Hans Castorp raised his eyebrows.
“A story?”
“Yes,” said AuDHS. “You have to give your head something that is not highway. Not battle. Not optimization. A stretch that is slow. A stretch that does not arrive, but runs out.”
Hans Castorp was silent. Inside him, quietly, a Tonio feeling stirred: that stories are not just entertainment, but a kind of salvation. And that salvation is at the same time dangerous.
“I tell myself,” said AuDHS, “when I can’t fall asleep, a story. Not out loud, of course – I don’t want to educate the neighbors – but in my mind. And I tell it in such a way that in the end something happens that your head cannot do: it lets go.”
Hans Castorp looked at him.
“Which story?”
AuDHS paused for a moment, as if he had to decide whether he wanted to make a fool of himself. Then he said:
“A chameleon.”
Hans Castorp blinked.
“A chameleon,” he repeated.
“Yes,” said AuDHS. “A chameleon in a terrarium. And a highway of thoughts. And a mountain lake. Two deck chairs.”
He said the words, and you could tell how they already had a calming order inside him.
“Why…” Hans Castorp began.
AuDHS raised his hand.
“Not why,” he said. “How. You don’t have to understand it. You have to tell it.”
Hans Castorp was silent for a moment. He thought of Zieser: Keep it simple. He thought: Maybe sleep is like that too.
AuDHS took a step closer, as if he wanted to give the conversation a more confidential tone, and said:
“I won’t write it down for you. Those who write, stay – yes. But with sleep it’s the other way round: those who write stay awake.”
Hans Castorp had to laugh, quietly. Then he became serious.
“So I tell myself… a chameleon?”
AuDHS nodded.
“Yes,” he said. “You tell it. And when you notice that you want to turn off again – to Porsche, to Zieser, to ‘normally high’, to your…” He left the word open, polite as he was. “…past – then you return to the story. Again and again. That is meditation without incense sticks.”
Hans Castorp looked at him.
“And in the end?” he asked.
AuDHS smiled. It was a strangely soft smile.
“In the end,” he said, “Dr. Peter AuDHS sits with the chameleon by the mountain lake in the deck chair and lets the thoughts drive along the highway far below.”
Hans Castorp stared at him.
“You?” he asked.
AuDHS shrugged his shoulders.
“Why not?” he said. “You’re allowed to put yourself into stories. That is the only permitted form of narcissism.”
Hans Castorp nodded slowly.
“And that helps?”
AuDHS looked at him, and for a moment his gaze was completely free of irony.
“It helps,” he said. “Or it doesn’t help. That’s the nice thing. You can’t prove it. You can only try it – and precisely because you can’t prove it, maybe for once it’s finally not optimization.”
Hans Castorp exhaled. He felt something relax inside him – not because he now had a solution, but because someone had allowed him not to win.
AuDHS stepped back, and his tone again became that of the attendant who puts things in order:
“Go to your room early this evening. Measure your blood pressure if you have to. But then leave the devices alone. The mat will come later. And the story…” He smiled again. “…that is already coming now. You carry it in your head.”
Hans Castorp nodded.
“Thank you,” he said.
AuDHS raised his hand as if to ward off thanks.
“Don’t thank me,” he said. “Thank the chameleon.”
Then he left the way he had come: not away, but only into another zone.
Hans Castorp remained standing and thought: I will go to bed with a chameleon tonight.
That was, if one is honest, unedifying.
And at the same time comforting.
