Next World Novella by Matthias Politycki Read Free Book Online Page B

actually touched her.
    Good God, it happened to so many men, it didn’t have to mean anything.
    Schepp forced himself back to the present. How long had he been kneeling in front of Doro? I always loved you, you know I did.
    But you don’t know about Dana, he thought, getting up with difficulty. His knees hurt. He stepped away from Doro and the chaise-longue . He had always thought that she had known nothing about all that, nothing at all. And in actual fact it really hadn’t been anything more than a few rather unseemly passing thoughts. Why had he lapsed into thinking about Dana today, anyway? Shaking his head, Schepp set off along the fishbone pattern of the parquet. How could he be recalling such a person in the presence of death? How she repelled him in retrospect, how he despised her, how he hated her!
    His right hand beat time in the air to his muttered exclamations of annoyance, index and little fingers extended, the rest of his hand clenched into a fist. Until he remembered why he had thought of Dana, whereupon his hand stopped in mid-air and dropped powerlessly to his side. It was Doro’s own fault! There was a sudden rushing in his ears as if the ground were about to give way beneath him. As he clung to his desk, however, his sense of equilibrium was restored. After he had said out loud several times that Dana was really, really entirely different from Hanni, you could almost say her opposite – surely that was obvious, he hoped that showed once and for all how absurd Doro’s corrections were – he remembered what his initial intention had been. Wasn’t he going to keep a vigil at Doro’s side? Wasn’t this his chance to read her final message? He had to continue the reading, never mind Hanni, never mind Dana.
    He returned to the chaise-longue , picked up the sheets of paper from the floor and put them in order. He looked for that passage with Marek, the scene in which he spoke up to defend – no, not Dana – to defend Hanni. Schepp decided to ignore that comment in the margin, even though Doro had stuck to it consistently, crossing out Hanni’s name every time and changing it to Dana’s. It was no use, he had promised her to read the manuscript.
     
     
    Next day there’s no one waiting tables in the Blaue Maus. After much questioning we find out from Wolfi that he’s seen this coming from the beginning, it couldn’t end well, a girl who carries on with the customers has no place here. Now what? Now nothing. Still nothing the next evening and the next one. When we threaten to go and drink wherever Hanni turns up if he doesn’t take her back of his own free will, Wolfi assures us that he’d rather go bust. But it’s not her fault, says none other than Marek, raising his voice and pointing at Big Jörn, who has actually dared to turn up again and who’s grinning broadly at all of us with a big plaster on his nose. He’s the one who ought to be banned from this bar, not Hanni.
    Almost two weeks went by, and whatever we said Wolfi stuck to his guns, pointing out the damage that had been done. But then one day Marek takes his savings passbook out of his jacket and shoves it over to him, asking him to see if the sum in it comes to enough. Wolfi pulls back his ponytail, looking awkward. We all crowd round, we say what a good lad young Marek is, we urge Wolfi to get a grip, we say we’ll contribute too if necessary. But it’s enough.
    Okay, says Wolfi, sweeping the passbook off the bar, he’s no monster. He lifts the telephone receiver and hands it to the surprised Marek. As a reward he can give her the good news himself.
    Much laughter. We all raise our glasses to Marek, our saviour, and tell him to have courage.
    Then what? In his excitement Marek can hardly find the right holes in the dial for all the numbers Wolfi dictates out of a notebook, Wolfi has to write them down on an order pad. Then the phone is answered. He stammers a bit and says, ‘It’s the Blaue Maus here,’ words which are