Axel? I will write the book.

There was no point in calling the hospitals in Hamburg. Axel has the money and  reach to have every base covered. Besides, I wasn't remotely surprised to find, ringing his home on the Reeperbahn, that he was released from hospital, recuperating, taking calls and, while feeling tired and weak, a bit chesty and spleenish, absolutely fully recovered. If I am going to be manipulated by anyone on this earth, I'd rather it were Axel. Like his demented niece in Berlin, this brush with death was entirely fictional. But it got me thinking. Perhaps I owed him something, perhaps I owed the world? Had I not taken enough pleasure from it all? I wasn't worried about losing my free pass to the boat party. A lapse in taste, possibly, or a loss of vigour would count against me there. Probably I'd have to commit an historical atrocity to register my presence amongst the international financers, thieves, princes and diplomats who charm his circle. No, if anything, I am considered a balanced, serious, a decently withdrawn presence on the boat. And besides, Axel needs me there almost as a totem of conscience. I am one of those he chooses to share a few words with before the festivities begin. We always mention the lunatic niece in Berlin. As a nod to my calling, he requires my assurance that he is doing his best by her, poor thing. He will close his eyes solemnly and, from this set piece, our enormous transgressions can begin.  No, no. I wasn't concerned about losing my pass to the boat party. But Axel's imaginary illness reminded me of my father dying, the escalation of his last hours. How can anyone really fake anything? If this was not the end, then it was the image of the end. If anything is serious, it's the games we play. And so it was, I called Axel, soaring with an almost transpersonal sense of owing him, if not the world, something true of myself.

Oh, by the way, I'll throw in the Chorier, he said.