In the middle of my reflections on which would be more absurd, throwing a friend down the toilet or burying a reptile, the doorbell rang. Without Todd’s hysterical barking, the rooms seemed so unfurnished that I myself thought I wasn’t home. Antje had her own key and would have made more noise upon arriving. The doorbell rang again. Three short, three long, three short. It was someone who knew the Morse alphabet. Even without that hint, I would have guessed who was outside.
When I opened the door, she fell into my arms. I caught a fleeting glimpse of her mascara-smeared face. She hadn’t had makeup on that afternoon. Her shoulders were twitching. She clung to me hard. Sobs shook her body all over. I held her in my arms and buried my nose in her hair. We hadn’t even said hello. While I inhaled the smell of her, I felt myself becoming indifferent to everything else. To the torpedo fish, to Antje, to Theo’s story, to the gecko. I thought, I mustn’t think about anything anymore, I mustn’t want anything more. She told me through tears what had happened, but I barely understood what she said.
She and Theo had taken a walk on the promenade at sunset. Suddenly Jola had spotted a swimmer struggling with the current far from the shore. Her first impulse was to jump into the water, but Theo had held her back. They ran around pointlessly for a long while before finding a lifeguard. Meanwhile a crowd had gathered on the promenade, a coast guard boat was on the way, and a helicopter was arriving from one of the other islands. They were all too late to recover the swimmer alive. I thought fleetingly about Bella Schweig, who turns up weeping at her ex-boyfriend’s place with a story about a cyclist run down in traffic.
While I stroked Jola’s hair, I told her that tourists often died on the island. They drowned or fell from bicycles or paraglided into a cliff or got drunk and drove off the road. There was a whole rescue industry dedicated to helping people who fell victim to their leisure activities. There were helicopters, boats, hospitals …
I’d probably long since stopped talking, assuming that I’d said anything at all. In any case, I found myself on the living-room couch again, with Jola on my lap. Her hair formed a black curtain, behind which we kissed. A great peace came over me. As if I’d finally arrived. The tension of the past several days fell away. There was no more conflict, no doubts, no confusion. My hands felt completely at home on Jola’s body. Nothing about her seemed unfamiliar to me. The room revolved around us, and so did the house, the island, the whole world. The universe had found its center, from which it expanded and into which it would one day collapse.
Until Antje was standing in the room. I’d heard neither her car nor her key in the door. Todd growled at Jola. I wasn’t able to react. I simply sat there blinking. As though Antje’s entrance had turned on a dazzling light, had subjected us to pitiless illumination. A diving instructor with his half-naked client on his lap, caught in flagrante by his domestic partner.
“Okay,” Antje said. “We can handle it this way too.”
In duty bound, Jola jumped from my knees, took a few steps away, and rearranged her clothes with downcast eyes. I’d lost all further interest in the scene before it got properly started. As soon as I stopped touching and smelling Jola, she looked like Bella Schweig again. The way she was staring at the floor, her hair hiding her face, her hands smoothing her T-shirt over and over. Maybe the actors’ curse was that they couldn’t stop playing themselves.
Antje stood three meters away, unquestionably identical with herself. She was quivering. I felt impatient. Where were you so long, I have urgent matters to discuss with you, I wanted to ask you a few things. Can we please call a halt to this nonsense and have dinner. A glass of wine, the warm lamplight on the table. In the actual situation, there was nothing to say. Once again, I’d let myself be caught off guard by a chimera. Jola was a mistress of her trade. I would have gladly gone back to the usual order of the day, even though I knew, of course, that such a thing couldn’t happen without further ado. Because it was becoming absolutely necessary for someone to speak, I asked the only question that interested me: “Why did you kill Emile?”
That worked as though I’d thrown a switch and activated a brand-new, hitherto-unknown Antje. She didn’t even raise her voice. In fact, she spoke rather softly, but with a sharp edge in her tone more penetrating than any volume. “Actually,” she said, “I was willing to let the whole thing rest. All this”—she made a sweeping movement with her arm that took in me, the house, and herself—“is more important to me than your childish affair. But I won’t allow myself to be humiliated. Bringing your lover here now is just outrageous.”
“Jola’s not my lover.”
The edge turned into hate. “Maybe,” Antje said, “I’ve made it too easy for you the past few years. I’ve let you withdraw further and further into your own world and lose all sense of reality. In the end, it’s probably all my fault.”
Her speech was seriously getting on my nerves. That wasn’t the Antje I knew. She didn’t sound like the girl who’d lain on the floor of my room at home, eating jelly babies with the first Todd. She sounded like a public prosecutor. Moreover, I now knew that she had Emile on her conscience. It was typical of female perpetrators to avoid answering the main question and to react instead with recriminations. I had no desire whatsoever to thrash the matter out. I didn’t want dinner anymore either. I just wanted to get in bed, pull the covers over my face, and sleep for twenty hours. After that, everything would be normal. Normality was the least a person could demand of life. But Antje wasn’t finished yet. She looked at me pensively, hesitating as though she had to make a decision. Then it came.
“Let’s put everything on the table,” Antje said. “I’ve got a lover too. His name’s Ricardo. We’ve known each other for a year.”
I stared at her, dumbfounded.
“It’s a draw,” she said, smiling painfully. “Maybe the only chance for a new beginning.” She swept her hair off her face and took a deep breath. “I love you, Sven. Unlike you, I have no problem saying so. The thing with Ricardo is purely sexual. You’re a pretty sporadic lover. And sex is very important to a young woman like me.”
When she came closer and put out a hand, I stepped to one side.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ve always taken care to protect you. Nobody knows about this. We’re in Spain, after all. Only Valentina and Luisa are in on it, because I sometimes need help with logistics.”
I didn’t know any Ricardo. I was convinced she was lying, and precisely that was what hurt. Her wish to wound me wounded me. It was so important to her, she’d stooped to an absurd story that insulted us both. “I think you should go now,” I said.
She began to weep silently, nodding as she did so. While she was in the bedroom, stuffing some things into a travel bag, I realized that Jola wasn’t there anymore. She must have dissolved into thin air at some point during Antje’s lecture. In any case, I couldn’t remember when she’d left.
Antje came back in. She stood still in the middle of the living room, uncertain about what form to give her farewell. I would have liked to stand up, take her in my arms, and say a few nice words. But I remained on the couch, empty-headed and heavy-legged, unable to move. At some point, Antje turned around and left. I heard Todd’s paws clicking on the tiles in the hall. I heard the front door close and Antje’s Citroën start up. Then the sound of the engine faded into the distance. The ensuing silence was different from what I’d imagined it would be. Less restful.