“Water,” he yells over his shoulder. “Get some cold water.”
I run to the kitchen and throw open the refrigerator door. I look for a glass, find one, and fill it with water. Half of it sloshes out as I run back. Felix tries to drink. His teeth clank against the rim of the glass.
“What else can I do?” I ask, agitated. “Where’s the medicine?”
“Shit,” Volker says. “We’ve got to get to the car.”
“You want me to look for it in the car?”
“No. We need to get in the car. It’s not stopping. We have to go to the hospital.”
Felix is moving his lips and looking at me. I go closer and kneel next to him. I can barely hear what he says. “Come with us,” he says. “Please.”
I pull my jeans on. Volker throws on a shirt. Felix puts up his arm as Volker goes to hoist him.
“I want to get dressed,” he says through his clenched teeth.
Volker rolls his eyes. “Stop screwing around,” he says. But I run upstairs, jerk open a drawer in his room, and pull out a pair of jeans by the ankles.
In the car I sit in back next to Felix again. His arm is draped around me while Volker floors it.
We hurtle down the autobahn at 120 miles per hour.
I don’t understand what’s happening. I hold Felix’s left hand and rub it, periodically slipping down to his wrist to feel his fluttering pulse. I press down on it, hoping to keep him from passing out. I’d love to use my other hand to cover my other ear so I wouldn’t have to hear the whistling noises coming out of his mouth, each one sending a chill down my spine.
Felix begins to collapse onto me.
“Volker,” I scream. “He’s losing it.”
Volker throws his mobile phone over his shoulder into my lap.
“Call them. The number’s listed under hospital. Tell them we’re on the way. Give them our name.”
I flip open the phone. It’s much more complicated than mine, and it takes some work to find the phone book and the right entry. Eventually I find it, push call, and hold the phone up to my ear. The sound of the road flying by under the car is so loud that I’m afraid I won’t be able to hear them answer.
Somebody picks up the line and I barely make out the words “pulmonary care.” I stammer and then say Felix’s first name. I blank on the last name.
“Trebur,” says Volker from the front seat.
“Felix Trebur,” I shout into the phone.
“Can’t breathe again. We can’t get it under control,” Volker says.
I repeat it like an echo.
I can’t understand what the voice at the other end of the line says. Then it’s gone.
“Got cut off,” I say, distraught. “Volker, I lost the guy on the phone. What should I do?”
“Nothing,” Volker says as calmly as anyone could possibly do while shooting down the fast lane in the middle of the night with someone about to croak in the back seat. “Thanks.”
“I didn’t understand what he said to me!”
“It doesn’t matter. They know we’re on the way. They know us well.”
I cradle Felix’s head in my hand, trying to make him more comfortable.
We get off the autobahn. I don’t notice where we are — I’m looking at Felix. As I look at his face in the pale light of the road lamps, I realize it has taken on a color I’ve never seen in any living person before. I’m sure he’s dead. I put a finger on his lips and am amazed to feel warm breath on it.
A mechanical arm across the road goes up. Then everything speeds up. Felix is whisked out and disappears on a gurney. Volker hurries out and runs after it with his hand gripping my upper arm. I let myself be pulled along. My knees nearly buckle.
Then we’re sitting on plastic chairs in a hallway. For ages. After the burst of activity, it feels like time is standing still now. The glaring fluorescent lights make Volker’s skin look yellow. He sits there with his legs spread wide apart, his head leaning against the wall, and his eyes closed. The top two buttons of his shirt are open. He’s a mess, and it doesn’t suit him. I’m tempted to tell him — or just to straighten him up myself.
“Volker,” I say after a long time, “what color is my face right now?”
He rubs his eyes before looking at me.
Green,” he says and leans his head back again.
“Volker,” I say, “where are we?”
“At the university medical center,” he says with his eyes closed.
“Volker,” I say, “why are we here?”
He lifts a hand, blindly finds my shoulder, and pats me on the back.
I get goose bumps along my shoulder blades.
“Volker,” I say, “what’s wrong with Felix?”
“It would be easier to tell you what’s right with him,” Volker says.
I’m not sure what to say to that.
“Felix was born with lungs that don’t always work,” he says. “For the first ten years of his life he spent one month out of every two in the hospital. Then he got a transplant.”
“Oh my god,” I say.
“If you two slept together, you must have heard it. When it’s quiet, his breathing sounds like a soft whistle.”
I remember the noise I was wondering about as I fell asleep.
“I thought the sound was from a mobile phone,” I say, and have the impression my ears have suddenly swollen and gone beet red. I touch them. They’re hot, but the same size as usual.
“At first I thought I’d never get used to it,” Volker says. “But you can get used to anything.”
“What do you mean?”
“The sound of his breathing. When we would go on vacation and stay in the same room, the noise used to drive me crazy. I started sleeping with earplugs. That’s why it took so long for me to hear you tonight.”
“I didn’t think it was so bad,” I say. “The whistling, I mean.”
Everything around us is quiet. The only sound is of muffled footsteps somewhere in the distance, down some other hall or behind some set of doors.
“The white line,” I say. “He has a white line on his chest.”
“That’s the scar from the operation,” Volker says. “He’s ashamed of it. It’s the reason he never goes to the pool. He thinks everyone stares at it.”
“That’s ridiculous,” I say. “You can barely see it.”
“I tell him that all the time. But he never believes me.”
“What a crock of shit,” I say. Then I’m suddenly embarrassed. “I’m sorry.”
Volker opens his eyes and looks at me questioningly.
“For what?”
“That we’re here. I figured everything was perfect for you. I thought you guys were happy people with no problems.”
Volker lets out a joyless chuckle.
“Such a long scar,” I say.
“He was cut open,” says Volker. “They sawed his breastbone in half. So they could get at his bronchial tubes. He was in intensive care for a long time afterwards. A little boy with a million tubes stuck in him. Sorry, I know that sounds maudlin — but you can hardly take it when it’s your kid.”
“Of course,” I say. “How could anyone not be affected by that?” I think of Anton and suddenly feel cold.
«I had a problem with my gallbladder two years ago,» says Volker. «Gallstones — totally routine. I had an operation at a hospital. Minimally invasive surgery. Absolutely nothing compared to a lung operation. But even so, when the anesthesia wore off, I was lying there, and, Christ, it hurt so bad. I was begging for painkillers at every chance. And I couldn’t stop thinking about Felix the whole time. He hadn’t cried at all through his entire ordeal. Can you imagine how much it must hurt to have your breastbone sawed open? To have parts of your lungs cut out? Can you imagine how every breath must hurt after that? He tried to take shallow breaths so he wouldn’t scream.»