Me and Kaminski

  I hadn’t expected him to be so small, so tiny and shapeless compared with the slim figure in old photographs. He was wearing a pullover and impenetrable dark glasses, one hand was on Miriam’s arm and the other on a white walking cane. His skin was brown, creased like old leather, his cheeks sagged loosely, his hands seemed enormous, his hair a chaotic halo. He was wearing threadbare corduroys and gym shoes, the right one was undone and the laces dragged behind him. Miriam led him to a chair, he groped for the armrests and sat down. She remained standing and watched me.

  “Your name is Zollner,” he said.

  I hesitated, it hadn’t sounded like a question, and I was struck, quite inexplicably, by a momentary shyness. I held out my hand, met Miriam’s stare, and pulled it back again; of course, stupid mistake! I cleared my throat. “Sebastian Zollner.”

  “And we’re waiting for you.”

  Was that a question? “If it’s okay with you,” I said, “we can start right now. I’ve done all the preparation.” Literally, I’d been traveling for the better part of two weeks. I had never spent so much time on a single project. “You’ll be amazed how many old acquaintances I’ve found.”

  “Preparation,” he repeated, “acquaintances.”

  I felt a stirring of unease. Did he understand what I was saying? His jaws were working, he laid his head to one side and seemed, but this was obviously a mistake, to be looking past me at the picture on the wall. I looked at Miriam for help.

  “My father has very few old acquaintances.”

  “Few is misstating things,” I said. “Let’s just take Paris . . .”

  “You must excuse me,” said Kaminski. “I’ve just got out of bed. I spent two hours trying to get to sleep, then I took a sleeping pill, and then I got up. I need coffee.”

  “You’re not allowed coffee,” said Miriam.

  “A sleeping pill before you get up?” I asked.

  “I always wait till the very end, in case I can do it on my own. You’re my biographer?”

  “I’m a journalist,” I said. “I write for several major newspapers. Right now I’m working on your life story. I’ve got a couple more questions, then as far as I’m concerned we can start tomorrow.”

  “Article?” He lifted one of his enormous hands and ran it over his face. His jaws worked. “Tomorrow?”

  “You’ll be working mostly with me,” said Miriam. “He needs his peace and quiet.”

  “I don’t need peace and quiet,” he said.

  Her other hand laid itself on his other shoulder. She smiled at me over his head. “The doctors see it differently.”

  “I’m grateful for any help,” I said cautiously, “but naturally your father is the most important person to talk to. The source, quite simply.”

  “I’m the source, quite simply,” he said.

  I rubbed my cheeks. It wasn’t going well. Peace and quiet? I needed my own peace and quiet, everyone needs peace and quiet! Ridiculous! “I’m a great fan of your father, his paintings have changed art . . . the way I see it.”

  “Rubbish,” said Kaminski.

  I began to sweat. Of course it was rubbish, but I’d never yet met an artist who didn’t believe this sentence. “I swear it!” I laid a hand on my heart, reminded myself that such a move would have zero effect on him, and quickly yanked it away again. “You have no greater admirer than Sebastian Zollner.”

  “Who?”

  “Me.”

  “Oh, right.” He lifted his head, then let it droop again, for a second I thought he’d really looked at me.

  “We’re glad you’ve taken over this project,” said Miriam. “There were several applicants, but . . .”

  “Not that many,” said Kaminski.

  “. . . your publisher recommended you highly. He thinks a lot of you.”

  Hard to believe. I had met Knut Megelbach precisely once in his office. He had walked up and down, wringing his hands, when he wasn’t using one hand to pull books out of the bookcase and stick them back again while the other was groping the coins in his pants pocket. I had been talking about the imminent Kaminski Renaissance: new dissertations were going to be written, the Pompidou Center was working on an exhibition, and there was also the sheer documentary value of his memories, one mustn’t forget everything he’d seen and whom he’d known; Matisse had been his teacher, Picasso his friend, Richard Rieming, great poet, his mentor. I was, I told him, well acquainted with Kaminski, a friend of his, actually, there was no doubt he would talk to me candidly. Only one small thing was lacking to ensure that everyone’s interest would land on him, there would be articles in all the magazines, the price of his paintings would soar, and the biography would be a surefire success. “And what is that?” Megelbach asked. “You mean, what’s missing? He needs to die, of course.” Megelbach walked back and forth, thinking. Then he stood still and smiled at me.

  “I’m glad,” I said. “Knut’s an old friend.”

  “What’s your name again?” asked Kaminski.

  “We need to get a couple of things straight,” said Miriam. “We’d like . . .”

  The sound of my cell phone interrupted her. I pulled it out of my pants pocket, saw who was calling, and switched it off.

  “Who was that?” asked Kaminski.

  “We would like you to show us everything you want to publish. In return for our cooperation. Agreed?”

  I looked her in the eyes. I was waiting for her to look away, but oddly she didn’t blink. After a few seconds I looked down at the floor and my dirty shoes. “Naturally.”

  “And as for old acquaintances, you will not use them. You have us.”

  “Got it,” I said.

  “Tomorrow I have to be away,” she said, “but the day after tomorrow we can start. You will put your questions to me, and if necessary, I’ll get further information from him.”

  For a few seconds I didn’t say anything. I heard Kaminski’s whistling breath, his lips smacked as they moved. Miriam looked at me.

  “Agreed,” I said.

  Kaminski bent forward and had a coughing fit, his shoulders shook, he pressed a hand to his mouth, and his face went red. I had to restrain myself from giving him a thump on the shoulder. When it was over, he sat there stiffly, seemingly drained.

  “Then everything’s settled,” said Miriam. “Are you staying in the village?”

  “Yes,” I said vaguely. “In the village.” Did she want to invite me to spend the night in the house? Nice gesture.

  “Good. And now we must get back to our guests. We’ll see you the day after tomorrow.”

  “You have guests?”

  “People from the neighborhood and our gallerist. Do you know him?”

  “I spoke to him last week.”

  “We’ll straighten that out,” she said.

  I had the feeling her mind was already on something else. Her grip as she shook my hand was surprisingly strong, then she helped her father onto his feet. The two of them moved slowly to the door.

  “Zollner.” Kaminski was standing still. “How old are you?”

  “ Thirty-one.”

  “Why are you doing this?”

  “What?”

  “Journalist. Several major newspapers. What do you want?”

  “I find it interesting! You learn a lot and you can get involved in things that . . .”

  He shook his head.

  “I wouldn’t want anything else!”

  He banged his stick impatiently on the floor.

  “I don’t know, I—I fell into it somehow. Before, I was at an advertising agency.”

  “That explains it.”

  That had sounded odd; I looked at him, trying to understand what he’d meant. But his head was nodding down onto his chest and his expression was blank. Miriam led him out, and I heard their footsteps fade into the distance.

  I sat down in the chair the old man had just been sitting in. Sunbeams were slanting in through the window, and motes of dust were dancing in them. It must be nice to live here. I
pictured it: Miriam was roughly fifteen years older than me, but I could live with that, she still looked good. He wasn’t going to be around much longer, we’d have the house, his money, and there’d certainly be a few remaining paintings. I would live here, administer the estate, maybe set up a museum. I would finally have the time to write something really big, a fat book. Not too fat, but fat enough for the fiction shelves in the bookshops. If possible one of my father-in-law’s paintings on the cover. Or maybe better to use something classical. Vermeer? Title in dark type. Stitched binding, heavy paper. Given my connections, I would get a couple of good reviews. I nodded, stood up, and went out.

  The door at the end of the hall was now closed, but you could still hear the voices. I buttoned my jacket. It was time for decisiveness and being a man of the world. I cleared my throat and walked in fast.

  A large room, table laid, and two Kaminskis on the walls: one pure abstract and the other a misty city view. People were standing around the table and at the window with glasses in their hands. As I came in, silence fell.

  “Hello!” I said. “I’m Sebastian Zollner.”

  That broke the ice right away; I felt the mood ease. I held out my hand to each of them in turn. There were two elderly gentlemen, one of them obviously a village dignitary and the other a banker from the capital. Kaminski muttered something to himself; Miriam looked at me thunderstruck and seemed to want to say something, but then stayed silent. A dignified English couple introduced themselves to me as Mr. and Mrs. Clure, the neighbors. “Are you the writer?” I asked. “I guess so,” he said. And then of course there was Bogovic, the gallerist to whom I’d talked ten days before. He gave me his hand and looked at me thoughtfully.

  “Are you still working?” I said to Clure. “Anything new?”

  He threw a glance at his wife. “My new novel just came out. The Forger’s Fear.”

  “Brilliant,” I said, giving him a slap on the upper arm. “Send it to me, I’ll review it!” I smiled at Bogovic, who for some reason was behaving as though he didn’t remember me, then I turned toward the table, where the housekeeper, with raised eyebrows, was laying another place. “Do I get a glass too?” Miriam said something quietly to Bogovic, he frowned, she shook her head.

  We sat down at table. There was a totally tasteless soup made of apple and cucumbers. “Anna is an expert in my diet!” said Kaminski.

  I began to tell them about my journey, the insolent conductor this morning, the clueless railroad employees, the incredibly changeable weather.

  “Rain comes and goes,” said Bogovic. “That’s what it does.”

  “Keeps it in training,” said Clure.

  Then I told them about the proprietress at the boardinghouse, who really didn’t know who Kaminski was. Could they imagine? I banged the table, glasses jingled, my mood was infectious. Bogovic slid his chair back and forth, the banker talked quietly to Miriam, I spoke louder, he fell quiet. Anna brought peas and cornbread, very dry, almost impossible to swallow, evidently the main course. There was a wretched white wine to go with it. I couldn’t remember ever eating so badly.

  “Robert,” said Kaminski in English, “tell us about your novel.”

  “I wouldn’t dare call it a novel, it’s a modest thriller for unspoilt souls. A man happens to find out, by mere chance, that a woman who left him a long time ago . . .”

  I began to tell them about my difficult climb. I imitated the man driving the tractor and the way he looked, and how the engine had made him shake from head to foot. My acting made everyone merry. I described my arrival, my shock when I discovered the road, my investigation of the mailboxes. “Imagine! Glinzli! What a name!”

  “What do you mean?” asked the banker.

  “Listen, nobody can have a name like that!” I described Anna opening the door to me. At that very moment, she came in with the dessert; of course I jumped, but I knew instinctively that it would have been a major mistake just to stop talking. I imitated her gaping, and how she had slammed the door right in my face. I knew for sure that the person being imitated is always the last to recognize the imitation. And indeed, she set the tray down so hard that everything clattered, and left the room. Bogovic was staring out of the window, the banker had his eyes closed, Clure rubbed his face. Kaminski’s lip-smacking seemed deafening in the silence.

  Over dessert, a chocolate cream that was far too sweet, I told them about a piece I’d written on Wernicke, the artist who died so spectacularly. “You know Wernicke, surely?” Curiously, none of them did. I described the moment when his widow threw a plate at me, just like that, in her living room, it hit me on the shoulder, and it hurt quite a lot. Wives, I explained, were the absolute nightmare for any biographer, and one of the reasons this new job was such a pleasure to me was the absence of . . . well, you know!

  Kaminski moved his hand, and as if on command, everyone stood up. We went out onto the terrace. The sun was sinking on the horizon, and the mountainsides glowed dark red. “Amazing,” said Mrs. Clure, and her husband stroked her gently across the shoulders. I finished the wine in my glass and looked around for someone to refill it. I felt pleasantly tired. I should really go home now and replay the tapes with the conversations of the last two weeks. But I didn’t feel like it. Maybe they’d invite me to spend the night up here. I went to stand next to Miriam and inhaled. “Chanel?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Your perfume.”

  “What? No.” She shook her head and moved away from me. “No!”

  “You should leave while there’s still light,” said Bogovic.

  “I’ll be fine.”

  “You won’t be able to find your way back!”

  “Do you know that from experience?”

  Bogovic grinned. “I never go anywhere on foot.”

  “The road isn’t lit,” said the banker.

  “Someone could drive me,” I proposed.

  There was silence for a few seconds.

  “The road isn’t lit,” the banker said again.

  “He’s right,” said Kaminski hoarsely. “You need to start down.”

  “It’s much safer,” said Clure.

  I held my glass tighter and looked from one to the next. They were silhouettes against the sunset. I cleared my throat, now was the moment when someone would have to ask me to stay. I cleared my throat again. “Well then . . . I’ll be going.”

  “Follow the road,” said Miriam. “After a kilometer or so there’s a signpost, you go left and you’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

  I glared at her, put the glass on the ground, buttoned my jacket, and set off. After a few steps, I heard them all burst out laughing behind me. I listened, but already I couldn’t catch what they were saying; the wind carried only snatches of words. I was cold. I walked faster. I was glad to be out of there. Disgusting little brownnoses, repellent the way they sucked up to you! I felt sorry for the old man.

  It really was getting dark very quickly. I had to narrow my eyes and squint to see where the road was going; I felt grass under my feet, stopped, and groped my way very carefully back onto the asphalt. In the valley, the pinpricks of streetlights were already visible. And here was the signpost, though it was too dark to read, and that must be the path I had to take.

  I lost my footing and fell flat. I was so furious I picked up a stone and flung it into the blackness of the valley. I rubbed my knee and imagined the stone collecting other stones as it fell, more and more of them until finally it turned into a rockslide that buried some innocent walker. The thought pleased me and I threw another stone. I wasn’t sure if I was still on the path, I could feel the shale shifting under my feet, and almost fell again. I was cold. I bent down, groped around on the ground, and felt the hard-packed earth of the path. Should I just sit down and wait for daybreak? I might freeze, though not before I’d died of boredom, but either way it wouldn’t be a fall that killed me.

  No—out of the question! Blindly I set one foot in front of the other, inching forward by sheer
willpower, clutching bushes as I went. Just as I was wondering whether I shouldn’t in fact call for help, I saw something that formed itself into the contours of the wall of a house, and a steep roof. And then I could see windows, light glowing through closed curtains, and I was on a regular lit street. I came around a corner and found myself on the village square. Two men in leather jackets looked at me curiously, and a woman in curlers on the balcony of a hotel clutched a whimpering poodle to her bosom.

  I pushed open the door to the Belview boardinghouse and looked around for the proprietress, but she was nowhere to be seen, the reception area was empty. I took my key and went upstairs to my room. My suitcase was next to my bed, the walls were hung with watercolors of cows, an Edelweiss, and a farmer with a shaggy white beard. My pants were filthy from the fall I’d taken and I didn’t have another pair with me, but the mud could be brushed off. What I needed right now was a bath.

  While the tub was filling, I unpacked my tape recorder, the satchel with the taped conversations, and the book with the complete images, Manuel Kaminski, His Paintings. I listened to the messages on my cell phone: Elke asked me to call back right away. The culture editor of the Evening News needed the Bahring hatchet job ASAP. Then Elke again: Sebastian, call me, it’s important! Then a third time: Sebastian, please. I nodded, though I really wasn’t paying attention, and switched off the phone.

  In the bathroom mirror I eyed my naked self with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction. I set the book of collected Kaminski paintings down next to the tub. The foam made little popping sounds, and smelled pleasantly sweet. I slid slowly down into the water, lost my breath for a few moments because it was so hot, and felt I was swimming in a vast, motionless sea. Then I groped for the book.

  III

  FIRST THERE WERE the botched drawings of a twelve-year-old: humans with wings, birds with human heads, snakes, and swords swooping through the air: absolutely zero evidence of talent. And yet the great Richard Rieming, who had lived with Manuel’s mother in Paris for two years, had used several of them to illustrate his volume of poetry Roadside Words. After war broke out, Rieming had to emigrate, found passage on a ship to America, and died of a lung infection during the voyage. Two childhood photographs of a chubby Manuel in a sailor suit, one of them showing him wearing glasses that grotesquely enlarged his eyes, the other one showing him blinking as if he couldn’t tolerate bright light. Not a good-looking child. I turned the page, the paper swelling in the damp.