In Free Fall Read online

  “Do you know what we have just proved, Professor?”

  His voice was loud and resonant, but Little Red Riding Hood was too deep in thought to reply.

  “Physics is for lovers.”

  If Little Red Riding Hood made any retort, it was drowned out by the laughter and unrest that had broken out in the room. The sound of chalk breaking between Sebastian’s fingers was also obscured. While Oskar drank in the admiration for their work of art, Sebastian was still standing in front of the blackboard looking thoughtful. He finally pulled on his jacket and left the lecture theater, unnoticed by his friend. What had shaken him was the certainty with which Oskar had stepped to the right-hand side of the blackboard while pointing him toward the left.

  The knowledge that Oskar had in no way meant to overshadow him did not make it any easier for Sebastian. The feeling of his own unfairness mingled with his foolish sense of humiliation. Oskar reveled in the spectacle and the exhilaration of pulling off a performance together, but Sebastian wanted to be a good physicist more than anything else in the world. For Oskar, being right was never any effort—it was the natural state of things. He had simply assumed that, unlike himself, Sebastian would be unable to write the mathematical derivation from back to front. The worst thing was—he was right. The moment their hands met in the middle of the blackboard was a onesided victory, and Sebastian felt the urge to punish Oskar for this. Only Oskar saw it as a celebration of their friendship and their brilliance. Sebastian saw it as proof of his own inferiority.

  From that moment on, Sebastian froze in Oskar’s presence. He was not able to explain to his friend why the laws that governed their friendship had suddenly lost all validity. When they argued, his rejoinders grew sharper, and he found less and less time for shared research. Oskar did not fight against any of this. His calm gaze beneath half-closed eyes followed Sebastian into his sleep. His friend’s refusal to defend himself against this new aggressiveness made Sebastian even colder. In Oskar’s room, he shouted and raged against narrow walls and limited worldviews until one evening Oskar told him quietly and calmly that he was a man devoid of aesthetic sense. That night, Sebastian walked through the streets punching lampposts and declaring to them that something was not right with the world, that there must be other universes in which things went differently. In which it would be impossible for a man like him to throw away his own happiness despite knowing better. In which he and Oskar would never lose each other.

  When they were defending their PhD theses, they no longer met on the bank of the Dreisam, but only for the occasional whiskey, sitting on lumpy stools at a bar. They were no longer of one mind on anything, except when it came to which one of them was the better physicist. It was Oskar; and after this conviction of theirs was confirmed by Oskar’s summa cum laude, Sebastian exchanged his morning jacket for jeans and a shirt, and got married.

  The guests at the wedding whispered behind raised hands about the best man, who slid along the walls at the function room and whose presence seemed to be personally responsible for the shadows in the corners. From the expression on his face, it appeared that he had never been so amused about anything in his life. Instead of a veil, he told the painfully embarrassed guests, Sebastian should have put a green light on top of his bride’s head. All emergency exits had them.

  [4]

  “I’LL BET A CASE OF BRUNELLO,” Oskar says, “that they only asked for your article because of that time-machine murder.”

  Sebastian is silent. That this is the case is clear as daylight. It is even in the description on the contents page: “Freiburg professor explains the theories of the time-machine murderer.” In his article, Sebastian has even tried to express certain things from the point of view of the murderer. After killing five people, the young man had explained that it was not murder at all, but a scientific experiment. He had traveled from the year 2015 to prove the Many-Worlds Interpretation. This theory considers time not as a continuous line, but as a vast heap of universes that expands minute by minute, like a kind of time-foam consisting of countless bubbles; so a journey into the past is not a return to an earlier point in human history, but a switch between worlds. Therefore it would be perfectly possible to reach into the past without changing the present. He could bear witness to the fact that all five of his victims were alive and well in 2015. In the world he belonged to, there were no murder victims and therefore no crime, and he did not feel subject to the jurisdiction of the year 2007, much as he regretted it. The advice of his lawyer, that he plead insanity, he had refused indignantly.

  “So you end up writing something for Der Spiegel,” says Oskar, “that goes even beyond the ideas of this lunatic.”

  “Is an insane person automatically wrong? That’s news to me.”

  “What’s driving you isn’t even insanity. It’s your desire to relativize a personal reality.” Oskar casts the words into the room over his shoulder.

  “Be quiet,” Sebastian hisses. “That’s enough.”

  At the far end of the dining room, Maike is leaning over and holding Liam by the wrists. She is talking to him and pulling him toward her, and he is turning his head this way and that. Her hair is hanging over her forehead as she looks up at Sebastian, smiling.

  “I know just what you’re talking about,” she calls. “The parallel universe in which Liam is not refusing to set the table.”

  “Exactly,” Sebastian says genially.

  “And a universe in which Oskar doesn’t stare so angrily.”

  “Let’s hope so.”

  “And perhaps even one in which I am not your wife and Liam is not your son?”

  Maike laughs because Sebastian looks put out. The potential semi-orphan of a parallel universe has pulled himself free and is running past the table. He disappears into the hall, with Maike in hot pursuit.

  “You long for other worlds,” Oskar says in a low voice. “For the notion that you might be able to be two different men at the same time. At least.”

  Sebastian forces himself to let go of the curtain he has been fingering all this time and has wanted more than anything to pull off the rail in one violent tug. Oskar’s hand passes over his shoulder as he tosses his cigarette butt out of the window. Bonnie and Clyde race across two ripples, only to prod the sinking butt with their beaks, disappointed.

  “Do you remember the world in which you said this to me?” asks Oskar: “‘I want to be the ground that trembles beneath your feet when the gods take their revenge on you’?” As he quotes his friend, two lines appear around his mouth—brackets of irony.

  Sebastian has not forgotten—of course not. He said those words on the night that he and Oskar, with the help of a bottle of whiskey, had cracked Little Red Riding Hood’s assignment on dark energy. The chairs had been upended on the tables in the bar by that time, and the bartender had smoked his way through five cigarettes while waiting for them to leave. But the two of them had seen and heard nothing else—their eyes had been closed and their foreheads pressed together as their shadows on the wall accepted the Nobel Prize for the year 2020. That evening, over the talk of numbers, they had grown closer than ever before. Their minds had worked so perfectly together that they might have belonged to the same being. Sebastian had lifted two fingers to touch his friend on the cheek, and said the words that had come into his head: I want to be the ground that trembles beneath your feet…

  “Not long after,” Oskar says, “I heard something quite different from you.”

  Sebastian remembers that, too. “You overestimate your own importance,” he had screamed at Oskar in his room. “You overestimate your own importance in general, and you overestimate your importance to me in particular!”

  Oskar’s aesthetic sense demands that he appreciate the sophistication of an attack, even one against himself. He had admired the precise sequence of behavior aimed at cultivating trust (I want to be the ground…) and the deadly blow (You overestimate…), so he simply stayed in his armchair and did nothing more than watch casu
ally as Sebastian worked himself up.

  “So many worlds,” Oskar says now. “Sometimes I wish I could find a way of diverting you from that path.”

  “You’re exaggerating.”

  “You used to be a good physicist before you went off course.”

  “I haven’t gone off course,” Sebastian says with utmost composure. “I have simply not recognized the Copenhagen Interpretation as a final, binding truth. Even it is a point of view, Oskar. Not a religion.”

  “Not a religion, no. It is science. Quite the opposite of your Many-Worlds escapades.”

  “Let’s be clear on one thing. I was not defending the Many-Worlds Interpretation in Der Spiegel, only explaining it. Because I had been asked to.”

  “If you’re not even defending this garbage, that only shows cowardice on top of stupidity.”

  “Enough now.”

  “You need a good shake to wake you up. A slap in the face to bring you back to reality.”

  “What,” Sebastian asks insolently, “is reality?”

  “Everything,” Oskar says, suddenly touching Sebastian’s stomach with the back of his hand, “that is open to experiment.”

  Sebastian raises an arm helplessly, and lets it drop to his side again. His eyes flit from Oskar’s profile to a pigeon fluttering upward, immediately disappearing from sight. His drooping shoulders and bent head signal capitulation. But Oskar does not notice. He has turned away, placed both hands on the windowsill, and is talking again.

  “Perhaps you’ve read Orwell’s 1984. In Oceania, people learn under torture to see things as both real and unreal at the same time. They are forced to see only one possibility out of many. Do you know what Orwell called that?” Without looking around, Oskar makes a sudden grab for Sebastian. “Do you?”

  Sebastian looks at the fingers wrapped around his wrist. In a moment, he and Oskar will look each other straight in the eye for the first time that evening. Neither will be able to tear his gaze away for a few seconds. Oskar’s face will relax. Then he will hurriedly take out another cigarette and light it in silence.

  The ground beneath their feet begins to tremble as Liam runs noisily into the room. He throws himself headlong against Oskar, wrapping his arms around his hips and placing a sock-clad foot on each of Oskar’s polished Budapest shoes. Oskar’s fingers have let go of his friend’s wrist very quickly.

  “Are you going to lay into me the whole evening simply because I’ve been in Der Spiegel?” Sebastian asks.

  “With a photo, too,” says Liam.

  “Mais non.” As Oskar strokes Liam’s head, single hairs stand up, following the static electric charge in his hands. “I will enjoy being a visitor in your life, as I always do.”

  They exchange a fleeting glance while Liam tugs at Oskar’s sweater to get him moving.

  “Come on, quantum feet!” he shouts, smiling when Oskar laughs. They sway toward the table, a two-headed creature with only one pair of legs.

  “By the way,” Oskar says, turning his head to speak to Sebastian over his shoulder, “I have something for you. An official duel.”

  He walks Liam around the table an extra time, then lets Maike—who is sticking candles into holders—tell him where to sit, even though he knows already.

  “A duel,” Sebastian murmurs, still standing by the window. “And I know who will be choosing the weapons.”

  He looks up into the chestnut trees where the sparrows are chirping, and wonders if the twittering would translate into human language if it were recorded and played backward. Endless talk. A novel per bird, per day.

  [5]

  MAIKE SERVES ROCKET SALAD FROM A BOWL; her long arms are marked with tan lines from wearing a short-sleeved top in the sun. She blows a strand of hair off her forehead and gives Oskar a pleading look.

  “How’s it going with the particle accelerator?”

  “Oh, Maik.”

  The first time he met her, Oskar refused to use the final vowel in Maike’s name: since then, he has stuck to this short form. Every time Maike’s eyes meet his, their faces brighten in mutual mockery. A casual observer might even think they were secretly in love.

  “You know it took me ten years to get used to your existence on Bohr’s earth.”

  Liam butts in. “What’s Bohr?”

  “A great physicist,” Oskar says. “‘The world belongs to those who can explain it.’” He brings his finger to his nose, as if he has to press a button to recover the thread of his thought. When he finds it, he points to Maike. “And if you had to exist, I thought eventually, you could at least look out for him. But what do you do? A pathetically bad job of it. He’s disgracing himself in public.”

  Maike lifts her left shoulder in a half shrug, as she does whenever she is at a loss.

  “Take a seat,” she says to Sebastian, who has come up to the table. Oskar is looking at her as if he knows a good joke at her expense that he is keeping to himself out of politeness.

  Sebastian adjusts a strap on Maike’s dress and smooths the hair on the back of her head before pulling up a chair. When Oskar is there he touches her more often than usual. This irritates him, but he can’t stop himself. Right now, he even wishes that Maike would put down the salad bowl and walk over to the window so that Oskar can see the down on her cheeks lit from behind, and the silhouette of her body beneath the dress. He wants Oskar to see that Maike is a rare creature, a woman to be watched over and to be envied for. He finds these thoughts repellent. Even more abhorrent is the fact that his changed behavior in Oskar’s presence doesn’t disturb Maike in any way. Instead, she raises her eyes in a coquettish fashion, and her voice is half an octave higher than usual.

  “Do start.”

  Oskar spreads his napkin over his lap, elbows raised as he does so, just as he used to fling his coattails back before he sat down.

  “By the way,” Sebastian says, deliberately signaling a change of subject, “my argument with Oskar is on a topic that is extremely current.”

  “How nice for you both.” Maike folds salad leaves into tidy parcels with her knife and fork. “Then perhaps there are other people who know what it’s actually all about.”

  “I think it’s old news, actually,” Oskar says.

  “Not at all,” Sebastian claims. “It’s ultimately about science versus morality. That’s always relevant. Think about that scandal with the doctor.”

  “I know nothing about it.”

  “Some heart patients bled to death during their operations at the university hospital. Charges were brought. Apparently, unauthorized drugs, which impeded blood coagulation, were being tested on these patients.”

  “Oh yes, the Mengele of Freiburg!” Oskar dabs his napkin on his lips after every bite. “Even the proles on the train are talking about it.”

  “What’s a Mengele?” asks Liam, who is losing his fight with the salad leaves.

  “Let’s not talk about that now,” Maike says quickly.

  “Every time you say that, it’s about sex or the Nazis!” Liam crows.

  “Don’t be too clever!” Maike says.

  Liam throws his fork down immediately. “The Nazis strung steel cables across the streets to cut off the heads of the Americans in jeeps. I saw it on TV!”

  “Eat your broccoli,” Sebastian says.

  “It’s rocket,” Maike says.

  “I don’t think it’s about experimenting on patients,” Sebastian continues, anxious to keep the conversation on track. “The pharmaceutical industry wouldn’t be so bold as to do anything like that, what with the press uproar—”

  “Do we have to talk about this?” Maike interrupts.

  Oskar lifts his head, astonished. “Ça va, Maik?”

  “Mama knows the murderer!” Liam cries.

  “One more word and you’re going straight to bed!”

  “You’re talking nonsense, Liam,” Sebastian says. He has not eaten a thing yet, but has already finished his second glass of wine. “Mama knows a senior registrar in Schlüter�
�s department.” To Oskar he says, “Schlüter is the medical director who is under suspicion. He’s probably going to be suspended. For manslaughter.”

  Oskar’s face brightens. “Maik’s cycling friend! The one who works at the hospital. What’s his name again?”

  “Ralph,” says Maike.

  “Dabbelink,” Sebastian adds, casting a warning glance at Oskar.

  If Maike had not been trying so hard to stop herself from blushing, she might have asked herself how Oskar knows about a cycling friend of hers in the first place. Dabbelink had certainly never been mentioned at their previous Friday gatherings.

  But he had been mentioned on another occasion, which Maike knew nothing about because she had thought Sebastian was at a conference in Dortmund. Instead, he had been lying under an attic roof on an old sofa, resting on one elbow like a Roman at a feast, gesticulating with his free hand. This Dabbelink fellow, he was saying, was someone who had enough ambition in him to liquefy reinforced concrete. Apart from working crazy hours, he followed a training regime on his bike that took him to the peak of the Schauinsland in the early mornings or the late evenings, depending on his shift. He shaved his arms and legs in order to cut down on air resistance, and when you shook his hand you felt like you were touching a dead man. Sebastian had no idea why Maike had made friends with such a ghastly person, of all the people in her cycling club, and how she could bear to see him two evenings a week. At this point, Oskar’s amused voice interrupted him: Two evenings a week? In tight-fitting cycling gear? With red faces and sweaty hair? Sebastian was at a loss for words.