After a three-word sentence, one is totally alone.
Sebastian spends a while trying to remember the behavior of people with time on their hands. He widens his stance, folds his arms, and drops his chin to his chest. An empty paper cup rolls over the asphalt. Sebastian looks at it and waits for the merciful effects of shock.
When he raises his head after a few minutes, the surroundings look unnaturally clear to him, as if seen through diving goggles. His breath is even and his heart is not beating faster than once per second. He looks around (the swerving beam from a pair of headlights, a woman in a pink coat getting out of her sports car) and the innermost forces that hold the universe together are within his grasp now, if he felt like thinking about it. He thinks he knows now what they want from him. He even knows who did it. He can imagine how they pressed a chloroformed rag to Liam’s mouth and nose as he slept, and brought him to some apartment or other, or perhaps straight to the intensive care unit of some hospital. It is easy for doctors to keep a child in an artificial coma for as long as they give Sebastian to complete his task. It would be just as easy for them to get rid of Liam forever. They know that he cannot rely on getting his son back, but that he still has no choice other than to follow their instructions.
If Dabbelink talks, Sebastian thinks, the entire hospital will collapse. A medical director has done something wrong, and now he needs not only the person who knows about it to die, but the right person to kill him. They have found that person. Sebastian’s wife is close to the victim, and jealousy is one of the most common motives for murder. The kidnappers probably know that Sebastian understands all this. Intelligent people can be honest with each other. Sebastian starts laughing. He presses his clothing to his body with both hands to stop the wind flapping it as he walks through the dusk to the service station.
[6]
THERE ARE NO TABLES NEAR THE FOOD COUNTER , only a refrigerated display in which the same green apple glistens over and over again. Sebastian estimates the distances as painstakingly as a land surveyor until he is sure which seat is nearest the bar. He picks one next to a towering plant, which on closer inspection turns out to be made of plastic, and therefore out of countless plants. The weight of the earth compressed them over millions of years into a greasy substance until mankind was developed enough to extract it and make artificial branches and leaves. The chemical exhalations of the plant are so strong that Sebastian feels nausea rising. He marshals his thoughts as if he is whistling a pack of barking dogs into order, and stands up again to get a beer and a newspaper in accordance with his instructions.
The restaurant has windows all around. The dusk presses close against the panes of glass. Three tables away, a man in a suit is eating something brown with gravy, dabbing his mouth with his napkin after every bite and turning his wrist to look at his watch. Behind the next potted plant, the young woman in the pink coat is composing a long text message. All the diners in the restaurant look as though their cars are waiting outside. Without a car, Sebastian is a castaway among sea captains and will surely be recognized as such by the way he is glancing around wildly. The woman smiles when her mobile beeps. Perhapsshe is waiting for a lover, with whom she will betray her husband on service-station furniture. Perhaps she calls herself Vera Wagenfort at these assignations. Strangely, Sebastian would not give a damn.
The first gulp of beer hits him like a dull thud in his arms and legs. As the shock wears off, so does the feeling that he has understood everything. Sebastian realizes that he was wrong in thinking he had fully grasped the situation. In physics, when an attempt is made to go beyond the limits of the knowable, mathematics takes over from the imagination. But the
Sebastian spends a while trying to remember the behavior of people with time on their hands. He widens his stance, folds his arms, and drops his chin to his chest. An empty paper cup rolls over the asphalt. Sebastian looks at it and waits for the merciful effects of shock.
When he raises his head after a few minutes, the surroundings look unnaturally clear to him, as if seen through diving goggles. His breath is even and his heart is not beating faster than once per second. He looks around (the swerving beam from a pair of headlights, a woman in a pink coat getting out of her sports car) and the innermost forces that hold the universe together are within his grasp now, if he felt like thinking about it. He thinks he knows now what they want from him. He even knows who did it. He can imagine how they pressed a chloroformed rag to Liam’s mouth and nose as he slept, and brought him to some apartment or other, or perhaps straight to the intensive care unit of some hospital. It is easy for doctors to keep a child in an artificial coma for as long as they give Sebastian to complete his task. It would be just as easy for them to get rid of Liam forever. They know that he cannot rely on getting his son back, but that he still has no choice other than to follow their instructions.
If Dabbelink talks, Sebastian thinks, the entire hospital will collapse. A medical director has done something wrong, and now he needs not only the person who knows about it to die, but the right person to kill him. They have found that person. Sebastian’s wife is close to the victim, and jealousy is one of the most common motives for murder. The kidnappers probably know that Sebastian understands all this. Intelligent people can be honest with each other. Sebastian starts laughing. He presses his clothing to his body with both hands to stop the wind flapping it as he walks through the dusk to the service station.
[6]
THERE ARE NO TABLES NEAR THE FOOD COUNTER , only a refrigerated display in which the same green apple glistens over and over again. Sebastian estimates the distances as painstakingly as a land surveyor until he is sure which seat is nearest the bar. He picks one next to a towering plant, which on closer inspection turns out to be made of plastic, and therefore out of countless plants. The weight of the earth compressed them over millions of years into a greasy substance until mankind was developed enough to extract it and make artificial branches and leaves. The chemical exhalations of the plant are so strong that Sebastian feels nausea rising. He marshals his thoughts as if he is whistling a pack of barking dogs into order, and stands up again to get a beer and a newspaper in accordance with his instructions.
The restaurant has windows all around. The dusk presses close against the panes of glass. Three tables away, a man in a suit is eating something brown with gravy, dabbing his mouth with his napkin after every bite and turning his wrist to look at his watch. Behind the next potted plant, the young woman in the pink coat is composing a long text message. All the diners in the restaurant look as though their cars are waiting outside. Without a car, Sebastian is a castaway among sea captains and will surely be recognized as such by the way he is glancing around wildly. The woman smiles when her mobile beeps. Perhapsshe is waiting for a lover, with whom she will betray her husband on service-station furniture. Perhaps she calls herself Vera Wagenfort at these assignations. Strangely, Sebastian would not give a damn.
The first gulp of beer hits him like a dull thud in his arms and legs. As the shock wears off, so does the feeling that he has understood everything. Sebastian realizes that he was wrong in thinking he had fully grasped the situation. In physics, when an attempt is made to go beyond the limits of the knowable, mathematics takes over from the imagination. But the
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