Andreas returned.
“Dear, do you…?” He stopped. Must have noticed she was crying. Then nothing. It took me a minute to get that he’d simply turned on his heel and left my sister alone in the kitchen. No clue where it came from, but I stood up next to the kitchen window, but without showing myself, and whispered, “What’s going on?”
Manuela didn’t seem at all surprised my voice was suddenly coming in from outside. If she was, I couldn’t tell.
“It’s just… Heiko. I just can’t stand it sometimes.”
I wanted to press about what she meant exactly, but she added: “Seeing Andreas’s parents. And us in contrast. How Papa doesn’t even come to the table. And Mama…” My molars ground together so hard my jaw hurt. “Heiko. I hate Mama for it. I hate her for just running away. I hate her for not caring about us at all.” I wanted to tell her I felt the same way. That it wasn’t a family. And it never had been. At least not as long as I could remember. I wanted to tell Manuela she was my sister. I mean: of course she is. But, saying it, I wanted to say something else actually. But instead of saying that and more, what I could have said, I said nothing at all. ’Cause once again I couldn’t manage to find the words. Then it was too late, because Mie came into the kitchen with the rest of the dirty plates. We haven’t spoken about it since.
I went back around the corner of the house. My knees were soft as sponges. Damian called from the patch of lawn, asking if I could play another round of football before he went to bed. I said I’d come right away.
Andreas sat at the picnic table. There were red splotches on his cheeks, which didn’t fit with his otherwise tidy appearance. He just looked at me. Took a swig of his nonalcoholic beer and looked at me again from beneath his eyebrows. I walked by him without saying a word.
The week’s almost done. I can’t put off feeding the pigeons anymore. They’re free-flying and might be less than stupid about finding something to eat and drink along the way, but, after nearly a week, I still have to make sure everything’s in good shape. Otherwise, they’ll shit the coop full to the brim. Besides, Hans is in withdrawal. Or as Manuela calls it: rehab. At least that way I don’t have to cross paths with him.
I parked a little ways down the street. I don’t want Mie seeing the light from my headlamps when I turn into the drive. I have no clue if she’d ask me in or anything, but she’d certainly come out to say hi, and then we’d be standing there and looking at each other, and no one knowing what to say, how to end it halfway okay.
From the front, no light is visible in the house. But what if she’s in the kitchen right now and looks out? Well, then I can’t do anything about it. But maybe I’ll get lucky and she’s in the living room or already asleep. So I slip through the narrow space between the shed and the fence. There used to be a well-worn path you could take to go from the driveway to the garden. Today it’s overgrown with weeds a meter high, growing from the wall of the shed to the gutter on the roof—stinging nettles and thistles. I was smart enough to dress in long pants, though it’s brutally hot. Even after sunset. The heat of the day is so heavy and oppressive the plants just sag to the ground at night and lie there till the next morning, only to start up again.
The garden is surrounded by the house on one side, the neighbor’s property on the other, and the shed next to the street. It extends out back at least twenty meters in a rectangular shape. Judging by the high grass, which covers the entire garden like the thick fur of a huge animal, Hans hasn’t mowed for months. Wouldn’t be possible now either. All you could do would be to go in with a scythe. The one place trampled flat is the area between the patio, the coop, and the house, where a garden hose is attached to a faucet.
I wade through the hip-high grass, which keeps wrapping around my legs as I go. I’m lucky. There’s no light coming out of the kitchen. And because there’s a clear sky with a moon that’s nearly full, I don’t need a flashlight to see. In the twilight, the coop seems like a bulky, black torture chamber where people get locked away or suffocated or something. The monotonous cooing of the pigeons only reinforces this impression. Can’t get over the fact I’m doing this. Just hope none of the neighbors looking over the fence sees me sneaking around the garden. They’d call the cops because they’d think I was breaking in.
All at once, the grass in front of me rustles and something scurries away. It causes a very slight furrow to form that closes soon after. Then, at the end of the garden, a cat jumps onto the fence and looks back. The pair of eyes glow at me. Then it hops down over on the other side and disappears. “Fleabag,” I whisper, and though I don’t believe in that kind of bullshit, I can’t help but see it as a bad omen. I want to walk over to the patio because I assume the bucket with pigeon feed is there, when something squelches under my foot. I raise it. A black, formless blotch is visible.
“Oh, no way.” I whisper a curse because I think I’ve stepped in a pile of shit. The stench creeps into my nose, but it’s not the stench of feces. It smells of rot. I risk a glance into the kitchen. Everything’s still dark. Then I whip out my phone and light up the pile.
“What the hell?” I bend lower so I can better make out what I’ve stepped in. Then my phone nearly flies out of my hand when I see it’s a dead mole I’ve squeezed the innards out of irreversibly.
“Holy shit,” I say and have to gag because I get a full dose when I inhale. I take two quick leaps out of the high grass and over to the flattened area in front of the coop. I spit a couple times and scrape the sole of my shoe on the patio flagstones. Bits of the mole still cling to it.
I quietly curse my sister and father, and most of all myself for agreeing to this, but there wasn’t any point. I’m here now anyway. And I don’t want the birds to have to crouch in their own filth and catch something from some bacteria or something. It’s not the pigeons’ fault, any of that.
And still, with the feed bucket I found on the patio in hand, I take a couple deep breaths and grab my crotch to reassure myself I still have the necessary balls before opening the door to the coop.
The pigeons look at me with their beady, seemingly dead eyes. All of them focused on me. As a kid, I never noticed how one of those tiny, black eyes can make you pretty nervous. Then all this calm cooing from every side. As if they were scheming something. I try not to think about it anymore and let my gaze sweep over the rows. All sitting in their roosts. None of them croaked yet. I shine the light from my phone on them, and then I notice my mistake: how the hell can I clean out the roosts when the pigeons are sitting in them? There aren’t any newspapers on the ground I can just change in. I’m a fucking idiot!
“Fuck it. You can take a couple more days the way you are,” I say and decide the coop isn’t too full of feces. I bend over to reach the water and food trays, and that’s when I make the next mistake. My gaze hits the opposite wall. At that spot. That very goddamn spot. For a moment, I can’t move anymore. Like I’m frozen. I will myself on with some sort of inner strength, reaching for the tray. Spilling water and some of the feed. Whatever. Just get it done! I quickly fill the long tray with feed. Set the bucket back down. Go over to the side of the house. Dump out the old water and put in new. Put it in the coop. Close the door. It sticks. The old rusty hinges catch somewhere. I push against it with all my might. The brittle wood creaks and finally gives way. I slam the door. Simply leave the bucket standing in the coop. Just get outta here. Get the images out of my head. I cross the grass and weeds with long strides. The tops of plants are hanging from my jeans, and I hear my beating heart in my throat. Only when I’m sitting in my car does my heartbeat slow.