Me and Kaminski by Daniel Kehlmann Read Free Book Online Page A

that’s all that happened.”
    “Who am I supposed to believe now?”
    “That’s your problem, nobody owes you an accounting!” He looked up at me. “You’ll meet Manuel quite soon. But you won’t be able to imagine what he was back then. He managed to convince everyone that he was going to be great one day. One had to give him what he wanted. Therese was the only one who didn’t . . .” He scraped the last drops of ice cream out of the glass and licked both sides of the spoon. “Only Therese.” He thought for a bit, but seemed to have forgotten what it was he wanted to say.
    “Would you like a coffee?” I asked uneasily. The whole thing was already way over my own spending limit; I hadn’t yet had a conversation with Megelbach about expenses.
    “Mr. Zollner, this is all old history! In reality, none of us exists anymore. Old age is absurd. You’re here and you’re not here, like a ghost.” For a few seconds he stared past me out at the roofs, and the other side of the street. His neck was so thin that the veins stood out clearly. “Miriam was very gifted, alive, a little hot-tempered. When she was twenty, she had a fiancé. He came to visit, stayed for two days, left, and never came back. It’s not easy to have him for a father. I would like to see her again.”
    “I’ll tell her.”
    “Better not.” He smiled softly.
    “I’d like to ask another few questions.”
    “Believe me, so would I.”

    “That we didn’t know anyone could get so old—write that! You have to write that!” She pointed at the birdcage. “Do you hear Pauli?”
    “Did you know Therese well?”
    “When she died, he wanted to kill himself.”
    “Really?” I sat up straight.
    Her eyes closed for a moment: even her eyelids were wrinkled, I’d never seen such wrinkles before. “That’s what Dominik said. I would never have asked Manuel about it. Nobody would. But he was completely beside himself. It was only when Dominik told him she was dead that he stopped searching for her. Would you like tea?”
    “No. Yes. Yes please. Do you have a photo of her?”
    She lifted the teapot and poured shakily. “Ask her, maybe she’ll send you one.”
    “Who should I ask?”
    “Therese.”
    “But she’s dead!”
    “No, no, she lives up north, on the coast.”
    “She didn’t die?”
    “No, that’s just what Dominik said. Manuel would never have stopped trying to find her. I liked her husband, Bruno, very much. He was such a fine human being, quite different from . . . do you take sugar? He’s been dead a long time now. Most everybody’s dead.” She put down the teapot. “Milk?”
    “No! Do you have her address?”
    “I think I do. Listen, do you hear him? He sings so beautifully. Canaries don’t often sing. Pauli’s an exception.”
    “Please give me her address!” She didn’t answer, she seemed not to have understood me.
    “To be honest,” I said slowly, “I don’t hear a thing.”
    “What?”
    “He’s not singing, he’s not moving, and I don’t think he’s actually doing that well. Please would you give me the address?”

V
    S HORTLY AFTER TEN I was woken by the sun shining in through the window. I was lying on top of the bedclothes, surrounded by a dozen audio cassettes, the tape recorder had landed on the floor. In the distance I could hear church bells. I dragged myself out of bed.
    I had breakfast under the same stag’s head I’d seen through the window the day before. The coffee tasted like water, at the next table a father was being mean to his son, and the little boy let his head drop, closed his eyes, and pretended he wasn’t there. Hugo crawled over the carpet with his ears held flat against his head. I called the proprietress over and said the coffee was undrinkable. She nodded indifferently and brought a new pot. I should think so, I said. She shrugged. The coffee was actually stronger, three cups of it and my heart was pounding. I shouldered my bag and set out.
    The path I had come down