A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke

by Reng, Ronald

  Then he saw three unopened letters in his office and felt that the place was subsiding into chaos. He thought, I just can’t get my papers in order, I can’t do anything any more. He thought, it’s all too late anyway, I’ve done everything wrong already.

  There was just a slim margin between the need to be pushed and the danger of being overstretched. And his work at Hannover 96 became an extraordinary strain on his nerves; even for a healthy professional it would have been. President Martin Kind and sporting director Jörg Schmadtke persuaded Hecking that it was best for everyone if he stepped down. The pious wish to start over again after the tensions of the previous year had proved illusory after only two Bundesliga matches of the new season. It was 19 August – the same week in which Robert wasn’t capable of making his mind up between two types of cake at a children’s party. Now he was supposed to respond to Hecking’s departure in front of the television cameras, and as captain he was supposed to help the new coach Andreas Bergmann settle in – and he had to deal with the pangs of conscience he felt because they were partly responsible as a team for the fate of their coach.

  When Hannover won their first game under Bergmann 2–0, the players in the changing-room at Nuremberg celebrated as if they had avoided relegation. Robert wasn’t there. He had to give one television interview after the other. Nearly half an hour after the final whistle he at last reached the changing-room.

  Hanno Balitsch knew what an effort it had been for Robert to face all those reporters. ‘Herr Kuhnt,’ he said to Hannover’s press spokesman, ‘it’s not right for Robs to have to give all the interviews, which means he’s not here when the team celebrates. We’ve got to share out the interviews.’

  No one suspected anything. The press spokesman thought what Hanno said was quite understandable: it was important for team spirit that they all celebrate together.

  There always seemed to be a logical explanation for Robert’s altered behaviour. Tommy Westphal was struck by the fact that Robert was suddenly turning down all the charity benefits to which he had previously always given so much time. Well, all right, of course he’s going to want to be at home with his little daughter, Tommy said to himself.

  On the long bus journeys to away games, Robert gradually told Hanno everything about his black dog. They could chat without fear of being overheard because at least three-quarters of the players had headphones on. Robert told him about his flight from Lisbon, about Novelda, Frank de Boer and Istanbul. Depression kills all positive feelings, he explained to Hanno, ‘suddenly everything strikes you as pointless, hopeless’. It was as if access to his brain had been reduced to a tiny crack through which only negative impulses could slip. Non-depressives could rarely grasp the power of depression because they didn’t understand that it was an illness. People wondered why he saw everything in such a negative way, why he couldn’t pull himself together. They didn’t understand that he was powerless in the face of it. He could no longer control it. His brain functions were altered; synapses inside his head seemed to be blocked. He found it hard to concentrate from day to day, but he could talk lucidly and in great detail about his illness.

  He wasn’t getting better. On 24 August, his thirty-second birthday, he started crying when his sister Anja rang. For other well-wishers, like Torsten Ziegner, his boyhood friend from Jena, he effortlessly played the part of the cool goalkeeper – ‘I just need to keep on playing well then I’ll be number one in the World Cup’. When his mother wished him a happy birthday, he asked straight out, ‘Mum, have you ever suffered from depression?’

  ‘No, I haven’t. I’ve been profoundly sad, but not depressive, no.’

  Today Gisela wonders whether he expected her to ask him a question back, whether he wanted to talk about his experiences of the abyss. Or had he simply wanted to know if he had inherited the illness? But she didn’t dare go into the subject further at the time.

  After that she only spoke to Teresa on the phone. He didn’t want to talk to anyone; he needed peace and his routines in order to regain his equilibrium, he said. The family complied with his request. They wanted to help him, after all.

  The Wilkes had bought him a patio heater as a birthday present since he liked to sit in the garden late into the evening. It was better if they didn’t bring the present for the time being, said Teresa. ‘Otherwise it’ll just be another thing standing around. He already gets quite worked up enough about things standing around the place.’

  She had now told all their friends from the neighbourhood. ‘Act quite normally,’ she’d said to the Wilkes. ‘But I didn’t,’ Uli confesses. ‘I didn’t know how to deal with him. I was completely uptight.’

  On Lara’s birthday, a week after his own, he went with Teresa to the grave in the morning and released a white balloon. He was sweating with nerves. The InterCity to Cologne left at 3.31p.m. He would be going on a training-camp with the national team for ten days. How was he going to get through that? How could he spend ten days in close proximity to his team-mates without giving himself away? If his depression got out, it was all over.

  ‘Robbi felt walled in,’ says Marco Villa. ‘He had these two great dreams: to play the World Cup and to out himself as a depressive. And he knew that both weren’t possible: one definitively excluded the other. He felt that regardless of what he did he couldn’t get over the wall around him.’

  Robert wrote a single sentence in his moleskin book that day:

  31 August 2009. It was a struggle, but Terri has persuaded me to go to Cologne.

  The players were just sitting around in the hotel as they hadn’t been given any responsibilities yet, but for Robert, that evening was his first test. The professional footballers union, VdV, had chosen him for their team of the 2008–09 season and invited him to an awards ceremony. In order to get through the proceedings he took some mood-enhancing drugs a doctor friend had prescribed.

  A minibus took him and two other members of the national team to the Brauhaus by the main station, where the ceremony was taking place. They were greeted at the front door by Tim Jürgens, deputy editor-in-chief of 11 Freunde, which was hosting the event with the union. Jürgens knew Robert liked his magazine: the goalkeeper had given 11 Freunde two open interviews. So why did he return his greeting so coldly? Jürgens wondered. Robert didn’t even seem to notice him.

  The high ceiling of the Brauhaus bounced the guests’ voices back into the hall. The footballing scene was in its element; a few Bundesliga players from Bochum and Cologne were chatting with ex-players and agents. Jörg Neblung switched off mid-conversation a few times to see whether Robert was coping.

  Luckily he was a goalkeeper, so he received his award first. He was wearing a brown corduroy jacket and jeans, and his face looked gaunt, a lot of people in the hall thought. There was still a hum of conversation from the rear of the hall as he stepped up on to the stage. The business manager of the German football league delivered a dry eulogy. When he passed the microphone to Robert, Jörg stiffened.

  Some members of the audience thought Robert looked embarrassed. Others thought it was rather an aloof thank-you because his speech was so sober. Jörg thought his friend was putting in an Oscar-winning performance. He was even smiling! Jörg quickly took a photograph with his mobile phone and sent it to Teresa. ‘You can’t believe how well your husband is presenting himself here,’ he wrote.

  An hour later the bus picked up the players again. Tim Jürgens hurried to the exit. ‘Once again, many thanks for coming, it would have been a sad event without you,’ he said to Robert. The goalkeeper shook his hand and walked on, without looking at Jürgens, without saying a word. ‘Christ, they’re obviously flying through the world on special flying saucers as soon as they’re on the national team,’ Jürgens thought to himself, ‘if even a man like Robert Enke can behave like that.’

  The moment he’d stepped down from the stage Robert had lost all his strength again. He was no longer capable of reacting by the time he left the Brauhaus.

  Later,
he lay in his hotel bed. The mood lifter kept him from sleeping. He tossed and turned, he was exhausted and wide awake, alone in the darkness. He was easy prey for his thoughts. How could he train tomorrow? There was a jump test on the schedule; the national coaches would have the results in front of them in black and white and see that he was just a wreck. But how could he ever get fit again if he didn’t train tomorrow? When he woke up the next morning he hadn’t even had two hours’ sleep. He had to get up, that was the most import ant thing. But outside all that awaited him were challenges, demands, expectations he couldn’t fulfil. He was only safe in his bed, in the darkness of his room, sealed off by blinds and curtains.

  His mobile rang. Teresa.

  ‘I didn’t get a wink. And now I’m lying here, just staring at the alarm-clock, and can’t even get out of bed.’

  ‘Robbi, get up right now. I’ll call again in five minutes, by then you’ll have drawn the curtains and showered.’

  Five minutes later: ‘So?’

  ‘I’ve done it. Thanks!’

  Teresa told Jörg. ‘Oh God, and all this while he is with the national team!’ He drove straight to the hotel.

  Teresa had told him the room number so he took the lift without asking at reception and knocked on the door. Robert wouldn’t let him in. Jörg couldn’t shout ‘Robbi, open up!’ as the rooms of the other players were on the same corridor. He went back downstairs and asked the receptionist to put him through. Robert picked up the phone because he saw the in-house number and was afraid it was someone from the German Football Association on the line.

  ‘I’ll come down,’ he promised Jörg.

  Jörg waited in vain. He called again.

  ‘There’s no way I can do the jump test today. Everyone will see that my legs are like matchsticks.’

  Jörg knew that Robert was in decent physical shape, but he realised that it wasn’t the time or the place to talk to the black wall in Robert’s brain.

  ‘OK,’ he said. ‘Go to the team doctor and tell him you’ve been shivering, that you had cold sweats all night and that you’re feeling terrible.’

  It was all true.

  The team doctor said he’d better skip training. He would give him a blood test to see if he’d caught a virus.

  Robert went back to bed.

  He kept a diary, as he had done with his first depression; writing his thoughts down helped him to put them in order. But he usually managed no more than one or two sentences.

  1 September 2009. Spent half the day in bed before Terri persuaded me to get up. Don’t give up!

  The national coach still believed that Robert Enke would start in the World Cup qualifier against Azerbaijan at the end of the training-camp. That summer, Joachim Löw had surprisingly decided that Robert would be in goal for the remaining three qualifiers. ‘At a time when no one expected it, we said publicly: he’s our number one in the crucial games in the autumn,’ says Andreas Köpke. ‘You can’t give a goalkeeper greater proof of your confidence than that.’ Robert, who had shown no signs of waywardness, seemed like the safest choice. But Löw and Köpke hadn’t just been watching their goalkeepers playing, they’d also been studying their behaviour. Löw thought it would do both Robert and René Adler good to take the heat out of the competition between the two players by making a clear statement. The fact that both keepers yearned for a life free of conflict was the most important reason to resolve the issue as soon as possible.

  The blood test was negative. There was no medical reason why Robert shouldn’t stand in goal in a week. And the match against Azerbaijan was in Hanover, Robert’s city. He wouldn’t let that one slip away.

  But he still felt limp, Robert said. On the third day of the course he only managed two light sessions outside of team training. In the hotel he saw some of the Under-21 national players who were in Cologne for a performance test. Among them he recognised a tall, slim boy with a high-cut fringe, and immediately walked over to him.

  German footballers usually greeted each other with a loud clapping handshake; Robert had preserved his Portuguese habit of hugging people he liked. The urge to hug Sven Ulreich in the hotel in Cologne came over him spontaneously. A year and a half had passed since he had comforted the young man. Now, Ulreich had established himself as the Under-21 national goalkeeper and was to take over from Jens Lehmann in goal at VfB Stuttgart in the summer of 2010. They talked for a few minutes, and in the end Ulreich said, ‘If we don’t see each other before, the best of luck in the World Cup.’

  And all of a sudden Robert, who had momentarily forgotten his depression, seemed to disappear into his thoughts. ‘Yes,’ he said at last, absently, ‘let’s see if we ever see each other again.’

  A strange farewell, Sven Ulreich thought once they had gone their separate ways.

  3 September 2009. Didn’t sleep. Everything seems pointless. It’s hard for me to concentrate. Thinking about S.

  He felt he could no longer control the black dog. He’d sat down at the dinner table that evening with René Adler and Per Mertesacker; the fourth member of their clique, Christoph Metzelder, was no longer in the squad. René and Per started a conversation, but ‘getting Robbi to talk was like pulling teeth’, says René. ‘He sat there quite mechanically. That wasn’t Robbi.’

  He no longer had the concentration to take part fluently in a conversation. He just wanted to get back to his hotel room, his shelter, as quickly as possible.

  But his commitments weren’t yet over. They were due to do some advertising for Mercedes. He was assigned a convertible for the film shoot. ‘How long is this going to take?’ he asked René. ‘What’s it all about?’ René waited until he could catch Per Mertesacker at a quiet moment. ‘What’s up with Robbi?’ he said. ‘He’s drifting around like a ghost.’ They thought he was still suffering with the virus. ‘He must be in a really bad way, with his cold sweats or whatever they are.’

  That was how he lived through those days. And with every passing day his distress deepened. The game against Azerbaijan in Hanover was getting closer and closer, along with the expectation that he would play in it.

  On Saturday, four days before the match, the team had the evening off. Jörg organised an appointment with Valentin Markser.

  They hadn’t seen each other for a long time. After Lara’s death, when he had visited Jörg in Cologne, Robert had looked in on Markser. This time it wasn’t going to be a session in the usual sense: Markser needed to prepare him for his decision. The next day or the day after that he would have to tell Löw whether he was going to play in Hanover or whether he was going to leave the squad.

  The psychiatrist ran through Plan A with him. Robert would tell the team doctor about his persistent complaints, the cold sweats and the sleeplessness. He wanted to have himself checked by his doctor in Hanover, he was to say, so he had to abandon the training-camp. Markser tried to give Robert a sense of what it would mean for his psyche if he cried off the game in Hanover. Then they discussed Plan B. How Robert would go on behaving with the squad, how he could get through the match.

  That evening he wrote,

  6 September 2009. In the session with Valentin, I’m not honest with him.

  He had tried to play down his illness to the psychiatrist. He’d unconsciously felt he had to maintain the lie that everything was all right, even to the man who was supposed to be helping him. Even he didn’t understand why.

  After the session with Markser he got into the car he’d borrowed from the German Football Association and drove into the night.

  Teresa tried to get through to him several times. At half-past eleven he finally answered the phone.

  ‘I’m on my way to the underground car park at the hotel.’

  ‘Oh. I’m glad the conversation with Valentin went on for so long.’

  ‘It didn’t.’

  ‘Then where have you been all this time?’

  ‘I drove through the city.’

  ‘Robbi, why did you drive through the city?’

&nb
sp; ‘I just did.’

  ‘Tell me why you drove through the city.’

  ‘I was seeing where I could kill myself.’

  ‘Robbi, are you crazy?’

  He managed to calm her down after saying that. It had just been an impulse, it had gone away. Then he took the lift to his room, opened the door to the balcony, went right up to the balustrade and imagined what it would be like to jump.

  On Sunday morning he went to the team doctor, Tim Meyer, and put Plan A into effect. Joachin Löw told the press that ‘because of a general infection’ Robert Enke would not be taking part in the game against Azerbaijan. The team doctor couldn’t put it any more specifically than that. Meyer hadn’t found any viral or bacterial illness.

  The vagueness of the explanation stirred up speculation. Swine flu was the topic of the day – had Robert Enke caught it? The sportswriters opened their reports with lines like, ‘The story of Robert Enke is a never-ending drama.’ Every time he seemed to be establishing himself as number one with the national team some mishap stopped him in his tracks.

  The national coaches were aware of this too. ‘We were talking about it: first the scaphoid bone, now the virus – whenever there was a major game on the horizon Robert had some piece of bad luck,’ says Andreas Köpke. ‘And when Tim Meyer said his blood profile was normal, we wondered: has he got a problem with his head?’ Köpke himself had hardly ever been injured in his playing career, but once, when an international against Georgia was taking place in his footballing home town, Nuremberg, he pulled a muscle in his calf. He’s convinced that his body took a time-out because of the unusual level of stress. ‘But a scaphoid bone fracture when punching – that can’t be caused by what’s going on in your head. We couldn’t imagine that.’