Decompression Read Online Free Page A

thirty last week. Isn’t it time to leave Up and Down ?”
“Why? Do you think thirty’s too old for soap operas?”
“Not for soap operas, but maybe for a first real film role.”
“I’m looking at a serious project right now.”
“Then we wish you good luck, Frau Pahlen.”
    The delicate scampering of soft feet. Emile appeared on the computer monitor, whose illuminated surface attracted little flies. He walked across the screen and sat in the middle of Jola’s face. Then he looked at me with his black button eyes and stuck out his tongue. In the movies, if a reptile sits on a character’s picture, that character will go crazy before the end.
    Theodor Hast racked up 12,400 links on Google. Most of them referred to his relationship with Jola Pahlen. His Wikipedia entry consisted of two lines, with no accompanying photograph: “German writer, born 1969 in Reutlingen. His first novel, Flying Buildings , was published in 2001. He lives in Berlin, Stuttgart, and New York.”
    The triple residence awakened unpleasant memories. In law school we were taught to cite all the publishing offices when quoting from the technical literature: “Volker Schlön, Securities Law, with Special Emphasis on the Securities Trading Act . Berlin, Heidelberg, New York, 6th edition.” A book like that cost 129 deutschmarks, and the copy in the university library was notoriously unavailable whenever a paper relating to securities law actually had to be written. In Theo’s case it wasn’t his book but he himself who apparently lived in three places at the same time.
    “An irritating gem.”
    “A clear harbinger of future masterpieces.”
    “ ‘There are many people who like me, but only one has to live with me. And that one’s myself.’ (Theodor Hass, Flying Buildings , p. 23.)”
    According to the jacket copy posted on the publishing house’s home page, the novel was about a character named Martin and the search for identity. It sounded complicated. I scrolled down and came to an excerpt from the text:
He asked himself how it could be that God created the world in six days and gave himself the seventh day off. Were there already days before the earth took its first twenty-four-hour spin around the sun? And how was it that God opted for the seven-day week? That must mean God had held down a job somewhere. Martin would have very much liked to know where. He set his glass down and looked up. The tattered sky was hurrying eastward, as if it had something urgent to do there. Emigrate , he thought. But that would make sense only if the country we escape to weren’t always and only ourselves.
    Antje read a lot. Whenever I tried to read a novel, it would put me to sleep.
    A pan started sizzling. I smelled rabbit. I got up but left the computer on. The monitor was a fabulous hunting reserve for Emile.
    Antje had set the table for four. Two glasses per person, one for water and one for wine. I noticed that the glasses were standing on the bare wood of the teak dining table. I started searching the sideboard for coasters.

    Jola talked a great deal. Her hands flailed the air as though she was shooing away insects. Her long hair seemed to be in her way. She was constantly swiping it from one side to the other. Antje served salt-crusted Canary potatoes, mushrooms in olive oil, and three different mojo sauces. The conversation revolved around Jola’s movie project. She was reading a book about Lotte Hass, and she had romantic notions about the adventure of diving: you put on a chic bathing suit, jumped into the water, and quickly emptied your breathing tank, preferably while eye to eye with a whale shark. Theo ate potatoes. In a steady rhythm, one after the other, like a man doing a job.
    I said I was going to instruct them strictly by the book. Caution and security would be primary concerns in every situation. It wasn’t about having an adventure, it was about knowledge of the subject and mastery of technique.
    Jola stuck out her lower lip