I didn’t get the connection, but I sighed and let it go, and called Hauberlan, who couldn’t because he’d booked a nonrefundable cruise to the Hebrides. Smetana was off sick, and my secretary, whom I’d have drafted in desperation, had a long-standing commitment to the National Paintball Championships in a village in Lower Saxony. In no circumstances could she stand in for me. So there was no avoiding it. There was only one last possibility.
Can’t do it, I wrote. Have to send Mollwitz. He has friends in Corporate, he’s become too influential. I had trouble typing, my hands were shaking—with agitation, naturally, but also out of fury with Mollwitz and his intrigues. So sorry.
Mollwitz, she replied at once. Thought he was dead.
Oh God. Breathe calmly, I thought, calmly. When in doubt, flee forward. That was another guy with the same name. Strange coincidence. I looked up. Mollwitz was standing in the door. “You’ve made it!” I told him authoritatively. “You’re leaving tomorrow.”
He was sweating more than ever. His little eyes twitched uneasily. He seemed to have put on even more weight recently.
“Don’t pretend to be surprised. You’re going to represent the department at the Congress. Well played, neatly done, I congratulate you.”
Mollwitz panted. Tomorrow, he said quietly, wasn’t so good. He had a lot to do. He didn’t like traveling. He really did smack his lips when he talked!
“Let’s not exaggerate. You know you want to go, I know you want to go, and on the floor above”—I raised my forefinger—“they know too. You’ll go far, my friend.”
He gave me a pleading look, then decamped. I imagined him next door, back sitting at his desk like a big toad, cursing quietly, and posting online somewhere.
I called Luzia.
It wasn’t so bad, she said immediately, it didn’t matter, I shouldn’t take it to heart.
I nodded silently, already feeling better. She was so good at consoling me.
When Luzia called to tell me she was pregnant, I was at the open-air pool with the children. The sun was playing on the trembling surface of the water, its reflections cut down deep, the whole world seemed shot through with light. Children shrieking, water splashing, the smell of coconut oil, chlorine, and grass.
“What?” I lifted my hand to my brow, but my arm was moving with a delayed action and my fingers seemed to be wrapped in cotton wool. My knees went so weak that I had to sit down. A fat little girl came trotting up, bumped into me, fell over, and began to cry. I blinked. “That’s wonderful,” I heard myself say.
“Really?” She didn’t seem to completely believe me and I didn’t quite believe myself either. And yet: why did I feel such a surge of joy? A child—my first! I had never felt so strongly that I was made up of two people, or rather that I had split one and the same life into two different variants. Over there, on the other side of the pool, my daughter was crawling across the grass. Farther in the distance my son was leaning in what was meant to be a casual pose, hoping I couldn’t see him and talking to two girls his own age.
“I don’t know if I’ll be a good father,” I said quietly. I stopped, I was finding it hard to speak. “I’ll try!”
“You’re wonderful! You know, back then when … where are you, actually, there’s an awful lot of noise!”
“On the street. Not so far from your office. I wish I could come and see you …”
“So do it!”
“… but I can’t. An appointment.”
“Back then, when I got to know you. I’d never have believed it! You were like someone under a deadweight and at the same time … how can I put it? Someone forcing himself to stand upright at all times—I found it hard to believe you.” She laughed. “I thought you weren’t being honest.”
“Strange.” My daughter was looking for the edge of the pool. I stood up.
“If anyone had told me back then that it would be you of all people I …”
The little one was too near the water. “Can I call you back?” I hurried over toward her.
“But why do you think …”
I pressed the disconnect button and began to run. Sharp blades of grass prickled my naked feet. I hurdled two children who were lying there, dodged a dog, pushed a woman aside, and caught my daughter three feet from the water. She looked at me, puzzled, thought for a moment, and began to cry. I lifted her up and whispered soothing nonsense in her ear. I’ll call later, I thumb-clicked on my phone. Subway, lousy reception. I was about to send it, but then added I’m so happy! I looked at my daughter’s face, and once again was struck by how she was looking more like Hannah with every month that passed. I blew the hair off her forehead, she giggled softly; she’d already forgotten she’d just been crying. I hit Send.
Mollwitz was in a complete state of shock when he got back. He was muttering to himself, was almost un-talkable-to and didn’t want to say anything about what had gone on.
Sooner or later, said Hauberlan, it had to happen.
His presentation had been a disaster, said Schlick. Everyone was talking about it. Really embarrassing for the department.
And there was worse, said Lobenmeier. Apparently he’d forced his way into a hotel room and …
“Everyone makes mistakes,” I said, and they went quiet. It suited them that nothing interested me anymore. I had lost weight and even the classics no longer held my attention, Sallust seemed verbose, Cicero empty, for neither of them addressed the question that preoccupied me to the exclusion of all else, making my mind turn in circles the way water drives a millstone—wasn’t it possible to have two houses, two lives, two families, one there, one here, a me in this town and a me in the other one, and two women, each of them as close to me as if she were the only one? It was only a matter of organization, of train timetables and airline schedules, of cleverly judged e-mails and a little foresight in making arrangements. Of course it could all collapse, but it could also … yes, it could work! For a short while. Or maybe longer.
The double life: the redoubling of life. Only a short time ago I was merely a depressed head of department. How had I come to the point where I suddenly understood them: the bogeymen portrayed in the tabloids, all the people who had secrets just because you can’t live without them, and absolute transparency means death, and a single existence is not enough for human beings.
“What?” I jumped. Lobenmeier was standing in front of me. Behind him, Schlick. I hadn’t heard them coming. Then I realized that it had happened the other way round. The others had left the room and only these two had stayed behind.
Schlick began to talk in a low voice. Clearly something really terrible had happened: a memo from Security had informed us that several hundred phone numbers in the databank had been given a wrong date for general availability, so there was a danger that although they were already in use, they’d be assigned to new customers. Lobenmeier had forwarded it to Mollwitz, who had set it aside because, as they discovered subsequently, he was absolutely set on writing a post for SpottheStars first.
“For what?”
Didn’t matter, said Lobenmeier, not important right now. Anyhow, that’s what had happened and several dozen new customers had been given already-assigned numbers. The press had got hold of it and at least two claims for commercial damages had already been filed. The main error came from our department.
The screen on my cell phone lit up. Hannah’s name, and underneath: We’re coming to visit you! My pulse began to race.
“We’ll talk about this later!” I got to my feet.