“What’s going on?” Kai asked. I couldn’t miss the way his voice went higher with excitement.
“I just told you. I was back in the crowd quickly and vanished. Before anyone really caught on to what happened.”
I think Kai wanted to pat him on the back, but I silently made him understand that he should control himself.
And so we padded back, zigzagging via the narrowest alleys all the way to the city center. We looked around and behind us, but no one was there, of course. There’s legitimate caution that can become paranoia—which necessarily make it less legitimate—and there’s just being wet behind the ears. Which we were, in a sense, I have to admit. As if anyone could have found us in that mass of people, if they would’ve even tried.
On the ride back from the city, I sat on the backseat with Jojo. He was looking out the window the whole time. The cold early-winter wind hissed through the slits of the cracked windows and made Jojo’s curls bounce excitedly. I could simply have looked away, but for some reason I didn’t. And the constant twirling of his hair was driving me crazy.
I asked him if everything was okay, quietly enough so Ulf and Kai in the front wouldn’t have to hear. Kai had put on a personally mixed dubstep CD, but we only had to tolerate it at half-volume because Ulf was able to control it, thanks to the knob on the steering wheel.
“Yeah,” he said without looking over, “yeah. You know…,” then silence for a while.
I thought about what I could say. Fucking hell, I was never good at this kind of thing. Can’t even do it today. Express my feelings, as Manuela would say. I just can’t think of anything, my brain gets blocked, and instead of producing something sensible, I just get angry. But not in that moment, strangely enough. I wanted nothing more than to be beamed out of the car or something, but fuck it, I thought, Jojo’s your friend, and that means more than just hanging out and getting drunk.
I was growing more and more impatient, and if Jojo hadn’t said something, I bet it wouldn’t have been long before I became typically enraged. All at once, Jojo bent forward so his head was floating over the middle console. He looked straight ahead through the windshield and spoke so loudly everyone could hear.
“I want to go to the spot.”
“What kinda spot?” Kai asked.
The music was turned down. In the rearview mirror I saw Ulf glance back every couple seconds.
“To the train crossing. You don’t have to come along if you don’t want.”
“Wait up, wait up. What the hell are you talking about?” Ulf stammered. I’d known as soon as Jojo had said the word “crossing,” but I didn’t make a sound. Couldn’t.
“Where he killed himself.”
“Who?” Kai asked, and turn around for a sec. Maybe to make sure Jojo hadn’t gone crazy. Had a mad stare or something.
“Enke.”
The station wagon bumped into the curb and briefly howled in pain when Ulf shifted into the wrong gear.
“Sorry, Jojo, I don’t really mean what I’m about to say, but”—Kai raised his voice—“are you fucking nutso or what?!”
Jojo slumped against the door. His gaze wasn’t obviously crazy. So not at all. But strangely calm and very focused. I can’t really remember exactly. But it definitely seemed spooky to me.
We were out in the country. In Walachia. In the middle of the night. Dark as a bear’s backside. The station wagon’s headlights were the only source of light far and wide. The nearest lights were more than a mile away. Some random villages close to the suburbs. We followed the paved road that for its part roughly followed the train tracks. At any rate, we guessed we were still close to the tracks because every now and again we could make out the swaths that cut through the fields and meadows. We passed through some woods. No one said anything for a while, with the exception of Ulf’s increasingly annoyed groans. Well, and of course the approximate directions from Jojo, who had Ulf turn here and there. From one nameless road to the next. When we came out of the woods and Jojo craned his neck to see if the tracks were still nearby, we saw it all at once. Various headlights that melded into a single, frayed cone. A couple hundred yards to the left of us. In the middle of nowhere. Accompanied by some flashing police lights making silent circular patterns in the broad fields.
“There,” Jojo said and needlessly pointed in the direction, almost puncturing Ulf’s cheek with his index finger.
“Jojo, dude, what’s the point?” Ulf asked.
“Try to get as close as you can,” he just answered.
Of course we didn’t get close. A little farther on, the road went to the left, but naturally it was blocked by the police. We stopped on the curve. Jojo insisted. A cop, who was pretty drained and understandably annoyed, walked right up our car, saying he’d had enough of the rubberneckers. What kind of sick puppies we were, and if we didn’t all want to spend the night in a cell together, we’d better get moving. I think it was the first and last time I’d ever agreed with a piece of shit cop.
Luckily, Jojo restrained himself and Ulf did the talking. He nodded in agreement with everything the patrol cop had to say. Even apologized. Then we kept on driving.
I think we all thought it’d finally be okay, but less than five minutes later Jojo said that Ulf should let him out.
“Are you crazy, seriously?!” Kai bellowed and raised his hand in question.
Completely calm, Jojo answered, “Guys, I don’t expect you to understand. Go home. I just want to sit here for a while, somewhere out here, and think.”
“Can you tell me how you think you’ll get back?” Ulf asked and pounded the balls of his fists against the top of the steering wheel.
“Taxi.”
“Hey, fuck it, okay,” Kai groaned, “just let him be. If he needs it.” He planted his face in his hands and rubbed his eye sockets. His elbows were resting against his knees and his feet against the dashboard.
Jojo was half out the door when I spontaneously unbuckled, grabbed my phone from the seat, and opened the door.
“Heiko.” Kai’s chin dropped.
“It’s okay, I’ll stay with him. We’ll take a taxi home. We’ll be able to explain where we are somehow”—I bent inside the car—“at least I hope.”
It was cold. As cold as it can be when you’re in the middle of the-hell-if-I-know-where. Ulf started the motor but rolled down the window once more.
“If the cops were watching us and saw how we stopped and everything, they’ll probably send someone over. So I’d suggest you guys get the fuck away from here. That’s exactly what we’re doing, too.”
I thanked them and they left us. The red from the taillights moved down our bodies like mercury in a thermometer.
We stopped the next field over and approached the illuminated site of the accident. Until Jojo said it was enough, and he was good there. I could see ant-sized figures scurrying through the lights on the tracks. We climbed on top of a shed with three walls that stood in the fenced-in field. It smelled of manure, and the wind whistled by our cheeks. There was an old bathtub sitting in front of the shed, which apparently served as a watering trough for the cows or horses that grazed there during the day.
Soon we didn’t have anything left to smoke. But we sat there till dawn, and talked between the waves of silence. About Joel. About Tonga. About their father, Dieter. And my father, too. At some point I kept nodding off, and Jojo said we should leave. It wasn’t far to the next town. We got breakfast at the village baker. We nodded off in the taxi till the driver let us out in Wunstorf.
My window was open last night. I must have been so fast asleep I didn’t hear a thing. The windowsill is covered with a film of water, and a large dark spot has formed on the wall below it. I press an old towel against the sill. It’s immediately soaked. Then I look outside. Raindrops fall from the leaves of the old oak that stands next to the house. I can see only an even, gray surface through the treetop.