Ulf and I meet up in Ricklingen. Amid all the look-alike housing projects, nail salons, drug dealer hangouts, and shabby internet cafés, this is where our favorite betting parlor, Wanna Bet?, struggles to stay afloat.
We used to hang out in betting offices nearly every day. After all, football’s being played almost constantly somewhere. And someone’s betting on it. That’s why I used to have the teams from the top leagues in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan memorized. On weekends, our first stop was at the bookies before we went over to Timpen to watch football and get shitfaced. Over the years, that changed when betting went online and things like SureBets emerged. But also because the betting offices are always changing hands, became increasingly impersonal and standardized. But the ownership usually just moved within a family, for example from father to son, then to the cousin, and back again. Wanna Bet? is a century-old oak in a forest full of Tipicos and Bet-and-Wins. Then, around five years ago, the owner, Kallhein, turned his back on football gambling exclusively and has been showing horse races from all over the world ever since. Mainly from Great Britain, of course. That was always his specialty. And the old fart still has fabulous connections to famous bookies from the island. Here everything works like way back when. There aren’t any electronics aside from the televisions, the kind with tubes, and the coffee machine. The whole nine yards along with the counter, behind which Kallhein is always seated, and the paper betting slips. There are brochures and magazines on the big horse races circulating around. And the clientele hasn’t changed over the years either. Except maybe more and more walkers have taken their place at the tables. At some point, Kallhein had to build a ramp over the front steps for that reason.
Accompanying all this are the best fried pastries in all of Lower Saxony. Every couple of hours, his wife, who runs the bakery next door, brings over a tray of warm, fresh pastries. The old farts aren’t the only fans around here. Once in a while we come by and without any real expertise place bets on random horses, most of which fail fabulously and are the last to crawl over the finish line. Then Kallhein shakes his head and his chin flaps, and he grouses about how clueless kids are these days. Besides us, he probably doesn’t know anyone under forty. We only do it to make our contribution to Kallhein and keep his gambling den alive until he’s lying dead and cold behind his counter.
Ulf is already seated at one of the round tables when I come in. Two tickets in hand.
I was just in the neighborhood visiting Gaul and had him give me a new tat. He does it at his kitchen table in his place in the projects. Right next to the 96 in the circle over my heart, I had a full-size jungle knife inked over my sternum. I had recently seen something similar in a movie Kai lent me. All about the Vory gangsters, which is kind of like the Russian version of the mafia. They basically have the coolest tats. If I were to land in a Siberian prison for some reason, I’d regret it a little less because of the tattoos.
“Heiko.” Ulf gets up when he sees me.
The cling wrap under my clothes rustles. We shake hands.
“You doin’ okay?” I ask him and sit down. “Why’d you want to chat with me?”
He folds his tickets, then unfolds them, then smooths them flat with his fingers. Breathes out through pursed lips, his cheeks puffing slightly. Old boozers saunter past our table, greeting us with curt nods, as was the custom in the good old days. Ulf shifts the words around in his mouth.
“Spit it out already,” I urge him.
“It’s just…” He places his open hands, the sides parallel, on the tabletop between us, “after I picked you guys up in Braunschweig…”
“Yeah, thanks again, man. Don’t know how we would’ve handled it without you. How we’d have gotten out in one piece.”
The pressure spreading in my chest reminds me of my short encounter with my uncle in the gym, when he asked if I knew what happened to the van. I’d pretended I was clueless, no idea. I couldn’t think of anything better on the spot.
“No problem,” Ulf says and clears his throat. “When I came home, Saskia was sitting in the kitchen. Had stayed up for me. Couldn’t sleep anymore after I’d driven off.”
A misgiving arose in me, but I kept listening.
“I’d told her from the beginning the way we roll. Had tried to explain it to her so she could understand a little, even though she wasn’t familiar at all. Or at least accept it. And she did. But now our little one is almost ready for preschool, and of course he picks up more and more and understands more.”
“Ulf—”
“Hear me out, Heiko. She said it’s enough. I’ve done it for years and she’s tried to ignore it, because of course she didn’t think it was all that great when I came home with injuries and everything. But at some point, it’s enough, she said. And before it gets even worse, she’d like for me to quit.”
“She’d like that?” I press him. “And what would you like?”
“That’s not what this is about right now.”
Before I’d even realized it, I was standing and planting my fists on the table.
“It’s not about that?! Fucking hell, Ulf! It’s about what you want! This is our life. Why doesn’t she get it? Maybe I should—”
“Heiko,” he booms. Then his voice relaxes again slightly. “It’s simple. If I keep it up, she’ll leave me. With the little one. I’m out.”
“I don’t fucking believe it!” I yell and get a tongue-lashing from Kallhein behind the counter.
“I’ll still come around Timpen once in a while, and we can go to the stadium regularly. As a kind of compensation. I just won’t be along on the road trips. Come on, Heiko. We’ll still be friends. This doesn’t change anything.”
But all I caught was a wild whooshing sound that went through my ear canals like steel wool, glowing white hot.
I say, “Everything changes, Ulf. Constantly! What the hell?! And that thing about staying friends? I’m not too sure.”
I kick my chair aside. It falls over and slides a bit. I step over it, fling open the door, and storm out.
I close the door to the coop behind me with wobbly knees, listen to the cooing from countless bird throats one last time. The grass is wet from the day’s rain and licks up my pant legs like long, thin chameleon tongues. Using the water faucet on the side of the house, I wash out the feed troughs I’d swapped out and lean them against the wall, upside down. When I was in the coop, I hadn’t noticed the patio light was turned on. She comes out. Must have been watching from the kitchen. Mie is wearing a thick wool sweater she risks disappearing in. Even though it’s size S at most. Her long, black hair is tied in a knot at the back of her neck. In one hand she’s carrying a deep bowl with noodles that are steaming in the cold evening air. In the other, she carries a full glass of wheat beer. She sets both on the table. Then she pulls the garden chair back from the table. There’s already a cushion on it. She motions to me, offering the chair. I hesitate. Feel like a deer or rabbit someone’s trying to lure into a trap with food.
“Have you already eaten?” she asks.
I shake my head, but then I think, damn, just say yes, thank her, and go. Too late. So I go over, thank her, and take a seat at the table. She disappears into the kitchen. I hope she won’t go and get a dessert or something, and I start to roll the noodles on the fork. The diameter increases by threefold, and I stuff it into my mouth. Then I dump a sip of beer behind it. Because I’m scarfing, I only notice from the aftertaste how good the food is. It’s nothing but ordinary fried noodles with egg, so she must’ve done something with it. Maybe a special spice mix. It tastes like ten things all at once, but in a good way, and not as if they’d all overlap. Mie comes back from the kitchen. This time with a cereal bowl full of noodles and a glass of water. Sits down next to me and begins to eat as well. She sucks the noodles hanging off her fork. Not like I did, rolling it up like a spool of cable only to shove it down the hatch.