I try not to laugh, and put my hands on his. They are much bigger than mine.
“And I asked her whether it was possible to visit Sascha. She said Sascha didn’t want to see anyone but her. Said you didn’t even want to see Maria, but that Maria went anyway—‘she had to take me there.’ I told her to ask whether you wanted to see Volker or Felix.”
“She asked,” I say.
“Of course, and then she told me that Sascha didn’t want to see those two people. She didn’t want to see anyone, and if she didn’t want to, that meant she didn’t want to.”
My laugh is a little too loud.
“I talk to her on the phone a lot. .,” Volker continues.
“Huh? She didn’t tell me that!”
“Because I asked her not to. Good to know she’s so trustworthy. Yesterday she said the bones in your head weren’t broken, or not really, and that the bandages were off and that tomorrow you would be coming home and, oh, did I have a car? I said yes. So she said, ‘Why don’t you bring Sascha home — she’s not supposed to walk too much.’”
“Alissa hasn’t gotten smacked often enough,” I say. “Oh, I’m sorry, your shirt’s a little wet now, here on the sleeve.”
“Blind rain?”
I don’t answer.
“Of course I told her I would bring her Sascha home to her. Then she said, ‘That’s good,’ and just hung up.”
His watch ticks loudly in my ear. I count along to it: thirty, sixty, ninety.
“I’m scared I’ll hurt you,” he says.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean this spot here. And over here. Does this hurt?”
“No. Not anymore. Everything feels pretty good now.”
“Crazy. What was this about no broken bones?”
“Turns out it was just contusions and cuts. They couldn’t tell from the initial X-ray. But there was no fracture.”
“It looks terrible.”
“Then leave, Volker. I already said you weren’t supposed to be here.”
“No, I didn’t mean it like that. It doesn’t look bad at all. It’s just. . it hurts me to look at it.”
“Get out.”
“No.”
“I don’t want you to see me this way.”
“Yeah, I got that. But it doesn’t look bad at all. Have you seen yourself in the mirror yet?”
“No. They only took the bandages off yesterday.”
“Go over there to the mirror and have a look.”
“No.”
Volker sighs.
“You’re even more of a pain than Felix,” he says.
“Thanks for the postcard, by the way,” I say.
“Thank Felix.”
“Tell him for me.”
«You can tell him yourself. He’s out in the hallway. He didn’t have the heart to come in. He was worried you’d be all deformed. Why he still wanted to come here at all is a mystery to me.»
I shake Volker’s hands off my shoulder, jump out of bed, and throw open the door.
The hall is long and bright. Plates rattle in the distance. They’re about to serve lunch. It smells pretty disgusting. Always smells like cauliflower no matter what they’re serving.
Felix is crouched against the wall opposite me. He jumps, startled, then looks up at me.
“You sure got a tan,” I say as he stands up and begins to smile. The smile continues to spread across his face until he’s beaming.
“I thought you were going to look terrible,” he says, approaching me and stretching out his arm to take my hand.
“Be careful,” I say, cringing a little. “Probably better if you don’t touch me. Everything still hurts.”
He drops my hand abruptly, as if it’s just stung him.
“Are you happy to be going home?” asks Volker, who has come out with my backpack over his shoulder. I go back in and look under the pillows to make sure I haven’t left a book or something. Then I kneel to peer under the bed for the same reason.
“No,” I say. “I hate my home.”
Felix looks away, looking frightened and hurt.
“Why?” he asks.
“Because it always reminds me of things I’d rather forget,” I say.
“This is where you live?” Felix says when we reach the group of housing blocks.
“In the tallest one,” I say.
Volker parks directly in front of the door of the Emerald and grabs my bag.
“They’ve finished the garden wall,” I say.
“You weren’t gone that long,” says Volker. Felix is silent.
“Seems like an eternity,” I say. “A few weeks in the hospital is time enough to start a new life. The windows have all been fixed. Did you hear what happened?”
“I read about it in an old issue of the paper when we got back,” Volker says. “I don’t want to piss you off, but I have to say it brought to mind that guy who tilted at windmills. . ”
“Who?” asks Felix.
The benches in front of the building are empty.
“Where’s Oleg?” I ask.
“Who?”
“A guy. He’s handicapped. He always sits here. I wonder where he is?”
Volker is silent now, and Felix pipes up unexpectedly.
“How the hell should I know?” he asks. “Is it really that important?”
“The thing is,” I say, “around here you always assume the worst.”
“Doesn’t stink as bad as usual,” I say in the elevator. “Or maybe it just doesn’t stink as bad as hospital food. I’m desensitized.”
“It’s awful here,” says Felix. I catch the look he gets from Volker.
“So?” says Felix in response. “It really is hellish here. What do you want me to say — that it’s nice?”
“Only if you want to piss me off,” I say. It comes out sounding oddly upbeat.
“People think these stains are still from my mother’s blood,” I say in front of our door. “But it’s not true. It’s just dirt. She was never out here. She bled to death in the apartment.”
Felix makes a gurgling noise in his throat, repulsed.
“Hi, Maria,” I say. “Please don’t hug me. I’m still very weak. This is Volker. And this is Felix. This is Maria.”
Maria is all shy as she shakes their hands.
“We spoke on the phone,” she says in German, and my jaw drops. “Alissa, you mustn’t jump on Sascha”—she’s switched to Russian—“she’s still very sick.”
“Yucky,” says Alissa as I kneel down so she can look at my head. “It’s closed up! And it’s not red anymore! When did they wash away the blood?”
“Right away,” I say. “What did you think?”
“Do you have new blood now?”
“Yep,” I say, “about five quarts. That’s like five cartons of milk. Anton, come here. Don’t be scared. Have a look — my head doesn’t look that bad.”
“Yes it does,” says Anton, bracing himself in the doorway of the children’s room. “It looks bad.”
“My little brother, Anton,” I say to Felix and Volker. “He’s a bit shy.”
“Tokio Hotel,” Volker says, reading the band name on Anton’s T-shirt. “I love Tokio Hotel.”
Felix turns away with a look of pained embarrassment.
“Tea,” says Maria, again in German. “And blueberry torte.”
“Later, Maria,” I say. “Later, blueberry cake.”
“Later it won’t still be warm,” she says elegantly, “but rather cold.”
“What, in this heat?” I say. “This is my room, by the way.”
“Is that your computer?” asks Felix. “What is that — an external modem?”
“I don’t want to hear anything about my computer,” I say.
“I didn’t say anything,” says Felix.