before they picked up.
“I won’t forgive you.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“Bullshit. You’re not sorry!”
“I swear.” Ebling smiled as he leaned against the side of the wardrobe. “Or maybe not. Katja’s amazing.”