Fame: A Novel in Nine Episodes

Rosalie Goes Off to Die

Of all my characters, she’s the most intelligent. Almost seventy years ago, Rosalie was young and good at school, then she went on to qualify as a teacher and taught for four decades. She married twice and had three daughters, long since grown, now she’s a widow, her pension covers her costs, and she’s never been one to harbor illusions about things, so she wasn’t surprised when her doctor told her last week that pancreatic cancer is incurable and she wasn’t going to live much longer.

“I’m sure you want to know the truth,” he said, looking at her as if she were a child who could be proud that an adult was taking her into his confidence. “The good news is that the bad pain doesn’t come till the very end.”

She really didn’t have a difficulty accepting the situation. She didn’t go through the famous seven stages: no rebellion, no denial, no slow struggle to arrive at an understanding—just a brief interval of incredulity followed by a night of the deepest sadness, then as soon as morning came, an Internet search for the Swiss association she’d heard about that helped people who wanted to hasten things along.

I’m sure you know this association really does exist; I didn’t invent it, it’s headquartered in a Zurich suburb, I’m not going to name it because my lawyer said not to. Several Swiss organizations offer assisted suicide; this one is the best known. If you haven’t heard of it until now, pay attention; you can learn things even from a short story. You have to join the association, pay a not-negligible fee, send your medical records, which a doctor then examines to confirm that your condition is indeed terminal. After this is complete, you go there, install yourself in their only piece of actual real estate, the so-called death apartment: a room with a sofa, a bed, and a table, on which a gentle employee sets a glass of sodium pentobarbital. You drink it. Unassisted, and of your own free will.

When it comes to death, Rosalie is hard to impress. A cousin of her first husband’s shot himself in the head without realizing how hard that actually is to do, and often people survive. The angle wasn’t right and he vegetated for weeks, minus his lower jaw. Her friend Lore’s sister tried it four times with sleeping pills. Each time she tried a higher dose, each time she came to, covered in her own excrement and vomit; our bodies are strong, and the will to live more powerful than we suppose in the dark nights of the soul. And Rosalie’s nephew Frank, Lara Gaspard’s brother, hanged himself eleven years ago. His neck turned black from the strangulation ligatures, and there were deep scratch marks on the ceiling. There’s no harm in turning to the experts. So after a moment’s feeling of revulsion, Rosalie reaches for the phone.

It’s answered by a Mr. Freytag. He’s polite, soft-spoken, and tactful, and he obviously has experience with these kinds of conversations.

I should really say that I’ve invented Mr. Freytag. I haven’t called the association, I don’t know who picks up the phone there and what is said. I wanted to find out, but a vague terror always stopped me, and I felt as if I were about to do something indecent, as if I were summoning up spirits for my own amusement. In addition to which, I’m not really the kind of writer who uses real facts. Others like to be meticulous and nail down every single tiny detail, so that some shop that one of their characters is wandering past has the exact right name in the book. This sort of thing leaves me cold.

“All very simple,” says Mr. Freytag. This is the address, this is the fax number, please will she just send the medical records, a psychiatrist will then want to talk to her right away to verify that she’s responsible for her actions. After that they’ll fax her the membership agreements and as soon as she returns them, they’ll be able to arrange a date. Is there any … for the first time he hesitates. Is there any particular urgency?

The doctor, says Rosalie, has spoken of a matter of weeks.

In which case, they’ll put things on a fast track.

Mr. Freytag’s voice doesn’t waver, but is full of compassion. He’s really good at it. And why not, thinks Rosalie, he could certainly earn more elsewhere, but this must be a real vocation. She even manages to feel a flash of gratitude.

In the night, she dreams in a way she hasn’t done for years. Her blood pounds, her senses are so fevered that when she wakes up she’s almost shocked at the very memory: so many people, so much noise, and the overexcited embraces. There are faces she hasn’t thought about in more than fifty years, people who’d apparently vanished into oblivion, maybe she’s the only person alive who still remembers them. How long ago it all was. It’s really time for her to go.

And yet she can’t resign herself totally to her fate. Which is why, as dawn is approaching, she turns to me and begs for mercy.

Rosalie, it’s not within my power. I can’t.

Of course you can! It’s your story.

But it’s about your last journey. If it wasn’t, there’d be nothing for me to tell about you. The story—

Could take a different turn!

It’s the only one I know. There is nothing else for you.

Whereupon she turns away and can’t get back to sleep until it’s light. There’s nothing unusual about this, the last time she slept really well was more than twenty-five years ago.

The next days go by as if everything were normal and she still had time. Her terror slowly dissipates—or more accurately: it remains, but it loses its sharp edge and changes into a constant, dull pressure, not unlike the stomach pains that have been part of her existence for so long that she can now barely remember what it’s like to have no pains at all. That is what life is when you’re over seventy: a cramp here, a burning sensation there, a permanent sense of being unwell and stiffness in every joint.

She decides to say nothing to her daughters. They’ve been expecting her to die for a long time now, you have to be realistic. She’s sure they’ve had detailed discussions about who will organize the funeral and where she’s to be buried. They’ve dutifully begged her more than once to be sensible and move into a retirement home, but because Rosalie can still manage perfectly well on her own and retirement homes are expensive, their urgings have lacked conviction. So why burden them now, why have family reunions, tearful hugs and goodbyes? It will be so much better and cleaner if a sober letter from Zurich tells them that the long-anticipated event has now occurred.

She arranges to meet her two best friends, Lore and Silvia, for coffee and cake. There they sit, three old ladies, one afternoon in the best café in town, talking about their grandchildren. After a certain age, you only talk about your family. Politics and art become abstractions that no longer have anything to do with them and are left to the younger generation, and your own memories suddenly feel too personal to be shared. Which leaves the grandchildren. Nobody is interested in anyone else’s but you listen, so that you’ll have the right to talk about your own.

“Pauli’s talking already,” says Lore.

“Heino and Lubbi are in kindergarten,” says Silvia. “The kindergarten teacher says Heino paints just wonderfully.”

“Pauli’s really good at painting too,” says Lore.

“Tommi loves playing cops and robbers,” says Rosalie. The other two nod, and although they’ve known Rosalie for thirty years, neither of them asks who Tommi is. There is no Tommi. Rosalie invented him, she has no idea why. Nor does she know if children today still play cops and robbers, she suspects it’s anachronistic. She decides to ask her real grandson next time she sees him, then realizes that she’s not ever going to see him again. Her throat tightens, and for a little while she’s unable to speak.

To distract herself, she looks in the gold-framed mirror that’s hanging on the wall. Is that really us? These little hats and crocodile handbags and eccentrically made-up faces, these fussy gestures and ridiculous clothes? What happened? Just a moment ago we were like everyone else, we knew how to dress, we didn’t have these idiotic hairdos. That’s exactly why, thinks Rosalie, everyone likes that eccentric detective Miss Marple—she’s the absolute incarnation of unreality. Old women don’t solve murders. They’re not interested in the world, and they no longer have any desire to understand events. Every woman who hasn’t got there yet thinks she’s going to be different. Just as we did too.

They say goodbye to one another, for they’ve been sitting here for almost an hour and it’s making them all nervous to have been away this long from home. As she stands up Rosalie looks at herself in the mirror once more: a heavy jacket, although it’s summer, a waterproof rain hat, although it’s not raining. And why is this purse so enormous, when there’s almost nothing in it? Even her clothes signal that she’s superfluous, a vestige, a human residue. You’ll be next, she thinks as she gives Silvia and Lore each a kiss, wishes them luck with grandchildren and backaches, and walks across the street.

She doesn’t see the car coming. In earlier days she would never have stepped blindly into the road, she would have paid attention without having to tell herself to do so. A horn blares, brakes scream, a red VW comes to a halt. The driver rolls down the window and yells something but she keeps walking, and now she hears a screeching noise from the other side, and a white Mercedes brakes so hard that it spins sideways; she’s only ever seen something like that in a movie. Unmoved, she keeps walking. Only when she reaches the other sidewalk does her heart begin to thump, and she feels dizzy. Passersby have stood still. That’s also a way things can work, she thinks, it’s another way to shorten things, and it saves a trip to Zurich.

A young man seizes her elbow and asks if everything’s okay.

“Yes,” she says, “all okay.”

He asks if she knows where she lives and how to get there.

A number of wicked replies occur to her, but she decides it’s not the moment, and assures him she knows perfectly well.

Back home the light on her answering machine is blinking. Mr. Freytag is letting her know that her medical records have been approved. Her shock makes her realize that she’s still been hoping they’d be rejected, that she’d be told that there’s been an error and her case isn’t incurable. She calls back, and a few moments later he’s connected her to a very polite psychiatrist.

Unfortunately she has problems understanding his accent. What is it with the Swiss, she thinks, they can do it all, so why can’t they manage to talk like normal people? She tells him things from childhood, names the American, French, and German presidents, describes the weather outside, adds fifteen and twenty-seven, and explains the difference between the concepts of optimistic and pessimistic, and skilled and unskilled. Anything else?

“No,” says the doctor. “Thank you. Clear case.”

Rosalie nods. During the additions she’s forced herself not to answer too quickly, and take an extra moment or two so that he wouldn’t think somebody’s helping her. As for the explanations of words, she expressed herself as simply as possible. She was a schoolteacher, and knows from experience: the best thing is never to let yourself stand out. If your test results are too good, you’re suspect and they think you’ve been cheating.

Now Mr. Freytag is back on the line. As time is pressing, she could come next week. “Would Monday suit you?”

“Monday,” Rosalie repeats after him. “Why not?” Then she calls the travel agency and inquires about a one-way flight to Zurich.

“One-way is more expensive. Buy a round-trip.”

“All right.”

“What date for the return?”

“Doesn’t matter.”

“I don’t recommend it. The cheapest tickets don’t allow you any changes in bookings.” The travel agent’s voice sounds friendly and excessively patient, the kind of voice you only use when talking to elderly women. “Just a moment. When would you like to return?”

“I don’t want to return.”

“But you’re going to want to come back.”

“Maybe better to take a one-way ticket.”

“I could also book it with an open return. But it is more expensive.”

“More than a one-way flight?”

“Nothing is more expensive than a one-way flight.”

“And that’s logical?” asks Rosalie.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s illogical.”

“Dear lady …” He clears his throat. “This is a travel agency. We don’t set the fares. We have no idea how they’re established. My girlfriend works for an airline. She doesn’t understand it either. I recently saw that a business-class fare to Chicago is cheaper than economy. The customer asked why, and I said, Sir, if I start asking questions like that, I’ll come unglued. Ask your computer. I ask the computer too. Everyone asks the computer, that’s how it goes!”

“Was it always this way with the pricing?”

His silence makes her realize he doesn’t even want to think about this. She’s often noticed that people under thirty aren’t interested in why things become the way they are.

“So, I’ll take the one-way ticket.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Business?”

She thinks it over. But it’s not a long flight, why waste money? “Economy.”

He mutters, types, mutters, types some more, and after a long-drawn-out fifteen minutes he issues her ticket. Unfortunately, he says, he can’t issue it as an electronic ticket, the computer’s acting up, nothing to be done. He’ll have to have it delivered by messenger to her home. But that’ll be even more expensive.

“Just do it,” says Rosalie; she’s really had enough.

She hangs up and it dawns on her that she no longer has a care in the world. The dripping tap she’s been meaning to call the plumber about forever, the damp patch in the bathroom, the son of her neighbors who keeps staring up at her window so threateningly, as if intending to rob her—none of it matters a jot anymore, other people will take care of it all, or maybe no one will, it’s over.

That evening she calls the one person she’d like to talk to about what she’s going to do. “Where are you?”

“In San Francisco,” says Lara Gaspard.

“The phone must cost you a lot, doesn’t it?” How strange it is that these days you can reach almost anybody anywhere, without knowing where they are. It’s as if space itself is no longer what it was. On the one hand it strikes her as spooky, on the other hand she’s glad she can talk to her brilliant niece.

“No problem. What’s going on, you sound strange!”

Rosalie swallows, then tells her. The whole thing suddenly strikes her as unreal and theatrical, as if it were someone else’s story or someone had made the whole thing up. When she gets to the end, she doesn’t know what else to say. Curiously, she finds this embarrassing. She stops talking, confused.

“My God,” says Lara.

“Do you think it’s a mistake?”

“Somewhere in there, there’s a mistake, but it’s hard to pin down. Are you going alone?”

Rosalie nods.

“Don’t do that. Take me with you.”

“Out of the question.”

For a second or two, neither of them says a thing. Rosalie knows that Lara knows she would give way if asked more forcefully, and Lara knows that Rosalie knows, but Rosalie also knows that Lara doesn’t have the strength for it, not now, not so abruptly and without any time to prepare, and so both of them behave as if there’s nothing to be done and no argument to be had.

So they have a long conversation full of repetitions and interminable pauses, about life and childhood and God and the ultimate things, and Rosalie keeps thinking she shouldn’t have made this call, that what she’d really like to do is hang up, but that it’s really going to go on for some time because of course she absolutely doesn’t want to hang up. At some point Lara begins to sob and Rosalie feels very brave and detached as she says goodbye, but then it starts all over again from the beginning and they talk for another hour. That was a mistake, Rosalie thinks afterward. You don’t tell other people, you don’t burden them with it. That’s the mistake, that’s what her brilliant niece meant. You do it alone or you don’t do it at all.

The weekend goes by with a strange lightheartedness. Only her feverish dreams, filled with people, voices, and events, as if an entire universe buried inside her were trying to rise again to the light of day, show her that she isn’t as serene as she believes herself to be in her waking hours. On Monday morning she gets ready to pack her suitcase. But she has to pull herself together, for it seems so strange and wrong somehow to be setting off on a journey minus any luggage.

In the taxi on the way to the airport, as the houses file past and the rising sun plays on the rooftops, she makes another try. Is there no chance, she asks me. It’s all in your hands. Let me live!

Not possible, I say crossly. Rosalie, what’s happening to you here is what you’re for. That’s why I invented you. Theoretically maybe I suppose I could intervene, but then the whole thing would be pointless! In other words, I can’t.

Rubbish, she says. All babble. At some point it’ll be your turn, and then you’ll be begging just like me.

That’s completely different.

And you won’t understand why an exception can’t be made for you.

The two things aren’t comparable. You’re my invention and I’m …

Yes?

I’m real!

Are you?

Trust me. It’s not going to hurt. That much I can take care of, I promise. My story—

Excuse me, but I couldn’t care less about your story. It’s probably not even any good!

I’m furious and I say nothing, and to make sure Rosalie doesn’t start up again, I have her arrive at the airport a few minutes later—the taxi has made unbelievable time, the streets have become a blur of color, and she’s already getting out, no line at the check-in counter, no waiting to clear security, and she’s sitting at the gate, surrounded by noisy children and people on business trips, and has no idea how all this happened. Our conversation has slipped into the back of her brain, she’s no longer sure whether I actually said something or whether she invented my words herself.

The plane is late. All planes are always late, that’s something not even I can do anything about. So Rosalie sits in the departure lounge. Sunlight filters softly through the windows. Until now she hasn’t felt afraid, but suddenly she is rigid with terror.

At exactly this moment, things begin to move. The flight to Zurich is called, and as Rosalie stands up, a fellow passenger asks if she needs help. She doesn’t, but why turn down the offer of a little support and friendliness? So she allows herself to be assisted on board.

Luckily, she has a window seat. She decides not to waste a moment, she’s going to look out as if she could take it all with her. It’s a fine thing to fly over the Alps one more time just before the end. The plane starts down the runway, engines screaming.

Rosalie wakes as the plane touches down and the force of the brakes presses her against her seatbelt. Her eardrums hurt. She rubs her forehead. Did she really … the whole way? She can’t believe it. But out there the landing runway stretches away under a uniform gray sky. It’s true, she’s slept through it all.

“Are we really already there?” she asks her neighbor.

He shakes his head. “Basel.”

“What?”

“Fog in Zurich.” He looks at her as if it’s her fault. “We had to land in Basel.”

Rosalie stares at the back of the seat in front of her and tries to think. What is this? The unexpected twist that’s meant to save her life? Have I intervened to interrupt her journey?

But Rosalie, I reply. You have cancer. You’re going to die anyway. A break in your journey isn’t going to save you.

It could turn into another kind of story, she says. I could discover life in the next two weeks. Do things I’ve never done before. It could be one of those stories about how nobody ever values the present enough and how you should always live as if it would be all over in the next few days. It could be a positive … what do they call them?

Life-affirming. It’s called a life-affirming story.

So it could be one of those!

Rosalie, the airline will offer you two things. A connecting flight, but nobody will know when you’ll be able to board, because the fog in Zurich is extremely thick, or a train ticket. The train would get you there on time. You’ll take the train ticket. This isn’t a life-affirming story. If anything, it’s a theological one.

How so?

I say nothing.

But how so, she says again. What do you mean?

I say nothing.

“I beg you,” says Rosalie’s neighbor. “It’s not so bad. You’ll get to Zurich—it’s not that far. There’s no reason to cry.”

At the door to the plane she’s pulled herself together again. A man from the airline is handing out vouchers to the grumbling passengers. Rosalie does opt for the train, and because she looks frail and not very well, an employee is found to drive her to the station. Her train is already at the platform. “Mind the step,” says the young man. “Mind, there’s a gap. Mind the next step. Would you like to sit here? Mind the seat.”

Very shortly the train is racing through a green landscape of hills and valleys. This time Rosalie is determined not to doze off.

She wakes as the train is stopping at some little provincial station. Fog hangs over the roofs of hideous houses. Out on the platform a child is whimpering while his mother next to him stares wildly as if she’d just trodden in a mound of turds. Rosalie rubs her face. Then the conductor comes onto the loudspeaker: there’s been an accident, bodily injuries, please disembark!

“Someone’s committed suicide,” a man says cheerfully.

“Jumped in front of the train,” says a woman. “That makes a mess of you. Nothing left!”

“Maybe a shoe,” says the man. “It’ll turn up miles away.”

They all nod in concert, then they get out. A man helps Rosalie down onto the platform, and she stands out there in the drizzle. Not knowing what to do, she goes into the station buffet. A Madonna smiles down from the wall next to a general in black and white next to a mountain guide with a pickax. There are four Swiss flags in the room. The coffee is disgusting.

“Dear lady, do you wish to get to Zurich?”

She looks up. There’s a thin man with horn-rim glasses and greasy hair at the next table. Rosalie has already noticed him on the train.

“If so, I could give you a lift.”

“You have a car here?”

“Dear lady, there are many cars.”

She’s silent, nonplussed. But what does she have to lose? She nods.

“If you would be so kind as to come with me. I take it time is tight.” In a grand gesture he pulls out his wallet and pays for her coffee. Then he goes over to the coat stand, takes a bright red cap that’s hanging there, puts it on his head, and slowly adjusts it. “Forgive me if I don’t assist you, but alas my back hurts. What is your name?”

She introduces herself.

He takes her hand and—she pulls back involuntarily—presses his lips to it. “Charmed!” He doesn’t tell her his own name. He holds himself very straight, his movements are supple, and there’s no sign that he has a bad back.

She follows him into the parking lot. He walks quickly without looking back and she can hardly keep up with him. He stops first in front of one car, then another, his head to one side and his lips pursed.

“What do you think about this one?” he asks in front of a silver Citroën. “I think it will do the job.” He looks questioningly at Rosalie. As she nods, disconcerted, he bends over and does something to the door, which springs open after a moment. He gets in and does something to the ignition.

“What are you doing?”

“Dear lady, won’t you get in?”

Rosalie hesitantly sits down in the passenger seat. The engine starts. “Is this your car, or did you just …”

“Of course it’s my car, dear lady! You wouldn’t wish to insult me?”

“But the ignition! You …”

“A new patent, very complicated, why don’t you tilt your seat back, it’s not going to take long, even if I can’t drive at top speed, too much fog and I don’t want to expose you to the slightest danger.” His laugh sounds like a bleat and Rosalie feels a shiver down her spine.

“Who are you?” she asks, her voice hoarse.

“A friendly fellow human being, dear lady. A seeker, a helper, a voyager. A shadow and a brother. As each of us should be to others.”

They’re already on the Autobahn. The guardrails glisten at the side of the car and the speed pushes Rosalie into her soft leather seat.

“The old riddle,” he says with a sidelong glance at her face. “Oedipus and the Sphinx. In the morning, four; at midday, two; in the evening, three. So profound, dear lady.” He turns on the radio, alpenhorns groan, in the background someone yodels. He whistles along and bangs out the rhythm on the steering wheel, completely off the beat. “A thinking reed, most venerable lady, un roseau pensant, what else is man? I will take you to your destination, and all I ask in return, fear not, is absolutely nothing.”

Get on and do something, she says to me. Spoil your story. Who’s going to care, there are so many stories, it’s not all about just one. You could make me better again, you could even make me young. It wouldn’t cost you a thing.

She almost managed to coax me out of my reserve, but right now I’m preoccupied with other things: I’m really bothered that I have no idea who the guy behind the wheel is, who invented him, and how he got into my story. My plan involved a little boy and a bike, a motorcycle gang and a retired Colombian coffin maker. A little dog was also to be given a major role, largely symbolic. Twenty pages of drafts, a lot of them really good, that I can just as well throw away now.

They’re already leaving the Autobahn, the first houses on the outskirts of Zurich appear: little gardens, advertisements for milk, more little gardens, schoolchildren with oversized knapsacks. Suddenly he hits the brakes, jumps out into the street, runs around the car, and opens Rosalie’s door. “Dear lady!”

She climbs out. “We’re here?”

“Yes indeed!” He makes an absurdly low bow, his arms hanging slack so that the backs of his hands brush the wet asphalt. He holds this pose for several seconds, then straightens up again. “Determination. Whatever projects you have planned, perform them with determination. Think about that.” He turns and walks away with long strides.

“But your car!” Rosalie calls after him.

He’s already disappeared around the corner, and the Citroën sits there abandoned, its blinkers going, and the door wide open. Rosalie squeezes her eyes, then focuses on the street sign, and realizes with a mixture of relief, incredulity, and anger that he’s dropped her off in the wrong place.

She lifts her hand and stands there for a long time in the rain, getting wetter and wetter and feeling wretched beyond words. Finally a taxi pulls up. She gets in, gives the driver the correct address, and closes her eyes.

Let me live, she tries one last time. Your story. Forget it. Just let me live.

You’re clutching at the illusion that you really exist, I reply. But you’re made of words, vague images, and a few simple thoughts, and they all belong to other people. You think you’re suffering. But nobody’s suffering here, because nobody’s here!

You and your clever words! You can stick them up your ass!

For a moment I’m speechless. I’ve no idea who taught her to talk like that. It’s not who she is, it’s a stylistic break, it spoils my prose. Please pull yourself together!

No, I won’t. I hurt. One day it’ll happen to you too, and someone will tell you that you don’t exist.

Rosalie, that’s precisely the difference. I do exist.

Oh yes?

I have a personality and feelings and a soul, which may not be immortal but it’s real. Why are you laughing?

The driver looks round, then shrugs his shoulders, old people are strange and that’s that. The windshield wipers are on high, rain is bouncing back up out of the puddles, people are staring out from under their umbrellas. The last journey, says Rosalie softly, and precisely because it’s true, the thought rings both false and pathetic. It doesn’t matter what kind of life you’ve had, she tells herself, it always ends in horror. And now all that remains is to let the minutes go by. There are approximately twenty left to her, each one filled with seconds; it’s a long time. The clock will tick thousands of times more, the end is still unreal for now.

“We’re here!” says the driver.

“Already?”

He nods. She realizes she hasn’t changed any money, and has no Swiss francs. “Please wait. I’ll be right back.”

As she’s getting out, she simply can’t believe her last act is going to be cheating on a taxi fare. But life is such a mixed-up, impure business, and now she’s no longer responsible. Here is the name board with all the buzzers, and on it, as if it meant something other than death itself, is the name of the association. She rings, the door immediately unlocks itself with a dull hum.

The elevator is ancient, the suspension cables above the car groan, and as she goes up, she understands that until this moment she’d never believed she would set foot in this house. The car stops, the door glides open, and there appears out of nowhere, as if to prevent her from pushing the button that will take her back down again, a thin man with a center part in his hair. “Good day, my name is Freytag.”

And now?

I know I should tell it all. Rosalie walking through the anteroom to the inner room in which the dying is done. The table; the chair; the bed, I should describe them, I should paint a picture of the battered furniture, the strange layer of dust on the little wall cupboard, the general air of a place that’s both used and uninhabited, as if it were the home of shadows, not people. And of course the camera; I should mention the camera, installed to document that the terminally ill patients drink the poison themselves, that nobody forces them, the association has to cover itself legally. I should recount how Rosalie sits down and props her head on her hands, how she looks out of the window for one last sight of the endless foggy expanse of sky, how fear gives way to exhaustion, how she—here, please, and here, and again here—signs forms, and how the glass of poison is finally set down in front of her. I should describe how she lifts it to her mouth, I should conjure up the mixture of aversion and longing as she looks at the watery liquid, her brief hesitation, because she could still turn back and, even if for a matter of days, choose life with all its pain and all its adversities, but then she decides against this—she’s come too far, she’s too close to the threshold to turn back. I should also describe the last wave of her memories: games at the edge of a peaceful lake, the moist kiss of a motherly woman, her father behind the Sunday paper, the little girl who sat next to her at school, and a boy she hasn’t thought about since back then, and the bird in a cage at her grandmother’s that could enunciate several words quite clearly. Nothing, if truth be told, in the intervening seventy-two years, has ever fascinated her as much as that talking creature.

Yes, it could have made a really good story, a little sentimental, granted, but with humor to counterbalance the melancholy, the brutality offset by a touch of philosophy. I had worked the whole thing out. And now?

Now I ruin it. I tear the curtain aside, I become visible, I appear by Freytag’s side at the door to the elevator. For a second he looks at me uncomprehendingly, then he turns pale and vanishes like dust. Rosalie, you’re cured. And while we’re at it, be young again. Start from the beginning again!

Before she can even respond, I’ve disappeared again and she’s standing in the elevator that’s grinding its way back downstairs and cannot grapple with the fact that a twenty-year-old woman is looking back at her out of the mirror. Slightly irregular teeth, hair a little sparse, neck too thin, she never was a beauty, but I can’t give her that as well. Although, on the other hand—why not! It’s not important anymore.

Thank you.

Ah, I say, exhausted, don’t celebrate too fast.

She pulls open the front door and bounds out into the street on legs that no longer hurt. Her clothes look peculiar on her: a young girl dressed like an old woman. Because the taxi driver doesn’t recognize her, he doesn’t stop her, he’s lost his fare and will still be standing here half an hour later, watching the meter keep ticking with rising concern, and finally banging on every door in the building. At the association they tell him that they were indeed expecting an old lady but that she hadn’t bothered to keep her appointment. He will go off cursing and this evening will shovel down his wife’s wretched cooking, even more taciturn than usual. It’s long been in his mind to kill her, with a knife or his bare hands, but today’s the day he decides to go through with it. But that’s another story.

And Rosalie? She goes down the street, taking great strides, half unconscious with euphoria, and for a moment I feel I’ve done the right thing, as if mercy were all-important and one story less didn’t matter. And at the same time, I have to confess, I have an absurd hope that someone someday will do the same for me. For like Rosalie I cannot imagine that I’m a nothing if I’m not being observed by somebody else, and that my only half-real existence ends the moment that that somebody takes his eyes off me—just as, now that I’m finally ending this story, Rosalie ceases to exist. From one moment to the next. Without any death throes, pain, or transition. At one instant an oddly dressed girl in a state of happy confusion, now a mere undulation in the air, a sound that echoes for a few seconds, a memory that bleaches itself from my mind and from yours as you read this paragraph.

What remains, if anything, is a street in the rain. Water pouring off two children’s ponchos, a dog over there lifting its leg, a yawning street sweeper, and three cars with unknown number plates rounding the corner as if they were coming from a long way away: out of another unknown reality or at least out of another story altogether.