The Method Read Online Free PDF Page A

‘I invented one instead.’
    ‘One what?’
    ‘An ideal inamorata. She can be a bit moody, but most of the time we get along fine. I’m not lonely.’
    When Moritz moves, his white paper suit, which has replaced his clothes for the past six months, starts to rustle. He presses two fingers against the screen; Mia does the same on the other side. This time they get away with it: Mia is supplying the guard with sachets of illicit caffeine powder from the lab. She and Moritz look at each other and smile. They have learned to smile when really they want to scream, smash things or just cry.
    ‘Tell you what,’ says Moritz, ‘you can borrow her. Take her home with you.’
    ‘You want me to take home your imaginary lover?’
    ‘It’s a great idea. That way it will be easier to believe we’ll see each other soon. The ideal inamorata will steer you back to me. She won’t last long at your place, I bet.’
    ‘You need a certain amount of imagination for a game like that.’
    Moritz frowns just as he always frowns. It looks as if his whole face is trying to congregate around a point between his eyes. ‘You’ve got plenty,’ he says. ‘Ever since we were little we’ve been meeting in the realm of imagination.’
    ‘It was
your
realm.’
    ‘It was
ours
; it
is
ours. It will always be
our
home; yours and mine. Remember that.’
    For a moment they glare at each other like enemies, a pair of cowboys on a dusty road. The wind rushes past, blowing their hair in the same direction. They square off, a brief skirmish, then Mia feels herself give in. The truth is, she wasn’t really trying in the first place.
    ‘OK,’ she says, ‘I’ll take your imaginary female if I must.’
    His forehead smooths easily; the mind behind it is accustomed to getting its way. ‘She’ll be waiting in your apartment,’ he whispers. ‘She’s my present to you; you’ll learn to love her, you’ll see. And now … I need a favour from you.’
    In Mia’s fingers is a clear plastic cord, which she feeds through a hole in the Plexiglas. With small movements of his thumb and index finger, Moritz pulls it through the screen. It takes time. The guard inspects his fingernails and yawns. When the cord has passed through the hole, Mia and Moritz stand up.
    ‘Life,’ says Moritz softly, ‘is an offer you can also refuse.’
    They imagine hugging each other, standing a tiny distance apart so their chests don’t quite touch.
    ‘So long,’ says Mia.

A Special Gift for Pain
     
    IT ISN’T THAT she didn’t try. She cleared the shelves and surfaces of dirty dishes and empty glasses and stacked them on her desk. She laid out the kit for her blood test and placed the beaker for her urine sample on the toilet cistern, where it remained, unused. She vacuumed a corner of the carpet and threw the vacuum cleaner on the floor. Rather than clean the windows, as she intended, she dabbed star-like constellations of dots on the steamed-up glass. Afterwards, she pressed on the dots with two fingers and smiled when actually she wanted to scream, smash things, or just cry. Now the apartment is messier than before and Mia is lying on the sofa in the arms of the ideal inamorata. Her eyes are closed as if she were asleep.
    ‘I don’t recognise my apartment any more,’ says Mia. ‘It looks strange, like a word repeated and repeated until it’s just a series of sounds. Time seems strange to me, the passing of days. I don’t recognise my life any more; it’s just a set of actions. No meaning, no purpose.’
    ‘This Kramer is a fanatic,’ says the ideal inamorata, cradling Mia like a child.
    ‘I’m a woman with a penthouse apartment overlooking the city and a special gift for pain. I haven’t been outside in four weeks. That’s the sum of my life. If I turn my gaze inwards, if I listen for signs of activity, a rustling, a whispering, the slightest stirring of a personality, I find nothing. I’m a word that’s lost its meaning because it’s been repeated