Chapter 8 - Commitment

“Helmuth!” a voice resonated from behind with the stark intensity of a bullet.

He turned around, not being able to remember how he got to this giant and ornate ball room with gleaming crystal chandeliers and chamber music, filled with ladies and gentlemen dressed for the evening and an army of staff carrying champaign glasses on silver trays.

“Have you given any thought to my proposal?”

“Damn! Of all the random strands of continuity in this meaningless, chaotic pulp! How did I merge into the club party scenario again?” 

“What was that proposal?” he wondered, realizing with dismay they never actually talked about it. 

He sketched a non-committal smile and gestured to a server who approached immediately with drinks.

When you’re thrown into chaos, you soon discover it doesn’t have much to offer: it’s all different and all the same simultaneously, and the human mind tires quickly of the various iterations of things not making sense. We pride ourselves on our reason; we developed our minds by climbing the stepping stones of logic, one truth at a time. What good is a sound mind in a place bereft of consequence? 

“How do you live like this?” he asked himself. “How do you even survive in a place like this? What is the point of tomorrow in a reality that makes no sense?”

His smile turned encouraging, and he replied without skipping a beat.

“Yes, I think it’s a splendid idea. Have the papers ready. We should sign the agreement as soon as workable.”

“Why not now?” his hopeful business associate countered, beaming from the excitement of such an easy victory and eager to close the deal.

“Excellent!” the person currently known as Helmuth reaffirmed his commitment. “I have no idea what I’m signing,” he smiled to himself. He couldn’t remember having a life before the muzak lounge, but if he did, he had to assume this kind of venture would have caused him great trepidation and at least a few sleepless nights. “Let’s just hope whatever this is will not kill anybody.”

“You know,” his conversation partner interjected, still reeling from the emotional weight of placing his signature on a document of great significance, “I never thought you would allow Inclusion 35B in the contract. I mean you, of all people…”

“Inclusion 35B, of course. I don’t know what Inclusion 35B is, but Helmuth is going to have a bear of a case explaining himself,” he thought, and then decided to play along, just to see how far this conversation would go before it inevitably returned him to that lounge, that reality crossroads, before whatever this was had time to consummate. 

“Oh, yeah?” he teased. “Why did you put it in the contract, then?”

“You know me,” the partner smiled. “I don’t give up that easily. Besides, Dagmar was hell-bent on it. I couldn’t change his mind.” He smiled again, happy and relieved, with the expression of a man who had been shouldering a heavy burden for a long time, a burden which was now lifted.

“And I made somebody happy today!” Helmuth congratulated himself, a little saddened by the fact he didn’t remember his real name, if he ever had one. Who was this man he was impersonating so well, it seemed, nobody was the wiser?

“This is worth celebrating, don’t you think?” his partner replied. Helmuth raised his hand for another round of bubbly, but the man held down his arm and whispered something in his ear, so close he could feel the bristle of his mustache and his breath tickle his earlobe; he let out an involuntary giggle. The room was too loud and he couldn’t understand what his partner had said. 

“Yes?” the latter inquired, eyes glossy from the champaign while he touched his arm in a familiar gesture.

“Are we an item or have I had too much to drink?” Helmuth sobered up instantly.

“But what about my wife?” he thought, right before he realized the limitations of continuity in a chaotic environment: they only work locally and temporarily. 

Logic trips you again and again in a place with no rules. 

Just because two reality options bear significant similarities, that doesn’t mean the same parameters are present in both. 

Helmuth looked down at his hand, as inconspicuously as possible, filled with the anxiety of anticipation: his wedding ring was still there, so he let out a sigh of relief, which didn’t escape his conversation partner.

“Your husband keeps you on a short leash, doesn’t he?” the latter replied, slighted by the rejection he expected, but not enough to overshadow the victory he’d just scored.

“You know, Helmuth? I never thought of you as the marrying type. That’s too bad!” he looked at him with a nostalgic smile. 

“Everybody settles down eventually… dear sir,” Helmuth continued to play along, realizing too late he didn’t know his partner’s name. He cursed himself for not looking at the signature. How does one sign a contract and not once even look at the names on the paper? Instinct at least should have kicked in. After all, he was a grown man. He must have lived somewhere normal before the muzak lounge, he surely must have. His business partner removed his hand from his arm, offended.

“You may have settled down, Helmuth, but you haven’t changed a bit. Serves me right to trust you.”

“How the devil does this keep happening to me?” Helmuth gasped, aghast. “Shouldn’t he be at least a bit happy I signed his darn contract? It looked important enough to discuss for months! One can’t put a foot right in this madness!”

“Here you are,” his husband intervened at just the right time to break the awkwardness of the situation. “I hate to interrupt your pleasant reunion, but the cab is here.” 

The crease between his eyebrows did not bode a pleasant evening. 

He closed his eyes, relieved he wasn’t really Helmuth, from either reality, and Helmuth’s problems and commitments and romantic dramas didn’t affect him in the long term. He was one door away from never being in this environment again, so he decided to enjoy it for as long as he was there. He grabbed another champaign flute on his way to the door.

“You seemed a little cozy there, with James,” his husband commented, with a hint of reproach. “Are we having second thoughts?”

“What do you mean?” he looked the picture of innocence.

“Maybe I don’t appreciate you rekindling a relationship with your former boyfriend, did you ever think of that?” his husband spoke in a low throaty voice, choked with emotion and embarrassment.

“What?! No! Really?” Helmuth mumbled, disoriented by the sudden situational ambush. “Oh, man, this is not good, not good at all! I’m starting to think if there is a hell, I’m going there for sure!”

But what if this was hell? What else would hell look like, if not as an absence of all meaning? He suddenly felt like a condemned man, sentenced to live his disjointed life outside the bonds of family, purpose and love. However much his now husband might hurt from his jealousy and insecurity, at least he could feel human emotions. He lived a story, good or bad, where things happened because of other things. He instantly resented this man, who was a complete stranger, for loving him and having his happiness tied to his whims. They weren’t even his whims, he mused. Whose whims were they, really? Who decided, when a random door opened, whether it was just another door or it led back to the muzak lounge?

They kept silent in the cab, that resentful silence long time partners display when they’re having the same tired argument for the hundredth time. 

The cab driver threw a glance in their direction, used as he was to the entire array of human relationships and emotions, and he asked them if it was ok to turn the radio on.

Helmuth nodded, throwing a furtive, guilty glance toward his husband, uncomfortable to acknowledge he didn’t even know the name of the man who loved him enough to make a lifetime commitment to him, and then his mind veered off, suddenly wondering what was in that contract he signed.

The cab stopped in front of an apartment building, and he wondered how he would explain the fact he didn’t know which door he was supposed to walk towards, but his husband saved the situation by walking ahead, visibly upset. He followed him to the door, unsure, and when it opened, the familiar soft muzak sounds welcomed him.