Fame: A Novel in Nine Episodes

Voices

Even before Ebling reached home, his cell phone rang. For years he had refused to buy one, because he was a technician and didn’t trust the thing. Why did nobody wonder about whether it was a good idea to clutch a powerful source of radiation to your head? But Ebling had a wife, two children, and a handful of acquaintances, and one of them was always complaining that he was unreachable. So finally he’d given in and bought a phone, which he asked the guy he bought it from to activate immediately. In spite of himself, he was impressed: it was absolutely perfect, beautifully designed, smooth lines, elegant. And now, without warning, it was ringing.

Very hesitantly, he picked up.

A woman asked for someone called Raff, Ralf, or Rauff, he couldn’t figure out the name. A mistake, he said, wrong number. She apologized and hung up.

That evening, the next call. “Ralf!” The man’s voice was loud and hoarse. “What gives, what are you up to, you old bastard?”

“Wrong number!” Ebling sat up in bed. It was already past ten o’clock and his wife was looking at him reproachfully.

The man apologized, and Ebling switched off the phone.

Next morning there were three messages. He listened to them in the subway on the way to work. A giggling woman asked him to call her back. A man yelled that he should come over right away, they weren’t going to wait for him much longer; you could hear music and the clink of glasses in the background. And then the same woman again: “Ralf, come on, where are you?”

Ebling sighed and called Customer Service.

Strange, said the representative, sounding bored. Simply couldn’t happen. Nobody was given a number already assigned to somebody else. There were all sorts of security measures to prevent it.

“But that’s what’s happened.”

No, said the woman. Absolutely impossible.

“And what are you going to do about it?”

She said she had no idea. Because the whole thing was impossible.

Ebling opened his mouth, then shut it again. He knew that someone else in his shoes would have lost it—but that wasn’t his sort of thing, he was no good at it. He hit the off button.

Seconds later, it rang again. “Ralf?” said a man.

“No.”

“What?”

“This number is … There’s been a mistake—you’ve misdialed.”

“This is Ralf’s number!”

Ebling hung up and stuck the phone in the pocket of his jacket. The subway was jammed again, so he was having to stand today as well. On one side a man with a big moustache was glaring at him as if he were his sworn enemy. There were a lot of things about his life that Ebling didn’t like. It bothered him that his wife’s mind was always somewhere else, that she read such stupid books, and that she was such a lousy cook. It bothered him that he didn’t have a smart son, and that he didn’t understand his daughter at all. It bothered him that he could always hear his neighbors snoring through the party walls, which were way too thin. But what bothered him most of all was being on the subway at rush hour. Always packed in, always jammed full, and always the same stink.

But he liked his work. He and dozens of his coworkers sat under very bright lamps examining defective computers sent in by dealers from all over the country. He knew how fragile the brains of the little disks were, how complex and mysterious. No one fully understood how they functioned; no one could say for sure why they suddenly broke down or went haywire. For a long time now nobody had attempted to establish the root causes, they simply substituted one component or another until the whole thing started working again. He often thought about just how much in the world depended on these machines, bearing in mind what an exception, even a miracle, it was if they actually did the things they were supposed to. In the evenings, half asleep, he was so troubled by this idea—all the airplanes, all the electronically guided weaponry, the entire banking system—that his heart began to race. That’s when Elke snapped at him, saying why couldn’t he just lie there quietly, she might as well be sharing her bed with a cement mixer, and he would apologize, thinking that his mother had long since been the one to tell him that he was too sensitive.

As he was getting out of the subway car, the phone rang. It was Elke, telling him to buy cucumbers on the way home tonight: the supermarket in their street was offering a special on them.

Ebling said he would and hung up fast. It rang again and a woman asked him if he’d thought it over, only an idiot would give up someone like her. Or did he see it differently?

No, he said without thinking, that’s how he saw it too.

“Ralf!” She laughed.

Ebling’s heart thumped, and his throat was dry. He hung up.

He was confused and nervous the whole way to the office. Obviously an original owner of this number had a voice similar to his own. He called Customer Service again.

No, said a woman, they couldn’t just give him another number unless he paid for it.

“But this number already belongs to someone else!”

Impossible, she said. There were—

“Security measures, I know! But I keep getting calls for … You know, I’m a technician myself. I know you’re inundated with calls from people who are absolutely clueless. But this is my area. I know how—”

Nothing she could do, she said. She would pass on his request.

“And then? What happens next?”

Then, she said, they’d see. But that wasn’t part of her job.

That morning he couldn’t concentrate on his work. His hands trembled and he had no appetite during his lunch break, even though there was Wiener schnitzel on the menu. The canteen didn’t have it very often, and normally he was already looking forward to it the day before. But this time he put his tray back on the rack with his plate still half full, went off to a quiet corner of the dining room, and switched on his phone.

Three messages. His daughter, wanting to be picked up from her ballet class. This was a surprise to him because he hadn’t even known she was taking dancing. A man, saying please call back. There was nothing in his message to suggest which one of them he meant: Ebling or the other one. And then a woman, wanting to know why he was making himself scarce. This voice, deep and caressing, was one he hadn’t heard before. Just as he was about to disconnect, the phone rang again. The number on the screen began with a plus sign and 22. Ebling didn’t know which country code that was. He knew almost nobody in other countries, just his cousin in Sweden and a huge old woman in Minneapolis who sent a photograph of herself every year at Christmas, raising a glass with a big grin. To all the dear Eblings it said on the back, and neither he nor Elke had a clue which one of them she was related to. He picked up.

“Are we seeing each other next month?” a man asked loudly. “You’re going to the Lucerne festival, aren’t you? They’re not going to make it without you, not the way things are, Ralf, you know?”

“I’ll be there,” said Ebling.

“That guy Lohmann. Should have expected it. Have you spoken to Degetel’s people?”

“Not yet.”

“C’mon, it’s time! Lucerne can really help, like Venice three years ago.” The man laughed. “Apart from that? Clara?”

“Yes, yes,” said Ebling.

“You old dog,” said the man. “Unbelievable.”

“I think so too,” said Ebling.

“D’you have a cold? You sound funny.”

“I have to … go do something. I’ll call you back.”

“Okay. You never change, do you?”

The man hung up. Ebling leaned against the wall and rubbed his forehead. He needed a moment to get ahold of himself: this was the canteen, he was surrounded by coworkers eating schnitzel. At that moment Rogler was going past, carrying his tray.

“Hello, Ebling,” said Rogler. “Everything okay?”

“Sure.” Ebling switched off the phone.

The whole afternoon, he couldn’t focus. The question of which part in a particular computer was defective, and how anyone could have arrived at the errors described in the dealers’ cryptic reports—customer says re-set activ. imm. bef. display but indic. zero—just didn’t interest him today. It was the same feeling you got when something was making you happy.

He prolonged the moment. The phone stayed silent during the subway ride home, it stayed silent while he shopped for cucumbers in the supermarket, and all during dinner with Elke and the two children, who kept kicking each other under the table, it slumbered in his pocket, but he couldn’t stop thinking about it.

Then he went down to the cellar. It smelled of mildew, there was a pile of beer crates in one corner, and the component parts of a temporarily disassembled IKEA wardrobe in another. Ebling switched on the phone. Two messages. Just as he was going to listen to them, the gadget vibrated in his hand: someone was calling.

“Yes?”

“Ralf?”

“Yes?”

“Now what?” She laughed. “Are you playing games with me?”

“I’d never do that.”

“Pity!”

His hand shook. “You’re right. In fact, I’d … like to …”

“Yes?”

“… play with you.”

“When?”

Ebling looked around. He knew this cellar better than any place in the world. He had put every object in it there himself. “Tomorrow. You say when and where. I’ll be there.”

“You mean it?”

“Up to you to find out.”

He heard her take a deep breath. “Pantagruel. Nine o’clock. You make the reservation.”

“Will do.”

“You know this is crazy?”

“Who’s to care?”

She laughed and hung up.

That night he reached for his wife for the first time in a very long time. At first she was simply incredulous, then she asked what had come over him and had he been drinking, then she gave in. It was quick, and even as he felt her still underneath him, it seemed to him that they were doing something transgressive. A hand tapped his shoulder: she couldn’t breathe! He apologized, but it was another few minutes before he pulled away and rolled over on his side. Elke switched on the light, gave him a disapproving look, and retreated to the bathroom.

Of course he didn’t go to Pantagruel. He left the phone switched off all day, and at nine o’clock he was sitting in front of the TV with his son watching a second division soccer match. He felt an electrical prickling, it was as if he had a doppelgänger, his representative in a parallel universe, who was entering an expensive restaurant at this very moment to meet a tall, beautiful woman who hung on his words, who laughed when he said something witty, and who brushed her hand against his, now and again, as if by accident.

At half time he went down to the cellar and switched on the phone. No message. He waited. No one called. After half an hour he switched it off again and went to bed; he couldn’t go on pretending that soccer interested him.

He couldn’t get to sleep, and shortly after midnight he got up and groped his way back into the cellar, barefoot and in his nightshirt. He switched on the phone. Four messages. Before he could listen to them, the phone rang.

“Ralf,” said a man. “Sorry I’m calling so late … but it’s important! Malzacher is insisting that the two of you meet tomorrow. The whole project may be on the skids. Morgenheim will be there too. You know what’s at stake!”

“I don’t care,” said Ebling.

“Are you nuts?”

“We’ll see.”

“You really are nuts!”

“Morgenheim’s bluffing,” said Ebling.

“You’ve certainly got balls.”

“Yes,” said Ebling. “I do.”

When he wanted to listen to his messages, his phone rang again.

“You shouldn’t have done that!” Her voice was hoarse and forced.

“If you knew,” said Ebling. “I had a terrible day.”

“Don’t lie.”

“Why should I lie?”

“It’s all because of her, isn’t it? Are you two … together … again?”

Ebling said nothing.

“At least you could admit it!”

“Don’t talk nonsense!” He wondered which of the women whose voices he knew was the one she meant. He would like to have known more about Ralf’s life; after all, it was now, to a small extent, his life too. What did Ralf actually do, how did he make a living? Why did some people get everything and other people almost nothing? Some people achieved so much and other people didn’t, merit had nothing to do with it.

“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “It’s often … hard with you.”

“I know.”

“But someone like you—you’re not like everyone else.”

“I’d love to be like everyone else,” said Ebling. “But I’ve never understood how to do it.”

“So, tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow,” said Ebling.

“If you don’t show up again, we’re over.”

As he crept soundlessly back upstairs, he wondered whether Ralf actually existed. Suddenly he found it unbelievable that Ralf was living out there, going about his business, oblivious to him, Ebling. Perhaps Ralf’s life had always been intended for him, and some mere accident had switched their destinies.

The phone rang again. He picked up, listened to a couple of sentences, and cried, “Cancel it!”

“Excuse me?” asked a woman, her voice shocked. “He came specially, we’ve worked so hard for this meeting, so that …”

“I’m not dependent on him.” Who could this be about? He would have given a lot to know.

“Of course you are!”

“We’ll see.” A rush of euphoria such as he had never felt before surged through him.

“If you say so.”

“I certainly do!”

Ebling had to fight the temptation to find out what all this was actually about. He had worked out that he could say anything provided he didn’t ask any questions, but that people got suspicious the moment he wanted to know something. Yesterday a woman whose throaty voice he particularly liked had accused him directly of not being Ralf—all because he’d asked where in Andalusia they’d been together on summer vacation three years ago. That way he’d never learn more about this man. Once he’d stopped in front of a poster for the new Ralf Tanner movie, imagining for a few dizzying seconds that maybe he had the legendary actor’s phone number, and it was his friends, his colleagues, and his mistresses he’d been talking to for the past week. It was just possible: Tanner’s voice and his own were quite similar. But then he’d shaken his head with a lopsided smile and gone on his way. In any case, it couldn’t go on much longer. He had no illusions, sooner or later the mistake would be corrected and his phone would go silent.

“Ah, you again. I couldn’t come to Pantagruel. She’s back.”

“Katja? You mean—you’re back with Katja?”

Ebling nodded and scribbled the name on a scrap of paper. He thought the woman he was talking to was named Carla, but he didn’t yet have enough clues to risk calling her that. It was unfortunate that nobody announced themselves on the phone anymore: the numbers came up on the screen and everyone went on the assumption that the other party already knew who the caller was before they picked up.

“I won’t forgive you.”

“I’m so sorry.”

“Bullshit. You’re not sorry!”

“I swear.” Ebling smiled as he leaned against the side of the wardrobe. “Or maybe not. Katja’s amazing.”

She yelled for awhile. She cursed him and made threats and then even ended up crying. But because it was Ralf, finally, who had unleashed this chaos, Ebling didn’t have to feel guilty. Heart thumping, he listened to her. He had never been so close to the very heart of an exciting woman.

“Pull yourself together!” he cut in. “There was no way it was going to work, you know that!”

After she’d hung up, he stood there for a time, feeling a little faint, listening to the silence, as if Carla’s sobs were still echoing somewhere.

When he encountered Elke in the kitchen, he was so astonished he felt rooted to the spot. For a moment, he’d believed she came from another life, or a dream that had no connection with reality. That night he pulled her close again, and this time too she gave in to him reluctantly, and all the while he imagined Carla, swept away by passion.

Next day he was alone at home, and called one of the numbers for the first time. “It’s me. Just checking everything’s okay.”

“What’s this?” a man’s voice asked.

“Ralf!”

“Which Ralf?”

Ebling hastily hit the disconnect button, then tried again with another of the numbers.

“Ralf, my God! I tried you yesterday … I … I …”

“Easy!” said Ebling, disappointed that again it wasn’t a woman. “What’s up?”

“I can’t go on like this.”

“Then stop.”

“There’s no way out.”

“There’s always a way out.” Ebling couldn’t stop yawning.

“Ralf, are you telling me I … finally have to take the consequences? That I have to go all the way?”

Ebling went channel-surfing. But he was out of luck, there seemed to be nothing around but folk music and carpenters doing things with planks, and repeats of old series from the eighties: the whole afternoon-TV gloom. How was he even seeing all this, why was he at home and not at work? He had no idea. Was it possible he’d simply forgotten to go in?

“I’m going to swallow the whole container.”

“Go right ahead.” Ebling reached for the book that was lying on the table. The Way of the Self to the Self, by Miguel Auristos Blanco. The sun’s disk on the jacket. It was Elke’s. He pushed it away with the tips of his fingers.

“Everything comes to you just like that, Ralf. You get it all on a platter. You have no idea what it’s like always coming second. Being one in a crowd, always someone’s last choice. You have no idea!”

“That’s true.”

“I’m going to do it—I mean it!”

Ebling switched off, just in case this pathetic person tried to call him back.

That night he dreamed about hares. They were large, there was nothing cute about them, they emerged from dense thickets, they looked more like filthy beasts than the charming little creatures from animated films, and they stared at him with eyes that glowed red. Behind him there was a cracking sound in the bushes, he swung round, but his movement shook everything loose, reality melted away, and he heard Elke saying it was unendurable, how could anyone breathe that loudly, enough was enough and she wanted her own bedroom.

Starting the next morning, the phone was silent. He waited and listened, but it didn’t ring. When it finally did so in the early afternoon, it was his boss wanting to know why he hadn’t come in the last two days, if he was feeling ill, and if his doctor’s certificate had somehow got mislaid. Ebling apologized and coughed for good measure, and when his boss said it wasn’t serious, these things happened, no reason to get excited, he was a good worker and everyone knew his worth, he felt tears of rage in his eyes.

The next day he sabotaged three computers and installed a hard drive in such a way that all the data on it would erase themselves exactly one month later. His telephone was silent.

He came close a few times to calling one of the numbers. His thumb was on the call-back button and he imagined that only a second separated him from hearing one of the voices. If he’d had more courage, he’d have pressed it. Or started a fire somewhere. Or gone in search of Carla.

At least there was Wiener schnitzel for lunch. Twice in one week—a rare treat. Rogler sat opposite him, chewing religiously. “The new E14,” he said with his mouth full. “It’s enough to drive you crazy. There isn’t a damn thing inside it that works. Anyone who buys it has only himself to blame.”

Ebling nodded.

“But what are we supposed to do?” Rogler was getting loud. “It’s new. I want it too! There’s nothing else on the market.”

“True,” said Ebling. “There’s nothing else.”

“Hey,” said Rogler. “Stop staring at your phone.”

Ebling twitched and put it in his pocket.

“Not so long ago you didn’t want anything to do with one, and now you don’t budge an inch without it. Just relax—nothing can be that urgent.” Rogler hesitated for a moment. He swallowed, then stuck another piece of schnitzel in his mouth. “Please don’t take this the wrong way. But who would be calling you anyhow?”