‘Yeah, six to one’s not bad, she was doing all right until the finishing straight.’ They talked about the race just run and the next one, filling out betting slips and flicking through their newspapers, and Rolf stood between them, not knowing what all the numbers and words meant, only understanding one thing: ‘Six or seven hundred at least.’
‘The payouts,’ said the short man with the beard, ‘the payouts should be up in a minute.’ They formed a semi-circle around the monitor, and then a few numbers appeared again, and the short man with the beard shouted, ‘Eight hundred and seventy-three to one, Jesus, even five euros would have made you a packet.’
‘And nearly nine thousand for ten euros,’ another man said, ‘I should’ve risked it, but hell, who’d have guessed it, Star King to win and Miss Marmalade and One Night Girl placed, you might as well play the lottery!’ They laughed and flicked through their papers, and the bearded man took his betting slip up to the counter.
‘Eight thousand seven hundred and thirty,’ Rolf said over and over on the way home, ‘eight thousand seven hundred and thirty.’ Ten horses had run, he had understood that much. Picking three horses correctly out of ten seemed more likely than waiting for five numbers to come up in the lottery. And there must be combinations where you didn’t have to bet on the exact order of the horses. He’d been to the races as a child once with his grandmother, but all he could remember was the jockeys’ bright silks, which seemed to blend together into a long stream of colour as they galloped past him on their horses.
He had no idea about horse races and betting, but an old friend of his had spent a lot of time at the racetrack in the old East German days and up to the mid nineties, and had told him a good deal about it. And he thought he remembered that this old friend, who he hadn’t seen for almost ten years, had won a stack of money. And as he walked home now, past the bars and kebab shops and the snack bar where he’d drunk two beers and a shot last night, he knew this was his last chance. Piet and Rolf and the horses.
‘You haven’t been round for ages, Rolf.’
He hadn’t said ‘Hello’ or ‘How’s it going?’ or ‘What do you want?’ — he’d just opened the door, stared at him a while, and now he said it again in the same low voice: ‘You haven’t been round for ages, Rolf.’
‘No,’ said Rolf. ‘Time flies, Schäfer.’ They stood like that for a while, Rolf outside the apartment, Schäfer in the half-open door, looking at each other in silence, until the light went out on the stairs and Schäfer said, ‘If you want to come in …’
‘Yes, thanks.’ He walked behind him along the corridor, which was completely empty apart from a pair of shoes on a large mat. Schäfer opened a door, and they walked into a room that was just as empty, nothing but a table and two chairs, and a picture hanging on the wall; it looked like a real oil painting, a brown horse and a white horse galloping with their riders through green, hilly countryside.
‘Take a seat.’
‘Thanks.’ They sat down at the table, and Rolf held up the cloth bag he’d brought with him. ‘Brought you a little present.’ He pulled out the bottle of Goldkrone brandy and put it on the table.
‘Only the best, eh Rolf?’ He got up and went out of the room. Rolf listened but he couldn’t hear anything, no banging of cupboard doors, no clinking. Then Schäfer came back with two water glasses. ‘Been a long time since we last drank together.’
‘Sure has,’ said Rolf.
Schäfer screwed off the cap and half-filled the two glasses. ‘Well then, cheers, here’s to seeing you again.’
‘Here’s to getting together again,’ said Rolf; they raised their glasses and drank. Rolf turned his head a couple of times as he drank, but there really was nothing else in the room but the table and the chairs and the picture. There was no ashtray on the table, even though Schäfer had used to smoke like a chimney.
‘How are you?’ Schäfer was still holding his glass in his hand and turning it; he didn’t stop turning it.
‘All right thanks,’ said Rolf, ‘and yourself?’
Schäfer laughed, turned his glass a while longer, then put it down on the table.
‘Great, Rolf, just great.’
Rolf nodded and looked at the table, then picked up the bottle. ‘Did you know Goldkrone’s only twenty-eight percent now? Not thirty-two like in the old days. Because of tax, you know, so it counts as a liqueur. That’s what I heard anyway.’ He filled the glasses halfway again.
‘Hmm,’ said Schäfer, ‘interesting. A lot of things have changed.’ They drank. They’d often sat together and drunk and talked in the old days.
‘Heard about your wife,’ said Schäfer, ‘sorry to hear that.’
‘Thanks. It’s ages ago now. I’ve got a dog now. It’s not the same but I’m not on my own.’
‘Hmm,’ said Schäfer, ‘a dog’s a fine thing.’
‘Shall we have another?’
‘Sure. Why not?’ They drank. Outside it turned slowly dark; Rolf looked up at the window and saw the red of the twilight above the buildings. ‘And you,’ he pointed at the picture, ‘still at it, still good old Horses Schäfer?’
Schäfer didn’t reply, picked up the empty glass again and turned it. He turned it on the tabletop, and they didn’t talk and didn’t look at each other, and the only sound was the empty glass turning on the table. Then he let go of the glass and stood up. ‘It’ll be night soon,’ he said, ‘you came late.’ He went to the door and switched on the light. Then he went over to the wall with the picture. ‘It’s a real Emil Volkers. Worth a bit of money. 1892, that’s the year. Bought it over ten years ago from a dealer. He was always at the track — Hoppegarten, outside Berlin. Lost so much he nearly went bust. I was doing good business back then, bought it off him for a good price. That’s all I’ve got now.’
He stood in front of the picture, his back to Rolf, and didn’t move, just stood there and looked at it, his arms crossed. Rolf poured himself a splash of Goldkrone, leaned back and drank. Then he started turning the empty glass on the tabletop.
‘It’s a nice picture, isn’t it?’ said Schäfer.
‘Beautiful.’ Rolf looked past Schäfer at the green hills and the two horses. The riders were sitting very upright in their saddles, not like the jockey in the picture on the bookmakers’ window, who leaned low over the back of the horse.
‘Yeah, it’s beautiful. But it’s wrong. The picture’s painted wrong. No human eye can make out the movements of the horses’ front and rear legs when they’re galloping.’
Schäfer came back to the table, slowly, and picked up his glass. It was empty; Rolf topped it up. Schäfer stood at the table and pointed the glass at the picture. ‘The dream gallop phase. You ever heard of it?’
‘No,’ said Rolf. Schäfer drank. ‘You see the front legs, the way they’re reaching out far and high. Powerful, aren’t they? Looks really elegant. Their hooves are hardly touching the ground.’ He drank another sip and stepped up closer to the picture. ‘Come here, come on.’ Rolf got up and stood next to him. ‘And now look at their back legs, the way the horse is pushing them backwards, with its ankles bent back. And you know what, that’s what’s wrong. When the front legs reach out so far and high without touching the ground,’ he tapped the picture with his free hand, ‘the back legs are already back to the centre of gravity, and that’s here,’ he tapped the horse’s belly, ‘well under the body. But Volkers couldn’t see that back then. No human eye can make out the movement when they’re galloping. This is the dream gallop phase, Rolf.’
They sat down again and drank. It was dark outside now, and Rolf saw their reflection in the windowpane. There were no curtains. ‘I need your help, Horses Schäfer.’ He picked up the bottle and divided what was left between their glasses.