A Life Too Short: The Tragedy of Robert Enke

by Reng, Ronald

  The following Saturday he went to Cologne to see Valentin Markser, as he did on almost all his free days. Russia versus Germany was on TV, the second leg of the World Cup qualifier. It was almost exactly a year since the first leg, before which he had fractured his scaphoid bone. Again he sat in front of the television, again René Adler played outstandingly, again the commentator hyped René. With the 1–0 victory Germany qualified for the World Cup in South Africa, which was to be the highlight of his career. The television pictures showed a jubilant German team triumphantly thrusting their fists into the air. Robert felt as if the fists of his happy team-mates were punching him in the face.

  Four days later he pulled out of a training session.

  He slipped back into the past. He couldn’t stop thinking about those four or five bright days in late September. Why had he suddenly been alive again then, and why, above all, had the illness come back after that? What had he done wrong to allow the darkness to take him by surprise again?

  ‘It’s over, Terri. I had the chance to get out of it and I missed it.’

  ‘Robbi, imagine for example that you’re moving to Lisbon and you haven’t done a language course first. You don’t say, it’s too late, I’ll never be able to learn Portuguese.’

  ‘Brilliant example.’

  ‘It’s not over yet! You got better for a while. That only suggests that you will soon be really better.’

  She often went with him to training now. The important thing was that he didn’t feel lonely. Above all he was to be left unsupervised as little as possible.

  The goalkeeping coach put each of his three keepers through the wringer in turn. Teresa went and stood on the sideline, virtually level with the goal; the pensioners who came every day stood closer to the halfway line. The coach volleyed the ball at the left-hand corner of the goal, and as soon as Robert had stopped the ball he had to get up again and jump across to save a shot into the right-hand corner. Three repetitions, then it was Fromlowitz’s turn. When she noticed that Robert was losing his concentration as he waited, and hanging his head, she gave the advertising hoardings a quick kick. He felt the sound rather than heard it, and looked over at her. She clenched her fist. Concentrate. Fight.

  After two such visits the sports journalists were on the phone to Jörg. Why was Frau Enke always coming to training?

  She didn’t dare go after that. But because she couldn’t leave him alone with his thoughts for that half-hour car journey every day she continued to drive in with him. Sometimes she went to the museum, sometimes she waited in the car, for maybe two hours.

  That wasn’t the end of it. In the afternoon he also had to be kept busy; he must have no time to brood. She persuaded him to go to the zoo with her and Leila. There he saw a ten-year-old child arguing with its parents, and had a sudden fear of the future. ‘How are we going to manage, with the house, with the dogs, and when Leila’s bigger?’ In the evening she gave him a picture-book about the Hanover region. ‘Choose a place where we can all go for an outing,’ she said. One of the dogs chewed up the book after it had lain unused for days beside Robert’s bed.

  16 October 2009. The team is going to Frankfurt, and I don’t think I’ll ever go with them again.

  It was in that mood that he received a message from Teresa to say his mother was coming.

  Gisela Enke had, like the other members of the family, stuck to Robert’s request to leave him in peace. In her family, this kind of reservation was considered simple good manners. But his mother had had enough. She hadn’t spoken to or seen her sick son for almost two months. She simply told Teresa to say that she was coming, not for him but for Leila. ‘I want to see my grandchild.’

  30. Gisela Enke with her son Robert on her back.

  Robert’s mother was already sitting in the kitchen in Empede when he returned from training the next evening. One impulse within him still worked: his mother’s presence relaxed him, as it had done in the past, even if he wasn’t enthusiastic about her visit. She opened a bottle of red wine and he even had a glass with her. There was a certain formality to their conversation because his mother sensed that there was something there she wasn’t allowed to touch. But he made the effort to speak to her, which was more than he did for most people. He even told her a bit about the depths of his illness. When they got up from the table at last it was half-past ten. He hadn’t stayed up as late as that in weeks.

  The next morning his mother hugged him. ‘Lovely to have you here,’ he said, and set off for training. When he came back it was as if the previous evening had never happened.

  ‘Would you like an espresso?’ Teresa asked after lunch.

  ‘No.’

  ‘But you always have an espresso.’

  ‘But not now.’

  He wanted to punish himself. He didn’t deserve any beautiful moments, and the day before he had had a glass of red wine, so he had to punish himself all the more.

  His mother told his father about her visit.

  ‘I can’t get through to him,’ said Dirk Enke.

  ‘Well, then do what I did and just go there.’

  ‘No, I don’t want to impose. He’s an adult. If he doesn’t want to see me, I have to respect that.’

  But in the end his father found a way of getting round his own reticence. His son-in-law had bought himself a new car and it needed to be collected from the Volkswagen factory in Hanover. He could do that, said Dirk Enke. He was in the area so could he drop by? he asked Teresa on the phone. She collected him from the station. When Robert opened the door, by way of greeting he said, ‘You’re lucky to find me alive.’ He made no attempt to hide his irritation about the visit.

  ‘Have you actually read Black Dog?’ his father asked him at the kitchen table.

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘How often?’

  ‘I’m not enjoying this conversation, I’m going to bed,’ said Robert, and got to his feet. It was just before half-past nine.

  ‘So we’ll talk again tomorrow?’

  ‘We won’t talk tomorrow.’ He was already on his way out of the kitchen.

  Dirk Enke didn’t need to be a psychotherapist to recognise that depression hadn’t left his son with much of his true personality.

  Sometimes Robert startled his team-mates at Hannover 96. Tommy Westphal got curious text messages from him. ‘What time’s training tomorrow?’ ‘When is bed-rest before the game?’ Why did he ask that? Robert knew all those things. Someone like Robert didn’t forget things like that.

  Arnold Bruggink, who had played with him now for over three years, was struck that Robert showed hardly any emotions in training.

  ‘Everything all right, Robert?’

  ‘Yes, fine, it’s all great.’

  When Westphal and Bruggink didn’t get answers from Robert, they started providing their own. Maybe Robert wasn’t getting much sleep because his daughter was keeping him up at night. Perhaps it was nagging away at him that he had lost his position as Germany’s number one.

  Autumn rain had softened the pitch, and Robert had blades of grass stuck to his face. Goalkeeping coach Jörg Sievers told him, ‘That was great today, you’ll soon be ready.’ Sievers meant well. Robert panicked. There was no way he could play with his head, and not with his body either. Was he the only one who had noticed how his muscles were wasting away?

  ‘He wasn’t in perfect physical shape, but he was good enough for the Bundesliga,’ says Jörg. ‘He just couldn’t see it any more.’

  He was sitting at the kitchen table with a mountain of sweet-papers in front of him. It was his pudding. He had already had an extra-large pizza and a bowl of ice-cream. The new drugs Markser had prescribed for him made him ravenous.

  Jörg was sitting opposite him at the table. He couldn’t remember how many times he’d made the trip from Cologne now; he was there for Robert more than for his family. ‘You’ll manage to get off the game against Stuttgart on Saturday,’ said Jörg, ‘but then you’ll have missed five weeks since the bacter
ia were discovered. The journalists can see how well you are playing every day in training.’

  Jörg didn’t say it straight out, but next week Robert would either have to play or reveal the truth.

  TWENTY

  The Cheerfulness of Xylophones Silenced

  THE CAR RADIO came on automatically when he turned the key in the ignition. He let the music play; he wouldn’t hear it anyway. The B6 was free, it was a Sunday morning – nothing to be seen that could prevent the situation he was heading towards. The day before, Hannover had beaten VfB Stuttgart 1–0. The last game in what could credibly be seen as his period of grace had been and gone.

  He was on the way to the stadium. Ideally, he would perform really badly at training and then everyone would recognise that he couldn’t play yet. But if he trained badly everyone would ask what was up with him, and then someone was bound to see through him.

  And what good would it do him if he managed to get out of the next match? The game after that still awaited him. As far as his fear allowed him to look into the future, Robert saw nothing but tests that he would fail, that he had to fail.

  There was no training on Monday – one less test, but one day more when he had too much time to think. Teresa helped him get up. Sometimes she had to return several times until he did it. When Jörg was there he pulled open the window, took Robert’s pillow and shouted, ‘Come on, Robbi, you can’t just lie there all day! It’s just your head, not you!’ Usually Robert lay there motionless and said nothing. Once Teresa had got so desperate that she kicked the bed. His room only had two narrow windows: if only they had a brighter house so that he’d find it harder to hide away from the day! He lay in bed and pretended he couldn’t see her. All of a sudden, however, he said with despair in his voice, ‘I don’t want to play on Saturday.’ He lay there all morning after that.

  Over the next few days the fears competed. The fear of having to play was chased by the fear of being discovered, so he went to training every day. On Thursday the reporters asked him if he was going to be in goal against 1 FC Cologne. ‘I’ll have to discuss that with the coach.’ They had seen the training session and wrote that it could be assumed Robert Enke was returning to the team.

  On Friday the team was due to set off for Cologne after morning training. Teresa was playing with Leila in the nursery when Robert came downstairs.

  ‘How are you today?’

  ‘I can’t play. Take a look at my thigh. There’s nothing there now, all the muscle mass has gone.’

  She had already heard this line thirty times, and thirty times she had answered, ‘Robbi, you’ve been training all the time, your legs are as strong as ever. It’s not over!’ This time she answered, ‘Look, there’s no point in any of it any more. Let’s go to the clinic.’

  For a moment he said nothing. Then he just said, ‘OK,’ and sat down with Leila on the fluffy carpet.

  He wanted to check in at the private clinic in Bad Zwischenahn Valentin Markser had recommended. Teresa fetched the clinic’s brochure and phoned Markser.

  ‘We’re doing it,’ she said.

  Markser asked how Robert was. Then he said he would call senior consultant Friedrich Ingwersen at the clinic, and call her back.

  Meanwhile, she rang Jörg.

  ‘We’re going to the clinic.’

  Jörg was surprised by his reaction: he was relieved. ‘OK, but make sure that you’ve left the house when it goes public.’

  Teresa had to go to the bathroom before they left. She managed to hold back the tears until she had closed the door behind her. That was the end of the dream that they would get their lovely former life back. It was over.

  And a moment later – or was it the same one? – she thought: at last it’s over.

  Valentin Markser rang back. Dr Ingwersen wasn’t at the clinic today but he’d made some enquiries and another doctor would welcome them: he was waiting for their phone-call. Teresa jotted down the doctor’s name.

  Then she wondered out loud: ‘But we should also call the youth welfare office before they find out from the newspaper.’ What would they say if it was discovered that Leila’s adoptive father had to be treated for depression? Could they take his daughter away from him? He had too many other anxieties to have to worry about that as well. Robert dialled the number of the youth welfare office without hesitating. Teresa had insisted on him making the phone-call because she knew there’d be no going back as soon as the lady from the adoption agency was informed. Then he couldn’t suddenly turn round on the way to Bad Zwischenahn.

  Her colleague wasn’t there, an unfamiliar woman’s voice said on the phone, did he want to leave a message?

  ‘No, thanks.’

  After he had put the phone down, an acrid smell hit Teresa’s nose.

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘I’m sweating so much.’

  ‘Shall I call them?’ she asked, and waited for him to hand her the clinic’s telephone number.

  ‘Not quite yet.’ He wanted to go to the bathroom first, to wash.

  Two minutes later he came charging back into Leila’s nursery, stripped to the waist. ‘I’m going to the stadium now! I’m playing tomorrow!’

  ‘Robbi, look at yourself, you can’t possibly play.’

  ‘I’m playing!’

  ‘At least let’s call Valentin and Jörg again.’

  Dr Markser wanted to talk to him. Immediately Robert’s voice was calm, his reasoning sensible. He wanted to try again. He would keep the clinic option open. Markser couldn’t force a man who said clearly that he wanted to play football, and who denied having any suicidal thoughts, to go to a clinic.

  ‘You still have the option of Robbi dropping out before the game,’ said Jörg. ‘In that case he should just pretend he’s pulled a muscle during the warm-up.’

  Robert got dressed.

  ‘I’m off then.’

  ‘What? On your own? You can’t do that, Robbi.’

  Teresa rang Markser again. He couldn’t go on his own, under any circumstances, Dr Markser agreed.

  They left Leila with the housekeeper and were soon on their way. Teresa phoned Markus Witkop, the physiotherapist, from the car. Robert could pull a muscle whenever he liked, at the final training session today, during the warm-up tomorrow, during the game or, as far as he was concerned, even in the hotel, said Witkop. He would do his bit to make sure the truth didn’t come out.

  Teresa waited in the car during training so that the reporters didn’t get suspicious. She didn’t dare go into town, because what if he dropped out during training and she wasn’t nearby?

  Hannover 96 practised their corner-and free-kick variations, and at the end the coach let the team play freely for ten minutes so that they could let off a bit of steam. On the way back to the changing-rooms Robert trotted along with Hanno Balitsch, some distance behind the rest of the team.

  ‘Hanno, I can’t play tomorrow.’

  ‘What do you mean you can’t play tomorrow?’

  ‘My legs are tired. I can’t lift myself off the ground.’

  ‘Robs, you’ve just saved three balls in training that no one else in Germany could have saved, and you’re trying to tell me you have no strength in your legs?’

  ‘I can’t feel myself jumping. I can’t feel anything at all.’

  ‘Then just play tomorrow without feeling in front of fifty thousand people. You’ll do brilliantly in spite of everything.’

  From the car, Teresa saw him coming towards her.

  ‘I’m going with the team,’ he said.

  The players were travelling by train to Cologne. They walked through the main station with their headphones on. Robert grabbed himself a single seat by the window.

  Tommy Westphal was startled. ‘Have you forgotten me?’

  Robert always sat beside Hanno on the bus and beside Tommy on the train.

  ‘Oh, right, no,’ Robert replied, with no intention of moving to a pair of seats.

  He looks tired, Westphal thought, I expect
he wants a bit of peace. For a moment he recalled something that had surprised him during the week. A third of the way through the season, Robert had given fifteen or twenty pairs of his gloves to his fans. He usually did that only in the winter or summer break, when he knew a new delivery was coming in. He could have asked Robert what lay behind this action, but now he had to find another seat. Well, OK, Tommy thought to himself, perhaps he got a new delivery of gloves in October for some reason.

  Once Robert had left, Teresa wondered what she should do.

  ‘You don’t need to go to Cologne especially,’ Jörg said to her. He would call in at the hotel later; until then Hanno and Witti were by Robert’s side.

  ‘But I think it’s worse for me if I’m not in Cologne,’ Teresa said.

  That evening in the hotel, Tommy saw Robert sitting in the lobby with Teresa, Jörg and Markus Witkop. Of course, he thought to himself, Jörg lived in Cologne and Teresa was probably using the game as an opportunity to visit Jörg and his wife Tina. They’d recently had a child as well, if he remembered correctly. Tommy tried in vain to make eye contact with someone in the group, then walked on. They seemed to be deep in a serious conversation.

  ‘Look, I’m really sorry to drag you into this too,’ Robert said to Witkop.

  ‘No problem.’

  ‘But you’ll get into trouble if it comes out.’

  ‘I’d like to do it for you.’

  Anyone in the football business with a hint of sensitivity is tormented by a bad conscience because he doesn’t see his wife and children for so many evenings and weekends. For Jörg Neblung, that Saturday, 31 October, was one of the days when he really didn’t want to leave Tina on her own under any circumstances. He had planned for them to move house that day.

  While Jörg was unpacking boxes in his new home, Sebastian Schmidt, a colleague from his agency, went to the football with Teresa. An hour before kick-off they had no idea whether Robert was about to run out on to the pitch or whether he would be overwhelmed by fear in the changing-room.

  ‘I need a glass of sparkling wine,’ said Teresa.