“Yeah,” Volker says slowly, “it’s hard for him to deal with things like that.”
“He’ll manage,” I say a bit bitterly. “After all, I managed.”
“Please excuse me,” he says. “For god’s sake, I’m sorry.”
“No problem.”
I pick up the book again. I’m not sure what to do. Stay here or go back to bed or out into the garden? The magic of the morning has dissipated. Not sure when or why.
“I knew your mother,” Volker says as I’m deciding what to do.
“How?” I look at him.
“I was introduced to her once. She received an award, for . . . ” He squints and snaps his fingers. “It was an oddlyphrased citation. Something like ‘aiding successful integration.’ I was on the jury. Sometimes you get asked to do these types of things.”
“Poor you.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I shouldn’t complain. Anyway, that was the setting.”
“So you saw her in passing? Or did you hand her the envelope with the 300 euros in it?”
“Why so prickly? I talked with her. She was an extraordinary woman.”
“Did you notice that right away?” I ask excitedly.
“Yes,” he says calmly. “I did.”
I fidget with the pages of the book.
“That’s why I was so shocked to hear that she . . . ” He hesitates and cracks his knuckles. A horrible noise.
“ . . . was gunned down,” I say. “Shot in the head, in the stomach, in the . . . ”
His face changes.
“ . . . in the legs,” I continue. “Luckily in that order. I think as a result she didn’t feel much. Why are you so pale?”
His hands fall from the table to his lap and his fingers interlock.
“Oops,” I say. “Have I said something you didn’t already know?”
“Stop,” he says, not meeting my gaze. “Please stop.”
“Does it sound grisly? I thought you would have seen all the articles, because of your job. Every entry wound was thoroughly discussed in the press. Have to keep people up to speed.”
“Not those details,” he says barely audibly. “I haven’t read about those.”
“When it’s about someone you know a little, it all sounds very different, right?”
“Stop,” he says, suddenly getting up. “Please.”
“Volker,” I say slowly. “Did you possibly know my mother a little better than that?”
He sits down heavily and folds his hands. “What do you mean by that?” he asks.
“It’s crazy,” I say, “how small the world is.”
“What are you talking about?” he asks haltingly.
“Why don’t you want to admit it?”
“I don’t have anything to admit, Sascha,” he says and looks at me. His gray eyes are dim.
“Are you embarrassed? Was she not good enough for you? Or did she reject you? I can’t imagine that.”
“Sascha,” he says loudly, making me flinch, “what do you want from me?”
“What I want—from you?” I ask pensively back at him. He sits at the table with his shoulders slouched, rubbing the bridge of his nose between his eyes with his thumbs. He looks exhausted.
I’m beginning to feel sorry for him.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “It’s none of my business. And it’s ungrateful of me to give you such a hard time when you’ve been so hospitable to me and put me up here.”
“No, that’s nothing,” he says, pausing. “I just don’t want you to get the wrong idea about me.”
“Keep it a secret,” I say and look out the window at the cherry tree. “Come on, there’s no point in making our lives any more difficult. It seems to be a painful topic for both of us.”
In the afternoon he leaves again. He says he has a meeting. I hope it’s not that he can’t stand to stay in the house with me because he’s afraid of all my questions.
I would like to run my fingers through his hair. I’m curious whether it’s soft like Anton’s or wiry like mine.
I go out in the garden and lie on the grass, looking up at the clouds. Felix comes out.
“Oh, you’re here, too,” I say, surprised.
“And so are you,” he says.
“You stay home a lot?”
“Always,” he says. “I wanted to ask if you wanted to watch a DVD with me.”
“What movie?”
“I’ve got hundreds. Some new ones, too.”
I pull myself up and brush the grass off my jeans.
Inside I stand in front of his DVD collection for a long time. The same news channel from earlier is on the TV.
“I don’t like action films,” I say. “Or love stories. Or horror movies.”
Felix groans. “Is there anything you do like?”
“In theory, yes,” I say, continuing to look through the DVDs.
“Do you want to watch my favorite movie?” he asks, blushing a little.
I’m expecting it to be a James Bond movie or “Mission Impossible.” But Felix surprises me. “The Cider House Rules,” he says with a bit of embarrassment.
“The John Irving book,” I say with surprise. “He wrote the screenplay, too, right?”
“I don’t know,” he says, looking at me quizzically. “You want to watch it? It’s such a good movie.” He beams when I nod yes.
He rips open a bag of chips and starts the DVD. I sit Indian style on his bed. He stretches out beside me. At one stage his knee touches me briefly and he pulls it back as if he’s gotten an electric shock. I want to tell him I don’t bite, but I refrain from saying anything.
“It’s a bit sad,” he says five minutes in. “I don’t know if you . . . if it’s something you . . . ”
“Jesus,” I say, “I’m not going to cry on your shoulder because of a movie. I’ve only ever cried from a movie once.”
“Yeah?” he says. There’s curiosity in his voice but his eyes never leave the TV screen. “Which one?”
“Have you ever seen ‘My Girl,’ with Macaulay Culkin? He dies after getting stung by bees—he’s allergic to them. And at his funeral, his little girlfriend—whose father runs the funeral home—completely breaks down. She starts screaming that she has to give him back his glasses, that he can’t see without them. And he’s lying there dead. And she’s screaming, ‘He needs his glasses!’ I always get choked up and cry during that scene.”
“Oh,” he says, glancing sideways at me for a second. “Was it always like that or only since . . . ,” he trailed off.
“This was before my mother died,” I say. “It’s an old movie.”
“Oh,” Felix says again, grabbing the bag of chips.
After that we don’t talk anymore until the credits have rolled.
“Do you do that, too?” he says as he’s putting the DVD back in its case.
“What?”
“Watch the credits. Until the very end.”
“Yeah,” I say, surprised. “Always have.”
“Me, too,” says Felix. “At the theater, too. It bugs me when people jump up and leave as soon as the last scene is over. I always want to see who made the music and all that. So many people work on a movie—you have to give them their due by at least reading their names.”
“I haven’t been to the movies in ages,” I say. “It’s been years.”
“Did you notice anything about that movie?” Felix asks, blushing again.
“Like what?”
“The girl in the orphanage—the one who falls in love with Homer.”
“What about her?”
“She looks a little like you.”
“What?” I cry. “That weird chick?”
“She’s not weird,” he says indignantly. “She’s really pretty. She just has a weird role. And she plays it really well.”
I raise my eyebrows.
“You want to see?” Felix asks. He jumps off the bed and goes over to his computer. He hits a key. The screen lights up immediately—it was just sleeping, not off. I stand next to him and watch him open and close tabs.
“What am I . . . ,” I start to say, then see it—a website called Paz-de-la-Huerta.
“What’s that?” I say. “What is Paz de la Huerta?”
“It’s the girl. The woman—she’s 22 now.”
“What’s her first name?”
“Paz.”
“And why are you showing this to me?”
“So you can see. See that you look alike.”
He clicks on a photo gallery. I lean closer. He pushes the chair to me and kneels on the floor.
“See?” he says. “Am I right?”
I click through the gallery. It’s mostly stills from the movie we just watched. The dark-haired girl from various angles. Fifty-two shots.
“Well,” I say, “I guess she really isn’t that awful-looking. Especially when she smiles.”
“Told you,” he says. “Like you.”
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Unbelievable,” I say. “Who would go to so much trouble to build a site for such a minor actress? Somebody would have to be crazy—and have a crush on her. And have nothing better to do.”
Felix bites his lip.
“I run this site,” he says.
“You?”
“Yep, me. It’s my website.”
I can’t think of anything to say.
“There’s also a guy in Hong Kong,” Felix says. “He helped me a little. But he doesn’t take it as seriously as I do.”
I don’t know what to say. I certainly can’t say what I’m thinking. Felix would be insulted.
“You spend a lot of time on your computer,” I finally say.
“Yeah,” Felix says equally flatly. “A lot. Almost all my time, really. Either that or I watch DVDs.”
“How come you don’t go out?” I ask. “I’m sure there are girls out there for you—better ones than Paz.”
Felix doesn’t answer. He pulls the keyboard over toward himself.
“I mean, I don’t care one way or the other,” I say. “But isn’t it a little lonely?”
“So?”
“I don’t think it’s good when people just waste their lives away,” I say with a harshness that surprises me. Felix isn’t listening, though. He’s typing.
I see the words he’s typing as they appear on the screen.
And you? Are you living your life?
He shoves the keyboard over to me. I think for a second and type: My situation is different. Then I write in capital letters, TOTALLY DIFFERENT. Don’t even think about comparing yourself to me.
I’m not, Felix types quickly. I reach to take the keyboard back but he holds onto it. A new sentence pops up on the screen.
Do you have a boyfriend? I read. Then he hands me the keyboard.
No, I type. I don’t want a boyfriend. Then, thinking of Maria, I add, Or a girlfriend.
Have you ever had one? Felix writes.
What?
A boyfriend.
I got “married” at camp once, when I was 14. Just for a laugh. But I haven’t had one for the last two years.
Because of your mother?
My mother had nothing to do with it.
I would love to meet somebody like Paz. Even better would be Paz herself.
Good luck.
Who would you like to meet?
Nobody, I write. But that’s not entirely honest. But I don’t want to tell him I want to run my fingers through his father’s hair.
Maybe somebody older, I write instead. I hand the keyboard back to Felix. He lets his mouth hang open.
Have you ever . . . ? he types.
What?
You know.
Fucked?
He goes completely red. Even his ears flush. He types three letters: yes.
I already told you. No.
What? You’re 17 and you haven’t yet?
So what? You haven’t either.
Don’t you think it’s weird?
I’m a fundamentally weird person.
But haven’t you ever wanted to see what it’s like?
I have to laugh. With you? I add a smiley face at the end.
Felix thinks for a while. Then he types two words: Why not?
I snort with laughter. But I don’t dare look at him. I can almost physically sense his awkwardness.
I’m not Paz, I write. Even if I do have brown hair.
That’s got nothing to do with it, Felix writes. I look over at him for a second. He’s staring at the monitor.
You’re pretty, he writes.
“What?” I cry out. “Are you crazy?”
He doesn’t look at me. He winces. I don’t say anything more.
Talking is against the rules.
I think for a long time. I think about Volker Trebur. Half of Felix’s genes are from him. But you can’t see it in him.
Did your father used to have red hair too? I write.
Felix reads it over a few times, as if he can’t understand the question.
Yes, he writes finally. Why?
Let’s do it.
What??? He writes. His fingers hang in the air expectantly. I take the keyboard from him.
What you wanted to do. Just don’t grunt too much.
What do you mean? He’s flushed to the base of his neck. I’m unaffected. I’ll try my best, he types, quickly adding, Try not to grunt. Not sure if I’ll be able to.