The double doors open. Kai is led out, a doctor and a nurse on either side. I explode out of the chair, go to them. Kai has two round white flaps of fabric over his eyes, attached with transparent adhesive strips. He looks like an enormous fly.
“Well? What’s he got?”
The doctor, a blond guy, at most a couple years older than us, takes Kai’s arm and says with a Dutch accent, “Are you a member of the family or a friend?”
“Bud,” I answer.
He considers briefly, but then he remembers the meaning of the word. “Ah, okay. It looks like a detached retina. Caused by a rhegmatogene amotio retinae.” I look at him with incomprehension. “Retinal tear. He’s not just had it since today.”
“Hell if I know?” I say and throw up my arms, “And what does that mean? Does he have to stay here?”
The doctor sighs and looks like he was forced to talk to a kid who’s slow on the uptake, and says: “Take a look at your friend. Of course he has to stay here. Additional tests tomorrow. But I can tell you this much: because it was protracted and apparently not diagnosed or not diagnosed thoroughly enough, there’s some danger of an irreparable loss of function for the areas affected. And in this case we’re talking about damage on both sides. How could this not be recognized? I’m going to take another look in his file and perhaps speak with the colleagues who are responsible. A serious talk.”
“And irreparable, that means…” I start, but for some reason my mouth just stays open instead of continuing talking.
“Heiko,” Kai says wearily, “that means that I might stay blind.”
His head hangs low, as if someone had shot a tranquilizing dart into his neck.
“Partially,” the Dutch doctor chimes in once again. “At least there’s the partial danger.”
They lead him past me. I stand there. Have to process it first. When they reach the elevator and it opens up with a ding, I follow them.
“Irresponsible,” the doctor mumbles when he hands Kai’s arm over to me and remains in the hallway, “irresponsible.”
“Heiko, you’re getting on my nerves! No. All right. For real. Go home. I’ll fend for myself. Thanks for everything you’ve taken care of and all, but hey, I really need some peace and quiet. You’re driving yourself crazy. And me too.”
That’s how Kai sent me home. His parents sat on the other side of the room on two chairs a nurse had brought in. They’d been pretty restrained toward me recently, then took it up a notch and didn’t look at me anymore. For them, I’m probably the embodiment of what happened to Kai. That’s the only way I can explain it. When we were still small, and my parents and I still lived in Hannover, they lived right next door. Just as my mother often watched over me and Kai, they frequently took me in. They were something like my replacement parents those first years. Before we moved to Wunstorf. And now they ignored me like a piece of shit. But somehow I can’t blame them. I should have never gone for Kai’s stupid idea. Then we wouldn’t have gone to Braunschweig. He wouldn’t be sinking in a paper hospital bed like the picture of misery. Half-blind. Ulf would still be one of ours. I mean really. I wouldn’t be out of favor with my uncle. All this fucked-up shit wouldn’t have ever happened if I’d just said no.
I throw the tennis ball I’d found outside in the backyard and washed in the sink against the wall in my room. It bounces off and flies back to me in a precise arc. I throw it again. It bounces off. I catch it. Throw.
Arnim bellows up the staircase, “What the hell is all that noise?! I’m trying to call someone here!”
The dogs start barking.
He yells, “Shut up, you curs!”
They keep on barking. This time I didn’t aim good enough. I don’t catch it and it ricochets right into the ashtray beside me on the mattress. Cigarette butts and ashes made soggy by the still-moist tennis ball scattered over the sheet.
“Oh, shit!”
Arnim comes rumbling into the room. He has his phone in one hand and covers it with the other.
“Heiko. What’s the ruckus about?! Trying to sort something out right now.” He looks at my dirty bed. “You spilled something.”
What, you don’t say! He disappears back into the hallway. I can hear that he’s speaking an odd mishmash out of German and English. Instead of scraping up the mess and putting it back in the ashtray, I pull the sheet off the mattress. Then I pull up on the four corners so that the ashes slip into the middle of the resulting bag and stuff the whole thing into the trash can.
I go downstairs. A stack of old papers that are usually on the table in the living room are spread out on the floor. In their place, there are three open envelopes and a fucking mound of cash. Hundred-euro bills of a poisonous green hue stacked, fanned out, and countless fifties are spread out on top. I can’t even guess how much cash is lying there. The kitchen door leading to the yard squeaks, and I hear Arnim come in from outside.
“Yes. Yes. Ja. I will da sein. Okay. All klar. Ja, good-bye. Later.”
I join Arnim in the kitchen. He glances at his watch, the leather strap digging into his thick arm. No wonder his hand is dark and swollen. He reaches for a greasy dishtowel covered with coffee stains and uses it to wipe his dome, as if he was polishing a bowling ball.
I swipe one of his coffin nails and take a seat next to him at the table.
“Hey, you showing your face again, my boy?” he says. His lungs produce an annoying whistle in his throat. He clears his throat. He sounds like an old moped.
“What’s up? Who were you chattering with?”
“Well, I was just about to talk to you about that.” He lays his knobby hands on the surface of the table, making the pack of cigarettes jump about an inch.
“Listen up. You have to help me. Those were the guuuys”—drawing out the ‘i’ sound—“who have the tiger for me. They drove all the way across Eurasia with the creature. Tomorrow morning, so somewhere between four and six, they’re behind the border with the Polacks.”
I flick the ash from my cigarette, look him in the eyes because now I’m completely serious, and say, “That pit and all wasn’t just a fucking pipe dream. You’re really getting a tiger, right?”
“You can bet your bony ass on that, my boy!” He makes such a satisfied face, as if he’d just received the gold medal in wrestling. “Finish that cig. Then it’s time to go.”
“Sure, have fun,” I say, getting up, and want to retrieve a can from the fridge.
His hand wraps around my wrist. Tightens. I automatically flex my muscles, but I don’t pull away.
“You’re coming along, my boy. Doing a little tour. Doesn’t work solo.” He pulls something from beneath the table and says, “I let you live here, and I also want something in return.”
He’s lost it!
I say, “I already take care of the critters when you’re traveling in Eastern Europe. That’s compensation enough!”
He pulls his hand out more. Now I can recognize the black, ribbed transition from the grip to the barrel of a pistol. All these fucking years there was a gun under the table and I didn’t catch that.
“You’re coming along. No discussion. I like you, my boy, but don’t ruin that for me. My dream. I won’t let that slip through my fingers just because you don’t want to play ball.”
I can see he’s actually serious. That he’d actually put that gun to my head and force me to get into his fucking car. I’ve always considered him fairly crazy. Even back when we met. He used to hang out in Midas, alone, and everyone kept out of his way. Then he sometimes came over to me and just started talking, probably because he needed someone to chat with. And I also thought his stories were interesting. Maybe completely wacky, but funny in a sick way. But now I recognize he’s just a fucking lunatic. I could try to pull myself away now. Run up to my room, pack my stuff, and run off. If I’d even get that far. I feel dizzy. The kitchen starts to spin around me.