Me and Kaminski by Daniel Kehlmann

face. I leaned my head against the wall for a moment; I really was very tired.
    We went to the cashier. “I don’t have any money with me,” said Kaminski.
    I bit my teeth and pulled out my credit card. Outside an engine started up, died, started up again, and then receded into the distance; the woman at the cash register looked up curiously at the surveillance monitor. I signed, and took Kaminski by the arm. The door hissed as it opened.
    I stopped so abruptly that Kaminski almost fell.
    And yet: I really wasn’t surprised. I felt it was inevitable, that some essential piece of a composition had fallen into place. I wasn’t even shocked. I rubbed my eyes. I wanted to scream, but I didn’t have the strength. I sank slowly to my knees, sat down on the ground, and propped my head in my hands.
    “Now what?” said Kaminski.
    I closed my eyes. Suddenly, I just didn’t care. He, and my book, and my future could all go to hell! What concern of mine was all this, what did this old man have to do with me? The asphalt was warm, the dark streaked with light, it smelled of grass and gasoline.
    “Zollner, are you dead?”
    I opened my eyes and stood up slowly.
    “Zollner!” roared Kaminski. His voice was high and cut like a knife. I left him standing there and went back in. The woman at the cash register was laughing as if she’d never seen anything so funny. “Zollner!” She picked up the phone receiver, I stopped her, the police would just hold us up and ask inconvenient questions. I said I would take care of things myself. “Zollner!” She should simply call us a taxi. She did so, then she wanted money for the phone call. I asked her if she was mad, went out, and took Kaminski by the elbow.
    “So there you are. What’s wrong?”
    “Don’t behave as if you don’t know.”
    I looked around. A light wind was making waves run across the fields, a few thin clouds hung in the sky. Basically it was a peaceful place. We could stay here.
    But our taxi was arriving already. I helped Kaminski into the backseat and asked the driver to take us to the nearest railroad station.

VIII
    T HE RINGING OF A TELEPHONE jolted me out of sleep. I groped for the receiver, something fell to the ground. I found it and pulled it toward me. Who? Wegenfeld, Anselm Wegenfeld, from reception. Fine, I said, what is it? The room I found myself looking at was a shabby hodgepodge: bedposts, table, a stained bedside lamp, a mirror hung squint. The old gentleman, said Wegenfeld. Who? The old gentleman, he repeated with peculiar emphasis. I sat up, wide awake. “What’s happened?”
    “Nothing, but you should check in on him.”
    “Why?”
    Wegenfeld cleared his throat, coughed, cleared his throat again. “There are rules in this house. You’ll understand that there are some things we just cannot tolerate. You understand?”
    “Dammit, what’s going on?”
    “Let’s say, he has a visitor. Either you get rid of her, or we will!”
    “You’re not trying to say . . .?”
    “Yes I am,” said Wegenfeld. “That’s exactly what I’m trying to say.”
    I stood up, went into the tiny bathroom, and washed my face with cold water. It was five in the afternoon, I had been so deep asleep I’d lost all sense of time. It took a moment or two for my memory to start functioning.
    A silent taxi driver had collected us at the gas station. “No,” Kaminski said suddenly. “Not to the station. I want to lie down.”
    “You can’t right now.”
    “I can and I will. Drive to a hotel!”
    The driver nodded phlegmatically.
    “It’ll only hold us up,” I said. “We have to get on.” The driver shrugged.
    “It’s just turned one o’clock,” said Kaminski.
    I looked at the time, it was twelve fifty-five. “Nowhere near it.”
    “At one o’clock I lie down. I’ve been doing it for forty years and I’m not going to change. I can also ask this gentleman to drive me home.”
    The driver threw him a greedy look.
    “Well, all right,” I said,