Free Me and Kaminski by Daniel Kehlmann Page B

of saying the words he so longed to hear.
    I read it again and wasn’t sure what it was that struck me as so weird about it. Now there was only one page left: thin graph paper, like something torn out of an exercise book. I laid it down in front of me and smoothed it flat. It was dated exactly a month before Adrienne’s letter.
Manuel, I’m not really writing this. I’m only imagining
. . . an electric buzzing interrupted me: the doorbell.
    In a panic I ran downstairs and opened the door. A gray-haired man was leaning on the fence, a felt hat on his head and a fat-bellied bag next to his feet.
    “Yes?”
    “Doctor Marzeller,” he said in a deep voice. “The appointment.”
    “You have an appointment?”
    “He has an appointment. I’m the doctor.”
    I hadn’t expected anything like that. “It’s not okay right now,” I said, rather choked.
    “What isn’t okay?”
    “Unfortunately it’s not okay. Come back tomorrow!”
    He took off his hat and stroked his head.
    “Mr. Kaminski’s working,” I said. “He doesn’t want to be disturbed.”
    “You mean he’s
painting
?”
    “We’re working on his biography. He has to concentrate.”
    “On his biography.” He put his hat back on. “Has to concentrate.” Why the hell did he have to repeat himself all the time?
    “My name is Zollner,” I said. “I’m his biographer and friend.” I held out my hand, he took it hesitantly. His handshake was uncomfortably strong, I returned it. He looked at me sharply.
    “I’m going to him now.” He took a step forward.
    “No!” I said, blocking him.
    He gave me a skeptical glance. Was he wondering if I could stop him? Just try it, I thought.
    “Surely it’s just routine,” I said. “He doesn’t need anything.”
    “And why do you think that?”
    “He really is very busy. He can’t just interrupt things. There are so many . . . memories. The work means so much to him.”
    He shrugged his shoulders, blinked, and took a step back. I’d won.
    “I’m sorry,” I said generously.
    “What was your name?” he asked.
    “Zollner,” I said. “Good-bye.”
    He nodded. I smiled and he returned my gaze coldly. I closed the door. From the kitchen window I watched as he went to his car, put his bag in the trunk, got behind the wheel, and drove off. Then he stopped, rolled down the window, and looked back at the house again; I jumped back, waited a few seconds, went back to the window, and saw the car heading down the curve. Relieved, I went back upstairs.
    Manuel, I’m not really writing this. I’m only imagining that I would write it, but that I wouldn’t then stick it in an envelope and send it into the real world, to you. I was just in a cinema, de Gaulle looked as funny as ever in the newsreel, outside it’s thawing, for the first time this year, and I’m trying to imagine that it all has nothing to do with us. When you get right down to it, none of us—not me, not poor Adrienne, not Dominik—believe that they could leave you. But perhaps we’re deluding ourselves.
    After all this time, I still don’t know what we are to you. Maybe we’re mirrors (you know all about them) whose task it is to reflect your image and turn you into something large and many-faceted and wide. Yes, you will be famous. And you will have earned it. Now you will go to Adrienne, you’ll take what she has to give, and make sure that she believes it will be her own decision when she leaves. Perhaps you’ll send her to Dominik. Then there’ll be other people, and other mirrors. But not me.
    Don’t cry, Manuel. You’ve always cried easily, but this time leave it to me. Naturally it’s the end, and we’re dying. But that doesn’t mean that we won’t be here for a long time, that we won’t find other people, go for walks, dream at night, and accomplish everything that a marionette can accomplish. I don’t know if I’m really writing this, and I don’t know if I’ll send it. But if I do, if I manage it, and you read