Why We Took the Car (24 page)

“And that's what I'm supposed to do too?”

“You're not just
supposed
to do it, you
will
do it. Because they'll believe you. Do you understand? Lucky for you the agent from Child Welfare was impressed with our place. How the house looked. You should have seen him looking at the pool. He said it straight out — that this was the right sort of house to raise a child in, with all the bells and whistles.” My father turned to my mother and my mother stared into her glass. “You were dragged into it by that low-class Russian bastard. And that is exactly what you will tell the judge — regardless of what you told the police. Got it? Got it?”

“I'll tell the judge what happened,” I said. “He's not stupid.”

My father stared at me for approximately four seconds. That was the end. I saw a flash in his eyes; then I didn't see anything for a while. The blows struck me everywhere, and I fell off my chair and squirmed around on the floor with my forearms in front of my face. I heard my mother scream and fall over and shout “Josef!” By the end I was lying on the floor in such a way that between my arms I could see out the window to the backyard. I still felt the kicks, but they were coming more slowly. My back hurt. I saw the blue sky above the garden and sniffled. I saw the sides of the umbrella swaying in the wind above the lounge chair. Next to the chair was a brown man fishing leaves out of the pool with a dip net. They'd rehired the Indian.

“Oh, God, oh, God,” said my mother, coughing.

I spent the rest of the day in bed. I lay on my side and toyed with the blinds, swinging in the afternoon sun above me. The blinds were ancient. I'd had them since I was three. We'd moved five times and still they'd always been there. That occurred to me for the first time as I played with them. I could hear my parents' voices outside in the backyard. Now they were giving an earful to the Indian. He must have missed a waterlogged leaf in the pool. It was my father's big day of yelling. Later I heard birds in the yard and the sun began to set. It got peaceful.

I lay there as it got darker and darker, stared at the blinds, and wondered how long things would be like this. How long could I lie here, how long we'd live in this house, how long my parents would still be married.

And I looked forward to seeing Tschick again. That was the only thing I looked forward to. I hadn't seen him since the accident on the autobahn, and that was four weeks ago now. I knew they'd taken him to a juvenile detention center. But it was a place where you weren't allowed to have any outside contact — you couldn't even get a letter.

CHAPTER 46

Then came the court proceedings. I was dying from nervousness. The rooms alone were terrifying. Giant staircases, columns, statues on the wall like in a church. You also can't tell from watching courtroom TV shows that you have to wait around for hours and hours in a place that feels like a funeral home. I felt like I was waiting for my own funeral as I sat there. And I also thought to myself that I would never so much as steal a pack of gum again.

When I entered the courtroom, the judge was sitting behind his desk and pointed to the place I was supposed to sit down — at a table, kind of like at school. The judge was wearing a black poncho, and there was a woman sitting next to him who seemed to be surfing the Internet the whole time. At least that's what it looked like. She typed now and then, but she didn't look up from the computer for all the hours we were in the courtroom. Off to the left was another guy in a black poncho. That turned out to be the prosecutor. The black clothes were apparently an integral part of court cases. Out in the halls of the courthouse there were more people running around in black outfits, and the whole thing made me think of the white scrubs and lab coats of the hospital — and of nurse Hanna — and I was glad at least that you couldn't see people's underwear through the black outfits.

Tschick wasn't there yet, but he came in about a minute later, escorted by someone from the juvenile detention center. We hugged each other and nobody tried to stop us. But we didn't have much time to chat. The judge got started right away. I had to say my name and address and all that, and then Tschick had to do the same. Then the judge basically repeated all the questions the police had already asked us. Not sure why, since he already knew our answers from the court documents. And as far as the facts of the case, there was no dispute. I told more or less the truth, the same as I did when the police asked me the questions. I mean, I left out a few tiny details — like the fact that we had used André Langin's name at the hospital. But that kind of stuff was okay to sweep under the rug — nobody cared about it. The main thing the judge wanted to know was
when
we first took the car,
where
we went with it, and
why
we did it. That last part was the only difficult question: Why? The police had kept asking us the same question, and now the judge, too, wanted to know. But I didn't know how to answer. Luckily he offered us potential answers — were we just trying to have fun? Fun. Well, yeah, fun, that seemed to me the most probable explanation even if I wouldn't have put it exactly that way. I couldn't really say what I was hoping to find in Wallachia. I had no idea. And I wasn't sure whether the judge would be interested in the whole Tatiana Cosic story. That I'd made a drawing for her and that I was afraid I might be the most boring person on Earth, and that for once in my life I didn't want to act like a coward. So I just said that his fun theory was right.

It also occurs to me that I lied about something else. It had to do with the speech therapist. I didn't want her to get into any trouble because of us, since she'd been so incredibly nice. So I just never mentioned her and the fire extinguisher. I said the same thing I'd told the police — that Tschick had broken his foot when the Lada flipped over coming down the embankment next to the autobahn, and that we had walked across the field to the hospital. Not a word about the speech therapist.

An okay lie, really. But even when I said it to the cops, it occurred to me that I'd probably get caught for it. Because Tschick would probably make up some other explanation when they asked him. And they would ask him. But oddly enough, the truth never came out because Tschick had exactly the same thought I did — he didn't want to drag the speech therapist into it either. And as it emerged in court that day, he had used the same explanation I had — that he'd broken his foot when the car went over the embankment and we'd limped through the field to the hospital. It never occurred to anybody that our story defied logic. Because when you end up in the middle of nowhere, in a place you've never been before, and you get into an accident, and all you can see are fields all around you and, in the distance, a white building with a couple of trees in front of it, how in the world would you know it was a hospital?

Anyway, like I said, the judge was more interested in other things.

“What I'd like to know is which of you initially had the idea to take this trip?” He addressed the question to me.

“The Russian of course!” came a voice from the gallery. My father, the idiot.

“The question is addressed to the accused,” said the judge. “If I wanted your opinion, I would ask you.”

“
We
had the idea,” I said. “Both of us.”

“No way,” piped Tschick.

“We just wanted to drive around a little,” I said. “Take a vacation, like normal people . . .”

“Not true,” Tschick interjected.

“It's not your turn,” said the judge. “Wait until I get to you.”

The judge was strict. The only person allowed to speak was the one he spoke to. And when he got to Tschick, Tschick immediately said that it was his idea to go to Wallachia and that he'd had to practically drag me into the car. He explained that he knew how to drive and how to hotwire cars, and that I was so clueless I didn't know the gas pedal from the brake. He was talking complete nonsense, and I told the judge it was nonsense. And the judge said it wasn't my turn anymore, and I could hear my father groaning in the background.

After we had talked for long enough about the car, we came to the worst part — people talking
about
us. The man from the juvenile detention center testified about Tschick's background, talking about him as if he wasn't even there, basically saying his family was nothing more than trash — even if he didn't use that word. Then the guy from Child Welfare talked about his visit to my house, about what a filthy rich family I came from, how I was left unsupervised and neglected, and in the end he characterized my family as a kind of trash too. And when the verdict was read, I was surprised I wasn't given life in prison. Tschick had to stay in the detention center where he was already being held. And as for me, I was issued a directive to do community service. Seriously, that's what the judge said. Fortunately he explained what that meant — and in this case it meant I had to spend thirty hours wiping old people's asses. And then the whole thing finished up with an interminable lecture on morality, though what he said was actually okay. Not the kind of stuff my father says, or what you hear in school — it was more stuff that made you see things in terms of life and death, and I actually found myself listening closely to the judge because he didn't seem like a complete moron. On the contrary. He seemed pretty sensible. And his name was Burgmuller in case anyone is interested.

CHAPTER 47

So that was the summer. And then it was time for school to start again. Instead of 8C, 9C was now posted on the door of the classroom. Nothing else had changed. Same seating chart. Everyone in the same spots as the previous year, except in the back row, where there was an empty seat. No Tschick.

First class on the first day of school: Mr. Wagenbach. I was a minute late, but for some reason I didn't get chewed out. I was still limping a little, and still had a few cuts on my face here and there. Wagenbach lifted one eyebrow and wrote the word “Bismarck” on the blackboard.

“Your classmate Tschichatschow will not be in class today,” he said as an aside, but either he didn't know the reason for his absence or he didn't say. I don't think he knew the reason.

I was a little sad when I saw the empty seat, and sadder still when I glanced over at Tatiana, who was sitting there all tan, with a pencil in her mouth. She was listening to Wagenbach, and it was impossible to say if she was the proud owner of a pencil sketch of Beyoncé or if she had just crumpled it up and tossed it in the garbage. She looked so hot that morning that I had difficulty not constantly looking over at her. But with an iron will I kept myself from doing that.

I was trying to muster a little interest in Bismarck when Hans put a note on my thigh. I held it in my fist for a minute because Wagenbach was looking in my direction. Then I looked at it to see who I needed to pass it on to. But it said Mike. I couldn't remember getting a single note the previous school year. Except for the kind that everyone got — the ones that said stuff like
Don't look up, there are footprints on the ceiling
or other elementary school crap like that.

I waited another minute and then unfolded it and read. I read it five times straight. It wasn't such a complicated note — in fact, there were just ten words — but I still had to read it five times to understand it. It said:
My God, what in the world happened to you?!? Tatiana
.

I just couldn't get the last word through my head. I didn't look around.

The chance that somebody was trying to make an ass of me was relatively high. It was a common trick in the past — to send a fake note saying something like
I love you
or whatever. But you could usually tell who had really sent it because the person was trying to secretly watch you.

I looked in the direction the note had come from — which was also where Tatiana sat. Nobody seemed to be watching me. I read the note a sixth time. It was Tatiana's handwriting. I knew it well. The
A
with the rounded top, the curlicue of the
G
. I could imitate it perfectly. And of course if I could, so could everyone else. But just suppose — suppose — that it really was from her? Suppose the girl who didn't invite me to her party really wanted to know what had happened to me?

Wow. How should I answer? Assuming I did answer, that is. Because, after all, a lot had happened, and it would take hundreds of pages to explain it all. Though I would love to have done just that — written hundreds of pages. How we'd driven around, how we'd flipped the car, how Horst Fricke had shot at us. The moonscape we discovered, the whole debacle with the pigs, and a thousand other things. And how I'd dreamed that Tatiana was seeing it all. But I was pretty sure she didn't really want to know all the details. That the note was more out of politeness. I thought for a little while longer, and then I gathered myself and wrote,
Ah, nothing special
, and sent the note back.

I didn't look at Tatiana as she read it, but thirty seconds later it was back. This time there were only nine words.
Come on, tell me! I really want to know
.

She really wanted to know. I needed an eternity for my response. Despite the fact that again it wasn't very detailed. Of course, I secretly wanted to write my novel-length version for her. But there's not too much space on a piece of scrap paper. I put a lot of thought into it. Class was almost over when I wrote Tatiana's name on the outside again and handed it back to Hans. Hans passed it to Jasmin. Jasmin let it sit next to her for a while like she didn't care about it. Then she flipped it to Anja. Anja tossed it across the aisle onto Olaf's desk, and Olaf, who was as dumb as a box of rocks, was handing the note over André's shoulder just as Wagenbach turned around.