The High-Rise Diver

by Julia Von Lucadou

  —It’s strange, I say, when you have as many non-visual consultations as I do. You start to hear certain gestures, purely physical gestures, you know?

  I hear the man nodding.

  —Once, I say, I had this client, one of your colleagues, maybe even someone from your department. I think he may have satisfied himself during a consultation.

  I hear how the man’s breathing changes, how he holds his breath for a moment.

  —I’m not sure, I say, if he was aware that I could hear his movements., His manner of speaking had hardly changed. He must have done it many times before, he was almost completely in control.

  I imagine the man getting up from his office chair, stunned, and now wondering whether he should inform the complaints office or pull down his pants.

  —We talked about very mundane things, he was nervous about an important presentation; he’d been promised a promotion if everything went well at the conference. And he just took it out in the middle of the conversation and masturbated. You might be wondering, how can I be sure, but I can interpret the sounds on a call really well after so many years of experience. You collect new information with each conversation, which then creates connections in the brain and refines certain skills over time.

  I hear no movement on the current call anymore.

  —I didn’t hear him ejaculate, either he waited until the conversation was over or he was extremely controlled …

  —Listen, the man says. If I were you, I would delete this conversation recording from the log.

  —Which do you think it was?

  —I’m hanging up now and we’re going to pretend we never spoke, okay?

  I nod instead of saying anything. I nod until the man has ended the conversation.

  Then I delete the callback from the log and the archive data, I delete the cache and the hidden file elements. I can’t stop nodding until I’m in the shower with hot water running over my body, burning against my skin.

  The half-hour callback period for the second client has already elapsed. I consider calling him anyway, but an overwhelming tiredness takes hold of me and I barely make it to bed, naked, my skin red and hot. In the morning I don’t wake up until the alarm goes off for the third time, even though I can’t remember hitting snooze twice.

  -

  13

  Masters has summoned me for an unscheduled performance review. This type of invitation is always paired with the anxiety that your supervisor intends to criticize your work, but now I’m afraid he wants to fire me.

  When I arrived at the PsySolutions building, I ducked into a corner in the green room to take a breath before entering the lion’s den.

  Please come to my office as soon as you get here. HMM.

  The message appears on my tablet just as I’m about to sit down on one of the waiting-room chairs.

  —Fuck, I say almost aloud into the empty room and immediately regret it.

  I feel the throbbing of an oncoming cluster headache. Despite my interest in the psychosomatic, I’m annoyed by my body’s psychosensitivity. I stick to what I advise my clients to do. I breathe deeply. In a calming tone, I say to myself: Your emotion doesn’t belong here. Your emotion comes from the past.

  Are you here? HMM.

  The notification sound reverberates in my skull. In the hallway, I make sure that the security camera can’t record any change in my gait. No emotional disturbance.

  My knocking sounds as it should: firm and short.

  Masters is sitting cross-legged on the floor of his empty office. It’s gotten even more austere since my last visit. There’s not even a desk. Just the floor-to-ceiling windows and the potted plant standing in front of them, as if it were enjoying the view.

  —Good morning.

  —You asked me to come by?

  Trained ears would be able to hear the tension in my voice, the overstretched vocal chords, the higher pitch than usual. I hope that Masters, as always, is too busy with more important things to be listening that closely.

  —Sit down.

  Masters gestures to the floor in front of him. My body awkwardly moves towards him, knees first. The fatigue suddenly makes me weak. My back curves in a way that must make me look like a human ball on the camera. I try to straighten my back. My eyes land on the door behind me, it’s open. I jump up.

  —Leave it, leave it. I just need to fire you real quick, then you’re right back out.

  My heart is pounding. Masters must have heard about my Call-a-Coach™ conversation. The client must have filed a complaint against me. My activity tracker starts beeping because my heart rate is too high. I can feel my heart beating in my throat. I try to breathe calmly, just as I advise my patients to do in such moments. Breathe away the panic. My body is frozen.

  Masters laughs.

  —Ms. Yoshida, how long have we known each other now?

  —Just about four months.

  —Then you should know by now: I’m kidding. I’m kidding. Relax. I’m just kidding.

  My heart beats a little slower. I hear the blood rushing to my ears. I barely manage to slide down onto the floor without lying down entirely. Just stretched out on the ground like that.

  —I read your failure list, Masters says. You hit the nail on the head with a lot of things.

  My heart starts racing again.

  Inconclusive results.

  No improvement of overall condition. Conflict intensifying.

  Complete refusal to cooperate on the part of the subject.

  Under the file name Failures, I created a spreadsheet listing all possible criticisms of my work. The document was for self-monitoring purposes, so that I could work to improve any issues. The items fill two pages, neatly written one after the other. I should’ve remembered that Masters also has access to my private folder on the server.

  I try to nod to show that I am listening and contemplative. I’m suddenly filled with the fear that my nodding will drag me off course again like it did the night before. That I could say something I don’t want to say. I bite my teeth firmly together. As a child, I was so afraid of saying something inappropriate that my jaw muscles were regularly sore.

  —You still don’t have a clear diagnosis, Masters says.

  —No.

  I close my mouth immediately after speaking, my teeth resolutely pressed together. I stop nodding.

  —And your interventions have been unsuccessful, Masters says. The subject doesn’t read your messages. She doesn’t talk to you.

  —She went to see Dom Wu, I say. That was a step in the right direction.

  —Not much came of it, Masters says. You have to push harder, Ms. Yoshida.

  —I’m on it, I say. According to the legal department, we can start with harsher penalties tomorrow.

  —Then start immediately.

  I nod.

  —The data analyst is collecting more childhood data, I say. There are still some inconsistencies.

  —What do you want with childhood?

  Masters shakes his head and then turns to the window, away from me.

  —A first trigger, a traumatic experience.

  —Stick to the methods of modern psychology, Ms. Yoshida! Don’t waste your resources. Childhood is over, childhood is irrelevant. You know the studies. Riva Karnovsky grew up in the peripheries. Everyone grew up in the peripheries. So, that alone has no influence. It’s better that you concentrate on solving the problem. The implementation of therapeutic interventions.

  —I think that the measures will be more successful if they’re based on the findings of the situation analysis.

  —According to the timeline, the situation analysis should be done already. Investors expect results. Measurable changes. I can’t go to the steering committee meeting with the current implementation status.

  I nod and keep clenching my
teeth together. Masters looks at me. I sense that he’s noticed the tension in my jaw muscles. I relax my mouth and smile.

  —We need a plan of action, Ms. Yoshida. Riva Karnovsky is a tough nut to crack, so you’ll have to use stronger equipment. We need your creativity. You were recommended to me as someone who’s creative. Think of something. If the woman doesn’t cooperate with you, then maybe she’ll cooperate with someone else, if you know what I mean.

  —Yes.

  —Are you also still working for Call-a-Coach™?

  —Only on call at night.

  —That’s too much, Ms. Yoshida. A project this important requires your full attention. You can’t give one hundred percent with a second job. But we hired you one hundred percent, didn’t we?

  I nod and try to relax my facial muscles while pressing my lips together.

  —I can’t forbid you from doing that job, Ms. Yoshida. But, from what I’ve seen, I can tell that you have too much on your plate.

  Again I wonder if Masters listened to my botched consultation. In the interview he praised my telephone counseling work in particular. How can I make him understand that I can’t give up Call-a-Coach™ because I need the credits? That my living space is actually too expensive for my income level and that even a single lost client can mean relocation.

  I look over at the potted plant. A drop of water drips from a leaf and onto the smooth flooring beneath it. He must have watered it just before I got here.

  As far as I know, building regulations forbid real plants in the offices.

  —Do you understand me? Masters asks.

  —Loud and clear, Mr. Masters.

  Masters smiles and leans back.

  —You see? Now calm down, stretch your legs. Peace is paramount. Why do you think I’m doing this digital cleanse? My mindfulness scale is almost at one hundred percent.

  —Congratulations.

  —So, listen, think of something radical! I’d like to present a completely new strategy at the investor meeting. Got it?

  —Got it.

  —Send me a proposal by tomorrow. Then we can discuss the details.

  —Okay.

  I push myself off the floor and shake my supervisor’s hand.

  —Firm handshake, Masters says. I love it. That’s why I hired you.

  When I get to my apartment, I don’t see Riva on the split screen. I zoom in on every corner of the room and finally find her behind the couch, flat on the floor, staring at the ceiling. Sometimes it feels like she knows she’s being watched. As if she’s intentionally hiding from me in the moments when I’m not paying attention.

  I create a new file: Action plan. But I can’t concentrate.

  I click around on Zarnee’s blog. It’s the only thing that significantly lowers my heart rate. It’s more effective than any mindfulness exercise. I hate that I can’t resist the content, even though the posts disgust me. On Casting Queens™, I always hated the segments where the presenters visited candidates in their run-down apartments or approached them on the street. It made me queasy whenever they left the clean stage area. Andorra, on the other hand, was always fascinated by the peripheries.

  —In the peripheries it gets so hot sometimes that people aren’t allowed to go outside for days, she once said. You can’t even imagine.

  We sat under the UV screens on the institute roof and drank our vitamin drinks.

  —How do you know? I asked.

  —I was there.

  —We were there together, I said, we’re there together every year and it’s never been that hot.

  —You were never really outside, you were only in the casting parlors.

  —You never went outside either.

  —You weren’t there.

  I knew Andorra was lying. It would be impossible to get past the security checks and cross the border without a permit or registered escort.

  Andorra lied a lot, she thought that lies made life more exciting. That it didn’t count as a lie if you only changed a few details and basically agreed with what was being said.

  —You went to the peripheries without me? I asked her.

  —Yeah. One time when you were taking the aptitude test all day. I got myself an excursion pass and went.

  —Why didn’t you tell me about it?

  She shrugged and tilted her head. She looked me right in the eye in a way that only she did. Then she put her index finger in front of her mouth.

  —You would have blabbed, she said.

  The view from the institute’s roof terrace was not very good. The building was smaller than the ones around it. Sometimes we looked for our reflections in the glass walls that towered in front of us.

  —But what if I blab now? I asked her. Andorra slowly ran her finger over my lips.

  —You have very soft lips.

  I snapped at her finger and held it between my teeth. Andorra screamed and I let go. I left small dents in her skin.

  —You were never in the peripheries, I said.

  Media Usage Log Archive No.: Bc11

  Employee: @PsySolutions_ID5215d (Hitomi Yoshida)

  Content: familymatters.org

  Media Type: Blog

  Security Category: Safe

  Usage History Data: Frequency of use medium, average three times per day.

  Closed Caption Track: “Hugs.srt”

  Most of you probably can’t imagine what it’s like to live with your biomother you see the pictures but you can’t really understand the feeling my biomother is always there and she always comes and hugs us she has such a warm soft round body like a protective shield that wraps around you so that nothing can happen to you as a child she always carried me when I was still a very little baby she never put me down even when she went to the bathroom now of course I’m too heavy for that but she still hugs me every day and gives me kisses and says that she’s proud of me and all those things

  -

  14

  Roma is sitting in the back of a dusky hotel room. The only daylight shines in through a tall window to her right, the rest are covered. It highlights her distinct profile even more. The chin, the lips, the nose, the forehead—all well-known from the media. Roma is positioned in such a way that every journalist who enters the hotel room immediately sees how beautiful she is, objectively beautiful.

  The Romacam™ website allows you to select different rooms at the press hotel. The choice of camera perspectives is limited. This is how they avoid diminishing the value of the professional visual materials.

  Roma’s assistants move around her like waves on a predetermined course. I click my way through the rooms until I find Aston. He’s sitting in a waiting room with other VJs, journalists, and photographers. When his name is called, an assistant has him put his fingerprint on the touch screen under the release agreement before bringing him into the room.

  —Sit in the armchair opposite her. Don’t go any closer than that chair. You can move around the room to take pictures, but you can’t get any closer.

  Aston nods and walks slowly towards Roma. His gait becomes more formal on its own, official. Roma takes advantage of the ten-minute break that she has scheduled between each press date. She holds her tablet as close to her ear as possible, presumably so that her fans can’t hear the messages that the tablet’s audio assistant is reading to her. One of her personal assistants bends over as close to her as possible without touching her. Rumor has it that a single touch could cost Roma her life. The assistant announces the new guest. Aston smiles when Roma looks over at him. She smiles back.

  —Just photos? Roma asks as Aston sits down in the designated chair.

  —Just photos.

  She nods and straightens up a little in the armchair, takes on a more intentional posture.

  —You may begin, one of the assistants says, suddenly standing behind him.
<
br />   Aston lifts his camera up to eye level. I imagine how Roma looks in the same position, but framed by his viewfinder. Clearer. How the frame accentuates the shape of her body. Emphasizes beauty. Creates meaning. He clicks the shutter release again and again, changing his position in his armchair, possibly uncertain of whether he should leave that spot.

  —Should I do anything differently? Roma asks.

  It seems to me like she is asking because she feels his hesitation and wants to make him more comfortable. She presents herself from all sides, turns her profile towards him, faces him directly, then looks past him, down, up, right into the camera.

  You can’t see her illness. Not from the security camera’s perspective. I expected her skin to be translucent, shimmering. I imagined her like a doll, exactly how she looks in the thousands of professional photos, exactly how she’ll look in the dozens of photos that Aston is supposed to add to the collection.

  Maybe it’s the lighting, the room is too dark, the only source of light is the afternoon sun from the one uncovered window.

  —It doesn’t show at all, Aston suddenly says. Roma freezes in motion.

  The words have barely escaped his lips when he presses them tightly together again, as if to prevent another outburst. You can see the horror on Aston’s face.

  People immediately start posting on the Romacam™ website at a rate of multiple comments per second. Did you hear that?—What the fuck?—That guy is the worst.—Doesn’t he have any manners?—Who the hell is this clown?—Aston Lieberman, that photographer who was dating Riva Karnovsky.—Is dating.—I heard they broke up.—Didn’t he kidnap her?

  You can’t really see the look on Roma’s face.

  I imagine her pupils completely dilated. Her face full of contempt.

  —Sorry, Aston says.

  The assistants are all standing at attention, ready to grab Aston by the arm and drag him out of the room. Their eyes are on Roma, the person behind the wheel.

  —I know, Roma says. You don’t see it so much here, it depends on the lighting. I prefer it that way, in the dark.