All the Lights (6 page)

He put the photo back in the cabinet and reached for the conker dog. As he stretched out his arm the pain came back, but he took no notice. He held onto the dog with both hands, took a few steps back and dropped down onto the sofa. Four times they had sat here. The textbooks and her exercise book in front of them on the table. A large bottle of juice and a bar of chocolate. She took the dog made out of conkers out of her satchel and put it on the table between the books and the juice and the chocolate. ‘I made this for you,’ she said. A little animal made of conkers and matchsticks. He hadn’t realised right away that it was supposed to be a dog; it could have been a sheep or a cat, but then she’d said, ‘It’s a dachshund, Mr Krein, for you.’

‘Thank you, Juli,’ he said. ‘I’ve always wanted a dachshund.’

She smiled, and he took the conker dachshund, balanced it on his belly and cautiously stroked the large conker that was its head. ‘My parents,’ said Juli, and he said, ‘Yes?’ but he wasn’t listening, he was stroking the dachshund moving up and down on his belly as he breathed. She talked, and he closed his eyes and saw three circles, two large and one small between the two large ones. The two large circles touched in the middle of the small circle, then they moved apart again, and it looked like they were holding the small circle tight in the middle. ‘I’m going now,’ she said. She stood in front of him, pressing her exercise book to her chest and her chin. ‘Bye, Mr Krein.’ The dog fell off his stomach as he reached a hand out for her. ‘Stay a bit longer, Juli, I’ll take you home.’

‘No.’ She pushed the exercise book higher, until it touched the tip of her nose, and spoke through the paper. ‘My parents, Mr Krein …’

The dachshund was lying on the floor at his feet. He bent down and balanced it on its short matchstick legs. A stabbing pain in his head. He took a deep breath as he leaned back. ‘Is there a law against going for an ice cream with Juli? Is there a law against going swimming with Juli? Is there a law against …?’ He started shouting but there was no one there, only the dachshund at his feet. He had shouted when the man from the school inspection board had sat opposite him in the secretary’s office. ‘Investigations, you go ahead and do your investigations!’

‘At the moment all it’s about is unjustified favouritism and support for a pupil …’

He stood in front of the mirror in his bathroom, pressing both hands to the glass. How did that little poem go again, the one she’d recited for him when they were sitting in the sun? That May had been so warm … two ice cream sundaes. He saw her lips moving, her hands gesticulating above her ice cream while she recited the poem. She closed her eyes when she got stuck, the small crease from the top of her nose to her forehead. Was it Goethe? He knew nothing about literature. Yes, it was Goethe. Or maybe Schiller or some other poet? He’d been so happy, next to her at the table, and her hands above the ice cream sundaes, and the poem, but the only thing he was good at remembering was numbers. ‘My heart it beat …’

He took his hands off the mirror, saw the moist prints they left behind fading. ‘… the evening bowed t’ward the earth …’ The blackboard … He shuddered, didn’t want that in his head, the blackboard, the big white letters; he went to the door. He walked back down the dark hallway to the kitchen.

He stood on the tiles, feeling for the light switch. He looked over at the window; it must be evening by now. He turned on the light and took a couple of steps, then his legs fell away beneath him, he raised both arms, nothing to hold onto, then he was on the floor, and his head smashed against the wall. He lay on his back like that for a while, then slowly turned onto his side. The trampled cutlet in aspic lay next to him.

He went into the classroom. He went to the blackboard, not looking around, heard the children talking softly, the rustle of paper; he opened the two flaps of the blackboard. ‘Fatty loves Juli,’ it said in wobbly white capital letters, a heart drawn beneath it in red chalk. He placed one hand on either side of the heart and stood like that for a while, supporting himself against the blackboard, all quiet behind him now. He stood upright, saw the moist prints left behind by his hands – he could make out each separate finger – then he turned around slowly. Juli’s seat was empty. He went to the door.

He walked down the hallway. He was sweating, and the sweat ran into his eyes.

It started when his dog suddenly started to limp, and then came to a halt outright. It was a pretty big dog, a Rottweiler-Doberman mix, a hundred pounds, and in the six years that Rolf had been living with him the dog had never limped and had never just stopped walking either. He’d been with him in the mountains and by the sea, took long walks with him every day, and the dog’s long ears moved up and down when he ran.

‘Piet,’ said Rolf, ‘what’s up with you, boy, you’re not that old yet.’ Piet stood in the middle of the pavement, his back legs far apart; he stood there as if straddling something, looking at him with his dark eyes. He pulled on the leash but the dog didn’t move. He squatted down in front of him and stroked his head. ‘What’s up, boy, what’s the matter, shall we just have a bit of a rest? You’ll be all right in a minute, won’t you Piet?’

He’d called his dog Piet because of Pete Sampras, the tennis player, but he’d written the name with an ‘ie’ on the dog licence to make it a bit more mysterious. Rolf wasn’t really a tennis fan at all, but he’d seen Pete Sampras a couple of times on TV in some tournament or other, and the elegance with which he outplayed his opponents had impressed him. And now Piet was standing there and wouldn’t budge an inch and hung his head. They were still a mile or so away from home and he wouldn’t be able to carry him. He’d lifted him up for fun a couple of times and lugged him around the apartment, but the dog had wriggled around and his back had started aching after only a few yards.

He gave another tug on the leash and said, ‘Come on, let’s go home, there’ll be a treat for you when we get home.’ And the dog took a few steps; his back legs buckled strangely inwards and he limped a little, but he was walking. They walked home very slowly, and sometimes Piet stopped again, and then he stroked him and waited until he could carry on. They lived on the first floor, up half a flight of stairs, and the dog had problems getting up the couple of steps to the apartment door; that morning when they came back from their first walk of the day there had been no stopping him; he knew his food was inside.

He opened the front door and Piet went straight to his corner and lay down. ‘Damn it,’ he said, ‘what on earth’s up with you boy, you’re not gonna …’ He sat down in the armchair right in front of the dog’s blanket. He often sat here and read the newspaper or watched TV, his dog right next to him. All he had to do was reach out his hand to touch him.

‘You’re not gonna give up on me,’ he said, putting his hand on Piet’s head and stroking him behind the ears. ‘You can’t give up on me.’ He sat in the chair and looked down at Piet, who lay quite still, only his back rising and falling slightly. It was very quiet in the flat, with only the fridge humming in the kitchen, and he sat there and took his hand off Piet’s head, folded his hands and rubbed them together over and over. They had been living together for six years, Rolf and Piet, and he couldn’t imagine sitting alone in his flat again, like eight years ago when his wife had gone, just the humming of the fridge in the silence. He rubbed his hands together, then jumped up and ran to the kitchen. He fetched the big pack of dog biscuits out of the cupboard and took out a handful. Usually the sound of the cupboard doors banging was enough to make Piet come running, but he didn’t come even when he shook the pack. He put it back in the cupboard and stood in the kitchen with the handful of dog biscuits, waiting. The fridge hummed next to him, and because he couldn’t stand it any more he shouted, ‘Piet, where are you boy, I’ve got a treat for you!’ And then Rolf heard him. He heard the tip-tap of his steps in the hall, and then he saw Piet’s head in the doorway, ‘Come on, come and get it,’ and the dog ran towards him, jumped up at him, and he said, ‘Down boy, sit,’ and Piet sat down in front of him and stretched out a paw towards him, although he hadn’t said ‘Shake’, and then he gave him the dog biscuits and Piet crunched them up and ate them, and he said, ‘There you are boy, you’re eating them up nicely, you’re not feeling so bad are you, you were just tired before.’ He watched as Piet ate the dog biscuits one after another, and he was happy.

‘Hip dysplasia,’ said the veterinarian and pointed to the X-rays, but Rolf couldn’t make out anything much on them. ‘Advanced stage,’ said the vet, ‘we’d have to operate. There are various options, gold implants and so on, but with artificial joints and the latest methods he could live a long life.’

‘He was running around just two days ago.’ Piet lay next to him, and Rolf kept his hand on his head. Piet was really scared of the vet, he moaned and yelped in the waiting room and didn’t want to come through to the surgery, although he only had his injections there once a year. He could smell the other animals’ fear, and maybe death too.

‘Hereditary,’ said the vet, ‘nothing you can do.’ He had given Piet a mild anaesthetic shot so they could X-ray him better, and then injected a contrast agent into his joints.

‘Dogs don’t show it right away when they’re in pain,’ said the vet. ‘They don’t know what it is, where it’s coming from. Not until they can’t keep going any more.’

Piet was asleep, and the vet and the nurse wanted to lift him onto the X-ray machine, but he had said, ‘No, I’ll do that,’ and squatted down, put his arms around him and lifted him up.

‘With painkillers,’ said the vet, ‘he’ll keep going for a while … if you take really good care of him …’

‘And then?’ He still had his hand on Piet’s head. Piet had woken up from the anaesthetic a while ago, but he was still very weak and lay there next to him, and Rolf felt him breathing.

‘It’d be OK for a year or two,’ said the vet, ‘maybe longer, but at some point he’d just be suffering. If you don’t want to go through with the operation …’

They took a taxi home. Now and then Rolf turned around to him, but Piet was lying at the back of the cab and was still pretty knocked out, although back when Rolf had still had a car and they would go for a drive together he was uneasy all the way, moaning and yelping.

‘It’s nothing serious, is it?’ said the driver.

‘No, just a routine check-up.’ Rolf hadn’t taken a taxi for years. He couldn’t really afford it either, the examination and the tablets had used up almost all his money. He could have asked his brother to pick them up from the vet’s, but he didn’t want to talk to his brother right now; he’d have to talk to him later about the operation, but he was scared. His brother didn’t much like Piet, and Piet didn’t much like his brother either. He growled at him and sometimes started barking when his brother came by. But his brother didn’t come by too often. ‘Nice dog you’ve got there,’ said the driver.

‘Yes, he is.’ He turned around to Piet again, who was licking at his hips with his long pink tongue now, at the place where the vet had injected the contrast agent. ‘A Rottweiler, isn’t he?’

‘Rottweiler-Doberman.’

‘Really nice animal,’ said the driver and nodded and looked at Piet in the rear-view mirror. And Rolf looked in the mirror too and saw his dog’s big head and felt very proud.

Rolf had been playing the lottery for years but he had only won once. Over four hundred deutschmarks with a special system using ten numbers in different combinations. He had had three lots of four numbers come up and five lots of three with his system, and they had brought him over four hundred deutschmarks in winnings. If five of his numbers had come up (which he always dreamed of; he never actually expected six), maybe even two fives would have turned up in his system, and that would have brought him big bucks, but still, the four hundred marks had been a lot of money for him at the time, even though he was still in work back then.

He didn’t play the system any more because it had cost him twenty marks every week, and after they switched to the euro and he lost his job, forty euros a month was just too much for him.

Now he handed in just one set of six crossed-off numbers every Saturday afternoon, always number four because of the four letters in their names, Piet and Rolf, and five other numbers he had picked for no special reason. But he never won anything, and he didn’t know anyone who had won big money on the lottery.

And big money was what he needed. Three thousand euros was big money to Rolf.

‘If it wasn’t for Piet,’ his brother had said, ‘maybe. But just so you can patch up that dilapidated old dog …’

‘Piet isn’t dilapidated.’

‘Three thousand euros, Jesus, d’you think I’m made of money?’

‘You’ve got more than me at any rate. Don’t you get it, it’s the latest surgery, he can live a long …’

‘Listen, Rolf, I can’t help it that you lost your job. And you know that back when Martha went, I …’

‘No,’ he said, ‘it’s nothing to do with her, it’s about Piet.’

‘Jesus, if he’s so sick why don’t you have him …’

He had left without another word. He had walked the streets and thought about who else he could ask, who he even knew who had that kind of money. Then he’d gone back home, laid down next to Piet on the rug. He only went on short walks with him now, and Piet had started to limp again despite the tablets. Rolf lay next to him, one hand on his back, feeling him breathing, and they lay together until it got dark and he got up and turned on the light.

He took a short walk with Piet, and once the dog had disappeared into the bushes and taken a crap he took him home again. There was lots of dog shit on the pavements in his area, and he was proud that not a single turd was from Piet. He had taught him when he was very small only to shit in bushes and on the grass.

‘I’ll be back soon, boy, look after the place, be good.’

Piet lay in his corner and looked at him; whenever Rolf left the house he looked at him with his dark eyes. He didn’t like being alone, like all dogs. Whenever Rolf had to go out for a while longer he told the old lady next door; she liked Piet and was happy to keep an eye on him. She was on her own too and Piet liked her. She was over seventy and Rolf was scared she’d die one day; there was no one else to look after Piet when he had to go away. But now he just wanted to walk and think and maybe have a drink; he had enough money for that. He threw Piet a big dog biscuit and could still hear him crunching as he locked the door.

He walked the streets, not knowing where he wanted to go, walked past the bars and kebab shops, wanted to think, about the money, about the operation, but he was tired and he walked very slowly, and he knew there was nobody who would help him. He drank two small bottles of beer at a snack bar that stayed open until late at night. He was the only customer; the owner leaned on the counter, drinking coffee and watching the people going by his little place. Rolf drank a shot and paid his bill, then he too went on his way.

On a corner was a new place that he didn’t know yet. A large neon sign with red letters: ‘Sports Bets’, and there were pictures in the window of football players, boxers, and a big horse galloping along with a jockey wearing a cap, bent low over the horse’s back and seeming to fuse with the horse. A couple of men came out of the door, talking loudly and waving little slips of paper; not money, he could tell. They walked along the road bellowing and laughing, then disappeared around the corner. Rolf stayed where he was and looked at the pictures and the sign, then he turned around and went home.

Standing in the bookmakers the next day, he was surprised at how large it was and how many people were standing around him, looking at all the monitors on the walls. It was Saturday, after three in the afternoon, and most of the screens were showing football, but on some of them there were horses galloping, and a couple of men were standing there, holding slips and newspapers and staring at the horses. They didn’t talk and didn’t seem to care about the noise all around them. ‘Kick the damn thing,’ shouted a man next to him, punching the air, ‘What’s the matter with you, even I could’ve scored …’

‘Yeah!’ growled a man in front of another monitor, ‘That’s it, I’ve got it,’ and Rolf walked slowly over to the silent men and the horses. But they weren’t as quiet any more now, the race seemed to be entering the final phase, and they twitched their nervous shoulders, stepping from one leg to the other and whispering things like, ‘Go on, come on,’ ‘Five, what do I care about number five,’ ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ ‘He’s losing it, he’s gonna eat dust,’ and then they got slightly louder, and then the race was over. Rolf was standing right behind them; some of them took their slips to the long counter, where there were already lots of people fiddling with slips and money, giving them to the men behind the counter; there were a couple of women too, taking the bets and the money, but otherwise he couldn’t see any women in the room; actually, no, over there were two old ladies huddled together, studying a newspaper spread out in front of them.

Rolf went closer to the monitor, where numbers and the names of the horses now appeared. Star King, he read, and then a man making notes on his paper pushed in front of him. ‘How much d’you think the triple was worth?’

‘Star King had over fifteen to win, the places weren’t bad either, not everyone saw that coming. It’ll be a nice little earner.’

‘Real nice,’ said another man, ‘six or seven hundred for the trifecta, I reckon, at least.’

‘I had Prairie Louise down,’ said a short man with a grey beard, who was filling out a betting slip against the wall next to the monitor, ‘she had good odds and all.’

‘Yeah, six to one’s not bad, she was doing all right until the finishing straight.’ They talked about the race just run and the next one, filling out betting slips and flicking through their newspapers, and Rolf stood between them, not knowing what all the numbers and words meant, only understanding one thing: ‘Six or seven hundred at least.’

‘The payouts,’ said the short man with the beard, ‘the payouts should be up in a minute.’ They formed a semi-circle around the monitor, and then a few numbers appeared again, and the short man with the beard shouted, ‘Eight hundred and seventy-three to one, Jesus, even five euros would have made you a packet.’

‘And nearly nine thousand for ten euros,’ another man said, ‘I should’ve risked it, but hell, who’d have guessed it, Star King to win and Miss Marmalade and One Night Girl placed, you might as well play the lottery!’ They laughed and flicked through their papers, and the bearded man took his betting slip up to the counter.