His face twists in scorn and says, “Nah, London in Rhineland-Palatinate. Of course England, you idiot.” A young Turkish nurse comes in, greets us, and rolls in Kai’s lunch, protected by a plastic lid and positioned on a mobile table next to his bed. A while ago I’d mentioned to him that she’s really cute. But he lets her go without a word. Didn’t used to be this way. I ask what the hell he’s thinking, going to England. He flips the lid on his food and steam billows into his face. He waves it away, wrinkling his nose. Then he touches the eye bandage and presses it tight on all sides. He feels for the cutlery.
“It’s crazy. I couldn’t tell you what I’m eating right now, based on the smell. You could present a fried rat’s ass and I wouldn’t be able to smell it. Snorted all the smell nerves.” He groped the spoon to make sure it’s a spoon and not a fork. Then he dunks it onto the plate and leads it to his mouth.
“Hey!” I say.
“What?” he asks, blowing a couple of times and carefully pushing the spoon into his mouth. “Whoa, disgusting. Lentil soup. Awesome!”
“When do you plan to go to England.”
“Well,” he says and points to his face, “this here has to be back first. Otherwise, I’ll get on the wrong plane and land in Kazakhstan or something. Could be pretty embarrassing if I ask directions to Trafalgar Square.”
“Hah, hah, funny,” I say.
“Man, Heiko. No idea, but sometime next year. Before I start my master’s thesis.”
“Cool. Great. And I’m sitting on my ass all year…”
“Or just a semester,” he says, annoyed, and lets the spoon slip back onto the plate in disgust.
“Yeah, right, completely stupid of me to assume we’d really kick some ass. The two of us in the front row. You probably don’t remember, but that doesn’t matter.”
I can’t stand my own attitude at this moment. Like a sulky kid. Manuela was always good at just letting me be when I was in this mood.
Manuela, always reasonable. But he didn’t leave me any option.
“Course I remember. But maybe you missed this: I’m fucking blind!“ he screams and waves his finger back and forth in front of his eyes.
“But you’re not gonna stay that way, man! Once you’re back on your feet, we’ll get going again. At some point Axel will step down and then we can do things our way. Then Ulf will get back in gear. Just has to find a better balance with his private life.”
He groans exaggeratedly, slides farther back on his bed, and puts his feet up.
“You don’t seriously believe that, right?”
“What?” I ask.
“Everything, Heiko. Everything! Ulf is out and nothing’s going to change that. Can’t blame him either. And Axel. He won’t quit in a hundred years. He’ll keep at it till he falls over on some field someday.”
I pull my pack of cigarettes and my lighter out of my pocket, get up, and say, “You just wait. After the match with Braunschweig—”
“Heiko, wake up! I’ve had enough. That’s it for me. And you should finally get down to real life too.”
“After the Braunschweig match…” I say, but don’t know how to end the sentence. I open the door and say I’m going out for a smoke. I slam the door behind me. Kai calls something like wait, I want to, too, but don’t stop. Need fresh air.
At first, I didn’t get what was going on. Half-asleep, I groped through the darkness. Felt my mattress. The covers, which had slipped down to my knees. My pillow is drenched with sweat. My T-shirt, too. Images echo in my head. How I’m standing on a long street at sunrise or sunset. Although the street is straight, it rises and falls over impossibly steep hills. Everyone’s there. Kai, completely healthy, and without those patches over his eyes, is grinning like a shark. Ulf, Jojo, and even Joel. Yvonne is there. She’s thin as ever but looks surprisingly healthy in the orange light of the half sun. And Manuela’s there and my parents. And I think we’re all wearing inline skates. But I’ve never used them. Each of them is laughing, and we set off. The street, down the hill. Then up the next hill. I’m left behind. I just don’t manage to get up the next hill, though all the others do it with ease. They’re standing there and smiling at me. I panic and try to use the street like a halfpipe, get some momentum. But I don’t make it, much as I try. Then they wave at me and keep on going. Disappear beyond the hills of streets. I make an effort, but can’t move forward. All at once, something bangs. I’m awake immediately. The sounds come from the living room. It bangs so loud, as if Arnim’s throwing furniture around in a drunken rage. I lay my forearm over my eyes and mumble, “Hey, Arnim, you old fart. Go to sleep.” I try not to listen. Ignore the ruckus. Just get back to sleep, quick. He’s yelling something. I can’t understand it. He should just shut up. There are other voices. At first I think I‘m not hearing right, and slowly take my arm off so the pillow’s not covering my head and I can hear better. There are several voices mixed together incomprehensibly. But it keeps on banging and thundering. Sounds like someone’s demolishing wood. Then a shot rings out and makes everything else fall silent and I jump up, ramrod straight. The dogs in their cages are the first to get loud after the shot. They’re barking like they have rabies. I grab my baseball bat that’s in the corner leaning against my mattress, and sneak back to the door, barefoot. The voices slowly crescendo again. I open the lock as quietly as possible and yank the door open, because it would only creak if I opened it slowly. I peer into the hallway. The ghostly light of the moon shines onto the wooden floors through the window at the other end. The stairs down start right next to it. I can’t tell how many guys are down there. They talk among themselves in whispers, which is completely unnecessary after the gunshot, but what you probably automatically do when you break into strangers’ homes. Can’t decide if they’re too quiet for me to understand them or if they’re speaking a different language. I slip out the door and leave it slightly open. I’m holding the baseball bat by the middle, and I make sure not to step on the spots on the floor that creak the most. I know them by heart after years of walking back and forth. I slide along the wall. My T-shirt scrapes barely audibly against the old wallpaper. At the end of the hallway, I risk a glance around the corner. Definitely not German, what they’re speaking down there. I don’t want to think about why I haven’t heard Arnim’s voice for several seconds now. The light in the living room is off. The weak, burnt smell of propellant rises. The light of a flashlight dashes over the wall by the staircase.
“Davai,” I hear someone say, then some kind of quick mumble I don’t understand.
The cone of light on the wall downstairs remains still now and becomes smaller and smaller.
“Shit,” I whisper and turn back. I twist the handle of the door to Siegfried’s room, slip inside, and close it behind me. I hear the sound of the steps on the stairs. Since my eyes had already adjusted to the darkness, I’m immediately able to make out Siegfried’s large shape. Like always, he’s sitting on the edge of the chair, and his head is stuck between his wings.
“It’s just me, old boy,” I whisper. “I just have to hang out with you. Everything’s fine,” I say to myself more than to him.
I slip between the rows of paper, continuing to whisper comforting words to him and myself. The footfalls outside become louder. He must be standing on the other side now. Siegfried peeks at me from below his wings and rustles his feathers.
“Just want to get comfortable behind you for a second. No problem. Just keep on sleeping. I won’t bother you.”