Fame Read Online Free PDF Page B

started Leo’s last book in the plane en route from Berlin to Munich.
    “Interesting,” said Leo with an expression that matched his thoughts.
    The ambassador nodded. “Your first time here?”
    “The last.”
    “I see,” said the ambassador.
    “I’m going to kill you,” said Leo.
    “I’m so glad,” said the ambassador. “I know you’re in excellent hands.” He smiled at Mrs. Riedergott and vanished into the crowd.
    A line of people formed for everyone to shake hands with him and Elisabeth. They came from Wuppertal and Hannover,Bayreuth, Düsseldorf and Bebra, and a very straight-backed and desiccated gentleman came from Halle an der Saale. After a little while Elisabeth asked herself if the only people in the entire country were Germans.
    “That,” said Leo in the car, “is what becomes of art. Everything else is just illusion and propaganda. I’ve always said it. But I had no idea it was true!” She saw that he’d turned white. “All the work, all the struggle, all the worry, an entire life wrecked just for that. All for invitations from people who are brain-dead, all for handshakes, all so that the zombies have something to chatter about before they go to dinner.”
    In the front seat, Mrs. Riedergott suddenly turned round.
    “No offense,” cried Leo. “Dear Mrs. Riedergott, I was speaking in the most general terms.”
    That night, in the bathroom again, she finally got through to the secretary of state. Sitting on the toilet seat, she held the phone tight against her ear.
    An awkward situation, he said in broken English. Really, there was nothing he could do. And even if he could, the efforts required would be considerable.
    “Financial efforts?”
    “Also financial.”
    That went without saying, she said. They also knew the value of his intervention and would be correspondingly grateful.
    He couldn’t promise anything, he said. He would be in touch again.
    As she groped her way back into the dark bedroom, shebumped into the night table. A glass fell to the ground and Leo woke up.
    “Let’s run!”
    “What?”
    “I’m not going to the reception at the International Chamber of Commerce tomorrow. I’m going to disappear, and that’s that. We’ll fly to the pyramids. I’ve always wanted to see them.”
    “Good.”
    “What are they going to do? File charges?” He hesitated. “Could they? Theoretically, I mean. Could they bring charges against me?”
    “I don’t think so.”
    “Yes, but could they?”
    She sank down into her pillow. She was too tired to answer. She felt him looking at her in the darkness, and she knew he’d have liked to touch her, but she was too tired even to tell him that she was too tired.
    In the morning, they left. A taxi to the airport, then the next plane up into the mountains. She had to spend the entire flight reassuring him that there wouldn’t be consequences, that nobody would sue him, that nobody would end up in jail just for blowing off the German International Chamber of Commerce. Below them, the highest mountains she had ever seen slipped by, intensely green and covered in primeval forest.
    “It’s like the old days,” he said, “when I skipped school.”
    “You never once skipped school.”
    “How do you know?”
    “Did you?”
    “Everyone did.”
    “Maybe, but you?”
    He turned away to the porthole and didn’t say a word till they landed.
    The air on the upland plateau was so thin that it was hard to breathe and the heart raced with every movement of the body. Streets and houses glittered in an intense light that cut into them like knives, leaving no shadows, so that within minutes the skin was on fire. As their taxi honked its way through the crowds, she accessed a message from Moritz. Evidently the local government had intervened, he said, nothing definite, some rumors circulating that the hostages had been freed, others that they were dead. He promised to call as soon as he knew more.
    They dropped their luggage at the first hotel