Munich Airport (26 page)

I went along to the bar Otis had specified. It was a nice place, small in floor space but with high ceilings, and with gigantic windows overlooking a dark and quiet, dimly lit street. It was in a part of town I hadn't been to, right next to the Schlesisches Tor underground stop—Schlesisches Tor means Silesian Gate. I was on my own for almost an hour and a half. I ordered a whiskey, because I had to order something. But I wasn't drinking anymore and I did not drink the whiskey. The bartender didn't care. The place was virtually empty. There was a man reading a newspaper at the bar, and I didn't see him drink anything, not even a coffee. I think he just came in to read the paper and smoke cigarettes. He read the paper the way people read novels, line by line, page by page, front to back. And when he was finished, he folded it, pushed it to the side, and thought about it for a while. At around half past eight, the man got up, put his coat and hat on, said good-bye to the bartender, and left. When he opened the door to go outside, Otis was there. The man let Otis in, then departed. Otis went straight to the bar. I got my phone out and sent Sedat a message telling him to begin. Otis came over to the table and sat down with a beer. Look at you, he said. I assumed he meant the beard, maybe the suntan. I probably looked quite healthy. But I hadn't eaten in five days—or had eaten very little—and I had a constant headache, and other flulike symptoms. I said, I went by Miriam's apartment today, my last visit.

Oh yeah?

And I found the dress she wore the last time we met.

When was that?

Years ago, in Cologne.

He leaned back and looked up at the ceiling. Then he said, It's funny, I haven't seen some of these people in many years, I don't even know some of them.

Do you think they will come?

I have no idea.

Did they get back to you?

No, nobody.

He sipped his beer, then lit a cigarette. Then he said, I can't stay too long, either.

I think I must have sighed, or rolled my eyes, because he said, Sorry, I couldn't get out of something else.

The door opened and a couple came in, a really handsome guy and a handsome, brown-eyed woman, nicely dressed. I was facing them, but I had to lean to see past Otis's head. Otis, whose back was facing the door, had to twist to look at them. The couple took a look around. Perhaps they saw too many empty seats, or they didn't appreciate the reception Otis and I had given them. They turned around and walked out.

We'll be going back soon, I said.

To the States?

That's right.

Any word on Miriam?

Nothing yet.

Then how do you know?

It's a feeling. I get feelings about things.

Are you looking forward to going home?

I wouldn't say so, no.

Then back to London?

That's the plan. Except…

Otis leaned forward, waiting for me to finish, and I reckon the only reason he didn't speak—to say, for example, Except what?—was that I must have looked like I was going to finish. I was trying to. I was really concentrating. The explanation felt entirely within reach, except that it wasn't, it wasn't even close.

A little while later, a woman named Ulrika arrived. She was an artist, and she was from a little town in Austria. She had round blue eyes, small shoulders, pretty freckles, and brown hair. She had really big thighs and fat hips, but she was skinny from the waist up. She didn't seem to have much interest in Otis. She drank whiskey as well, and smoked long thin cigarettes, and talked about herself and her art quite a bit, which was fine with me, because Otis and I hadn't anything to talk about. She had just been to India and Malaysia. Oh, she said, journalists won't stop calling her, journalists, journalists, journalists. She did not know how Miriam had died. The last time they spoke was years ago. But you came this evening? I said. Yes, well, I never knew anyone who died, she said, except for the very old or the very sick. She was intrigued, said Otis. When we told her that Miriam had starved, she became really intrigued, and requested that she be allowed to view the apartment. It's too late, I said, I've rearranged everything. Yes, she said, but you're the brother, your rearrangement will be very interesting. I doubt it, I said. He's in marketing, said Otis. I finally had a sip of my whiskey. I tried to calculate how much whiskey I could drink before I got sick, and whether that would be sufficient to get drunk. Then another old friend arrived, a nice woman named Anna. She knew that Miriam had died, and she knew how, and she sat very quietly and asked how I was, and she asked how Otis and Ulrika were, and they tried to come up with answers that—it seemed to me—made them sound as though they had been left reasonably broken-hearted by Miriam's death. Anna was German. She had long blonde hair. When she took off her jacket, and then her cardigan, she had bare arms, and there were large scars on both of them, surgery scars, and I suspected—it turned out I was right—she had been in a crash at some point. She worked in a travel agency—Germans still use travel agents heavily, she said—and she knew Miriam from long ago, when they were both doing evening courses in French. She stopped. Maybe the first course was Italian, she said. They did a few courses. Miriam had a gift for languages—her German was flawless, by the way—but she did not travel. Anna asked what we'd been doing, how long we had been here. Before I could answer, Ulrika started a conversation about hunger, and how, with respect, she felt that starving oneself to death was an insult to the many people who were starving involuntarily across the globe. She said, It is also an insult—forgive me for saying so—to starve herself in a country where Jews were put in ghettos and camps and starved. Otis said, A lot of those Jews were gassed before they starved. I said, Miriam was Jewish. I wanted to see what would happen if Ulrika's sense of justice and rectitude were confronted with an inconvenience, but I felt a little strange saying it, even just joking about it. That's absurd, said Ulrika. I said, Whatever, it's the truth. Are you serious? she asked. Ulrika turned to Anna and said, in German, something like, Were you aware of this, did she tell you? Anna said, shyly, or not shyly, more like a person professing ignorance under interrogation, that she was not aware of it, that Miriam had said nothing of it. Then she thought about it, shook her head, and said, But how would it make a difference? Ulrika said, to everyone, My husband is Israeli, we have a Jewish child. I said, Did you convert? Ulrika said, We are atheists. I said, I wish my dad could hear this. Then another woman came in, the last person who would join us that evening. Her name was Dolores, and she was, to our alarm, deathly thin, much thinner, I thought, than Miriam had been in Cologne. And nobody really knew what to say. She took her jacket off, then her scarf, and she wore a V-neck sweater—her breastbone was bulging out, her collarbones were prominent, and her sleeves, which were supposed to be snug, were loose. She had a wrinkled face and neck, and her eyes were tired and sunken. She smiled, introduced herself—the others didn't really know her, either—and said, to me, that she was very sorry to hear about Miriam. She was Spanish, and she had a strong Spanish accent. Then she thanked Otis for e-mailing her. Otis said, I e-mailed everybody I had an e-mail address for. I asked her if she wanted a drink, and she declined. It's terrible news about Miriam, she said. We all quietly agreed. Nobody dared ask if she knew how Miriam had died, because, frankly, it seemed that Dolores would be dead of the same thing in a week. But Ulrika finally thought of a question that was safe to ask that also wasn't empty. She asked, When was the last time you saw Miriam? Dolores thought back. December, she said. I said, How was she, did you speak with her? Dolores said, She mentioned you.

Me?

She was in hospital for most of last year, but she was discharged in December. She was feeling better. She told me she was feeling better. And she said she was going to stay with you in London for a few months.

I said, I didn't know she was in hospital. Then I looked around, and it was clear that everybody there knew it, and that being in hospital was something that had been, for years, a regular part of her life. I said, She didn't get in touch.

Ulrika said, You didn't call your sister in December?

Luckily I caught myself. I almost said, Why would I call my sister in December?

Otis looked at the time on his phone. I asked him if he had to go. I do, he said. Well, the keys are in your mailbox, I said. He got up, put his coat on, put his gloves on, put his hat on, and as he checked his pockets for his wallet and his keys, he said, I'm sorry more people didn't come, this is sort of what I was worried about. Well, I said, our dad didn't even show. Thanks for everything, he said. Likewise, I said. He said good-bye to Ulrika, Anna, and Dolores. Then he said good-bye to the bartender. And he walked out. Anna asked, Where's he going? I said, Something he couldn't get out of, apparently. Ulrika said, He works at the hospital at night, as an orderly. Anna said, I thought he was doing his doctorate. He's still doing that, said Ulrika, plus he sells olives, plus he is a
Hausmeister
, somewhere in Treptow. That's a lot, said Anna. He's got a daughter, she's eight or nine or something, said Ulrika.

Once Otis had departed, I found myself sitting awkwardly close to Ulrika and awkwardly far away from the others. Ulrika said, How Jewish are you, exactly? I said, I have to go to the bathroom. I did actually have to go. The sip of whiskey I had swallowed was causing indigestion and some nausea. I was shaking. And walking wasn't easy, my legs felt hollow. But the stall was clean. The walls were chipped, and covered in graffiti, but underneath the disrepair I could see how clean the room was, how spotless. And it was a great relief, a relief so great it made me emotional. I closed the door behind me and sat on the commode, which was also clean and dry. Maybe I was the first person in there all day. I put my head in my hands. I didn't think I would get past that night. I thought I would have to eat. I was starving. It didn't seem that I would ever lose my appetite. There was a part of me prepared to eat the toilet paper in that bathroom. My sense of balance was disturbed, and the objects before my eyes were floating like debris in shallow, choppy water. I was looking at the graffiti in front of me, but my sight was swirling—it made me more nauseous to concentrate. Finally I gave in, I threw up, and then I felt a little better. I sat for a while longer. I checked my phone to see if there was any word from Trish and my father. Then I got up and washed my hands. I washed them for a long time, in cold water, because it cooled me off to run the cold water over my wrists. When I went back out, Anna and Ulrika were having a conversation in German, and Dolores seemed left out, so I sat beside Dolores, thanked her for coming, and asked her if Miriam had said anything else in December, anything at all. But before she could answer, I said, So far as I know, Miriam only came to London once, and she didn't come to see me. She looked great. She was sort of plump. But she got really sick, and that's why she called me. The next time I saw her was four or five years later, in Cologne, and she looked…But I couldn't finish the sentence.

Anna and Ulrika were having a conversation that made Ulrika laugh and Anna smile, and that was how I'd hoped the night would go, though on a larger scale. I could see Dolores didn't, or wouldn't, trust me with a single one of Miriam's secrets—assuming she knew any—because I did not comprehend the problem. I said, In Cologne, she told me that denying her appetite empowered her, but it was in London, when she was sick, that she'd had the opportunity to understand, perhaps, the power of that denial. Dolores listened, but she would not agree or disagree. I said, I haven't eaten in five days, well, except for some bread. I think I expected her to be a little proud of me, or maybe I wanted her to know that I did, in fact, understand denying hunger—though of course I did not—but she just smiled and looked a little sad, as though nothing could be done, as though no amount of sympathy or concern or analysis could make the world appetizing.

In Cologne, on the night that Miriam came to visit, we went to a few bars before we decided on a place to eat. It was officially still a few days away from Mardi Gras, but the streets were mayhem. Many were blocked, and those that weren't—at least around our hotel—were being crossed by pedestrians. I saw a lot of people from the conference. They were the soberly dressed ones, with ID badges around their necks. Everyone else was in costume, or at least something sparkly, or a little bit festive. There were several outdoor stages, some were playing folk music, others were playing outdated rock. It was also weirdly nonaggressive. Instead of people arguing or scuffling, they started dancing, or hugging, or singing. It was snowing. I guess people love the snow. We considered a dozen bars, but we couldn't fit inside any of them. Then we found one that was only mildly overcrowded. The place—I assume everywhere was the same that night—served six beers at a time, little Kölsch beers on a slotted tray. I drank them quickly. Miriam didn't have anything. People kept shouting in our ears. They shouted
Prost!
or
Sláinte!
They wore clown wigs or cowboy hats, and glow-in-the-dark spectacles, or spectacles with hypnotic swirls on them. It wasn't my scene, and it didn't suit Miriam, either, though she always shouted
Prost!
or
Sláinte!
back to them. I just decided to get drunk. Miriam smoked a lot. She had smoked at least a dozen cigarettes by the time we got to the bar, and bought two more packs in a tabak on the way. I tried not to be judgmental, but I must have given her several judging looks, because she snapped and said, Just because you quit doesn't mean I have to. I said, I'm sorry, I know, I don't really care, it's just that it doesn't make sense. Cigarettes cost money and they kill you. Some assholes get rich for making poison, then you get sick, and then some even bigger assholes get overpaid for giving you drugs and operations while you die.