You

by Zoran Drvenkar

  “Perhaps you should go there,” you say.

  Your mother is still holding her cup, even though it’s empty. You lean forward to give her a refill. At any moment your mother’s going to say Yes, perhaps. Your conversations are like games of chess. The openings are always the same.

  “Yes, perhaps,” your mother replies and doesn’t really mean it. She gives you a quizzical look.

  “How is he?”

  “As always. No better, no worse.”

  “Do you think his last course of treatment was successful?”

  Ask him yourself, you want to answer, but you just shrug. There are days when you want to put your mother in the car and drive to Berlin. You want to ring Ritchie’s doorbell, and go as soon as the door opens and leave the two of them alone. If you were brave enough, if your mother wasn’t resistant to the idea, if the sun rose in the west one day and your mother could crank herself up a bit and overcome her cowardice. You make the next move and say, “You must hate him for hiding.”

  “He’s not hiding.”

  “Of course he is.”

  “He’s like an injured wolf licking his wounds.”

  “Mom, it’s been eight years.”

  “I know.”

  “Why do you torment each other like this?”

  She smiles, you hate that smile, it disarms you, makes you the little son who knows nothing of the world.

  “Just wait, once you’ve found the right woman, you’ll think differently about your father.”

  “You say that every time.”

  “And you still haven’t found her.”

  Your little dispute is over. Stalemate. Any additional move would lead to superfluous attacks, and you’d rather not expect those of your mother. Let her have her peace. You say you have to go. She doesn’t ask where to, because she knows you’ll be back. You walk around the table and kiss her on the cheek. The saddest woman in the whole of Hamburg and her son.

  You left the bank after ten minutes. You had them give you an envelope, and in the envelope there are now six thousand euros. The sum has to be right, because you’re asking a lot in return. You barely know these girls, and don’t think you’ll ever see the money again. If the sum isn’t right, they’ll never go along with your deal, and there has to be a deal. You know your father would say you were mad. I’m doing what I have to do, you think, and you’re about to call Stink when she calls you first.

  “Hi,” you say. “I was just about to—”

  “Did you rat us out?” she cuts in.

  “What?”

  Her voice is shrill.

  “Two guys turned up after you disappeared, did you sell us out or what?”

  “Calm down, I didn’t—”

  “DON’T LIE TO ME!”

  “Stink, I’m not lying to you. What’s happened?”

  Her voice breaks.

  “Ruth is … our Ruth is …”

  The line goes dead. You look at your phone and don’t know how to react. It rings again. You hear Stink crying, you hear her sobbing.

  “Stink, talk to me, what’s happened?”

  “Ruth … they’ve … Ruth’s dead …”

  “What?”

  “Our Ruth is dead.”

  You swallow, you narrow your eyes, open them again.

  “Where are you now?”

  Stink sniffs.

  “As if I’d tell you that.”

  “Stink, I really have no idea what’s happened.”

  One of the girls says something in the background, Stink answers, you don’t understand a word, your thoughts are going round in circles: How can one of them be dead? I’m just an hour away. If I’d stayed there, then …

  “Are you still in the café?” you ask.

  “It’s crawling with cops now …”

  She breaks off, she takes a deep breath, she just needs to know: “You really didn’t rat us out?”

  “I swear.”

  “Because if you did rat us out, then—”

  “Stink, I swear!”

  Silence. Voices in the background. Silence.

  “Where exactly are you?” she asks.

  You tell her which intersection you’re standing at. She hangs up, and you look at the envelope in your hand and wonder for the hundredth time why you’re doing all this. And the answer is right in front of you. If only you could see it.

  It takes them ten minutes, they don’t look for a parking spot. The Range Rover is double-parked. The passenger window slides down, and you see Stink. Her eyes are red, her mouth so soft it looks like it’s melting. She waits for you to come over to her. The girls don’t want to risk anything, the engine keeps running, they could take off at any second, so move your ass and get this over with. Go.

  You stop beside the car and say you’re sorry.

  “How did they find us?” Stink wants to know. “Do you have any idea how they were able to find us?”

  The anarchy has vanished from her voice. She was so strong and full of life, you think and want to apologize for something that wasn’t your fault. Say something sensible, psych her up, encourage her.

  “I don’t know,” you say, even though you already have an idea what might have happened. Nowadays no one can really hide and it isn’t particularly helpful that they’ve stolen a car. The surveillance state is a joke, because any individual with a decent computer and a few contacts can access information that should be under lock and key. And you’ve had a run-in with Ragnar Desche, you want to tell them. You’re sure that someone like Desche has more than one computer at his disposal to stay on these girls’ heels. Or as your father so nicely put it: No one takes something from Ragnar Desche and gets away with it.

  “What exactly happened?”

  Stink tells you about the two guys who appeared in the café. She tells you Ruth saved them, and tears drip from her chin and you have to steel yourself not to hug her through the window.

  “Ruth was less than five yards behind me, you know, it was all over already, but when I … when I turned around, she was like, she was gone, she was just gone and lying on the ground and that … that big fucker was lying on top of her and …”

  Nessi leans forward from the backseat and pulls Stink to her. She wraps her arms around her and you stand there and the sun is beating down on your neck and you feel Nessi’s eyes on you, as she looks over Stink’s shoulder. I had nothing to do with it, you want to reassure her and you say, “I’ve spoken to my father.”

  Stink breaks away from Nessi. Schnappi and Taja lean forward. Their eyes are upon you. Four sixteen-year-old girls who look in their grief as if they were six years old.

  Kids, you think, shit, they’re just kids.

  “My father knows who Ragnar Desche is. He said no one takes anything from Ragnar Desche.”

  “Is he in the Mafia or something?” asks Schnappi.

  “My uncle isn’t in the Mafia,” says Taja.

  “I don’t know what he is,” you lie, “but I think I can help you. I’ve got six thousand euros here, that’ll keep you afloat for a while, and by the time you come back things will be sorted out.”

  “And how will things be sorted out?” Nessi asks.

  “Leave it to me.”

  They hesitate, they stare holes into your head, they worked out long ago that there had to be a catch. Everything has a catch. Stink articulates it.

  “And what do you want in return?”

  “The key.”

  “What?”

  “I want the key to the safe-deposit box.”

  “For six grand?!”

  Stink laughs, it’s good to see her laughing, even if her laughter is fake.

  Better than nothing, you think.

  “The drugs are worth twenty times that much,” she says. “You know that.”

  “I know, but that’s not what this is about.”

  “What is it about?”

  You speak calmly. You have to convince the girls that you’re calm, because if they see through you for a second th
ey’ll drive away.

  “To be honest, what sort of choice do you have? You get a pile of cash from me. What use are the drugs to you? You’re on the run, and the drugs are still in Berlin. Somehow those two things don’t go together very well—or are you planning to go back to Berlin?” Stink avoids your question.

  “And what about you? What are you going to do with the drugs?” she asks.

  “Some business.”

  “You’re not a dealer.”

  “Of course I’m not a dealer, but I can still do deals.”

  Stink lets her window go up, you pull your hand back, the window shuts with a quiet woop. Your face is reflected in the tinted glass. For a moment you don’t recognize yourself. You look determined, you look like someone who wants something.

  If Ritchie could see me now.

  When the window comes back down again, you look Nessi in the eyes, and it’s a little as if Stink weren’t in the passenger seat anymore. There’s that tugging in your chest. You wish you could kiss her. Like in a novel where the guy makes time stand still and can do what he wants. Just one kiss would do, you wouldn’t want to touch her any more than that. But let us pause for a second. We’re a bit confused. What’s wrong with you? You’re getting all romantic while these girls are grieving over their friend?

  “What are you staring at?” Stink asks.

  “Nothing.”

  “He’s flirting,” says Nessi.

  “I’m not flirting,” you say far too quickly and lower your eyes. “Have you made your minds up?”

  They have.

  “If we come back and you’ve sold the shit, we want thirty percent.”

  “Okay.”

  Stink looks stunned.

  “What do you mean, okay? Don’t you even want to negotiate?”

  “I don’t like negotiating.”

  “Fine businessman you are.”

  “I know.”

  She holds out her hand.

  “Give me the money.”

  “First the key.”

  She hands you the key, you put it in your pocket but don’t give her the money.

  “Neil, please don’t fuck with us.”

  “There’s one more thing,” you say and open the back door. You get into the car, and you do it so casually that none of the girls can react. Door open, door shut. Schnappi automatically makes room for you. You smell the leather of the car, you smell the girls, their sweetness, their sweat, and their grief; their grief in particular is a cave with velvet walls and hardly enough air to breathe.

  “I think you should get out,” says Schnappi.

  “I just want to—”

  You don’t get any further than that, because something hard is pressing against your ribs. You look down and see Schnappi’s hand and in her hand the black butt of an automatic weapon and at the end of the automatic weapon there is the barrel and it is pressing against your ribs as if there is a secret passage into your soul.

  Exactly seven minutes later you get back out of the car and stand on the passenger side. You’re still not ready to go. You want to ask the girls where they’re headed and whether you’ll ever see each other again. You don’t do it. It would be a bit like inflicting wounds on yourself. They’d never tell you and you’d be insulted.

  Save your breath and get out of here.

  You’re about to turn away when Nessi reaches past Stink and holds her hand out to you. Your fingers between her fingers. You’re sixteen again and your heart pumps and pumps and wants to absorb the moment. You’d like to offer Nessi a new life, you want to say: Stay here and I’ll take care of you and the kid if you save me in return. Your fingers part, Nessi leans back and puts the car in gear. There’s nothing more to say, no last look, nothing. The car moves past you like a boat leaving the shore, and you stand there with your hands buried in your pockets and hope you know what you’re doing.

  Somebody must know.

  Take a look at yourself. You’re a hero who has to hold his pants up to keep them from falling down. Although Bruno’s beloved Five-Seven Tactical is made mostly of plastic, with the magazine it weighs a good two pounds. Anyone who’s shoving that much weight down the back of his pants should have a belt, or else he will look like a sad little gangster taking to the streets for the first time.

  Do you seriously think you could raise the gun and fire? For Ruth? For a girl you saw today for the first time? Or for Nessi?

  Perhaps.

  You watch the Range Rover as it drives off, and gradually have a vague idea why you’re doing all this to yourself.

  Because it’s right?

  Perhaps.

  Three words can mean so much. More than breathless talking, more than a whole book. Particularly when those three words come out of your father’s mouth.

  “Deal with it.”

  He gave you Tanner to take along. Tanner drove you to Frohnau in his car, and parked in the abandoned garage. You entered the house together. Now you’re standing in the doorway of the vaulted basement. Blue light gleams from the swimming pool and fractures on the tiles like the thoughts of restless souls. Mirko lies on the edge of the pool with his back toward you, as if he’d turned away so that you didn’t have to look at him.

  As if he didn’t want to show me his face.

  Tanner asks you how long you’re planning to stand in the doorway.

  “It’s your job, not mine, so get to work and thank me later.”

  You step inside the cellar and try to ignore Mirko at first. Your uncle is sitting in one of those deep leather armchairs as if he were sleeping, but you know it’s an illusion. No one sleeps as soundly as that, no one sleeping is surrounded by that emptiness.

  You take Oskar upstairs. Tanner spreads a blanket on the living room floor. You wrap Oskar in it and carry him into the garage. It’s like something in a cheap gangster movie. Trunk open, Oskar inside, back into the house and down into the basement. There’s no getting around it now.

  Take a look at Mirko. Take a look at what’s been done to him.

  A black halo surrounds his head, flies buzz around his face and walk across his forehead. You see a fly disappear into his mouth. The puddle of blood looks like dried maple syrup, a dull skin has formed on the surface. Mirko stares across the water. You can only see one eye. You know the right thing to do would be to lean over him and close his eyes, but you can’t bring yourself to do it. For a moment you imagine it’s you lying here. The flies, the silence. Trapped forever in that moment.

  “You know whose fault that is,” says Tanner.

  “I know,” you reply and immediately feel the rage rising, and rage is a good substitute for grief. Of course you can’t know that this is another of your father’s lessons. He makes you believe what he wants to make you believe. He feeds you with lies and stokes your rage. He’s like all fathers. They want to see their sons grow and flourish; and they always want to keep the possibility open of capping their growth if the son becomes a threat. Your father wants to take you to your limits, and you’re an obedient dog who trusts only his master’s hand and nobody else. If Tanner told you now that your father had punished Mirko with a bullet to the head for his arrogance toward him, you wouldn’t believe a word of it.

  Doubting your father isn’t an option.

  The girls are responsible.

  For Oskar. For Mirko.

  Your father told you they’d found Mirko by the pool. Revenge for the deal that went wrong? Revenge for your failure? Who knows. He was still warm, your father said. And there he lies now. Cold. And you don’t question a thing.

  “Are you ready?”

  You try to lift Mirko’s head, it sticks, the surface of the puddle cracks, Mirko’s mouth flips open, a little fluid seeps out, the fly creeps out over his lower lip and zooms off, you suppress a retch and lower his head again.

  “Take his arms.”

  You take his arms and don’t understand how Tanner can stay so calm. He takes Mirko’s legs and says, “Just pull away, he can’t feel anythin
g now.”

  You pull on his arms. Mirko’s head comes away from the floor and falls back. You regret not closing his eyes. Mirko looks at you, upside down.

  “What does he see?”

  Absolutely nothing.

  Yes, but what if he can see something?

  Me. His best friend. The friend who got him involved in all this.

  You look past Mirko to Tanner. An empty gaze. A forlorn gaze.

  “Everything okay?”

  You want to nod, but you can’t. Inwardly you’re weeping for your friend, you really loved that Yugo and you still can’t get your head round what’s happened here. He was like a little brother to you. He did everything for you.

  “All okay,” you reply and blink away the tears, and then Tanner and you carry the corpse upstairs, wrap it in a blanket, and put it with Oskar in the trunk.

  After leaving the highway near Oranienburg and driving through the city center, you stop at the Lehnitzsee. From outside, the crematorium looks old and dilapidated, but Tanner says that’s just a façade, it’s all high-tech inside. Ten years ago the facility was privatized, and your father was involved in the conversion. He was of the opinion that a crematorium is a good investment.

  A man in blue overalls stands by the entrance, smoking. Tanner flashes the headlights twice, the man opens the gate. You follow him at a walking pace, park under a massive plane tree, and stay in the car as the man disappears into the crematorium. Tanner lowers the driver’s-side window and adjusts the mirror so that he has a view of the entrance. Your hands are damp, you have to wipe them on your sweatpants. You wait for ten minutes and don’t say a word, then the man comes back out.

  “There he is,” says Tanner, and moves the mirror back into its original position.

  You get out and shake the man’s hand. Tanner hands him an envelope. The man doesn’t count the money; he puts the envelope in his pocket and says, “Let’s do this.”

  The trunk opens silently. Tanner watches as you and the man carry first Mirko’s and then Oskar’s corpse into the crematorium. Two plain wooden coffins stand ready. The man looks at his watch.