After our little game and before the meal, I helped him feed the pigeons and give them water, and he held out particularly beautiful specimens in his large hands. Then they kept very still because they knew that nothing would happen to them in the boss’s hands. And then he stroked his finger along the feathers and I think that pleased the birds, and he showed me the beautiful play of the colors. And I listened attentively and nodded, but I didn’t really understand because they were gray. Maybe a couple turquoise feathers in between. Mostly on the neck. But otherwise it was just gray leading to a darker or lighter gray, but whatever. And I listened to my gramps, how he told stories and gushed over his pigeons, which he never called critters. Just his little, dear birds. And his voice sounded as warm as a simmering stew and calmed me when I was worked up from playing football.
And then there was this one day in summer, where Gramps might not have been in bed, but you could see he was in pain. But he never said where it hurt. Much less told me. And on this particular day, because he hardly spoke and even Grandma held back with her throaty clucking and didn’t fill his ears with it, and I also didn’t ask when we could finally play some football because I saw his eyes were very heavy and he walked with the stiffness of a furnace. I was inside, and Grandma forced me to drink the fucking disgusting tea and said I couldn’t get up till it was drained clean. So I held my nose when she wasn’t looking and drank it in big gulps. I’d seen Mom do that when her friends were visiting and they knocked back clear drinks in small glasses that stank like gas. And holding my nose actually helped.
My grandma said, “Go outside and see if you can help your grandpa a little with the critters,” and pulled her hair net a little tighter around the curls that were the color of snow that’d been under a car for days.
I went out into the garden. The door to the coop was ajar. The upturned trough was already lying on the grass. I called for Gramps. Then something knocked on the kitchen window, and when I turned around I saw Grandma strictly holding her finger to her lips, meaning I should be quiet. I opened the door to the loft. The pigeons had flown away, and it smelled of freshly spread straw. I blinked a couple times because it was so bright and so hazy. And when I was done blinking, I had to blink a couple more times because I saw that something wasn’t right. Not completely right. But as much as I blinked with my eyes, till they hurt terribly, they didn’t change the picture in front of me. On the contrary. It burned itself into my fucking brain and I knew there wouldn‘t be any fun kick-around anymore and no petting the birds and no mischievous jokes behind Grandma’s back.
My grandpa was lying there, motionless, against the back wall of the coop. The straw had been scraped together in a pile at his feet. On his fat belly, which had always frustrated the buttons of his shirt, were the contents of the upended trough. A pigeon was picking away at him. I shooed it off, eyes moist, till it finally found the exit and flew out of the coop and I yelled after it, “You stupid critter!” There was a dark, moist splotch in the crotch of his checkered pants and it smelled strongly of piss. I didn’t touch him. I didn’t have the nerve. Just saw his face. Just waited for him to wink at me any second and get up and shout, “Got you!”
But that didn’t happen. I didn’t fetch Grandma. I must have stood there so long it got on her nerves, and because the kale for dinner had already gone cold, she came storming into the coop, but her nagging stuck in her craw when she saw us there. Surrounded by the stacks of roosts. She silently pushed me out and closed the door behind her. Then she came out, and I looked at her and she didn’t look at me, and closed the door again and pushed me aside.
The ambulance came and Grandma led the EMTs to the garden. I sat in the kitchen between my parents and secretly tried to cast glances into the garden. One of the EMTs went into the coop and almost immediately returned, and shook his head. The hearse came. Because they couldn’t squeeze through the path between the garden fence and the shed with my gramps on the gurney, they had to go through the kitchen and the hallway. And when they carried him through the hallway, my father pushed me into the sitting room. And closed the door. I could still watch everything from the window. How they slid him into the bulgy, black can. Like an oven. How they spoke to my grandma and my father, and everyone looked grim and nodded and shook each other’s hands. Then they drove off with my grandpa. I stayed sitting in the chair under the window and thought I could still feel his body’s warmth on it. Then the door opened and my father bent over me and said, “You stay here, then, right? Don’t come out till someone gets you.” I sat there till supper time. There were liverwurst sandwiches. The kale and meat were on top of the compost.
Torrents of water pour over the windshield as if from buckets. The wipers do their best to keep up but don’t make headway against the flood of rainfall. The streets are covered in puddles, and the spray flies left and right every time I steer my hatchback through one. I drive past the German Air Force base halfway to Neustadt. To the hospital from my voluntary service days. The bulky, greenish Transall cargo planes are blurry on the runways. They used to circle over Wunstorf daily and descend on the Klein Heidorn Air Base. Maybe I should have done my military service in the army, just like Hans expected. Really enlisted. I might have gotten out of here then. Might have been able to see something different. The Middle East, Somalia, or the former Yugoslavia. The only thing is, it wouldn’t have stopped at that. At getting out and seeing the world. Nope, that’s bullshit. Going into other people’s countries, forcing our democracy, our values, and our system on them with assault weapons? And also be able to enjoy McDonalds and Starbucks? Because everything works so wonderfully here? Thanks, but no thanks. I only think of it now when I see a plane like this. And because now, if someone offered it to me, I’d climb in at the drop of a hat, regardless of where it’s heading, instead of going to the hospital to visit Hans. However, I couldn’t run off now. Not before I get the Braunschweig gang in my fists. If there ever was something I really had to do, it’s that. My phone lights up. I guess it’s Manuela making sure I’ll really come. I let it ring. I’m almost there anyway.
After waiting for ages at a railroad crossing for a single engine to roll by at walking speed, I finally arrive at the hospital in Neustadt. There are no parking spots left, so I have to park next door at the nursing school. The hospital hadn’t changed a bit, only I’m not having to see it in early morning twilight for once. Can remember it exactly. How I always smoked in front of the door, and the block-like hospital building seemed like a huge monster in the bluish light. If Yvonne hadn’t have been there, I’d have wanted to blow my brains out every morning. But she hasn’t worked here for years either. Transferred to the regional hospital in Stadthagen. Can only hope none of the other coworkers from then is still here and recognizes me. I go to reception and ask where Hans Kolbe is at. Without looking up once, the reception lady says I have to go to the second floor. Room 202. Sure, I know how to get there, I say as she starts to explain the way.