The High-Rise Diver

by Julia Von Lucadou

  —Where are you calling from?

  —From home, I’m home.

  —From your tablet? Your number is not registered.

  —It’s new. It’s a new device.

  —Okay, I see.

  —Is that a problem?

  —No. Of course not. What happened?

  She keeps sniffling. The sound makes my body tense up. One by one, each muscle stiffens, intensifying my neck pain. I can’t block out the image of the caller’s mucus being sucked back continuously.

  —Try to take deep breaths. In. Out. In. Out. You see.

  —What should I do now? she asks in a soft, strained voice. What am I supposed to do now?

  —May I ask you to describe the situation to me from the beginning? Unfortunately, I didn’t catch your name.

  —Talin, she says in an unexpectedly official tone. Omega Talin. My search yields fifteen results on her employer’s intranet employee list with that last name, but none with the first.

  —Ms. Talin, which department do you work in?

  —Kash Talin, she says with a slowly diminishing voice, as if someone were turning down the volume. I’m Kash Talin’s partner, he’s head of media relations for app content.

  —What happened exactly?

  She breathes, swallows, sniffs back the mucus again.

  —He’s cheating on me. He has someone else. He didn’t come home. I read his messages. What am I supposed to do now? If he leaves me, I’ll have to go back to the peripheries. We have a credit union. I lost my job three weeks ago. My life is over.

  On the online feedback form I estimate the acute suicide risk at forty percent, but then correct it down to thirty. Under reason for call I enter: partner/affair, under next actions: inform head of media relations.

  I type a short message to Kash Talin, subject: Urgent!

  —Are you sure the messages are real? Ms. Talin? Omega?

  Your wife suspects an affair. Call me. I press send.

  Ms. Talin breathes out, in, out. I imagine her chest rising and falling beneath her thin nightgown. Damp with cold sweat from the physical strain of panic.

  —I don’t know. They’re on his private account … He hasn’t come home.

  The acknowledgement of receipt comes immediately. I select the automatic response: still on the phone with her, and add: I’ll let you know when the line is free.

  —Ms. Talin, here’s what we’re going to do: together, we’ll go through a relaxation exercise, a visualization, a short inner journey. This will give your mind and body a little rest in order to help you think clearly again. Okay?

  —Okay.

  Her voice is still quieter than normal.

  —We’re going to get through this.

  —Okay.

  —We’re going to sort it all out.

  After I hang up with her, I talk to Kash Talin briefly.

  —End your affair, I say. You know what the end of a primary relationship does to productivity. Consider how much you want to stay in your relationship, assign it a percentage. If it’s over fifty percent, do something about it.

  I send him links to partner coaching sessions and online guides for long-term relationships.

  My ranking is immediately updated in the Call-a-Coach™ app on my tablet. I received the highest score for both the customer rating and the client rating on the tracking tool. It’ll only take a few more coaching sessions before I get promoted to master coach in my profile. I spend the rest of the night in a free bunk in the room-of-rest™ because it’s not worth going home at this point.

  -

  3

  —I don’t get you, Aston says.

  Lately, whenever he talks to Riva, he leaves gaps where the answers would go. As if they could be added later.

  —You have everything, Aston says. We’re doing fine. Why do you just want to throw it away?

  He lets his eyes wander across the designer furniture. Styled by a well-known interior designer, the sprawling living room has been featured several times on architecture blogs. In one of the most sought-after districts, reserved for VIPs and top earners. Riva and Aston live only three floors below the penthouse. Their view of the city is breathtaking. The natural light is particularly intense today. I constantly have to adjust the screen brightness whenever I change the camera view. I imagine the daylight slowly diminishing with each floor beneath them and then only artificial light remaining on the lowest level.

  —You earned it all, Aston says. You worked so hard.

  Riva is silent. She is sitting on the floor again, but closer to the window today, so she can look out. The top is nowhere to be seen. You can’t tell whether she’s actually looking at something outside or if she’s lost in her own thoughts.

  —What if I don’t want to work hard, she says at some point.

  I highlight the sentence bright yellow.

  —Then what do you want?

  Riva is silent. I set the daily count of her spoken sentences to one.

  According to the relationship profile created by the data analyst, Aston and Riva met almost five years ago at a morning event, an exhibition opening featuring works by a photographer who had just published an editorial on Riva. One of Aston’s former classmates, more successful and well known than he was at the time.

  There are many photos of their first meeting, but relatively few papavids™. After the brand Rivaston™ was established, the little existing video footage was posted and reposted in the lifestyle media and on Riva’s brand apps. New versions continuously appeared, recut and with new commentary.

  Aston must have recognized her from a distance, Riva Karnovsky, the high-rise diver. The press photographs from the event are staged to show her as the epitome of youth. Lively and impetuous, like a teenager in an overpriced designer dress. Her cheeks rosy, probably from alcohol, which her nutritional profile allows only for special occasions.

  According to the editor of a society blog, Riva’s face was beaming when she told them about her first conversation with Aston a few days later.

  Aston reached out to shake with one hand, while offering me a glass of champagne with the other. I had no idea who he was. His smile blew me away. I come to your performances as often as I can, he said, you’re an absolutely enchanting dancer. I said: Diver, you mean. No, dancer, he said—the way you move in the air, you dance, we forget that you’re hundreds of feet above the ground. When I watch you, I hear music in my head. And I said: Maybe you should talk to a doctor about that?

  Most of the photos from the evening already portray the two as a couple. Riva in the center, Aston at the edge of the picture, but present, broad-shouldered. In some pictures you can see the excitement on his face. He must have felt electrified by the public attention he had previously been denied.

  Media analysts initially speculated that they had known each other for weeks, if not months before that. They seemed to have a sense of familiarity in their movements, they were always turned slightly towards each other. Riva took his hand as she directed the VJs, showed the cameras her distinctive profile, changed poses, gave witty statements.

  From the start of her career, Riva was naturally talented at dealing with the media. She managed to put her own spin on the standard answers from the academy’s interview guide, so that they never sounded rehearsed or boring. After competitions, she took time for fans and the press. Smiled away her exhaustion. Answered the same questions over and over again with an air of authentic enthusiasm. Even before her first international victories, her advertising contracts were valued above the industry average.

  In the first year of their relationship, Aston, the handsome underdog, was primarily seen as Riva’s accessory, a boy toy in a series of boy toys. He only earned his status as an autonomous individual with the publication of his photo series Dancer_of_the_Sky™.

  —What can I do, Riva
? What do you want from me?

  In the current camera perspective, a medium long shot with Aston in the foreground, he seems taller than he actually is. Almost oversized compared to Riva, who is sitting on the floor in the background, hunched forward.

  His arms hang down on both sides of his upper body like foreign objects. As if he wouldn’t know what to do with them if they weren’t operating the camera around his neck.

  —Nothing, Riva says, I don’t want anything from you at all, Aston.

  Her tone reminds me of the educators at my childcare institute when they had to answer our questions.

  The most popular internet conspiracy theory about Riva’s resignation is that it has to do with relationship drama, that Riva left Aston for someone else and that he’s now forcing her to stay with him against her will. A well-known gossip blog regularly posts drone videos of them in their apartment, alleging violent situations. Analysis has shown that the images are current, but were manipulated after the fact. Fans post comments daily on Riva’s official website, encouraging her to be brave and urging the police to arrest Aston. Building security has been reporting break-in attempts by fans trying to “free” Riva.

  During the case-history briefing, Dom Wu pointed out that there had been multiple rumors over the past year about one of them having an affair. The data analyst tagged and examined all blog and news entries on the topic. His report notes that no useful photo or video material exists to confirm the rumors. The posts are all complete hearsay or misinterpreted recordings of harmless public appearances when Aston and Riva were in the company of colleagues or fans.

  However, we can’t entirely rule out the possibility, writes the analyst, that the PR department at the academy has had some incriminating material removed. Still, there are no direct indications of this. To date, Dom Wu and his staff have been cooperative and accommodating in every respect.

  Various sources accuse Wu of having an affair with Riva Karnovsky, as well as other students at the academy. Evidence of the court proceedings and out-of-court settlements cited in the articles could not be found in any of the legal databases.

  The data analyst added the metatags affair and Dom Wu to the relevant posts. They include photos and papavids™ of the two of them at training. Instances when Wu touches Riva, cut and edited in such a way that the physical contact could be interpreted sexually.

  —You can dissolve the credit union for all I care, Riva says.

  I set the daily count of her spoken sentences to three. Slight improvement in willingness to communicate, I write in the comment column.

  Aston doesn’t react immediately. He raises his shoulders. He turns away from Riva and goes to one of the photo walls. He touches one of the frames with his right hand. The picture is from the Dancer_of_the_Sky™ series. Riva from behind, on the diving platform, slightly blurred. Most of the image is taken up by the roof, which stretches out like a runway in front of her. A little generic. The body in the flysuit™ could just as easily be another jumper.

  —You were so happy, Aston says without turning around. When I took the photos. Do you remember? You once told me you were the happiest person I’d ever meet.

  I zoom in on Riva’s face to get a better look at her reaction. Masters advised me to use facial-interpretation software for my analysis, but moments like these are what I love most about my work. Moments of sudden understanding, like now, when Riva drops her mask of apathetic indifference and her face tells a story. The corners of her mouth shift by fractions of an inch, turn up, a barely perceptible smile. Nostalgic. Remembering better times. Then her eyes widen, she looks up, her jaw tenses, she clenches her teeth together. Her gaze turns to her partner, who still has his back to her. Lips pressed firmly together, a slight retraction of the lower lip.

  With such high resolution, the image on the monitor sometimes appears clearer than reality. More precise.

  Riva turns away again, looks down at her hands in her lap. Her facial expression returns to its former indifference, resignation. The facial muscles relax except for the eyebrows, which pull slightly together.

  —That’s true, she says. That’s what I said back then.

  Aston looks over at her, letting go of the picture frame. I select the camera closest to him, so that I can look over his shoulder. See what he sees. Riva on the floor in her summer dress, her hands in her lap, her head lowered. Almost a cliché. The fragile little girl. The damsel in distress.

  Aston walks into the shot towards her. He sits next to her. He puts his arm around her back and lets his head drop onto her shoulder.

  She withdraws. Almost in slow motion. Gradually moving away from him, so that he has to reposition himself upright in order to avoid toppling over.

  No matter what type of physical closeness Aston attempts, Riva’s reaction is always the same: to evade or squirm away. Never a recoil, which might be interpreted as fear or disgust. Instead, a neutral, slow retreat, like a snail winding its way into its shell, a fraction of an inch at a time.

  In the five and a half days since the live analysis began, there has only been one clearly sexual advance. At 10:17 p.m. on the second day of observation, Riva went into the bedroom. Aston followed her. I watched in night vision mode as Aston lay behind Riva and wrapped his arms around her. She slowly moved away from him and towards the wall, he followed. There was no talking. You could only hear the blanket rustling, suggesting more movement than was visible. I switched to the camera in the wall at bed level. It showed Riva from the front, her frozen stare, Aston’s face behind her, his eyes closed. He kissed her neck. She remained in her position. There was no more space in front of her to escape to. He pushed up her nightgown. She continued staring at the wall. Aston pressed closer to her. I could hear his breath getting louder, faster.

  Then he suddenly let go of her. He sat up on the edge of the bed, away from Riva. I couldn’t make out any change in her facial expression. She also didn’t pull her nightgown back down over her body, but instead remained in the same position until early morning.

  File AM217x can be found in the archive folder on Riva and Aston’s sexual relationship. It’s a sex tape that spread throughout the fan blogs and sports news sites in the second year of their relationship. It’s unclear whether it was released as a PR effort or came from a hacker. The video appears equally staged as authentic. It was shot with two cameras and is relatively well lit. At the same time, Aston and Riva are not always entirely recognizable, they move partly out of the frame at times. The video lasts fifteen minutes and shows the entire sexual act. Riva gets things started, she seems playful, but in control. Her facial expression at time code 07:32 stands out in my mind. She keeps her eyes closed and smiles like a Buddhist guru that I saw in a meditation video when I was seven years old. That video also left a lasting impression on me; the image of a person who is naturally at peace with himself and his surroundings.

  In the same folder: File KM287a. A papavid™ that doesn’t directly have to do with Aston and Riva’s relationship, but was given the metatag sexual content. The data analyst found it on an obscure society blog. It has only about two hundred thousand likes and was hardly shared. The video shows Riva in the early stages of her professional career, at about thirteen, accompanied by two teammates in a viewtower™ restaurant. The other two were dismissed soon after due to poor results.

  The girls are each holding up the same colorful cocktail, they clink glasses at the center of the table, giggle. A clear violation of the rules.

  One girl—Mercedes Martinova, according to the facetag—looks around the restaurant. She twists her head around in all directions. Discovers a group of men in their twenties and zeros in on one of them. The men see the invitation and direct all of their attention to the three girls. They send drinks to the table and then come over themselves. Shake the giggling girls’ hands. Try to kiss their turned cheeks.

  Riva seems younger than the other two,
more shy. Her face still looks like a child’s face. She hesitates before making space for one of the men next to her, barely answers his questions. She pulls her dress down over her knees.

  The picture wobbles when the VJ zooms in closer. He concentrates on Riva’s face, her lowered eyelids. Does he foresee that Riva will be the one to succeed?

  Suddenly, as the video zooms out, the mood changes. The young man puts his hand on Riva’s knee again and she doesn’t squirm away. He lets his hand drift along her smooth leg, lasered hairless, so that the flysuit™ can rest directly against her skin. A second, improved skin.

  Riva maintains her upright posture, continues to participate in the conversation, while his hand crawls up under the fabric, pixelated but discernable in the digital zoom. She laughs.

  The camera remains in the static shot until Riva gets up from the table, the man on her arm, and parts ways with the rest of the group. Then the camera follows the two of them along the hotel corridor. Their reflection is multiplied in the floor to ceiling mirrors; they are already tightly wrapped around each other.

  The VJ can be seen in the frame here. He maintains some distance as the two book a room at reception and then playfully run to the elevator with the keycard. Riva seems to have a spring in her step, full of anticipation.

  The VJ loses them behind the closing elevator doors and the video cuts off.

  As I click my way through the growing number of files on the server, I suddenly feel lost, as if I’m navigating uncharted waters. What if I miss the essential thing, always looking at a fragment of truth while never grasping its meaning? The more information I gather about Riva, the less sure I am of how to approach my research. There aren’t enough clear indications of a sudden psychological break and simultaneously too many potential hypotheses to pursue.

  The thought of failure makes me blush. I look around the room, even though I know there’s no one here.