You

by Zoran Drvenkar

  The ballroom of the hotel was prepared for the wedding day. Since breakfast a band had been practicing hits from the 1960s, and you told Oskar that you had a few calls to make in private. At the time Oskar still thought you were in the building trade. Like father, like son.

  You strolled along the fjord. The weather had turned, and the landscape suddenly glowed in a completely new light. You sat in the grass for two hours, looked down at the water, and began to understand Oskar. If you didn’t want much, you had more than enough right here.

  She was sitting with her bridesmaids on a meadow that you only walked across because you thought it was a shortcut to Ulvtannen. The women were like Sirens waiting for a lonely seafarer. You landed among them like a ship in distress. A rapture of femininity enfolded you. And in the midst of them was Majgull. And in the midst was Majgull.

  They offered you things to eat and drink. Their rudimentary English aroused you, their words alone were enough to seduce you. There was so much warmth, and for the first time in your life you became aware that a man needs more than one woman around him.

  To try out everything, to miss nothing.

  When you had eaten and drunk and were about to go, the bridesmaids told you that the first man who meets the bride with her retinue is the last man the bride kisses before she’s given away.

  “You have to do this, please, please, please!” the bridesmaids begged you, and your fate was sealed.

  Yours, Majgull’s, and your brother’s.

  Majgull’s lips pressed firm and hard on yours, then for a second they softened and you looked into her eyes, clear and open and watching as you watched her. The bridesmaids applauded. Majgull touched your arm as if in thanks, then she laughed, and that laughter did send her breath into your mouth.

  You still clearly remember that.

  Her breath in your mouth.

  The ceremony was held in Hopperstad church in Vikøyri. It was cramped and musty, thirty people tried to cram themselves into a historical wooden building that should have fallen in on itself over a hundred years ago. You leaned against one of the pillars and didn’t understand a word of the ceremony. You struggled not to stare openly at Majgull. Your hands were behind your back, you didn’t want anybody to see your fists.

  Afterward the guests drove in a convoy to Ulvtannen, they parked in all directions on the cliff, it looked chaotic, it looked beautiful. Strings of lights and garlands were stretched all over the place, children were running around, the music could be heard all the way to Lunnis. You were barely aware of the party. You drank, you ate. One of the bridesmaids flirted with you, another tried to make you drink homemade aquavit, and again and again Oskar appeared by your side, beaming with joy, putting his arm around your shoulders and saying how happy he was to have you there.

  “It wouldn’t be real without you.”

  You left at dawn, when everyone was still asleep. There was mist on the water again, the garlands rustled in the wind, no one encountered you, no one stood and waved at one of the windows. You left a short message. Work calls. Hope to see you soon. And you wished the couple the very best.

  Over the next few weeks you headed further north to lose yourself in loneliness. No one knows anything from that time, and no one must know. Your thoughts revolved around that woman who now belonged to your brother. You didn’t think about your pregnant angel. Not for a second.

  On your return to Berlin you were a different person. You plunged into your work with controlled rage, and stopped imagining any kind of future with Majgull. You didn’t plan to involve yourself any further in your brother’s life. Darian was born in the middle of May, and you became part of a new family.

  When your mother died three days after Christmas, you went back to Norway. This time you borrowed Tanner’s jeep. A dark winter landscape embraced you, it matched your thoughts. The hotel looked far too inviting, the snow too white.

  You spent only one night in Ulvtannen. Oskar didn’t leave your side the whole time, which was quite good. It made it easier for you to stay out of Majgull’s way. She must have sensed as much, because she let you brothers have your space. You grieved, you drank yourselves into oblivion and got into a fight in a pub. The next morning you carried your mother to the grave, and then you put on your sunglasses and set off for home. You wanted to mourn in private. You drove through Norway without taking a break. Your decision was made: no matter what, you would never come back. It was a pledge. Your family was waiting for you. Your son, your wife. And for a while your life went smoothly again, and it looked as if you no longer had any dreams. For a while you were the hungriest person in a world of the sated.

  “Can I go now?”

  The words pull you out of your thoughts. You look at the boy who lied to you openly and who wanted to go now. You know he called the girl. You heard what he said about you. You ask him, “Do you know what seriously pisses me off about little fuckers like you?”

  He shrugs, and again there’s that martyr’s smile. If you were thirty years younger, you’d fight him. You tell him what you think of him and his generation, but your words lack fire, you’re not really interested in this boy anymore. End it now, enough’s enough.

  You ask him for his cell phone.

  “I haven’t got a—”

  “ARE YOU TRYING TO MESS WITH ME? GIVE ME YOUR FUCKING CELL PHONE RIGHT NOW!”

  He takes it out of his back pocket and is about to hand it to you when he realizes why you want it. His arm swings back, Leo is faster.

  “Let go.”

  Leo takes the phone and steps back again. The boy is uncertain. He’s probably wondering if everything’s okay again now. Then comes the understanding. He has spotted the connection—the girls, the drugs, the swimming pool, and of course his own part in this story, it all makes sense. His lies, his truth, his pathetic little life. Everything. And that makes him step back, his chair tips over and clatters along the ground, if he could he would run. You don’t move from the spot, you read his eyes, every reaction is predictable. He wants to say something, but it’s too late for that. You raise the gun and shoot him in the head.

  “Well?”

  Leo frowns and hands you the boy’s phone. The last number dialed is linked to a name.

  “Stink?”

  “Must be some sort of nickname,” says Leo.

  You call the number. It rings six times, then you hear a rustle, someone shouts, someone laughs, you recognize her voice immediately, she says, “Girls, will you shut up, I can’t hear anything. Hello? Mirko?”

  “Hello, Stink,” you say.

  Silence, the background noises have faded away. She knows now that you’re not the boy. She probably knows who’s talking to her.

  “We had a deal,” you remind her.

  “Fuck the deal.”

  “I’ll find you. You can try and hide, but I’ll find you.”

  “I told you, you don’t scare me.”

  “You little—”

  “Asshole,” she says and cuts you off.

  I

  I’m riding faster than a million miles per hour

  with the motorcycle angels

  Kid Loco

  MOTORCYCLE ANGELS

  We’ve heard a lot about you and got to know you a little better, but we still don’t know where you come from and why you exist. Let’s go back a bit. Back to the day when you first discovered that the world turns differently as soon as you take a step outside of reality.

  It is December.

  It is 1976.

  It is late afternoon.

  A family’s having dinner, while outside the winter rages and the streets suffocate beneath the snow with silent resignation. No sounds of cars, no playing children, even the dogs aren’t barking at each other on the pavements. Father and son sit silently at the table. Mother leans over the stove. She never sits down. She’d prefer to eat later on her own, because she’ll have more peace then. She says. Your mother, your father, you. You are aware that your parents haven’t got on f
or years. They endure one another. Your father sleeps on the sofa. Your mother locks herself in the bathroom. In public they’re two shadows that never touch. In the house they act as if one or the other of them is in a bad mood, as if you kids don’t understand what’s playing out in front of you. They don’t believe in divorce. Divorce is for losers. Your father’s a winner. He wouldn’t dream of letting your mother go. You sit facing one another at the dinner table. Your mother on your right, your sister on your left. Her chair is empty today. She’s at dance class. She’s allowed to turn up late.

  “Sit down, now,” says your father, and your mother ignores him and lights a cigarette. She leans against that bloody stove as if she couldn’t stand up on her own. You wish they’d yell at each other. It would be nice if your mother won for once. A lot of things would be easier.

  The news reaches you when your sister comes back from her dance class. You know when you hear her running along the corridor. The pace of her footsteps, her toneless panic. It’s only when she’s standing in the doorway that she says, “Robbie’s dead!”

  Your father looks at you startled, as if you’d said the words. Your mother throws her hands to her mouth, her cigarette slips from her fingers. You lower your eyes because you can’t think how to react. You watch the end of the cigarette slowly burning a hole into the linoleum. When you look up, your father is still looking at you, startled.

  Ten minutes later. Your father is shoveling the snow from the drive. He doesn’t need to do it, you could walk easily across the garden to the Danisch house, but your father needs an excuse. He stalls. He scatters sand. He puts the shovel in the garage. He shuts the garage. He comes into the house. Your mother spoke to Robbie’s mother on the phone; your help is needed. You sit in your room and watch the snow pelting the window like a raging swarm of insects. Your parents are talking downstairs. You hear them through the door. Perhaps they’ll forget about you.

  Your sister looks in and asks if you’re coming or what? You get up, push past her, and hear your father say, “This isn’t for me.”

  “What does that mean, this isn’t for me?”

  “It means what it means.”

  “But Karen and Thomas are our friends.”

  “They are not my friends. They are neighbors.”

  “How can you …”

  They break off when you come downstairs. Your sister close behind you. You hear her humming quietly. She always hums when she’s anxious.

  “You go on ahead,” says your father and disappears into the living room.

  His boots stand like twin stumps in the corridor. The snow under the soles is firm and lumpy and refuses to melt. Your mother opens the front door and slings the boots outside. The TV comes on in the living room. You want to join him. You wish they’d actually pull knives on each other. And now your father’s free to win.

  “Coward,” you hear your mother mutter.

  “What’s wrong with Daddy?” your sister asks.

  “He’s tired,” your mother replies.

  “I’m tired too,” your sister says with a glassy look in her eyes as if there were tears that couldn’t get out. Your sister is seven, Robbie was thirteen. Your mother wants you both to put on something black. You go upstairs and get changed.

  “What’s that?”

  You look down at yourself. Your only black sweater is the one with Jaws on the front. Its mouth is wide open.

  “You’re not serious.”

  “It’s the only one I’ve got.”

  “If Robbie’s parents see you like that, they’ll get …”

  Your mother breaks off, puts her hand in front of her mouth, and shakes her head as if she doesn’t know what to say. You go back into your room and get a dark blue sweater out of the wardrobe.

  “Better?”

  Your mother stands at the window blowing her nose with her back to you. She couldn’t really give a damn about the sweater. In the reflection in the window you see that her eyes are shut. From somewhere there comes the sound of your sister humming. You want to check on her, but you know your mother has to let you go first.

  “I don’t want to lose you,” you hear her saying, as if that had anything to do with anything.

  It’s terrible. The Danisches are sitting side by side on the sofa, looking miserable. Aunty Henna has come. She’s nobody’s aunt. She lives two streets away and everybody calls her Aunty. She’s always there if you need her. The women say Aunty Henna buried her husband in the cellar because she wanted to keep him to herself. You think that’s a lie. Aunty Henna’s too good-looking for that. She’s got no shortage of men running after her, she doesn’t need to bury one in the cellar.

  Aunty Henna brings coffee and schnapps and talks quietly. She says all the things the Danisches would say if they were talking to your parents. It’s like listening to the radio. After half an hour Frau Danisch leaves the room and goes upstairs. Your mother follows her. After less than a minute, Frau Danisch’s grieving wails are heard. You get goose bumps. Everyone else pretends they haven’t heard. You drink your fourth cup of coffee and wish you could stick your finger down your throat. Your sister has curled up like a cat on one of the armchairs, she is fast asleep. Aunty Henna tops up your coffee. Herr Danisch holds his hand over his empty cup. He says he has enough. You wish you could creep under the table so that everyone would forget you. It has a glass top. Herr Danisch would see you. He wouldn’t forget you. He’d ask you what you were doing there. You drink your coffee. You can’t think of anything better to do.

  Herr Danisch goes out onto the terrace. You follow him. Snow has collected on the roof. The terrace looks as if someone’s dipped it in a glass of milk. The covered pool is the same as ever. It’s a mystery to you. It should have changed. You swam in it only recently, you chased each other from one end to the other, while the snow raged around you, and all of a sudden the pool is taboo, even though nothing about it has changed. If you narrow your eyes, you can see Robbie. Arms spread, facedown, naked and motionless.

  Nothing.

  “I wish we’d never built that pool,” Herr Danisch says and turns the switch. The roof slides slowly sideways. Snow comes pelting through the gap and dissolves on the surface of the water.

  “It’s the best pool in the whole city,” you say, and your words are as hollow and empty as the space your brain is sitting in.

  “I know, Robbie said the same thing,” says Herr Danisch and turns away, without closing the roof again. Snow drifts onto your face, snow is everywhere. The water steams. Robbie turned the temperature up for you this morning. You’d like to turn the switch and watch the roof closing silently again. Like a weary eye. Like your thoughts, if you could think. But you don’t dare touch the switch. You don’t know if Herr Danisch would go completely nuts.

  You hear him saying from the living room: “It happened quickly.”

  And Aunty Henna replies, “He didn’t suffer.”

  And the sound of Robbie’s mother howling comes from upstairs.

  “Here.”

  Your father’s come after all. He’s shaved and says he’s sorry, it took him a while to pull himself together.

  “Delayed response time,” he calls it, and Herr Danisch nods and shakes his hand. Later the two men will withdraw to the den and sit on two stools and pass a bottle back and forth. Whiskey or vodka or brandy. You know the Danisch family’s alcohol supply. You know which pile of books it’s hidden behind. You and Robbie drank half the vodka and filled it up with water. The men won’t notice. Herr Danisch will tell your father how guilty he feels. He’ll look for a pickaxe to destroy the pool. Your father will restrain him. Later. Later isn’t now. Now your father’s eyes are fixed on you, just as they were when your sister came storming into the house with news of Robbie’s death. You know your father’s problem. He imagines it had been you. There in the pool. As if something like that would happen to you. Your mother thinks the same thing. They barely communicate now, but when they do, it’s on a shared wavelength.

>   “Go on, have some.”

  Your father holds a beer bottle out to you. You’re too young to drink beer. Thirteen’s too young. Coffee’s okay, beer’s taboo. But the death of the neighbor boy makes your father look at you with different eyes. He doesn’t know how old you’ll get. From today, anything is possible. Drink.

  “Thanks.”

  You sip at it and then turn the bottle in your hands the way you’ve seen people doing it on television. Your sister has woken up, she is drinking Coke. What you wouldn’t give for a Coke right now.

  You’re standing by the big plate-glass window. You thought everyone would balk at the idea of looking at the pool. But everybody’s looking at it. They’re looking at it as if something was suddenly going to happen and time was going to reverse itself, as if Robbie might rise unharmed from the water. The snow pelts through the roof. You wish it would fall more gently. But the snow doesn’t want to fall. It’s just pelting.

  “I still can’t believe it,” Herr Danisch says quietly, pulling his upper lip into his mouth. All of you are reflected in the window. Your sister turns away first and switches on the television. Aunty Henna whispers to her that that’s not quite decent. Your sister tells her what series is about to come on. Aunty Henna says: Well, if that’s the case. You keep watching the room in the reflection. You keep watching your father on your left and Herr Danisch on your right. No one mentions what’s happened. You shut your eyes. Like a jackknife. Like a door. Like a grave that’s being sealed.

  Dennis waits for you before school the next day and asks, “What happened?”

  “Nothing.”

  “What do you mean nothing?”

  You try to walk on, but he grabs you by the arm and drags you into a doorway. Your winter jackets rub against each other and make a whispering sound, as if sharing a secret.

  “What do you mean nothing?” Dennis repeats, and presses you against the wall and pushes his forearm against your throat so that you have to stand on tiptoe.