‘You’re just paranoid.’ Mia is pedalling again; she suddenly ups the tempo. ‘It’s pretty funny, come to think of it. A delusion with delusions.’
‘You still don’t get it, do you? He’s publicly accusing
Moritz
of terrorism and he cited you by name. You’re not anonymous any more. You need to
do
something!’
‘On the contrary,’ says Mia. ‘While I’m here, racking up virtual kilometres on an exercise bike, the world is turning around me, spinning backwards and forwards towards an unknown goal. The situation is bad enough without my doing something.’
‘You want everything to be harmless, don’t you, Mia? Your brother was just a big kid; Kramer is a starry-eyed dreamer. And you’re a perfectly innocent citizen on a stationary bike. The fact is, you’re a coward. All your rationalising, your pros and cons, your knowing better and knowing best serves a single purpose: it gives you licence to shrug your shoulders for the rest of your life.’
‘Nobody ever died from a shrug of the shoulders, but the world has gone under on countless occasions because of heroism, martyrdom and ideas. Would you rather I leaned out of the window, proclaimed a revolution and called for Kramer’s head?’
‘You could give it a try.’
‘Enough!’ It is clear from Mia’s tone that she is furious. ‘I’m sick of your empty words!’
‘Empty words?’ The ideal inamorata almost chokes and has to take a few breaths to calm herself down. ‘How’s this for substance? Step one – you accept that Moritz was a victim of the Method and your friend Kramer was involved. Step two – you repeat after me: The Method demonstrated its fundamental injustice by killing my brother. Step three – you call Rosentreter. Step four – you sue Kramer for libel. Step five – you find an open-minded journalist and set the story—’
‘Wow,’ says Mia sarcastically. ‘Heinrich Kramer must be shaking in his boots. What a stunning plan, my beloved inamorata. It combines the pointlessness of human endeavour with the absurdity of bothering to try.’
‘Listen to yourself. You’re picking holes in the final stages of the strategy before you’ve considered steps one and two. You’re scared, Mia Holl. Go ahead and take the first two steps, stick up for your brother. Then it won’t seem so absurd.’
Mia is cut to the quick. Sometimes a person can be right in such a fundamental way that an answer is superfluous. It puts an end to the never-ending cycle of on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand. It ushers in an almost blissful calm. Mia looks at the pedals and watches her feet going up and down. For a few seconds, she thinks of nothing.
‘Do you know what a hægtesse is, Mia?’
Mia looks up in surprise. It takes an effort of concentration to focus on the unknown word.
‘It’s an old term for witch,’ says the ideal inamorata.
‘A witch,’ echoes Mia. ‘Witches rode broomsticks. They were hunchbacked old hags who ended up in the oven or being burnt at the stake.’
‘Hægtesse derives from the same word as hedge. A witch is a hedge spirit. She doesn’t ride a broomstick, she rides the hedge.’
‘Why are you telling me this?’
‘The hedge is a boundary, Mia. A witch rides the boundary between the civilised world and the wild world beyond. She straddles this world and the next, life and death, body and mind. She rides the line
between
yes and no, faith and atheism. She doesn’t take sides; the
between
is her realm. Does that remind you of anyone?’
Mia doesn’t reply. She gets off the bike and walks to the window. Outside, a bird is fluttering around the flowerpots, pecking disappointedly at the artificial flowers. It looks at Mia reproachfully before flying away.
‘People who don’t take sides,’ says the ideal inamorata, ‘are outsiders. And outsiders live dangerously. Every now and then the authorities like to demonstrate their power by making an example. It happens a lot when people are losing faith. Outsiders are good targets because they don’t know what they want. They hang on a silken thread, ready to fall.’
‘I’m not an outsider,’ says Mia weakly.
‘Deep down you don’t see the point of spending time with other people. As far as I’m aware, you’ve only made two exceptions, one of whom is dead and the other your enemy. It’s enough to make you not belong.’
The outer Mia frowns and pretends not to follow, while the inner Mia accepts that the ideal inamorata is right. She understands the seriousness of the problem. The Method is based on the health of its citizens, and health is the norm. But what is normal? Normal is that which already exists, the prevailing condition. But normal is also normative – an expectation, the thing to be wished for. The norm is a double-edged sword. A person can be measured against that which exists, in which case she will be found to be normal and healthy, therefore good. Or a person can be measured against an expectation and found to be wanting. The
norm
can be changed at will. For those on the inside, the double-edged sword is a defensive weapon. For outsiders, it’s a terrifying threat. It has the power to make you ill.
When Mia enters a public space – a department store, a high-speed train, her place of work or any other shared area – she never has the feeling that she is coming home. She doesn’t burst through the door, shout ‘hello’, clap everyone on the shoulder and sit herself down on the comfiest chair. Most of the time she tries to go unnoticed. Some days she listens at the door to make quite certain before leaving the apartment that no one is outside. She needs time and space for herself and her thoughts. After work, she goes home instead of joining in with group activities. In the evening, she would rather sit on her stationary bike than on the management board of a local sports club. She talks to an invisible woman, not a best friend or a husband.
The ideal inamorata is trying to suggest that Mia is exactly like Moritz, save in one regard: Mia hides her difference by conforming to the system, whereas Moritz wore it like a badge. No one would ever describe Mia as ‘abnormal’, but no one calls her ‘normal’ either. She rides the hedge.
‘Are you trying to warn me?’ she asks.
The ideal inamorata nods wordlessly.
‘It’s sweet of you,’ says Mia, ‘but there’s really no need. I’m not naive enough to think we can choose our place in life. At most we bring the nails and timber; others build the frame.’
‘There’s always a decision to be made,’ says the ideal
inamorata
. ‘Do you want to be a perpetrator – or a victim?’
Mia’s answer makes the ideal inamorata bury her head in her hands despairingly.
‘I find both options decidedly unappealing,’ she says.
‘OF COURSE THEY’RE
unappealing,’ said Moritz. ‘That’s why I’ve decided to be neither. It’s a principle of mine.’
They were sitting by the river, Mia with her shoes and socks off and her trousers rolled up to the knees, which was her way of saying she was sorry. Their feet dangled casually in the water.
‘By the way,’ said Moritz, poking her gently in the ribs, ‘I heard what you said last night when I was leaving.’
‘That I’m your home?’
The rod dropped to the ground as Moritz grabbed Mia and hugged her tightly, so tightly she almost vanished in his embrace. It is humankind’s greatest curse that the happiest moments in life can only be identified when they are over.
‘Are you dealing with it all right?’ asked Mia when he finally let go.
‘I think so. You don’t spend half your life studying philosophy only to be caught out by the phenomenon of death.’
Moritz raised a professorial index finger and assumed an expression that was probably supposed to convey that the old Moritz Holl had returned.
‘We come from darkness and return to darkness. In between lie the experiences of life. But the beginning and the end, birth and death, we do not experience; they have no subjective character, they fall entirely in the category of objective events. And that’s that,’ he recited.
Mia laughed out loud. ‘In other words, you live for yourself and die for others,’ she said.
‘That’s the beauty of it,’ replied Moritz. ‘It would be disastrous the other way round. But remember, Mia: if you live for yourself, you need to swerve every now and then to avoid other people. You know what happens when you bump into others?’
‘In your case, trouble, I shouldn’t wonder.’
‘It forces you to decide. The choice is always the same: betray yourself – or say what you think. The second option is dangerous.’
‘It’s nothing new,’ said Mia impatiently. She didn’t want to spoil the mood with a discussion about politics. ‘You can’t blame the Method.’
‘That’s not my point! It starts with the simplest things, like getting on a train. Maybe you feel like singing at the top of your voice or kissing the woman with all the shopping bags, or maybe you don’t want to pay for a ticket because they’re ridiculously overpriced. But in the end you buy a ticket, you don’t sing, you sit down and you hide your face behind
The Healthy Mind
. I’d never join a group like the PRI – assuming it even exists. The problem would be exactly the same. I’d be forced to think, speak and act in a certain way. The only demand I make from life is the right to my
own
reality. In my mind, Sibylle isn’t dead. In my mind, there is freedom. In my mind, people are dancing, drinking and partying in the streets, and the police are there too, watching and talking. The celebrations go through the night, and in the morning one of the neighbours complains about the noise. The officer gives him a bored look and drawls, “If you want something done about it, you should call the police.”’
Moritz laughed, fished a cigarette out of his pocket and lit it. Mia frowned disapprovingly but didn’t object.
‘I don’t want to argue with you,’ she said, ‘but aren’t you dodging everyone else’s reality by living your own?’
‘Very true.’ Moritz gripped the cigarette with his teeth and picked up his rod. ‘A constant flickering, that’s what freedom is for humans. Subjectivity, objectivity. Conformity, resistance. On, off. A free man is like a faulty bulb.’
Mia was about to reply when she heard rustling from the bushes. Looking up, she expected to see a deer or a great big bacteria with pointed horns. A uniformed officer stepped into the clearing. And another. And a third. Moritz was so shocked that he didn’t think to throw the glimmering cigarette into the water. In the space of a second they had pulled him to his feet, twisted his arms behind his back and handcuffed his wrists.
‘Moritz Holl,’ said the first officer, ‘I am arresting you on suspicion of the rape and murder of Sibylle Meiler.’
‘You have the right to remain silent,’ said the second. ‘Anything you say may be taken down and used in evidence.’
‘You have the right to consult a solicitor,’ said the first.
‘Let him go!’ shouted Mia.
‘If you want something done about it,’ said Moritz, looking at his sister with desperate eyes, ‘you should call the police.’
‘I’m sorry for the inconvenience,’ said the third.
‘AND THEN HE
was gone,’ says Mia to the river. ‘Of all the things he missed in prison, he would have missed you most.’
She has taken off her shoes and socks, and her feet are dangling in the water. The grass beside her is unoccupied. She has kept up her weekly walk, even without Moritz. The route has become a road to Calvary with stations of the cross: the warning sign, the thicket, the trail. At the very end is the cathedral, erected from the river and the glade.
‘He wouldn’t have minded dying, if it meant seeing you again.’
Jealous, Mia slaps her bare feet against the water, creating a splash. The river, unmoved, continues to flow. Something rustles in the bushes, and Mia is so shocked that she doesn’t think to cast the glimmering cigarette into the river. The stuff of nightmares steps into the clearing.
‘Mia Holl,’ says the first officer, ‘I’m arresting you on suspicion of anti-Method activities and leading an anti-Method cell.’
Before Mia has time to realise what is happening, she
has
been hauled to her feet with her arms twisted behind her back.
‘Who were you meeting here?’ says the second officer.
‘You have the right to remain silent,’ says the first.
The second tightens his grip until Mia yelps with pain. ‘I asked you a question,’ he barks. ‘Who were you meeting here?’
‘No one,’ says Mia. ‘I’d like to put on my shoes.’
‘I apologise for any inconvenience,’ says the third.
Mia’s right hand is touching her back in a place that she had previously thought impossible. The thumb pressing against her larynx releases her from the obligation to scream. Pain causes white dots to spiral through her field of vision. The uniformed officers drag her out of the cathedral.
MORE FURNITURE HAS
arrived, furniture and people. More tables, chairs and heavy desks, more black-robed mannequins and, for the first time since the start of Mia’s trial, a handful of spectators. A team of journalists is unpacking its equipment. The room looks bigger than last time: the hearing has shifted to the central court. At the front of the room, Mia spots Sophie, the judge with the blonde ponytail and the nervous habit of putting her pencil in her mouth. The public prosecutor, Barker, is here as well, tilting back on his chair with his hands on the edge of his desk. The look on his face is disdainful; he has a state-sanctioned licence to know everything better than the rest of the world. Sitting in the front row of the public gallery is Kramer. His eyes are fixed on Mia and his gaze is intense, as if he has been missing her. From time to time he gives a little wave. The other familiar figure is Lutz Rosentreter, who turns up late, sits next to Mia and places a large stack of documents on the desk. He avoids eye contact with the others and seems strangely contented, as if he were focusing his attention on more enjoyable pursuits.