Crazy (12 page)
So saying, he turns onto a side street.
I run my hands through my hair. My head aches. The thought of going back to Neuseelen makes me feel sick. I bend over to one side.
“You tied one on last night,” says Lebert. He looks back at me. “You were really getting it on with Angélique. Which is why you lost out with Laura. But she was certainly doing her stuff. At least the others all got some!” He points to the guys.
“What are you thinking?” he asks.
“It’s okay,” I say. I’m lying. I clench my hands together.
Fat Felix turns to me. His eyes are glassy and his face is red. His hair is a mess.
“I’m sorry,” he says, stretching his arms in front of him. “I have to ask you something again. I know I keep asking you things.”
“Don’t worry about it,” I say. “People have to ask questions, otherwise they’d never understand anything. But I don’t know if I can answer you. Sometimes it’s the answers you don’t understand.”
“What was all that?” says Fat Felix. “Breaking out of school. Running away. The bus. The train. The subway. The strip joint. What was all that for? What was the point? How would you describe it? Life?”
I think. It’s all a bit much for my shattered head. I take a deep breath. Open my mouth. “Maybe you could call it a story, one written by life.”
I clench my teeth together. Sweat is running down my forehead. Glob goes round-eyed, and he rubs his hand across his face.
“Was it a good story? What was it about? Friendship? Having adventures?”
“It was about us. It was a boarding-school story— our boarding-school story.”
“Is life full of stories?” asks Fat Felix.
“Lots,” I say. “Happy stories, sad stories. And other stories. And all of them are different.”
“Where do our boarding-school stories fit in?”
“Nowhere. None of the stories fits in any particular place. They lie around all over the place.”
“Where?”
“On the path of life, as far as I know.”
“That story with the girls four months ago, is that lying on the path of life too?”
“Yes.”
“And where are we now?” he asks.
“We’re on the path of life. Making and finding new stories.”
Fat Felix leans his head against the window again. His eyes keep looking for something.
The cemetery is small. As is the grave. Almost nothing’s been planted here. The gravestone is gray and rectangular. The writing on it is old. Looks like it dates from the last century. Xavier Mils must have been a very poor man. His initials are watched over by a Baby Jesus, who is looking up at us severely. Sambraus has squatted down by the grave and lays a bunch of white roses on it. Lebert stands beside him. We all stand back a little.
Janosch is the last to stumble up, muttering to himself, his hair every which way. He yawns and takes his position beside us.
“Old friend, I got here too late,” says Sambraus, facing the gravestone. “I know. But I’m here now. I brought a few of the kids from the school with me. The new generation. You’d be proud of them! And my old friend Martin. You’d get on pretty well together, I think. He’s really okay. . . .”
At this moment Fat Felix nudges me, and stares.
“Is this how all the stories end?”
“Yes, I think this is how they all end. But who knows? Maybe a whole new story is beginning. We don’t decide that. All we can do is watch, wait, and see what’s coming our way. And maybe that’s the start of the new story.”
Chapter 16
How can you describe life in boarding school? It’s pretty difficult, I find. After all, it’s just a life, like so many others on the planet. All I know is that you don’t forget boarding school. Not for a second. Whether that’s a good thing or not is for others to decide. For my part, all I can say is that you are forced into togetherness. Eternal togetherness. You live together, eat together, get into trouble. I speak from experience. You even have to cry together. Start crying when you’re alone, and along comes someone right away who starts crying with you. I guess that’s the way it has to be. Sometimes you wish you were dead. And sometimes you feel doubly alive. How can you describe life in boarding school? It goes by. I know that now.
The luggage is at the foot of the bed. Janosch has helped me pack. Three suitcases and a bag. Now they’re all in a neat row. Ready to go. I swallow. It suddenly looks so empty in here. The walls are bare. Nothing on the desk anymore. A strange feeling goes through my body and I touch my right hand to my sweaty face. I got a 6 in math again. And a 5 in German. That’s all it takes. I’ve been plowed again and have to leave the school. They wrote my parents a final letter that was really over the top:
Your son is
unfortunately not capable of performing up to standard. In addition, he caused a great deal of trouble
and was seen too often in the girls’ corridor.
My father will be here in ten minutes to collect me. That’s how long I have to say goodbye to Janosch and the guys. They won’t be leaving for summer vacation until tomorrow. Like everyone else. My father insisted on picking me up today, one day before the end of school. They let him. Apparently they can’t get rid of me fast enough. I can’t blame them. Fat Felix asks me what my father looks like. He puts his arm around my shoulder and I smile. My future looks quite bright. I’m to live with my father. He’s moved out of the house altogether now and has rented a three-room apartment, on the edge of Schwabing in Milbertshofen. Apparently there are lots of young people there, according to him. Just right for me. I can’t wait. I find myself thinking about Matthias Bochow. Then I’m supposed to go to some sort of special school. In Neuperlach. They don’t put much emphasis on math there, according to my mother. But to tell the truth, I don’t want to go. I’m sick of being the new boy all the time. The new boy carrying the letter. Thank God it’s not a boarding school—I can go home in the afternoons. Cry. Laugh. Be happy. I’ll soon be seventeen. People say life changes then, whether you like it or not. So probably mine will too. My physiotherapist says she sees a marked deterioration in my paralysis. My left hand keeps turning farther and farther inward. So does my left foot. She thinks at some point I’ll no longer be able to walk. It’s supposed to be a miracle I ever learned in the first place. But I’m still alive. And as long as that’s true, it’ll all go on somehow. At least that’s what one of those philosophers said. Maybe it’s true. Last time I had a weekend at home from school, I met this girl. Maybe that was a beginning. I don’t know. She said she found me a little strange. When I told her lots of girls tell me that, she found it really strange. I don’t know if it’ll turn into something. If you want, you can visit me sometime. In Schwabing. After this whole thing you must know me pretty well. You’ll find me quite easily. I’m the boy who drags his left leg in a weird way. I’m almost never in a crowd. And if I am, I’ll be at the rear, at the back of the line. Apart from that, I’m to be found at a Rolling Stones concert with my father. Then I’m right at the front, next to the stage, because my father’s always worried he won’t get it all. But the Stones aren’t going out on tour again anytime soon. Since the graduation dance at Neuseelen my hair has been bleach blond. I did it with the guys. We look really hilarious now. Like brothers. Janosch thinks it’s crazy. He’s standing by the windowsill, propped on his elbows, swaying easily to and fro. Turns around. Knits his brows.
“Promise you’ll take care of yourself?” he says.
“Look at me. Do I look as if I wouldn’t take care of myself?”
Janosch laughs. He takes three steps toward me and gives me a hard hug.
“Come see us again, okay?” he says.
“Always.” I pick up the overnight bag. Go over to the two Felixes. Hug them. “Take care, guys.” The two Felixes look at me.
“Be well, old guy! Believe in yourself,” says Glob. Skinny Felix nods and holds out his hand. I go over to Florian a.k.a. Girl. Embrace him.
“We had some good times together, huh,” I say.
“Great times. Bye, Benni.”
I go to Troy. He butts his head into my stomach.
“On your way,” he says to me, and gives me his hand.
“Goodbye, Troy.”
Anna and Malen are standing at the door. One after the other they throw their arms around my neck. They’ve painted goodbye cards for me which they stick into my bag. Marie didn’t come. But she wasn’t expected. Five minutes later my father appears. He comes in, moving quickly, collects the rest of the luggage, and is out of the room again immediately. I wave at the others and follow him. Turn around once more. Through the open door I see my friends. Raise my right hand. Then go along Tarts’ Alley after my father. He holds open the door to the stairs for me. Richter, the headmaster, passes us there.
“Happy vacation,” he mumbles to himself, marching on past us and into the Landorf corridor. We go down the stairs. It’s a long flight. When we reach the bottom, I put down the bag. I’m exhausted.
A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Benjamin Lebert was born in Freiburg in 1982 and has lived in Munich since he was eight. He writes articles for the young-adult supplement of
Süddeutsche
Zeitung,
the leading Munich newspaper.
A NOTE ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR
Carol Brown Janeway’s translations include Binjamin Wilkomirski’s
Fragments,
Marie de Hennezel’s
Intimate
Death,
Bernhard Schlink’s
The Reader,
Jan Philipp Reemtsma’s
In the Cellar
, Hans-Ulrich Treichel’s
Lost,
and Zvi Kolitz’s
Yosl Rakover Talks to God.
Benjamin Lebert
Crazy
Benjamin Lebert was born in Freiburg in 1982 and has lived in Munich since he was eight. He writes articles for the young-adult supplement of the
Süddeutsche Zeitung
, Munich’s leading newspaper.
INTERNATIONAL
FIRST VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, APRIL 2001
Copyright © 1999 by Verlag Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Köln
Translation copyright © 2000 by Carol Brown Janeway
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. Originally published in Germany as
Crazy
by Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne, in 1999. This translation originally published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc., in 2000.
Vintage is a registered trademark and Vintage International and colophon are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the Knopf edition as follows:
Lebert, Benjamin.
[Crazy. English]
Crazy / by Benjamin Lebert; translated from
the German by Carol Brown Janeway.
p. cm.
I. Janeway, Carol Brown. II. Title.
PT2672.E28 C7313 2000
833’.92—dc21 99-049258
Author photograph © Sigi Hengstenberg
eISBN: 978-0-307-42537-9
v3.0