“You’re so stupid,” she said.
But I hadn’t done a thing. Hadn’t bugged her. Then she turned back toward the window. I didn’t understand a thing.
I rush down the stairs. Almost fall on my face. Then I knock open the screen door, which bangs against the outside of the house and hangs crooked because a hinge has come loose. The bell over the door rings hollow. I quickly reach up to muffle the sound.
“What are you doing here?” I call out as Manuela and Andreas are just climbing out of their car. They look at each other in astonishment, as if they’ve never seen such a run-down house in all their lives. Especially Andreas can hardy conceal his opinion and lifts his upper lip with such disgust, it’s as if Arnim’s house were a dead, rotting whale. You ain’t seen nothing, you bastard. I walk toward them. The gravel in front of the house keeps jabbing the soles of my bare feet. I ask them again what they’re here for, and my sister has difficulty prying her gaze from the weathered, mold-green wooden siding of the house.
“I thought I’d been completely clear when I said that no one can just show up here!”
Without looking at me, Andreas says, “We didn’t really choose to come here.”
He’s smartly tucked his ironed shirt with the fine, light-blue–checkered pattern into his beige pants. He plucks at the obviously extra-starched collar. Then his hair, formed with gel into an understated spiky peak, probably thinking it’s hip or something. Though he looks more like a child that’s been spiffed up for his church confirmation. Not to mention his condescending attitude. All of this disgusts me incredibly. I briefly consider asking them in and at least introducing Poborsky and Bigfoot. Give that fancy ape a taste of real life. Not the sheltered, well-heeled home he considers to be real life. But I can’t do that. Manuela would probably lose the last shimmer of understanding for me, and her husband would call the cops, guaranteed.
“I’ve been trying to reach you for days, Heiko,” says Manuela.
She closes the space between us and takes my hands into hers. There are bags like overripe fruit under the glasses she keeps on wearing even though she doesn’t need them. Her hairline is reddened. She tends to have eczema when she’s under stress. She had it frequently when we stilled lived at home.
“I turned off my phone,” I say, frankly.
“Can we come inside? I’d like to sit down.”
“That’s not possible,” I say because I can’t come up with a plausible excuse so fast, “you can’t come inside.”
“Why not?” Andreas asks and makes a face.
Because it stinks inside of animal blood and bird droppings. Because of chemical potions and tranquilizing darts. Because there are two fighting dogs and a fucking tiger living in the backyard. Because Arnim flips out if he comes home and sees strangers in his house.
“Because it’s not possible! Enough said,” I say.
I have no clue where Arnim’s off to again and when he’ll come back. I have to get rid of them! As quickly as possible.
“We have to talk, Heiko,” Manuela says.
Her voice sounds brittle. Like just before losing consciousness. There’s thunder in the distance. I can see a storm brewing, past her hair, through the tips of the trees.
I hold up two fingers as a peace sign and say, “Two minutes. On the porch.”
I try to give my face an incredible resolve. We walk over to the steps of the porch.
I retrieve a cushion from a chair and place it on the stairs for Manuela. Doesn’t make any difference, because the cushion is dirty too and covered in dark stains. But the gesture counts. We sit down next to each other. Andreas remains standing in front of us with his arms crossed, scanning the porch derisively. I try to repress the urge to smack him. It smells like rain.
“Well, what’s up?” I ask.
Manuela looks at Andreas. Then me. She gulps.
“Dad. He fell down the stairs a couple of days ago. He’s in the hospital with a hip fracture.”
“Aha,” I say.
I can’t think of anything else to say, and for some reason I’m too exhausted to simulate a different reaction. Manuela looks at me with incomprehension.
“Did you understand what I said, Heiko?”
“Yeah. Broken hip. Isn’t that something senior citizens get usually?”
“Unfortunately, anyone can suffer a hip fracture,” Andreas says in a pedagogical tone.
I pull my cigarettes from the pocket of my jogging suit and light one up. I feel Manuela’s gaze resting on me as I smoke. She still appears to be waiting for more of a reaction from me.
“Heiko…”
“Drop it, dear. He doesn’t give a darn,” Andreas groans. I really have to try hard to ignore him. Otherwise he’ll catch one from me.
“Was he shitfaced again?”
“Is that all you can think of?” Manuela asks, and moves a bit away from me.
“What do you want from me?” I ask, my voice rising. “Am I supposed to cry a little? Yell at the sky: how in the world could that happen?”
“Heiko!” Her voice cracks in accusation, as if I’d farted at a funeral.
I scrape the ashes from the tip of my cigarette by rotating it on the stair step beneath me, and say they have to go now.
Manuela starts to sob quietly. I turn my head away in annoyance and lift myself up.
“How can you be this way?”
“How can I be this way?” I repeat, screaming at her. “Do you suffer from loss of memory? Did you forget what happened a month ago? How you sat in his kitchen, crying?!”
I was too loud. The dogs are barking from out back. Shit! Andreas takes a step forward. His facial features are furrowed by fear.
“What is that?” he asks harshly.
“What could it be?! Those are dogs.”
A growling can be heard between the barks. Oh God, please let that be thunder. But I picture the tiger is jumping from its darkened pit and touching the wooden lid with its paws.
“I think we’d better go now,” Andreas says and pulls out his car keys, jangling.
“No, wait,” Manuela says. She’s clearly struggling to keep her composure, and manages to mask the quavering of her voice beneath firmness. “Heiko, I know that everything is going terribly wrong, but we’re a family. Your father is in the hospital. And I would like… No, I demand that you visit him at least once. He’s so stubborn. We have to make the first step. And you in particular. If not for his sake, then do it for me.”
So she’s making a big scene of this now. I’m just about to say no and send her away. Then I would finally have my peace and quiet. Wouldn’t have to see them. But the image in my mind’s eye, of how she’s sitting in the kitchen and crying while Hans is raging in the bedroom, is suddenly covered over by other images. From before. When we were younger. And how she told Hans he should leave me alone. How she made me an extra evening meal after school—whether I was home yet or not—because I had silently refused to even touch Mie’s food. How she came into my room and asked if I had dirty clothes that needed to be washed. These are actually completely irrelevant things, but somehow they mean more to me. My head becomes clear and bright for a second. This means that there’s someone I mean something to. Not because she wanted it that way or because she considers me so sympathetic. We’re fundamentally different people. Instead, for the simple reason that I’m her brother. And because it’s easy for her. Maybe even as easy as always forgiving our father for his constant fuckups. Overlooking them.
“Sure,” I say, “I’ll visit him when I’m ready. But you really have to go now.”