“Pit, if you’re still thirsty, I’ll buy you another.” He waves me off, saying, “Nah, my body’s had enough for today. Your finances have already suffered enough for good old Pit. I thank you much for that.”
“Sure?”
“Absolutely. Otherwise my lady will bitch at me.” He laughs with his mouth open, throwing his head back. I didn’t see a ring on his finger. If that’s supposed be a joke, I don’t get it.
“All right,” I say, and we shake hands good-bye.
“Keep your chin up, boy. You’ll find what you’re looking for.”
I thank him and leave.
As the door falls shut behind me and seals out the clinking of glasses and rush of table talk, the thought crosses my mind that after all maybe I did tell Pit what I was doing here. That I drove here just to look for my father. Pit would nod approvingly, and raise his glass toward the bar in a gesture. Then I’d assemble everything I could say about Hans. Like the first time he took me to the stadium. How everyone looked up to him and shook his hand respectfully and gathered around him. How I was always allowed to help feed the pigeons, and how we kicked the ball around afterward. For Pit, all of that would be true of my father. He didn’t know my father, after all. And it wouldn’t make any difference to Pit. Then we’d raise our glasses one last time. And then there would be, at least in Bad Zwischenahn and only if it lasts for just a couple of drunken nights, someone who’s heard the name Hans Kolbe and raised his glass. But instead of all that, I just turn my back to the wind to light another cig and then try to find my way to the next bar.
I don’t like Twüschenkahn as much as Schüsslers. Large, open windows allow a view of the water. Overall, the bar seems significantly cleaner and more orderly. There appear to be people here who still have to drink their way into advanced age and an advanced stage in life in order to feel comfortable in Schüsslers. Besides, there’s something to eat here. I order the local specialty, a sausage with kale. It tastes good, but the kale leaves an aftertaste of iron in my mouth, making me nauseous. I try to eliminate the taste with another beer and a cup of coffee, combined with a saucer of sprats. I grab the sprats by the heads, hiding their eye sockets with my fingers, and slide them into my mouth, tail and all, and bite down. They taste pleasantly salty.
And then, when it’s almost already ten in the evening, something happens I no longer expected. My father comes through the door. I instantly put down my phone and delete the fourth draft of a message I’d started writing Manuela. He sits down two chairs over without noticing me. Maybe I should be furious. Or relieved. I am neither. The various rounds of beer and boilermakers have packed my head in comfy cushions. I look over. Hans orders his beer. Even from the side, I can see his hollow gaze. He appears to not have shaved in the clinic. The good old stache is coming on. I get up, push my beer one seat over, and sit down.
Without looking to the side, I say: “Hey, Dad. Finally come on in?”
He looks at me. Needs a second. Then he recognizes me after all. His face opens.
“Man, Heiko. What’re you doin’ here?”
He slaps his bare hands on the counter. I explain everything. Why I’m here and not Manuela. Tell him what the people at the clinic had said, that he’d simply run off, and he acts completely surprised. As if he had been unaware you couldn’t just go on a bender when you’ve been sent to rehab precisely because of your drinking. I don’t bother to give him a lecture, just say I’m going to take him back and I’m not going to come back here to catch him again. To my own surprise, this comes out slightly less judgmental than intended. I blamed it on the alcohol.
We pass most of the time just drinking next to one another. Once in a while we exchange a couple sentences. Out of the blue he asks if I’m still in touch with Mom, which I deny. I say I don’t want to talk about it.
“Hmm,” he says and somehow sounds disappointed. Then he looks away again.
“Why do you wanna know?” I ask anyway, and it comes across just as randomly.
“It’s okay,” is all he says, and drinks.
It’s late. Actually, it’s not that late. Just before midnight. But considering I’ve been driving around half the day and spent the other half in bars, it’s already late.
“Come on, finish up. I’ll take you back to the clinic.”
He does what I tell him, without any back talk.
When we find a spot in the clinic parking lot, I wait for him to get out, walk to the illuminated entrance, apologize for going missing, and go to bed so I can drive back to Wunstorf. But he makes no move to do so.
“All right then,” I say, and knead my thighs to help the circulation.
He turns toward me slightly in his seat, saying, “Here’s a suggestion, Heiko.”
I’m tired, say, “I’m not even thinking of taking you home with me.”
“I don’t want you to either.” He sounds as if he was keeping a hiccup down. “Your sister would wring my neck.”
“And mine with it.”
“No, what I wanted to say—” He draws up his legs. “I’ve been watching matches again since I’ve been in here. Goin’ pretty well for the Reds, right?”
He looks up at me.
“Decent,” I say and lay my head against my extended finger. I have the elbow supported against the bottom of the window.
“Away game tomorrow against Werder Bremen.”
“I know.”
“What do you think? The two of us? Like we used to. That’d be something. Against Bremen, Heiko.”
I feel the pressure rising behind my eyeballs. Don’t know where that’s coming from.
“I don’t think that—”
“Oh, come on. Don’t be a wuss. Go to the game again with your old man. You can buy yourself a Coke. Just for you.”
He winks at me, but a little too slowly, making it seem like one side of his face was nodding off.
“Man, Dad,” I groan.
“Do you have something planned? A fight? Gonna hit the field tomorrow, right?” he asks.
“No, that’s not it. Come on, let it drop.”
“Heiko. Please. One match.”
Instead of looking for a hotel room somewhere, I spend the night in the clinic parking lot. Surrounded by thickening fog that makes the interior of the hatchback very damp. Luckily, I find a couple of blankets in the trunk, so I’m able to wrap myself in them. Around three in the morning, I finally send a message to Manuela, telling her I’ve found Hans and everything’s fine, but that I’m going to stay another day because it’s so late. Then I sack out.
I spend most of the next day at Mickey D’s and bakeries, charging my battery and waiting to be able to pick Hans up from the clinic. Then we drive to Bremen together.
I’m not interested in knowing and don’t ask whether he got official leave or just vanished again. We spend the drive talking about football, even though I notice his knowledge basically stopped around the end of the last century. He can’t believe it when I tell him about the appalling millions of euros thrown around for players, some very young, by teams like Barcelona, Real, or English Premiere League clubs run by Arabic sheiks.
“So much money,” he repeats, “so much money. Imagine that.” And “Where the hell is Dubai again?”
The fact the Ajax Amsterdam and Steaua Bucharest haven’t been top European clubs for ages appears to be news to him.
We bypass Bremen, which seems enclosed in a single massive cloud bank, only exiting the autobahn at the Arsten interchange. Then we cross Werder Lake, the choppy Weser River, and drive to the familiar Osterdeich Avenue. Weser Stadium protrudes before the gray sky like a gigantic petri dish from biology class. It’s fairly quiet in the open space in front of the stadium entrance. The cops standing around in protective vests and with their hands near their batons cause a nervous shiver to run down my spine, and we disappear into the crowd. It lasts even when I buy our black-market tickets from a guy who seems too friendly for a scalper, but anyway I don’t have a choice.