by Amir Lane
“If you want something to do, why don't you clean the attic?” Hida suggested on day five.
Otto pursed his lips. He obviously didn't want Ekkehardt out of their sight in case he collapsed or whatever else the doctor had advised them to look out for. The doctor had also told him to move, though. He’d always heard that heart problems were solved by staying in bed and resting, but this doctor dismissed it as outdated hogwash. How was a heart supposed to get stronger if he didn’t use it? Nothing too strenuous, just enough to keep the ol’ muscles moving. It made sense. And Ekkehardt had heard Lorelei trying to convince them for nearly an hour over the phone last night that he needed space. Smothering him would only drive him away.
He made a mental note to thank her for it later.
The attic was hardly out of sight. Hida was right downstairs, and the attic floor creaked more than enough for her to hear him moving around. It was a mess. Ekkehardt didn't think anybody had ever cleaned it. There were bags and boxes full of things, broken bits of furniture, old toys that hadn't been touched in at least a decade. It was overwhelming. The first twenty minutes were spent simply staring at the mess and shifting his weight so Hida didn’t worry. Where was he even supposed to start?
“Just… pick a corner,” he mumbled to himself.
What else could he do?
The first two days were for shoving broken furniture out of the way and labelling all the boxes based on what was at the top of them. Most of them were full of clothes, from the looks of it. His progress was slow. He could only do so much work before his heart began to beat too quickly and he had to sit down. It was mindless work, though. His thoughts kept drifting to what Zven would say if he were here, or if the sharp stabs through his breastbone was anything like what Zven had felt when he’d been shot. If Zven had even had a chance to realize what had happened.
“Most of those clothes probably belonged to your grandparents,” Hida explained on the second night over dinner.
Ekkehardt was still working through a bowl of soup. He still had difficulty keeping solid food down, but he wasn’t hungry. Even with all the work he’d been doing upstairs, it was like his stomach just wasn’t there any more.
“It's all just taking up space,” Otto grunted. “Find what's worth keeping and what we should get rid of. Most of it can be donated.”
He went back to his dinner as if he hadn't said a word.
There wasn't much conversation after that. It was so much quieter than dinner at home. He wasn’t sure when the crowded house in Berlin had become home, but it was. This was his parents’ house; Berlin was home, and he missed it. Jakob and Zven always had something to debate. By now, Liese would be rolling her eyes and joining in while Ekkehardt watched and listened.
“Ekkehardt?”
He forced a smile and blinked away tears.
“I burnt myself.” His voice broke. They must have noticed that the soup was cool by now. “I'm not hungry anymore.”
He excused himself and left to his room. He hid under his blanket with the pocket watch Zven had given him last Christmas. There was a picture of Zven still inside, a small photograph Jakob had taken when he’d gotten his first good camera. He wanted to be a photographer. Zven was looking just off to the side, laughing at a joke Ekkehardt couldn’t remember. The tears were back. They rolled across his face, falling into his hair and onto the pillow. He covered his mouth with a hand to muffle his sobs.
* * *
Zven was in his dream that night. They sat together on one of the benches on campus. People walked past them without sparing them so much as a glance.
“I would never leave you behind, Ekkehardt,” he said.
“But you're gone.”
Part of him knew that this was a dream. It had to be. Zven was dead and buried. The dream version even had blood on his shirt with a hole in the centre of his chest.
“I'm here, aren't I?”
That was… half true. Ekkehardt looked up at the campus. Berlin always felt much more sombre than Leipzig, but he’d never been able to put his finger on why. Maybe it was the constant loom of the wall over them, or the officers constantly patrolling the streets. Did the why really matter?
“I had a dream,” he said slowly, “where you were shot. You— You died. We died.”
He couldn’t shake the feeling that that was what had happened, that he had died too.
“Reality is more than just one thing.”
Ekkehardt frowned at him.
“What does that mean?”
Zven raised his hand to brush Ekkehardt’s hair back, but his fingers passed through him. It was a sick reminder that regardless of what this was or wasn’t, it wasn’t reality.
“Sometimes, two things can be true at the same time, even if they appear to be a contradiction. Like how the weather can be warm and cold at the same time; a sunny day with wind. Not everything is mutually exclusive.”
“I don't understand. What— What are you talking about? What does that have to do with anything?”
Zven leaned forward until his mouth was right next to Ekkehardt’s ear. Ekkehardt could practically feel his lips against his skin. He held his breath and stayed as still as physically possible. If he stayed still enough, maybe this would last. Maybe this could become reality. Maybe Zven wouldn’t leave him.
“You can bring me back.”
8
Ekkehardt awoke with a violent jerk. A strong hand pressed against his shoulder, holding him down. There was someone at the foot of his bed, someone other than the person holding him down. He couldn’t get a clear look. The figure was blurry and not… not quite there.
‘Zven?’
Otto’s voice hit his ears. Ekkehardt stopped thrashing and rubbed his eyes. The figure disappeared. Ekkehardt almost called for him to come back.
“You were crying out for your friend again.”
Again? How many times had he woken up like this?
He did know this wasn't the first time he'd woken up crying, but he hadn't realized he'd been crying out. He propped himself up on his elbows. A sick feeling filled his stomach. Did that mean they knew he was with Zven when he died? Did they know he'd been lying about— about everything? Nobody had mentioned any connection between his ‘robbery’ and Zven’s death, but that didn’t mean nobody had put it together.
He sat up properly and tried to speak. The only thing that came out was a sob. How could he function if he couldn't even get through a single night without Zven?
“I know you miss him,” Otto said slowly. “Losing a friend is never easy, especially not at your age. It’s hard to believe someone could die so young.”
“He was more than just my friend.” He hadn't meant to say it out loud, but the words were out before he could stop himself. “I love him. We were—”
He choked on his words and pressed his forehead to his knees. His fingers clutched at the pocket watch, his grip tightening until the metal bit painfully into his skin. It wasn't enough to make him let go. The photograph was the only one he had of Zven; he could never let it go. Not for anything.
For a few long minutes, Otto didn't say anything. Ekkehardt was too busy trying not to hyperventilate to say anything either.
“It's okay,” Otto said, even as Ekkehardt struggled to breathe. He sat down on the bed and wrapped his arms around him. “It's going to be okay. Just breathe with me.”
Otto counted the beats — one, two, three, four, two, two, three, four — the same way he had back when he'd been teaching Ekkehardt to play the piano. They sat together like that for what must have been hours until the sobs quieted to hiccupped whimpers. Ekkehardt’s throat burned, and his temples throbbed. He felt like he needed to drill a hole in his skull to relieve the pressure. He felt like a child, but he was hurting too much to care.
“I want him back,” he managed, his voice hitching.
“I know you do. But you can't do anything to change what happened. You can only move forward. It won't always hurt like this. I know it
feels that way, but I promise you it won't.”
Ekkehardt sniffed and nodded. Otto was right. Crying wouldn’t change what had happened. Nothing would. Still, his mind returned to what Zven had told him in his dream:
“You can bring me back.”
9
Godfrey Schneider was a tall, heavy man with glasses as large and thick as dinner plates, and the biggest beard Ekkehard had ever seen. He looked the same as Ekkehardt remembered, even though it must have been at least a decade since his last visit.
“Your mother tells me you need a translation,” he said in a gruff voice.
He offered out a cigarette. Ekkehardt took it and let him light it. The smell of smoke quickly filled the living room.
“You didn’t come all this way for that, did you?”
Last he’d heard, Uncle Godfrey was living two cities over.
“Just to visit my favourite nephew? No, no, I was in town on business.”
He tapped the side of his nose. Ekkehardt suspected there was more to the comment but he couldn’t for the life of him think of what. What did Uncle Godfrey do again, anyway? If he’d known that he was visiting, he would have asked one of his parents. It was obviously too late for that, though. He faked a smile and nodded, pretending he knew what his uncle meant.
“I’m glad you came.”
The words were stiffer than he’d meant them to be. So many of his parents’ friends and people from high school he’d lost touch with had come by to visit since he’d been home, forced politeness had become a habit. Uncle Godfrey didn’t mind. He laughed, holding his stomach with both hands while his cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth. Ekkehardt had an image of it falling on the carpet and starting a fire, but Godfrey took it between his fingers before that could happen. He didn’t seem to hear Ekkehardt’s sigh of relief.
“So, tell me, my boy. What’s this translation you need? A book?”
Ekkehardt shook his head. An uneasy heaviness weighed in his stomach. He hadn’t expected Hida to call Godfrey, let alone invite him here. How was he supposed to explain it?
“A phrase, actually. I— heard it somewhere. I don’t even know if it’s Greek for sure,” he admitted.
It could have been any language. It could have been hallucinated gibberish. It might not have meant anything at all.
“Easy enough, easy enough. Do you have it written down? Can I see it?”
Ekkehardt focused on the cigarette for a few seconds to buy time. He held the smoke inside his lungs for as long as he could before exhaling.
“No… I just remember it.”
He’d been playing the words in his head since he’d been coherent.
Godfrey raised an eyebrow.
“Remember it? My boy, how do you remember a phrase in a language you’ve never heard before?”
“I don’t know. I just do.”
Godfrey leaned back in his chair, scratching his beard in thought. The figure that had followed him in mimicked the motion. It was a ripple in the air, like water on the road on a hot day, but shaped almost like a person. Ekkehardt wished Godfrey would say what he was thinking. He wished the mirage would go away.
“Well, all right. Let’s hear it, my boy.”
“O-hia coma. Ohi-a-coma.” He cleared his throat. “O—”
“Óchi akóma?”
“Yes!”
Godfrey nodded, satisfied at his interpretation of Ekkehardt’s awful Greek.
“It means, ‘Not yet.’”
Ekkehardt frowned.
“‘Not yet?’” he repeated. “What does that mean?”
It was Godfrey’s turn to frown.
“It— It means, uhm, not at this time. At a later date.”
That didn’t make it any clearer. The women said not yet. Not yet for… for him to die?
“Where did you hear—”
“Are we Greek?” He didn’t think he could answer Godfrey’s question. Distraction was easier. “I mean, is any part of our family Greek? You’ve always been so interested in the stories, I just wondered…”
“Ah, yes, actually. Mine and your father’s great-great grandmother on her father’s side. That is, your great-great-great grandfather. They say she was an Oracle, your great-great grandmother. Of course, you can’t trust the stories, but it’s an interesting thought, isn’t it?” He exhaled a stream of smoke through his nose. “Though, they say your aunt saw spirits. That is, on your mother’s side.”
This got his attention, more than the talk of Oracles. Spirits? His eyes flickered across the handful of mirages floating around the room. No, those weren’t spirits. They were hallucinations. He must have hit his head when he’d been shot or just lost too much blood or… something reasonable.
Still, he tried to keep his voice casual when he spoke.
“Really? Do you know what they looked like? The spirits.”
“Oh, who knows? It might have been in her journal, if she kept one. Most girls do, you know. I hear she saw them before the War but between you and me, I think she was just haunted by what she saw. She was quite mad near the end, you know. Trauma and illness are a hell of a combination, my boy. It’s such a shame, to survive something like that and end up dying of tuberculosis.”
Godfrey sighed and shook his head.
Ekkehardt swallowed down a lump in his throat and nodded. His parents never talked about their families. Aside from Godfrey, he had never met any of his relatives. He didn’t know where anyone was or what had happened to them, and he never asked. It was always painful, knowing that branches of their family had just been cut. His grandmother had died maybe six or seven years after the war, if his math was right, but most of his parents’ families hadn’t made it out. Most of Zven’s didn’t, either.
His stomach clenched. He felt like he was going to vomit.
“Ekkehardt? Are you all right, my boy?”
Godfrey took the cigarette to keep him from burning himself.
He gasped for air, doubling over and clutching his stomach. Bile rose in the back of his throat. The mirage moved in front of him. If it was real — or at least solid — the closeness would have smothered him. Godfrey looming over him was bad enough. He fell out of the chair and curled in on himself. His lungs were too tight, and his heart was beating too fast. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t breathe!
More vague figures surrounded him, strikingly clear despite his blurred vision. He reached out to one. It reached back.
‘Zven?’
He closed his eyes, and everything was gone.
10
Otto and Hida were reluctant to let him keep cleaning the attic after that. They were convinced his heart had given out. He wasn't sure it hadn't, but he was sure it had something to do with the figures that were becoming more and more defined as he regained his strength. They still disappeared when he looked at them for too long, though.
“I promise I won't exert myself,” he pleaded. “I won't lift or move anything. I'll just sort through the boxes. I'll even sit while I do it.”
If Nina Kruspe had kept a journal, it would probably be in the attic.
His parents exchanged uncertain looks.
“He can't just sit around and wallow all day long. Maybe he'll find something else to read,” Otto said.
His mother sighed but relented. Books were his weakness. If there was one in his hand, nothing short of a natural disaster would make him put it down until he was done reading it.
“Fine. But no lifting.”
It was almost impossible not to run up the stairs. Getting winded half-way up helped slow him down. He probably should have been resting, except Otto was right. If he stayed in bed, he would only end up ’wallowing’ — though that wasn't the word he would have used. He suspected Otto hadn't told his mother the real reason he'd been so distraught, and he appreciated it. He wasn't sure he wanted her to know just how deep his relationship with Zven ran. It wasn't that he thought she would disapprove, he just didn't want her pitying him any more than she did
when it was only his friend he'd lost.
The attic was exactly how he'd left it. The box he'd been working through was even still open, the stacks of clothes he'd separated into ’wearable’ and ’moth-eaten’ still leaning precariously against it. He sat on the old chair and started sorting again.
It was fairly mindless work. He checked each garment for holes, folded it, and stuck it in the right pile. When he finished the first box, he pushed another into its place with his foot. There was no way to tell which box, if any, had Nina’s journal, and the boxes of books were on the other side of the attic. He didn't have the energy to do more than empty each box and move them out of the way when they were empty.
Occasionally, movement in the corners of his eyes caught his attention. The first few times, he thought one of his parents had somehow made their way up the steps without him hearing. It never was, though. It was always those strange mirages that he was starting to get used to. Real or not, they were company that wasn’t constantly fussing over him.
“Can you believe anybody would wear something like this?” he asked.
None of the mirages answered, though one moved a few feet to the left.
“But there are no holes in it. Not even moths are interested.”
Zven would have laughed at that.
Ekkehardt folded the faded dress and set it down in the keep pile. He scratched at the bandages on his chest. The scabbing wounds didn’t hurt much, at least not as much, but it itched something fierce. If he just peeled the bandages off— He couldn’t, though. He didn’t want to see the damage. Every time he did, he couldn’t stop himself from imagining what Zven looked like. Was the hole he had bigger? Was it right in his heart? In his dream, it had been more centred, but his subconscious was just guessing. How long had it taken Zven to die? Had he been alive when they’d been dragged into that truck?
He wished he could just ask. Dream Zven never answered his questions. How could he, though? How could he know what Ekkehardt didn’t?