Read Online Me and Kaminski by Daniel Kehlmann - Free Book Online Page B

corner of your eye, it seemed to shimmer faintly. It must be worth a fortune. I looked in the cupboards, but they held nothing but clothes, shoes, hats, a few pairs of glasses, silk underwear. I let one of the pairs of panties slide slowly through my fingers; I’d never met a woman who wore silk underwear. The drawer of the night table was filled with boxes of medications: Baldrian, Valium, Benedorm, various kinds of sleeping pills and tranquilizers. The instruction leaflets would have made interesting reading, but I didn’t have time.
    Next door was a bathroom. Pristine, smelling of cleaning stuff, there was a sponge, still damp, lying in the tub, and three perfume bottles in front of the mirror. One of them was Chanel. No shaver, so the old man must use another bathroom. How did blind people shave, anyway?
    The door at the end of the passage led into an unaired room. The windows hadn’t been cleaned, the cupboards were bare, the bed wasn’t made: an unused guest room. A little spider sent a tremor across the web she’d spun over the windowsill. On the table was a pencil with an almost-worn-down eraser and teeth marks in the wood. I picked it up, rolled it between my fingers, put it back, and went out.
    Only two more doors. I knocked on the first, waited, knocked again, and went in. A double bed, a table, and an armchair. An open door led to a small bathroom. The blinds were down, the ceiling light was on. In the armchair was Kaminski.
    He seemed to be sleeping, his eyes were closed, he was wearing a silk dressing gown several sizes too large for him, with rolled-up sleeves. His hands didn’t reach the ends of the arms, the back of it rose high above his head, his feet dangled clear of the floor. His forehead twitched, he turned his head, opened and closed his eyes very quickly, and said, “Who’s that?”
    “Me,” I said. “Zollner. I forgot my bag. Anna had to go to her sister, and asked me if I could stay, no problem, and . . . I just wanted to let you know. In case you need anything.”
    “And what would I need?” he said calmly. “Fat cow.”
    I wondered if I’d heard him right.
    “Fat cow,” he said again. “And she can’t cook either. How much did you pay?”
    “I don’t know what you mean. But if you have time for a conversation . . .”
    “Were you in the cellar?”
    “In the cellar?”
    He tapped his nose. “You can smell it.”
    “In which cellar?”
    “She knows we can’t throw her out. It’s impossible to find good help up here.”
    “Should I . . . switch off the light?”
    “The light?” He frowned. “No, no. Pure habit, no.”
    Maybe he’d taken another pill? I pulled the tape recorder out of my bag, switched it on, and set it on the floor.
    “What was that?” he asked.
    It would be best to come straight to the point. “Tell me about Matisse!”
    He said nothing. I would like to have seen his eyes, but he’d obviously trained himself to keep them shut whenever he wasn’t wearing his glasses. “That house in Nice. I thought: That’s how I’d like to live one day. What year are we in?”
    “I’m sorry?”
    “I know you were in the cellar. What year?”
    I told him.
    He rubbed his face. I looked at his legs. Two woolly slippers dangled in the air, a hairless, white shin, that of a child, was exposed.
    “Where are we?”
    “In your house,” I said slowly.
    “So tell me how much you paid the fat cow!”
    “I’ll be back later.” He drew breath, I left the room quickly and shut the door. It wasn’t going to be easy! I would give him a few minutes so that he could collect himself.
    I opened the last door and had finally found the office. A desk with a computer, a revolving chair, file cabinets, supplies, piles of paper. I sat down and put my head in my hands. The sun was already low, in the distance the gondola of a funicular climbed the side of a mountain, glittered as it caught a sunbeam, then disappeared over a patch of forest. I could hear crashing and banging