Next World Novella Read online

  No, that’s not true. After all, I did love you, at least until you had your operation. Of course I wish you, with all my heart –

  No, that’s not it either. From today you are dead to me; don’t think I will come back. And after death I won’t wait for you either. I will tell you something so that you do not even hope for that. It has to do, and this should not surprise you, with Dana and the sign on her throat. At our first meeting we simply forgot to discuss it, we were busy talking about quite different things, other subjects entirely. Strange, don’t you think? Afterwards we never got around to talking about it, although I can hardly believe that in retrospect. Perhaps because there was always so much to laugh about, and the Kan character would only have got in the way.

  I suppose it must have been as simple as that. Only when we met up one last time to say goodbye did we get around to the sign that had brought us together and that, we were sure, would bring us together again. I told her, and it was high time to do so, what it means, what danger lies within it, and how you can face it by never standing still and staying in one place, by always turning in towards that same danger until you are clear of it, and facing the next one. I don’t have to explain to you that Kan is a sign that is best – at least according to the Southern Commentaries – left behind as quickly as possible.

  Even if one is as magically attracted to it as you or I! That is the teaching of the I Ching: you can never stay with any one of the signs. You must keep abreast of changes so that, within the flow of all beings, you become someone else. You, pursuing your indifferent atheistic train of thought, will never understand this. But even for you, Dana’s decision to adorn herself with the sign of the abyss cannot have been pure coincidence. A clear sign of danger, every yang stroke already fallen between its two yin strokes. Most important of all, it consists of water both above and below, water everywhere, a huge lake, almost a sea, I explained to Dana, rather a lot of water for a single lifetime.

  ‘Water, water, water.’ Dana’s glance was vague – we called it her Galician look. ‘I’m usually up to my neck in it, but I’ll never drown, I was always a good – ’

  ‘I know.’ I waved that comment away, she’d often said it before. ‘Like a fish in water.’ Only then did I realize what had brought us together, and I knew I had to tell her about it, about the cold, dark lake, and how it frightened me.

  As soon as I had finished my confession, Dana took my hand. She had an idea, she said – I was so surprised I couldn’t protest, let alone withdraw my hand from hers. So much water for her and for me, for both of us, she said, we ought to share it.

  How, I asked, did she imagine that might happen?

  Oh, it was simple. At last she knew how she could thank me: by repaying me in kind. She actually used that phrase. She had nothing else to offer, she said. Imagine, she suggested spontaneously; no, she decided, how can I put it, she made up her mind to wait for me beside the lake. If she were to die before me, as she was convinced she would. Then I could still decide whether to swim across the lake with her to Paradise or wait for my husband in spite of everything, but then I’d be sure to go to Hell with him.

  In fact, Schepp, she made the same pact with me as you once did. With the difference that she has no doubts about reaching the far shore. How firmly she pressed my hand! More firmly than you, that’s for sure.

  So let’s be clear: when, one day, you set out on the journey to the next world, I will not be waiting for you at the threshold. Ditto the other way round. No need for you to wait for me. You have silently terminated our marriage in the Here and Now, I free you from your promise for There and Then. As far as I am concerned, and Dana is right there, you can go to –

  No, even now I don’t wish you that, I will concentrate entirely on what the signs, each in its own way, have shown me. The clock on the Church of the Good Shepherd is just striking eight-thirty, and my taxi will be coming in an hour’s time, so I must hurry. My heart is thudding with anticipation, can you imagine that? Over the past year I’ve consulted the coins of the I Ching almost daily and have received all sixty-four signs as an answer to my only question. Each sign contributed to my decision. Think of the Wanderer, or the Breakthrough, or Liberation. ‘When there is nowhere left to go, then returning will save you. If there is somewhere you must go, then speed will save you.’ How inspiring the signs can be. I never thought so before.

  Yesterday evening I consulted the I Ching one last time, and – no, it did not give me the twenty-ninth sign as my answer; that would have been too much of a coincidence. It gave me Number 61, Inner Truth, a happy, cheerful water sign. As if everything from which I have suffered all my life will now be turned into its opposite, the gentle wind above, the rejoicing lake below. ‘It is good to cross the great water.’ But without you, Schepp, do you understand, without you. As far as I’m concerned, and now I will say it once and for all, you can go straight to Hell! Along with

  Hanni and Nanni and Lina and Tina and

  whatever they might be called. Your

  I’m sorry, my head

  suddenly hurts again

  like when I

  Yes, Doro had actually written that. The spaces between the words had become longer and longer, and at the bottom of the page they were in an entirely different handwriting. Schepp had already deciphered them:

  and now this too

  well we’ll

  talk about it

  There was no more to be deciphered, to be read. Schepp just sat there. While the afternoon cast its shadows little by little over the pattern of the parquet, while the clock of the Church of the Good Shepherd struck four high and five low notes, while there was another ring of the doorbell, while the last large patches of light merged under the desk, while there was a buzzing and then silence, then buzzing again and then more silence. She had him now.

  How peacefully she lay there, how detached, as if none of it had anything more to do with her. Yet she had caused it. Unmoved herself, she had been the guiding spirit, so surely it was her fault? Her eyes, mere slits like a lizard’s eyes now, the whites slyly showing, her nose, sharper still in the twilight; her head a skull carved out of the room’s half-light. Doro? Schepp stared at her, although he had no idea what he might still be looking for in her face. All that he had seen in it unquestioningly over the years, over the decades, had perhaps been a show staged just for him. All he could really do was stare into space until darkness fell.

  Stop, Schepp! At least it was over and done with, he had performed his final duty. Now he knew that Doro had had no premonition of her death, that instead she had been editing and writing her way towards a new life. He knew why the doorbell had rung earlier, and what kind of post he might expect to receive soon. Schepp closed his eyes, imagined Dana kissing Doro, raising one leg as she did so and … then he imagined Doro kissing Dana. Although she had made it clear that the whole thing had been platonic. In so far as he had understood it correctly. In so far as she had not been lying. In so far as she had not just wanted to spare him. Schepp pictured Doro lying on that very same chaise-longue, thinking of Dana, thinking of kissing her, which was almost as bad.

  When he opened his eyes again – only because he felt a cold draught streaming towards him – he found himself kneeling on the floor, his head buried in the hollow at the base of Doro’s throat, his arm firmly around her rigid shoulders. He immediately relaxed this ardent embrace and looked at Doro sternly, questioningly, imploringly, but her waxen face did not respond. Then he sought certainty by sniffing frantically as if that would help him discover what she had taken with her as her secret. There was still a familiar scent about her although the penetratingly bad smell that didn’t blend comfortably with it was getting stronger, mingling with the traces of her perfume, a sweetish drift of that aroma. Schepp inhaled it like a man newly in love, stopped abruptly, looked at Doro, whispered to her: You are right, when you can’t smell other people, you’re really dead, how sad.

  She was rigid all over now, completel
y cold. When he checked one last time to see whether her hands were still folded, or rather lying hooked together, large marks of livor mortis had emerged over her entire body. The discolouration had made rapid progress. All at once he shivered; he went to the window to close it, then abruptly opened it again.

  Yes, that was better. Standing at the window and looking down into the street, Schepp realized that he was now much worse off than he had been in the morning. He had been deserted twice over, a man who had even lost his wife. His wife, what an unthinkable thought! She had fallen hook, line and sinker for Dana and her fairy tales, today she had come close to setting out in pursuit of a chimera. Should he be relieved that Death had intervened, sparing him that humiliation at least?

  Standing at the window looking down into the street, Schepp realized that things were even worse than that. For he had also lost Dana again today, more finally than the first time. Jealousy was added to disgrace. She might not have, well, indecently assaulted his wife, but what of it? She had revenged herself thoroughly; her lying tales of his ‘affairs and would-be affairs’ had played a considerable part in what had happened to Doro. To Doro and to him. Or in what had not happened. How could Dana have hated him so much, when apart from a silly misunderstanding – and a slap in the face, admittedly – there had been nothing at all between them? Well, almost nothing.

  There he stood, the betrayer betrayed and at odds with himself. Hadn’t Doro’s betrayal been much more complete than his? Wasn’t life nothing but betrayal? And, even more, being betrayed? And hadn’t he known it all along? Known that even behind Doro’s everyday smile some kind of abyss lay waiting. In the end, of course, she too had been taken in by Dana’s lies and, above all, had been abandoned. There Schepp stood at odds with himself. Yet for all the thoughts of Doro and Dana that flashed through his mind, he could no longer deny what had happened. He had lost them both twice over – Dana a few years before, but really only now, Doro a few hours before, but really only now.

  ‘High time,’ he heard himself suddenly announcing to the chestnut trees, ‘high time I get her out of my sight.’ He turned back, took a step towards the desk, he’d get the doctor, and if the undertaker wanted to come too, fine with him. Doro’s remains had to go right away. Right away.

  Out of the way.

  Or should he first correct her corrections to Marek the Drunkard? Then tear up each page into tiny scraps? How difficult it was to gather all the pages of the manuscript again, not at all easy to pretend you were just picking up some scattered bits of paper. When had he dropped them? Why were they thrown all over the room? So many sheets of paper. So many.

  Eventually it become easier, faster. Schepp glided across the parquet, was almost hovering in the air, swirling and fluttering and prancing, pirouetting around all the little dishes and shells and candle-holders and copper plates that he had collected for years, and that were now arranged anew on the floor. He apologized to each item with a polite little bow, welcomed every sheet of paper with open arms, picking it up, reading its number out loud. In the end he was holding the complete manuscript again. Or at least what he thought was the manuscript.

  At least now I know why I wrote it, he told himself wrathfully. Because with Hanni and Nanni and Lina and Tina and whatever they might be called – how did it go on? No, I wanted to have something I could roll up at the right moment. And with this rolled-up manuscript he struck himself, his leg, his arm, his stomach, his forehead, keeping time with his bafflement. And felt nothing. He saw the fly settling nearby, his gesticulations didn’t shoo it away, so he killed it. More as part of the time he was beating than as a deliberate act, a matter of course; he didn’t really notice that he’d done it.

  Before he could go completely mad he sat down on the floor, leaned against one of the shelves at the far end of the room, as far from the chaise-longue as possible, surrounded by the scattered testimony to his life. Hadn’t he wanted to say a dignified goodbye? Bitterness overwhelmed him, bitterness at having missed out on the most important thing, something that could no longer be questioned, no longer be rectified. Being dead, he thought, means first and foremost that you can’t apologize, can’t forgive and be reconciled, there’s nothing left to be forgiven, only to be forgotten. Or rather there’s nothing to be forgotten, only forgiven. None the less, he suddenly heard himself quietly asking Doro to forgive him, assuring her of his love, thanking her for having been there, for staying with him for so long.

  After that he was so tired. Marvelled at the gentle mood of the late afternoon, the mild light, the fresh air trying to mingle with the musty process of decomposition that had quietly set in. How easy everything was suddenly, because it was so difficult, wasn’t that so? Schepp was talking to himself, Schepp was beside himself. In the golden glow of glorious autumn, the first shadows were getting ready to emerge from the corners of the room and then to gather quickly. The street lights would be on soon outside, a damp mist would settle on the streets and fog creep out of front gardens. Did he want to pray? Yes, very much, but to what god? Schepp was alone in the world, entirely alone, inconsolably alone, powerless. He had to accept how even inanimate objects recoiled from him, the walls, even what was closest to him, seemed immeasurably far away, to be reached only by dint of great effort and self-abnegation. There was nothing to do but sit here in reverence and wait until the pattern of the parquet had dispersed entirely in the twilight. Then maybe he would be able to fly, or to fall. If on the balance sheet of life everything sooner or later had to be paid for, had an invisible price to be paid sooner or later, if every hour of happiness had to be weighed up against ten of unhappiness – then for twenty-nine years he had been happy (or maybe a few years less, never mind, came to the same thing), so he might as well be unhappy for the rest of his life, it was only fair.

  Then he didn’t think any longer, he only sat. Sat and gazed into the eternal process of birth and decay or whatever it was all fundamentally about, linking one thing with another, that one with yet another, flowing over and into it, mingling and dispersing and in the end leaving only a continuous grey expanse. It was quiet inside him now, there wasn’t a breath of air. He was no longer searching its darkest folds and the gloom could rise and spread. Soon he was filled with darkness, held frozen until the day when he, too, would –

  Before he withdrew into this darkness, it occurred to Schepp that he could hope for nothing on this day, that he was abandoned even for the time after death, and once there he would have an eternity in which to settle his accounts, in the next world too he would have to pay with unhappiness for the happiness he had accepted unthinkingly in this life, in the end had gambled away. He almost ventured a little laugh, almost. But in fact he observed total silence as he waited for night to fall, and as the silence rose around him he thought again of Doro’s cold, dark lake. Thought of himself standing on its shore, thought how he would have to enter it alone, and suddenly he began to shiver. How clammy he felt; was this possible? Then he started, opened his mouth wide and gasped.

  The lake lay before him.

  The lake about which he had heard so much, about which he had thought and spoken so often, the lake in which, all the same, he had never entirely believed. For the first time he no longer had to imagine what it might look like, he saw it, the lake was there. How vast it was! How beautiful! The pull it exerted was powerful, unmistakable, it was drawing him towards it. Schepp scrambled up, Schepp got to his feet. But wasn’t he mortally afraid? He would have preferred to stay where he was, dissolving into the landscape that he guessed was there as a backdrop to the lake. In fact he couldn’t see anything. No bleak, rocky mountain panorama, no shadowy outlines of mountain pines, least of all an island or a far shore. Only the lake’s frosty desolation. Above it a wan sky without moon or stars, distant lightning flashing through it as if a great brightness were breaking beyond the horizon, its reflection lighting the scene. A rustling somewhere, something crackling in the undergrowth or an owl hooting, that wouldn’t have surpri
sed him, but all he could hear was that there was nothing to be heard, nothing at all. A deathly silence. How unruffled was the lake’s glittering surface! A leaden silver covered it, and beneath it waited the death that came after death. Schepp’s skin prickled even though he hadn’t yet taken off his clothes. If Doro’s little hand had been within reach, he would have taken it and held it as tightly as he possibly could have done. The lake was far too dark for one soul alone, and cold. He knew merely by looking at it that it was cold.

  If only it hadn’t been for that smell! As if Doro had forgotten to change the water for the flowers, as if their stems had begun to rot overnight, filling the air with the sweet-sour aroma of decay. Schepp noticed it at once, that subtle sense of something Other in the midst of ordinary life, slightly skewing the morning. The darkness of his dreams had affected him powerfully, he had awakened in fear several times, had just now nearly fallen out of bed as a result. He had forgotten to put on his glasses, but he had no problem finding the way; after all it had been his way into the new day for almost thirty years and he knew every segment in the parquet by its creaking. Autumn brightness shone from the far end of the room, turning every object into some sparkling, blurry entity, eventually merging into diffuse patches of colour, and the urgency of the world was muted for Schepp to a few brown, beige and gentle golden hues. On the other hand, nearly blind as he was, he could distinguish the specific aromas of the old books, the furniture, the chaise-longue all the more distinctly. He immediately picked up Doro’s scent, even though he couldn’t see her anywhere he knew that she was there, probably sitting at his desk. Schepp stopped, squinting so that he could at least discern outlines, and as he checked the way his hair lay over his bald patch, stroking the back of his head, he told himself that this morning he was a happy man.