I say, “Hello,” and wave without lifting my arm, as if he weren’t sitting directly in front of me.
The sight of this ghost made my testicles contract. I’d already seen plenty in my day, but him… A taste of soggy cardboard spreads through my mouth.
Axel crouches down between us so anyone who walked by here would think we look like a conspiratorial group. He rests his hand on the puffy sleeve of Dirk’s washed-out bomber jacket, from which a hand with scabby yellow fingernails protrudes. And the back of his hand. Only now do I notice it. On the back of his hand up into the sleeve, and as I assume, probably even farther up his arm, there’s a blackish, tumor-like crust growing rampant that looks like a smoker’s leg kneaded into a lump.
“My nephew here. Heiko,” Axel emphasized loudly once again, “he’s really talented. One of our best.” I briefly squint over to Axel and then back into the milky eyes of Dirk, which don’t seem to have any spark, from my perspective. “Has proven himself multiple times. He’s capable of stuff, Dirk. He’s a good one.” Axel gets really close to Dirk’s ear, but doesn’t reduce his volume. Dirk begins to nod very slowly. His mouth opens and closes to a hardly visible degree, like a goldfish. I hope I don’t look like that when I’m nodding in agreement because I can’t think of anything better.
My uncle turns to me. Back at normal volume: “Me and Dirk. We used to be the best. Always at the front of the pack. What am I talking about? Leading the way! Together we made that tired bunch into a hard-hitting squad. I couldn’t have done it without Dirk.” He briefly ponders, looking at the ground, then back at me: “A little like you and Kai. Dirk and me. We were always that tight.”
“Understand.”
“You, Dirk. We’re no spring chickens anymore, hey?” Axel doesn’t wait for an answer. We could be sitting here till the month after next. “And at some point, you really have to let go, right? That’s when I thought of Heiko here. My nephew. The best of all.” He swipes his hand in the air between the three of us in emphasis. I have to look away out of embarrassment. The rain has stopped. Individual drops slip heavily off the leaves of the flowers and onto the soil. A neon-yellow butterfly flies past the wooden hut. I watch it go, till my gaze snags on the two warhorses in front of me.
“But of course, none of that happens unless Dirk gives his blessing, right? You’re okay, Dirk,” he literally croaks in his ear. I notice how my uncle’s voice flutters, but just slightly, so you hardly notice. Dirk’s face pans toward the source of Axel’s voice like in slow motion. The black bulges also protrude from the collar of his jacket, up his neck.
“All right?”
Axel appears to be out of patience. I repress the impulse to light one. Then finally a reaction. He nods. His goldfish mouth forms an: “Okay.” Strings of drool connect his lips.
It’s enough for Axeclass="underline" “I’m glad. Well, we’re all cooled down after that rain. I’d better bring you back inside. So you don’t catch anything out here. Say good-bye, Heiko.”
I say bye and watch the two of them go. I want to pull one out of my pack as Axel and Dirk have turned onto the path toward the main entrance, when Dirk yelps all of a sudden. At first I don’t get that it’s him, but it absolutely doesn’t sound like Axel. It can only be Dirk’s voice. I hear him caterwauling the metro song, but unbelievably off-key, till they disappear past the sliding doors of the building. That he wants to build a subway from Mannheim to Auschwitz. My forehead is buried in my palms and I spew as much vomit between my feet as I possibly can.
The meal was over. I’d just accompanied Yvonne back to her car. She had to go to her night shift. “Nice that it finally worked out for us to meet,” was what Manuela had said in parting, and she gave me a sideways glance, “I was afraid that we’d never get to know you. Heiko is such a tough nut to crack. Never opens up.”
Yvonne smiled, unsure whether or not to take it as a joke. She apologized again that she’d come in her work clothes: “We can’t change at the hospital because the nurses’ locker-room is being remodeled at the moment.”
Manuela assumed a generous smile and shook her head. Her long, dangling earrings made her seem at least ten years older.
“Don’t worry about it. I hope you have a quiet shift. I bet it’s hard work at the hospital.” She went back to the patio to help Andreas and his parents clean up the picnic table. Damian was kicking my birthday present through the garden, which was bathed in evening light. I had even gone to the trouble to get him the official ball from the ’98 World Cup in France on eBay. Best ball ever.
I kissed Yvonne on her pale forehead and watched her climb into her Ford KA hatchback and drive away. Once again, she’d hardly eaten a thing all evening.
I wanted to light another cig on the patio.
“Heiko,” Manuela said, “can you please not smoke around Damian?”
I flipped the pack shut.
“But he’s playing on the grass way over there,” I snapped at her and pointed at my nephew, who was at least five meters away.
“But it blows over to him.”
Which wasn’t true. From the trees beyond the property, I could see the wind was blowing in exactly the opposite direction. And even if it wasn’t, we’re outdoors, damn it, I told myself.
“Besides, I don’t want you to set a bad example for him. If he sees that his uncle smokes, then he might want to, too.”
“He’s six!”
“Heiko, please,” Andreas butted in.
So I went around the corner, where Damian couldn’t see me, and crouched down, leaning against the wall, smoking in silence. At least the evening was almost over now. It was cooling down.
For me, it felt like the meal had lasted forever. The most exciting thing was Damian’s torrent of words. They just bubbled out of him, about the first grade and who his best friends were, and so on and so forth. The business chitchat between Andreas and his father, who’d sat across from each other in their checkered shirts, looking more and more like clones and less like father and son, made the time go by all the more slowly. Manuela wasn’t much help either, not missing a chance to praise Andreas’s many varieties of salad. She couldn’t produce something edible if you put a gun to her head, I’ll admit that. The food was actually good. Electric grill. But you don’t really need to eat outside if you’re not going to use charcoal.
Hans’s place at the table opposite Yvonne had remained empty the whole time, so Mie sat there alone and smiled silently at the circle. My father had made her load up a plate and carry it to him in the living room because he wanted to watch TV. I could see him from the patio, through the window, the bluish reflection of the tube flickering on his face and then disappearing again.
I heard voices from inside. Only then did I realize I was sitting right by the kitchen window. Andreas and Manuela were talking. It sounded like they were loading the dishwasher. Andreas’s parents joined them.
“We’d better go. I have to leave early tomorrow morning,” Andreas’s father said.
Manuela and Andreas thanked them emphatically for coming and for the generous presents for Damian, and I just thought, Good lord, how long do people need to say good-bye? At some point Andreas walked his parents to the door. The kitchen fell silent moments later. Manuela had stopped loading the dishwasher. And then I heard her suddenly start to sob. She sucked up the snot. Then another moment of silence. Then it started again. She seemed to be holding her hand in front of her mouth. I tried not to move so she wouldn’t know I was accidentally listening in.