Bunker (6 page)

Suddenly there's a rustling sound behind me. Quite soft. Then a scraping. I stand perfectly still, listening. I don't move from the spot. The sound gets louder. Where does it come from? The door? Damn it, she lives on her own. No one lives here except her. I open my jacket a little way and reach into the back right pocket of my trousers. I take my hunting knife out. It clicks softly as I open it. With the open knife in my hand, I steal out of the room on tiptoe and cross the corridor. The sound comes from the kitchen. Knife in my right hand, I push the door gently with my left hand. The door is ajar. It slowly opens. I take a step forward, look around. No one there
.

A loud clatter, followed by a clinking sound. I spin round,
the knife still in my hand. Then I see the cat, standing on the table and hissing, its fur on end. It jumps down, races past me through the open door. Broken china on the floor. Bloody animal, how it scared me!

I close the knife, put it back in my trouser pocket. Go down the corridor to the front door of the apartment. Look through the spy hole. No one outside. I leave the apartment
.

I'm bored to death. I walk up and down, climb on the chair, look at the sky and the treetops, lie down on the bed. The sky is getting darker and darker, it's beginning to rain. The rain patters down hard on the roof. I hear the water flowing away along the gutter on the side of the house. I imagine the single drops falling on the tiles, running down, collecting, forming a little rivulet, splashing into the gutter and into the downpipe. Hurrying down the side of the house into the water butt. I lie on the bed, and in my mind I follow every single drop on its way. Roof, gutter, downpipe. Again and again, roof, gutter, downpipe.

And suddenly my mind goes back to that photo, to Joachim and the way he's grinning at me in it. Who knew
him? No one alive now. Our stepmother died years ago. I took the photo when I had to clear her place out, along with some other sentimental stuff. Joachim didn't have any friends. Or not real friends. He was always tagging along after me. Sticking to me like a burr. And he used to go around with Hans, the two of them spent a lot of time together. Hans the village idiot. You're not supposed to say that kind of thing these days, but it was perfectly normal at the time. Every village had its idiot, a village idiot was supposed to bring luck. The way Hans walked, the way he talked, everything about him was slow. He was retarded. Apparently he didn't even make it to special school. Hans was shapeless; a massive body, big clumsy hands, everything about him seemed to me huge at the time. Perhaps because his clothes were always too small for him. The bottoms of his trousers flapped around his shins, and of course his shirt-sleeves were too short as well. He always wore a grubby vest under his shirt. In fact the whole idea of washing was foreign to him. His body wasn't misshapen, but his shabby old clothes always made him look funny. His parents were from the East. Belorussians or something like that, I've no idea exactly what, and it never interested me. Anyway, Hans didn't speak German properly. However, he wanted to belong, and he did all he could to be one of us.

We always had a lot of fun with him. We'd egg him on to do all sorts of silly things. Like the time when we made him steal a pig for us from the biggest farmer in the village. It was one of the tests of courage we set him. He'd never have thought up the idea by himself, he was far too guileless. It didn't take us long to persuade him. Hans was strong, stronger than any of us. I can still see him grabbing hold of that pig, a young one, it struggled like mad. Hans had it in a firm grasp, both arms around it. Its hind legs were hanging down, getting in Hans's way as he tried to make off with it. But he didn't mind. He didn't let go of the pig however it twisted and turned. None of the rest of us could have caught it and taken it away like that. Not even two or three of us together. Part of the test was to throw it into the well. He actually did it, too. The pig squealed with fear, and we fell about laughing. You could hear it all over the place. Its squeals alerted the whole village. The volunteer firefighters pulled it out again. And Hans got all the blame. He didn't have to do what we said, they told him. He should have said no, he was a real fool.

Then his father beat him, beat him black and blue. He was always hitting him, he beat him almost every day. It was normal, Hans never defended himself. He just stood there and took it.

But the way he behaved to us could be unpredictable; he sometimes lost his temper. And then nothing and no one was safe. Just a small spark could do it, but once he got really worked up he'd flatten everything in his path like a steamroller.

He left Gerold in a real mess. Big-mouthed Gerold, Gerold the show-off. Today he works in the savings bank, he's turned all serious. It suits him. He was just the opposite of Hans: small, quick as a weasel, a real joker, a jack of all trades. And full of nasty digs. He used to pester Hans more than any of the rest of us.

It was Gerold who started the rumour about Hans having it off with that little boy. No idea whether there was anything in it. Gerold kept on and on at Hans, needling him all the time. Maybe Gerold wasn't so wide of the mark with his suspicions, because Hans had problems with girls anyway. So it would make sense if he fancied little boys. He couldn't just sweat it out, could he?

‘Suppose Hans ever does find a dimwit to marry him, what will he ask her on the wedding night?' This was one of Gerold's favourite jokes. ‘Guess! Come on, it's obvious: How many little brothers do you have?' And Gerold always roared with laughter at his own joke. We laughed as well, not because we thought it was particularly funny, but we
were all glad Gerold wasn't cracking jokes at our expense.

Hans didn't laugh – he chased Gerold all round the village. He caught up with him at the Huber farm and laid into him. We stood there watching, doing nothing. If Farmer Huber hadn't come along, who knows, maybe Hans would have killed Gerold, he was in such a rage. At first even Farmer Huber couldn't separate them. Gerold was screeching blue murder. Like a sow being slaughtered. Then Farmer Huber went over to his tractor, because there was no other way to deal with it. He separated the two of them by taking Hans's head in the hay grab. Everything happened quite fast then. Hans was in such a fury that he never even noticed Farmer Huber driving up on the tractor. Somehow or other he got Hans's head lined up, tightened the grab and began lifting until Hans was hanging half a metre above the ground. But Hans still had Gerold in a headlock. He wasn't going to let him go, he never let anyone go once he had the better of him. However, this time, finally, he had to. Even Hans didn't have that much strength. Gerold landed on the ground like a ripe plum, breaking his leg. Hans raged and swore, clinging to the hay grab with both hands. Then Huber dropped him in the water of the pond the firefighters used for extinguishing fires. The grab had left two long wounds, one each side of Hans's head; they were bleeding copiously, but he
took no notice. He calmed down quickly in the water, splashed out like a small child paddling, happy to be the centre of attention. And we all stood around the pond gaping. Hans put the whole incident behind him, as if nothing at all had happened. He just had those two scars on the right and left of his head. He looked funny, but then he always did. He suffered no worse damage. Very likely there was only straw inside his head anyway.

Keep still, you stupid animal! Don't struggle like that. Take it easy, take it easy, my beauty. The rabbit is lying on my right forearm, I'm holding its front paws firmly. I press its back paws slightly against myself with my elbow. My left hand is stroking its head, very gently. I run my fingers along the outer rim of its ears. From its head back to the tip of the ears. I do that several times. At first the rabbit laid them back in alarm, then it relaxed them, and they're slowly standing up as I gently pull them.

That's right, my little one, my pretty.

Rabbits are beautiful. Their fur is like human hair. They don't get on my nerves, they don't scratch or bark. They nestle against you, all soft and warm.

My first rabbit, Cuddles, was the prettiest of all. Maybe because he was my first. Maybe because I got him after Mother was gone.

I don't know what breed he was. He was mine, he belonged to me and no one else. He always listened to me. There wasn't anyone else who listened to me. He could come into bed with me in the evening, although he often made a mess there, but I didn't mind. And Father didn't mind. Keeping clean wasn't in his line. Specially not now we were on our own. He got tight almost every evening, lying on the sofa dead drunk. He stank, lay in his own filth, sometimes he even wet himself. Or he went down and shut himself in the bunker.

Father gave me Cuddles for my eighth birthday. No one had remembered my birthday, no present, no cake, no candles. Well, there wasn't anyone around to think of it by then.

‘Sorry, forgot again, but I have so much on my mind.' That's what he always said when it came to giving presents. But on my eighth birthday he went into the stable, and when he came back he was holding a little ball of fluffy fur. It was soft and smelled nice. It was really cuddly, I thought, so I called my rabbit Cuddles.

Two years later Father came along, picked up the rabbit by the scruff of his neck and said, ‘Well, his time's come or
he won't taste good any more. Come along, you can watch!'

I didn't say anything. I knew it was going to happen. Cuddles was my friend, and Father was going to kill him.

The old threshing flail was leaning against the wall. I can see it still before me, leaning there against the wall, all dusty. Hadn't been used for ages. I wanted to pick it up and hit Father over the head with it. But I stood there rooted to the spot, couldn't move. Stood there and watched.

Keep still, you stupid creature. Keep still, sweetie. I hold the rabbit by its ears. The side of my hand comes down on the nape of its neck. A moment's twitching and then it hangs limp and still. Now to open the main artery, skin it, gut it. There we are.

The anaesthetist is summoned. He discusses the case with the duty surgeon. Everything goes smoothly, with few words, a matter of routine. All the theatre team are in their places, know what they have to do.

The patient's dirty outer clothing is cut away. A tourniquet is applied to the upper arm. Veins stand out. The injection site is dabbed with alcohol. A cannula is introduced into the vein through the skin. The metal trocar that inserted it begins to be withdrawn with a slight twist while the catheter that had surrounded it stays in the vein. The trocar is removed entirely. Blood runs out of the self-retaining cannula, showing that it is functioning properly. The infusion tube is connected, an infusion solution drips quickly into the injured patient's bloodstream.

Meanwhile the patient's head is laid right back, the mouth is opened, the intubation spatula inserted. The spatula moves the tongue aside, raises the flap over the larynx. Now there is a good view of the larynx itself, the tube is inserted into the windpipe through the vocal cords and secured there. The respiratory tube is placed on the tube already in place. Now linked to the anaesthetic apparatus, the patient is no longer breathing independently. The machine ensures deep, regular breathing.

Meanwhile the surgeon has been examining the now naked body. He removes the last compresses still lying on the patient's injuries. The large wound in the stomach comes into view. Encrusted with congealed blood everywhere. The doctor carefully separates the edges of the wound with his hands. Yellowish-white fat cells, gleaming tissue in between – good God, what a mess! The abdominal cavity is opened up. This is going to be a major operation.

It's suddenly quiet in the room. The rain has stopped drumming on the roof. I get up, go over to the window, look out. The sky has cleared slightly. The glass pane is clouded, the putty brittle. Out of sheer boredom, I try scraping the putty out of the frame with my fingernails, little by little. The window is an old double-glazed one. There were windows like that in my grandmother's house. You could open them in the middle to clean the outside. A little hook above and below, unhook the halves and they came apart. Once they were open like that, you always found ladybirds inside them towards the end of winter, waiting there for spring and sheltered from the cold. I give up and go back to the bed, simply let myself drop backwards on the mattress,
bounce for a moment and lie there. I stare at the ceiling. After a while I sit up, drawing up my knees, legs pressed close to my upper body, and my thighs clasped in my arms. I begin humming to myself, rocking my torso in time, and several minutes pass before I notice what I'm doing. I immediately think of the monkeys in the zoo, sitting behind glass and rocking back and forth, or the big cats in their enclosures prowling up and down all day, up and down again and again. When am I going to start pacing up and down this room? I stop rocking, stretch my legs out straight again, prop myself on the bed with my elbows. Half sitting, half lying, I look around me, look at the floor, the bed, until my gaze finally stops at my toenails. My toenails are painted red. Were painted red. The varnish is already cracking at the edges. A little red varnish is left on my two big toes. The left toe more than the right toe. Do I step harder on my right foot than my left foot? Or why has the varnish suffered more here? Perhaps my shoe is a little tighter on that foot. The edges of the red marks are jagged, the colour is bright red. Too bright. Looks kind of cheap. And cracking too! Sloppy. Not like me at all. A darker shade of red would suit me better. I'll have to get a different nail varnish.

My fingernails look disgusting too. There are dark rims just under the nails. I get the knife off the table, sit on the
bed again. Sitting cross-legged, I try to clean the dark brown dirt out of my nails with the broken kitchen knife and scrape the remains of varnish off. That works quite well. If I use the sharp, broken edges of the knife, the varnish comes off easily, flaking away in little bits. I work on my toenails until my feet go to sleep and there are little splinters of red varnish all over the sheet. Now what am I going to do with the knife? There's no water to wash it. I tug the far end of the sheet out from under the mattress and wipe the knife on it. Looks clean enough. I sniff it; there's that typical dirt-under-the-nails smell. Disgusted, I push the knife under the bed.