Hugo Hamilton: The Last Shot

‘It was anal…’ she whispered. ‘He buggered me.’

For a moment, we both paid more attention to our coffee than to anything else. Anke looked around the restaurant to see if anyone was watching her.

‘I still can’t walk,’ she said, smiling. Then she seemed to change her attitude towards the whole episode.

‘It’s not as though I’m against it, or anything like that. It’s just the manner in which he did it. He wanted to frighten me. Afterwards, he was very sorry. He kept saying how sorry he was. He kept hugging me and saying he would never do it again.’

Alexander was staring at some people at the table next to us. They seemed irritated by it. Perhaps they were put off their food.

‘He’s been apologizing for it ever since,’ Anke said after a pause. ‘I think he really was very sorry about it. He keeps saying he doesn’t know what came over him. It was so unlike him. I tell him to forget about it, but he can’t. He keeps telling me how much he regrets what happened.’

It was time for Anke to leave again. She would phone me, she promised. I took them to the station. On the way, we talked about other things. I told Anke that I had received a letter from somebody who had known or who knew where Franz Kern was. I told her I would be going back down to Nuremberg soon.

I walked on to the platform with them. I made sure they got on the train all right and waved at them when the train began to pull out. Alex didn’t move. Anke took his hand and waved it for him. It was the last time I saw him.

Then I got my own train back to Düsseldorf. I couldn’t stop seeing this image of Alex, waving. I had this imaginary view from the air of two trains speeding away from each other in opposite directions, Anke and Alex on one, myself on the other, all of us staring out at the fields, at the flat landscape of the Ruhr valley.

For weeks, Anke had stayed at home every day with Alexander. I told her it would be better for her not to come down to Dusseldorf any more until Alex was better. She said he wasn’t going to get better. Anke was on the phone to me almost every day to give me the details. She was sick with sadness. Jürgen had been putting forward his proposal again to give Alex a peaceful, premature death. They couldn’t bear to see him suffering any more.

Anke was unsure about the idea. I could see that she had second thoughts; stronger feelings of doubt and guilt. She kept asking me what to do. I told her it was unfair for me to influence her one way or the other. It was so easy for me to say something on the phone.

The next day she rang up and said she was coming to Düsseldorf the following day. She needed to discuss the whole thing; she was racked by indecision and Jürgen was placing her under pressure. The nurse would look after Alex. She dismissed any danger of Jürgen arriving home unexpectedly and counting the hours she was away. She insisted she had to meet me. I agreed to meet her at Düsseldorf station this time, on the Intercity arriving at 11.

I left the apartment early the next morning. It plagued me to think of Alexander. Somehow it seemed that Anke wanted my consent. My blessing. All I had to say to Anke was, yes, Anke, I believe you’re doing the right thing, and it would be over. Why would she not leave me out of this?

By 10.30 on Wednesday I stood waiting for her in the underground aisle of the Hauptbahnhof, walking up and down, past the flowersellers, the bookshop, the magazine shop, every now and again passing the escalator to platform 13, from where she would emerge. I had waited there so often for her to spring into view suddenly at the top of the escalator. Lately, there was a distraught look in her eyes; even though she smiled, I could see she was thinking back to Münster and her son.

I heard the announcements spilling down from the platforms. The Intercity from Osnabrück and Münster arrived. Passengers came rushing down. I kept searching the faces for Anke’s. Ready to embrace her and lead her away. But she wasn’t there. Instead, almost the last passenger to come down the escalator, I saw Jürgen.

‘Jesus,’ I said, almost out loud.

My first impulse was to run, or to hide. I thought it was some coincidence. But then Jürgen had seen me. He came down with his hands in his pockets, smiling. Then he extended his arms towards me. He embraced me, his hands clapping my back. He had a tearful expression.

‘I am glad to see you. It’s been so long.’

I couldn’t believe this was true. I might have expected him to show only resentment and hostility at this stage. I was taking Anke away from him. I might have expected Jürgen to kill me, maybe to plunge some gynaecological instrument straight into my back. Instead I felt the warmth of his friendship.

‘I came instead of Anke. She stayed at home with Alex. We are very worried about him.’

He led me away with his arm around my shoulder. I kept asking myself questions. Why didn’t Anke phone and warn me? Maybe she did. Then Jürgen answered for me.

‘Anke tried to phone you, but you were out.’

Jürgen was wearing a suit. It looked as though he had taken his white coat off and come straight from the surgery.

‘How is Alex?’ I asked.

‘That’s what I’ve come to talk to you about,’ Jürgen said. ‘I’m not going to talk about you and Anke. I know that you meet. But I haven’t come here to talk about that. There is not much I can say anyway…

‘I’ve come to talk to you as a friend. Can we go somewhere for lunch around here?’

I suggested an Italian place close by, where I had intended to bring Anke. It felt so strange to be walking with Jürgen. I was still getting over the fright. But I was glad to talk to him. I had missed him.

‘Has Anke told you?’ he asked.

‘Yes. About Alex, you mean?’

Jürgen knew the restaurant. He could have looked around and thought to himself: so this is where they meet. He could have run a hostile imagination over the Italian décor, over the menu, over the waiters and the stone busts which were placed all around, at the doors and at the wine bar. Instead, he showed none of that. It was as though he had a deeper imagination. As though Anke and I were only on the surface, or as though he understood what we did without malice.

The waiter took the order for cannelloni and brought wine. Jürgen sipped the wine calmly and began to talk. He leaned forward towards me.

‘I’ve come here because I want to ask you something. I want your advice. You know that I am going to go ahead with this act of mercy for Alex. We cannot bear to see him suffer any longer like this. You have met him yourself. What would you do?’

I was surprised, both by the direct question and by the fact that he knew so much about Anke and myself; even about Alex’s trip to Gelsenkirchen. I had thought about my answer. It was the same as what I would have said to Anke.

‘I know you’re not doing it for yourselves,’ I said. ‘I know you are doing it for Alex. It kills me to hear it. I thought he looked terrible when I met him. Maybe it is for the best. But I don’t know the medical background. I don’t know what his chances are. But if his life has become as pointless as you say, then I am behind you.’

‘He has no chance,’ Jürgen said, looking down at the table.

Jürgen began to explain the whole background to me. He did it like a doctor, without any emotion, without any hint of personal attachment. He weighed everything up and made it very clear; basically it was all down-hill for Alex. There was no hope for leukaemia cases like this. Then he began to explain his plan to spare him the pain of slow death.

‘It’s easy for me to talk about it, as a medical expert. It detaches me from the real tragedy,’ he said. ‘I am driven only by the urge to cut short his agony.’