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asked.
    To his credit, Dirk didn’t turn to Claudia to look for help. He picked up his fork again and slowly sawed a piece of meat from the lamb chop as if there was nothing more important in the world.
    “As a child I had eczema,” he informed the bones on his plate. “I’ve heard you are interested in medicine?”
    “I’m not the slightest bit interested in medicine,” I said. “I’m interested in defects.”
    Just at that moment the phone rang.
    I sat there like I was nailed down. It had been a family rule since I was little: never leave the table to answer the phone. Nobody rang these days anyway. Not for me at least. The answering machine clicked on. And then I heard Janne’s voice asking me to call her back.

 
    E xcuse me, please,” I said to Claudia the next morning. I had set my alarm just to be able to apologize to her. Usually I didn’t fall asleep until dawn, when I would gulp down a tablet, and then I didn’t wake up until around noon. Dirk was already gone. The kitchen smelled like coffee and croissants that had been crisped in the oven. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” I said.
    “It’s fine.” Claudia kept reading the paper.
    “I didn’t mean to ruin it for you,” I said. “Word of honor.”
    “If you could ruin something so quickly then it wouldn’t have been worth anything to begin with,” Claudia said as she continued to flip through the paper. She had on a gray skirt and a bright white top with a banded collar. The red polished toes of her bare feet felt around on the floor as if they were searching for fallen crumbs.
    I sat down across from her, took a croissant from the bread basket, and broke off one of the ends. It was still warm. I dribbled a little lemon jelly from the knife into the open end of the croissant and shoved the entire thing into my mouth.
    “Can I ask you something?” Claudia had put the paper to the side and glanced at me over the rims of her glasses.
    “Yeah?” I asked with my mouth full.
    “What’s your plan?”
    “For today?”
    “Today, tomorrow. In general. Are things just going to go on like this?”
    I didn’t say anything.
    “You had friends. You had interests. You did theater for god’s sake. Was all of that so ephemeral that it just completely disappeared into thin air? Or can I assume that you’re just taking a break and will get back to it all again at some point?”
    I sighed, took a glass from the counter, made sure it was empty, and threw it onto the floor. Stupidly enough, it didn’t break. Claudia didn’t even glance at it.
    “If you are so inclined to be destructive, then become a contract killer. At least it pays well.”
    I closed my eyes. I tried to picture it for a moment. How I would go to
his
house and knock at the door. How he’d open the door, looking just like an attack dog himself, an attack dog in human form, with his deformed hairless head, little murderous eyes, bared teeth. How I would kick in the door holding my weapon. How I’d give him time to recognize me before I pulled the trigger. How I’d smash the muzzle into the face of his girlfriend, who had laughed back then but was screaming in panic now. How I would let her live but she, like me, would never look the same again.
    And then how I’d hear a baby crying in the next room and understand that I wouldn’t feel any better and that I never would.
    I opened my eyes. Claudia was reading the paper.
    “I have no desire to live,” I said.
    “Oh, my god.” She flipped the page.
    “Look at me,” I said. “Look at me right now for god’s sake.”
    “I don’t feel like it,” said Claudia. “It’s a horrid sight, men in their underpants at the breakfast table.”
     
    Only after I saw the taillights of Claudia’s car out the window and was sure she wasn’t coming back to get some files or her reading glasses did I call Janne back.
    “Hello, this is Janne,” she said, her voice warm and sunny, sounding every bit like a nice, carefree girl next