My father left his hand on my head while he talked to me, making it difficult for me to see his face with his arm blocking my field of vision. In the meeting minutes, there are no pauses or verbal fillers. His fluid manner of speaking suggests that he had prepared his remarks in advance. Because I’ve read the report several times since then, it’s difficult for me to distinguish what I remember from what I read. In any case, I think I remember that I perceived the meeting as loving and positive and that the reason for parting ways was clear to me, but didn’t frighten me. To me, my biofather was an unknown, but friendly man who was in some way connected to me. And now he was calmly explaining to me that we would not meet again. I recall his forearm, its thin curly brown hair, and the vague smell of a popular deodorant that I had recognized from other men his age. There was something familiar and at the same time foreign about him. He was like the men who would show up in our classrooms from time to time, talk to one child or another, and then disappear again.
When my biofather had finished talking, the caregiver stepped back into the room and led me out. From the corner of my eye, I saw my father turn to the head of the institute and exchange a few words with him; his face was filled with disappointment and anger, which seemed to contradict the previous interaction. I couldn’t forget that face for a long time, and later came to the conclusion that my biofather had been dissatisfied with my behavior towards him. He had probably expected a livelier, more active child, someone upset about his departure, crying, or even reaching for a hug.
Seeing a similar expression on Masters’s face when I left his office yesterday brought back the self-disappointment I had felt after meeting my father. Just as I read over the minutes from the conversation at the institute, I tried to remember every detail of my reactions during the meeting with Masters in order to evaluate my misconduct. I’ve come to the conclusion that Masters interprets my request to telecommute as a withdrawal and admission of failure, maybe even as a surrender.
-
12
It’s as if all of my communication channels are having a software malfunction at the same time. The data analyst hasn’t decrypted the diary application yet. Within a short time, the frequency of incoming messages has been cut in half. In the last four days, I’ve only had one single Call-a-Coach™ request, which was handled within five minutes. Most of the time, my tablet is silent. I even get fewer advertising messages.
Royce still hasn’t posted a rating yet, either. His last login is indicated as today’s date, 9:50 a.m.
I click my way through his profile in search of any clues I might have missed. Something showing that I was wrong about him. Showing that we’re not a good match. All of the information is still the same. His values largely correspond to my values. Nothing deviates from the memory I have of him.
I write him a short note via the agency’s messaging service: Royce, how about a second round? Let me know.
I delete the text from the message field without pressing enter. Then I type it again, word for word. I add an if you have time and delete it again. Then I delete let me know.
Royce, how about a second round? My finger lingers just above the return key.
I’ve made a list of possible reasons why he hasn’t contacted me yet: He hasn’t seen my review. He’s too busy. Something happened, an illness or an emergency at work.
Up to now, I’ve always been able to assess interpersonal communication with a certain level of accuracy. I’ve never found myself clinging to any misguided notions about whether someone would or wouldn’t contact me after a date. I was sure that Royce would get in touch. I’m sure that Royce will get in touch. He just needs a reminder.
Royce, I had fun the other night. How about a second round?
After sending the message, I click the refresh button a few times to see if he’s read it yet. No green checkmark appears. Maybe it’s an application error. Maybe he wrote to me long ago and the message didn’t get through.
I check the spam folder. Empty.
I hit refresh. The page comes up again, unchanged. I enter Royce Hung’s name into the search fields for medical facilities. No results. I write him another message: I hope everything’s okay?
He doesn’t respond. The time and date of his last login are still the same. I reload the page again and again. Log out, in, out, in.
In the evening, still no answer. I can’t stand being in front of the monitor anymore and wind up outside on the street. I haven’t just gone for a walk like this in years. It feels strange. My steps get faster and faster as if someone else were controlling my legs. I must look like I’m rushing to an important business meeting. The rhythmic sound of my steps on the asphalt.
As teenagers, Andorra and I would sometimes get restless and go outside, aimlessly walking around without knowing where we wanted to go. I listen to my steps, close my eyes for a few seconds, go blind. Then I tear them open, afraid of colliding with something or someone, or walking off the sidewalk and into the road. There are hardly any pedestrians, but an incredible number of cars. Rush hour. I imagine the people sitting inside behind their windshields, staring at the rear lights of the car in front of them.
A man comes towards me. His pace is as fast as mine. We race past each other. Then I’m seized by the thought that it could’ve been Royce Hung. I turn around and see his silhouette shrinking in the distance.
I have to stop thinking about him.
The city smells like machines. All industrial buildings are located outside of the city in the peripheries. Maybe it’s an illusion, my nose is no longer used to the outside air and is misinterpreting it.
The smell of the peripheries always made me nauseous as a child. I would already start to feel sick days before a compulsory casting. During the castings, I had to take medication to avoid vomiting on stage. The heat, the smog. My skin grayish, sickly after just a few hours. I showered several times a day. Andorra made fun of me. She didn’t mind the dirt and the bad air. She was excited when the next casting approached. She believed in being chosen, in making the early breakthrough. I reminded her of the statistics and that we weren’t dependent on being chosen. That our education at the institute separated us from the unpredictability of a casting jury. But Andorra lost any semblance of being a rational person when it came to our future. When I had long since given up on the dream of high-rise diving, she forced me to continue training with her for the castings. For a while, our morning trainings started so early that we could hardly sit up by the time we got to breakfast.
All of a sudden, I’m standing in front of a bar. Based on the logo, it’s part of a cheap chain. I look in through the window. The interior is the same as in all of their other locations: an oval bar with bar stools in the middle, upholstered seating areas along the walls. It’s decorated in the retro-trash™ style with red walls, golden candlesticks, and baroque mirrors interspersed with flat screens.
It’s been about ten years since I’ve been to such a place. As teenagers, Andorra and I sometimes ended up in a bar on our nightly excursions.
I’m overcome with a feeling of shame. I don’t want to remember it. But I go in and sit at the bar anyway. The seating niches are occupied by people with low to middle pay grades. They’re here on the break between their day and night jobs. Their ties loosened, blazers on the coat racks.
One woman stands out. She’s sitting in a corner niche with four men. The men are all wearing similar run-of-the-mill business suits, maybe even the same brand. The woman, in contrast, is wearing a striking evening gown made of a shimmery fabric. Her hair is pinned up in a complicated hairstyle. Her long earrings turn in the flickering light of the screens. From time to time she laughs, her eyes wander through the room and stop on one of the screens. A short papavid™ is being played on the news. It shows it-girl Roma waving from a hotel window. The caption announces that her health has gotten worse. There are also clips of fans placing candles and f
lowers in front of the hotel and holding banners up to the window: We love you. Get well soon. According to the documents in the data archive, Aston has been commissioned for an editorial with Roma. He’s hardly spent any time in his apartment in the last few days.
I order a flydive™. Then I remember that it’s Riva’s signature drink. I change my order to a vodka martini. The bartender shrugs and pours out the tonic that was already in the glass.
Masters will reproach me for drinking alcohol without any social obligation. I think about just not putting it in my nutritional profile, but then decide against it. I tell myself what I tell my clients: once you start with self-deception, it’s hard to stop. That’s what the logs are for: to capture moments you’re not proud of. That’s the only way you can confront it and do it differently next time, better.
I swig the alcohol like juice, feel it enter my bloodstream, relax my body. It takes away the unpleasant feeling that has settled in me. Soon I will have access to Riva’s diary and solve the mystery of why she broke her contract. I will guide her back to the right path.
The woman in the evening dress smiles at me and raises her glass from across the room. I lift my glass, notice that it’s empty, and order another.
She comes over, sits next to me.
—Boys club, she says with a nod towards the sitting area in the corner.
I take my martini from the bar, we toast. She’s drinking a flydive™. My facial expression must have been too obvious. She looks from her glass to me and back.
—Not a fan of the flydive™?
—No, I am, I say. Just a few bad associations. The woman nods to me, almost conspiratorially.
—I can imagine.
—No, no. I didn’t mean it that way.
—No, me neither, the woman laughs.
I wish she would go back to the corner.
I feel a dragging pain around my temple.
I take my tablet out of my pocket and open my pain log, enter the time and type of headache. The woman stays in her seat, catches a glimpse of my display, nods understandingly.
—I also have problems with chronic headaches, she says.
I empty my glass in one go. My throat burns, I am warm.
—I have to go, I say.
—But you only just got here.
—Back to work, I say.
—What do you do?
—Accountant.
Keeping with its retro style, the bar has no pay-point™. You have to pay the bartender. I want to ask for the bill, but the bartender has disappeared behind the counter.
—Are you worried about Roma, too? the woman asks.
I turn away, look around the room for the bartender.
—He’ll be back soon, the woman says, as if he’d told her personally.
I sit down again.
The woman looks at me, awaiting a reply.
—Do you have other plans? I ask, looking at her dress.
She shakes her head.
—Last night I dreamed that Roma died, she says. I couldn’t get myself to calm down for hours. Do you know that kind of dream? It seems so real that you can’t shake the feeling, even after you wake up? As if the dream were stuck to your body?
Andorra often had dreams like that. In my memory, I’m holding her, embracing as much of her body as I can. She’s curled up like a hedgehog, but her back is soft. She needs someone to hold her, to whisper to her so quietly that she can only hear it when your mouth is right against her ear: Everything’s gonna be okay™, everything’s gonna be okay™. My breath disturbs the fuzz on her earlobes, she presses her ears against my lips like feelers. She was crying in her sleep, wailing, the nightmare is still in her body. Everything’s gonna be okay™, I whisper and systematically stroke her like a cat from head to tail. Andorra presses herself into my hand and it’s almost as if my hand weren’t resting on the fabric of her institute nightgown, but directly on her skin, which is damp and cold from sweat.
Andorra’s nightmare periods sometimes lasted several weeks. Her own cries always woke me up before her. Sleep seemed to be a natural state for Andorra. I envied her for it. She didn’t have to worry about it in the evening like I did. As soon as she closed her eyes, she drifted off. The nightmares seemed to me like a fair price to pay. It was only when she lay in my arms, exhausted by the horror that her own mind had conjured, when I could feel her fear in my body, that I felt ashamed of the thought. I tried hard to make up for the betrayal, to release her from the clutches of her nightly terrors. When Andorra’s breath got quiet and steady again, becoming almost inaudible, I would allow myself to close my eyes and hope that my consciousness would soon be carried away, too.
The bartender appears from a door I hadn’t noticed before. He greets the woman next to me and pours her a new drink.
—She wants to pay, she says, looking at me.
The bartender holds the device out to me, I press my tablet against it.
—Nice to meet you.
The woman holds out her hand and I shake it briefly.
—Feel better! I hope your headache improves.
I thank her and quickly walk out of the bar. In the door, I turn around again and see that the woman is already engrossed in conversation with the barkeeper. When she notices that I’m looking at her, she turns to me and waves.
When I get back to my apartment, Riva’s in bed. Motionless. I listen closely to the audio from the bed camera to make sure she’s breathing. Aston is in the studio preparing for his job tomorrow.
When I activate my Call-a-Coach™ profile, I already have two requests. I breathe a sigh of relief. The inactive period seems to be over. I let my finger hover over the callback button on the touch screen, but can’t get myself to click on it. Instead, I open the partnering agency app and check Royce Hung’s profile. No activity. Only the last messages I sent, unread: Royce, I had fun the other day. How about a second round?
I lean back and close my eyes. According to my employment contract, I have to respond to therapy requests within half an hour of being called. One of the clients added a short text describing his problem. The subject heading is: Fear of termination, and then: I made a big mistake.
The other caller didn’t specify a subject, only a category: sexuality. I click the callback button. The man answers on the first ring.
—Thank you for calling me back.
His voice profile identifies him as Zeus Schmidt, freelance data analyst. What if it’s actually Royce Hung, I suddenly think. It could very well be that he gave me a fake name. Many users take an alias for their public dating profiles and don’t reveal their identity until they’re sure of the relationship. I’ve always had problems distinguishing people by their voices. Maybe because I focus on so many other aspects when I talk to people. And the individual character of someone’s voice seems the least important.
—How can I help you? I ask, and then, following the inquiry procedure guidelines: Please state your full name, your department, and your position.
I confirm the data stored in the language and identity profile on the server.
—It’s a private problem, the man says, not a business problem in the strict sense.
—That makes no difference. This service covers all kinds of problems.
I hear a sound created by a jerking movement, the friction from his face rubbing against on the microphone: the man is nodding.
In general, my clients prefer to use headsets for their consultations rather than the speaker function. Even if they’re alone in the room, it gives them a heightened sense of privacy, an atmosphere of trust.
—What’s it about? I ask.
I’m also wearing a headset, as it allows me to move freely during consultations without impairing the quality of the conversation. I walk slowly around the room, first to the window, then to the kitchen. I run my left fingers across the
furniture.
—I’ve got something going on with a woman who’s not sterilized.
I make a sound to confirm that I’m listening and that he should continue talking. It also suggests that I’ve heard about this type of thing many times before. That it’s a known problem and can therefore be overcome.
—And now I can’t get it up.
—Understandable, I say. That’s a very natural reaction.
Again I hear the sound of the microphone brushing against his skin, I imagine the man sitting upright in an office chair and nodding.
—Have you had a vasectomy?
—Yes, but sometimes that doesn’t work.
I sit down on one of the bar stools at the kitchen counter and nod, just as I imagine the man on the other end of the line is doing.
—I’m nodding, I say.
—What?
—I’m nodding.
—What does that mean?
—I agree with what you’re saying.
—Okay.
—Because you can’t hear me nod, I told you.
—Okay.
—Or can you hear it?
The man is silent, I only hear his breath.
—I heard you nodding a few times before, that’s all.
I’ve never made such meaningless statements during a consultation before. I never follow any sort of procedural model. I’m already going over the conversation he’s going to have with the Call-a-Coach ™ human resources representative in my head. He’ll probably schedule it by tomorrow morning at the latest, if not tonight, depending on how many overtime hours he works.
The High-Rise Diver Page 9
