Me and Kaminski Read Online Free PDF Page B

movies?
    “I know it isn’t easy,” she said with a break in her voice. “I didn’t want . . . to tell you over the phone. But there’s no other way.”
    I said nothing.
    “And you know it can’t go on like this.”
    She’d said that already. But why not? I could see the living room in front of me: four hundred square feet, soft carpets, views of the park. On summer afternoons a gentle southern light played on the walls.
    “I can’t believe it,” I said, “and I don’t believe it.”
    “You have to. I’ve packed your things.”
    “What?”
    “You can collect your suitcases. Or actually when I get back I’ll have them delivered to you at the
Evening News.
”
    “Not in the newsroom!” I cried. That was all I needed. “Elke, I’m going to forget this conversation. You didn’t call and I haven’t heard a word. We’ll talk about it all next week.”
    “Walter says if you come back one more time, he’s going to throw you out himself.”
    “Walter?”
    She didn’t reply. Did he have to be called Walter?
    “He’s moving in on Sunday,” she said quietly.
    Ah, now I got it: the apartment shortage was driving people to do the most astonishing things. “And where am I supposed to go?”
    “I don’t know. To a hotel. Or a friend.”
    A friend? The face of my tax accountant rose in front of me, followed by the face of someone I’d been at school with, and whom I’d bumped into on the street the previous week. We’d shared a beer and hadn’t known what to talk about. I spent the whole time racking my brains for his name.
    “Elke, it’s our apartment!”
    “It isn’t ours. Have you ever paid anything toward the rent?”
    “I painted the bathroom.”
    “No, painters painted the bathroom. You just called them up. I paid.”
    “You’re keeping count now?”
    “Why not?”
    “I can’t believe it.” Had I said that already? “I would never have believed you were capable of it.”
    “Yes, I know,” she said. “Me neither. Me neither. How are you getting on with Kaminski?”
    “We hit it off right away. I think he likes me. The daughter’s a problem. She shields him from everything. I have to get rid of her somehow.”
    “I wish you all the best, Sebastian. Maybe you still have a chance.”
    “What does that mean?”
    She didn’t reply.
    “Hang on. I want to know. What do you mean?”
    She hung up.
    I immediately dialed her cell phone, but she didn’t answer. I tried again. A calm computer voice invited me to leave a message. I tried again. And again. After the ninth attempt I gave up.
    Suddenly the room didn’t look so comfortable anymore. The pictures of the Edelweiss, the cows, and the wild-haired old farmer were vaguely threatening, the night outside too close and unsettling. Was this my future? Boardinghouses and sublet rooms, spying landladies, cooking smells at lunch-time, and the early-morning racket of unknown vacuum cleaners? It must not come to that!
    The poor girl was completely off the wall, I almost felt sorry for her. If I knew her, she’d be regretting it already; by tomorrow at the latest she’d be calling me in tears to say she was sorry. She couldn’t fool me. Already feeling a little calmer, I picked up the recorder, stuck in the first tape, and closed my eyes so as to be able to remember things better.

IV
    “W HO ?”
    “Kaminski. Manuel K-A-M-I-N-S-K-I. Did you know him?”
    “Manuel. Yes, yes, yes.” The old lady smiled expressionlessly.
    “When was that?”
    “Was what?”
    She turned a waxy shriveled ear toward me. I leaned forward and screamed, “When!”
    “My God! Thirty years.”
    “It must be over fifty.”
    “Not that many.”
    “Yes it is. You can count!”
    “He was very serious. Dark. Always in the shadows, somehow. Dominik introduced us.”
    “Madam, what I actually wanted to ask . . .”
    “Have you heard Pauli?” She pointed to a birdcage. “He sings so beautifully. You’re writing about all that?”
    “Yes.”
    Her head