if you’d only
flourished it with feeling.
‘Feeling, wow. I axed feelings.’
Inceman.
Behind me.
The chairoplane spins faster.
Feelings, he says,
he says it again
and again
and again
yes
there used to be loads
they were big
they were strong
I was one of those heroes
who make it in their own strength
started with nothing
continued with plenty
hotel cartagena
all self-built
but then I met you
you fucked up my life
oh yeah
and you did it
in style
grabbed me first in the belly
with one single glance
then blasted whole arms off
OK not just you
but you were part of it
I won’t get my arm back
or my strength either
but when you sleep with me
I get an idea
of how things once were
how things could have been
all that would have been possible
sleep with me
but just don’t claim later
that I begged you to.
‘Everything is still possible.’
On the other side of the carousel, opposite us, Rocco flies into a seat.
He smiles.
you can start over, he says,
every new day
that’s what I do
ever since I remember
every day
live a new life
that’s the simplest thing
if you never had one
never had a chance
cos you’re scum
with a vanished violinist
for a father
and a whore
for a mother
they all grew up in the backyards
but also got raised
on the stone
stop all your snivelling
none of you know
what underground
really means
‘You’re such a smart guy, aren’t you? You really do think you know it all.’
Carla.
Next to Rocco.
but you know, she says,
things also go wrong
if you didn’t
grow up in the gutter
and then
when it’s gone wrong
when it’s happened to you
when something
has taken you apart
or someone
alone
as a pair
as a three
as a four
they take you apart
just because you were there
in the neighbourhood
and part of you
is sealed off from then on
now no one gets close
not even yourself
the rest least of all
and for that you need space
your strike force of one
your strike force of solitude
which keeps on expanding
within you
to protect that one part
that’s broken
lest it breaks you to pieces
and carries what’s left of you
to its dark cave
all this can just happen to you
but it’s all news to you
cos it never happened to you
it happens to women
but d’you know something
I can still love you
you man.
‘Speaking of love.’
Calabretta’s jumped up.
I didn’t even see him jump.
I’d have loved to have seen him jump.
what was all that shit, he says,
with Betty
with Carla (sorry Rocco)
with every single girl
in the playground
in the smokers’ corner
at the harbour
I could bandy
names around
through the whole
frigging
alphabet
from A to Z
from Z to A
talking of A
Anne
come here a second.
Anne Stanislawski walks through the room.
And walks through the room.
And walks through the room.
She stands next to the chairoplane, waits till Calabretta’s almost beside her, grabs the chair in front of him, swings and pulls herself up, sits down, but backwards.
She sits opposite Calabretta, like a cowboy on his horse.
‘Yes? What’s up?’
‘Hey,’ says Brückner as he jumps up.
He stands on one of the chairs flying in a circle in front of me.
Hey.
Hey ho.
Pirate film.
hang on, wait a mo, he says,
that was my ticket actually
I wanted to be there
by Anne
with Anne
with everything
please can we maybe
talk it over again.
‘Stop, brother,’ says Schulle as he jumps onto the same seat.
They hang there like two shot sailors in the rigging.
that was not YOUR ticket, he says,
that was MY ticket
the whole of last year
but you lot just didn’t
even notice
friends
and, Anne, tell us
the score.
Anne shakes her head and lets her legs dangle.
lads, she says,
just who do you think
Simone Buchholz
you are
I rate you
I like you
but I’m not even
into men.
‘All of this is going far too fast for me.’
Faller.
‘Can we turn this more slowly for a bit?’
He’s just standing there looking at us.
There’s something on him.
His suit, his shirt, his face, everything’s stained.
They’re our stains.
It’s our worry, our lives, our shit.
It’s what we’ve been throwing around.
All the time.
For years.
Number One moves to stand beside him.
He raises his hand
and the carousel
slows
it’s suddenly
like in a playground
those kiddies’ roundabouts
and I feel so hot
‘Thanks.’
Faller takes the first free chair that comes past him.
There’s a moment of quiet after he’s climbed up.
But then.
sixty-five, he says,
I’ve got old
it took time
sometimes I wonder
when it’ll stop taking time
two women have died
and I had a hand
in it
I slugged out
my battles
with men
on women’s backs
p’raps you lot can imagine
what that means for a life
nothing good
you know in retrospect
so let’s go
give it here
I’m happy to bear it
it’s my cross
it’s no burden
I have so much already
that’s why I’m here
it keeps me alive
it holds me tight
it means that I can
support you all
and help carry
your pain
and if you want to be rid of it
you just need
to get rid of me
I’ll take it all with me
won’t make it right
but a bit lighter
perhaps
and hopefully
Faller.
What.
My pulse is going totally nuts, it’s beating against my throat from the inside, against my eyes, against my forehead.
Now everyone else is getting up from their places too and coming to this shit-spinner that we are.
They line up around the chairoplane, they stand in a circle.
They look at us and they look at each other.
Then
so many voices
I can’t have children BADA-BOOM my cancer’s back BADA-BOOM I’m leaving my family BADA-BOOM we’ve been friends as long as I can remember but I’ve known that I love you since I was fourteen, I realised it in the changing room after that eighth-division match, when you walked past me naked into the shower, but I can’t tell you because you’re homophobic BADA-BOOM dude, you’re gay, are you nuts, you can’t just be gay just like that, by the way I lost my job three days ago BADA-BOOM why did my wife leave earlier, why didn’t she stay with me, maybe because there’s no love there anymore BADA-BOOM maybe that’s because you beat her, I know you do because she’s sleeping with me BADA-BOOM what, she’s sleeping with me too, bloody hell BADA-BOOM my alcohol problem is a way bigger deal than you can imagine, but I have to drink it all to forget what my father did to me when I was a little boy, and my mother just stood by
BADA-BOOM
BADA-BOOM
BADA-BOOM
The hostage-takers have lined up by the window. A single row along the whole front. They’re holding their guns in their hands, they’ve lowered their guns. They’re looking at us but I think they’d rather look out of the window. If only so as not to have to see Konrad Hoogsmart who, incidentally, seems smaller to me than he did a couple of minutes ago.
If it’s possible that fake humans shrink in the presence of humanity then I’d say he’s shrinking right now.
The hostage-takers speak as a team, they sound like a chorus.
probably, they say,
you don’t even know
how many enemies you have
Conny
or do you
have a guess
c’mon
we’ll help you
it’s
the whole damn Kiez
that hates you
the eleven of us
are only
the spearhead of rage
you ratted on
so many
you shat on
so many
and you don’t even know
about most of the folks
you’ve got
on your conscience
you didn’t even notice
when their lives exploded
after their dealings with you
the main thing is
that you’re doing fine
Conny
huh?
you’ve got a bank
you’ve got a hotel
but someone
who’ll weep for you
no
you haven’t got that
the people out there
you consider your friends
they’re laughing like drains
they’re pleased
to see you
puking up your soul
Hoogsmart.
‘Nobody ever got rich from being a good man.’
Now he’s found some guts, Hoogsmart has.
I’m genuinely surprised that he dares to say anything, to say that, because now, at this moment, the hostage-takers’ guns are all pointed at him. I’m less surprised that he’s only about five-foot tall, that his shrinkage continues to progress.
So.
People.
Quick break, please.
We need to take a quick break.
I’ve got a high fever here.
And a lucid moment at the same time.
And I’m up to my neck in them both.
Does anyone have any tablets on them by any chance?
‘Tablets,’ I say, ‘I need tablets. Something for a temperature. Please.’
In a pinch, I’d take ash raining from heaven.
Or some other cold thing.
OK.
Whoever it was that heard me.
Carousel moves on.
One of the kidnappers takes a step forward. He’s about the same age as Number One and Hoogsmart, he’s fairly tall, has stature, looks like he’s got strength, and like he’s always had strength. Like all the kidnappers, he’s wearing a dark suit, his brown-grey hair is somewhat thinner and uncompromisingly swept back. He still has his gun lowered, but his eyes are loaded.
you were fairly strong, you know, he says,
for your age
Simone Buchholz
I was too
but then there were others
who weren’t so much
this boy in your class
who was just small
he was nice
and polite
and reliable
a good friend
never hurt a soul
there was no bloody reason
to torture him
but every break-time you
neatly dismembered him
behind the gym
first emotionally: your mum
is a stupid
stinking cow
then psychologically: they all hate you
at the end of break
you got physical
as you called it
you really talked that way
when we were ten
went for the face
for the kidneys
for the balls
but with your feet
I tried
to defend the kid
barged in every time
because I couldn’t bear
what you did
you and your three
so-called bodyguards
I called you wankers
got in front of the kid
fists raised
but there were four of you
and so I always
got slapped in the gob
and everywhere else
but I hung on in there
tried my best
to protect him
because I despised you
all so much
and then came the day
when I
had to sit with the head
with you and your folks
it took me some time
till I grasped
why I was the one
to leave
be expelled and then go
to a school
for problem children
many years later
I got it
when I saw your dad
and the head
leave the golf course together
back-slapping
like old friends
but by then I’d long turned
to crime
The hostage-taker takes a step back again, he almost vanishes into the row of his colleagues, as if they’d swallowed him up. As if he’d always been part of them.
I feel so hot I could swear my hands are about to melt the chains I’m holding on by.
But perhaps they’re far too shaky to do that, cos I’m cold too.
The suit, Hoogsmart’s companion, hasn’t yet said a word, I don’t think. Now he stands up and walks a few yards towards the puke situation, but not close enough that it could be taken for support even, let alone friendship.
‘True, Conny,’ he says, ‘nobody gets rich because he’s a good man. But you don’t actually have to be a massive arsehole to win either. It’s usually enough to be a medium-sized arsehole
.’
‘Like you are, Peer?’
Huh.
Hoogsmart seems to be really going for it.
‘You screwed my daughter, Conny.’
Hoogsmart laughs a laugh that was presumably born at the rubbish dump, but right down at the bottom. Down there where it stinks the worst.
‘Christ, man, she’s only seventeen.’
‘I didn’t force her to go to bed with me.’
That filthy laugh again.
And I don’t like to say it, but he’s growing bigger again.
‘You chickenshit, you didn’t try to stop me either, that evening at your place.’
The man he called Peer stands in the room with hanging shoulders while the chairoplane spins and spins and spins.
‘Because you’re dependent on me,’ says Hoogsmart, ‘because you were stupid enough to sign my contracts, because you’re a nobody without me, a nothing, so come on now, Peer, get me out of here. Or you’re out. If I want, you lose everything. Everything, do you hear? Are you listening to me, Peer? If you don’t get me out of here, you might as well let these guys shoot you.’
‘No,’ says Peer.
He looks at Hoogsmart one last time, then he walks back to his original table in the corner of the room, takes a chair, turns it towards the window and sits on it.
‘Peer.’
Hoogsmart really thinks he can do this, but everyone else is like: what the hell? Either way, there’s no way this Peer is going to pick a fight with twelve heavily armed men. Even if his business partner hadn’t just humiliated him in front of the entire team and the rolling camera.
I look at Hoogsmart as I swing past him and say ‘huh?’ and then I casually mention that I really could do with some painkillers quite urgently.
The barwoman is jogging effortlessly along beside me. She reaches into her trouser pocket, pulls something out and presses it into my hand.
It’s the rest of a blister pack.
Two ibuprofens left.
‘Here,’ she says, ‘you’d better take both of them.’
She hands a small bottle of water to me too, then she joins the hostage-takers at the window. The technician, in turn, vacates his place at the bar, which he hasn’t left for hours, walks over to the barwoman and takes her hand.
And now everyone can see it.
They don’t just know each other, they know each other pretty well.
They even look similar, when you see them standing motionless like that, side by side.
It’s not conspicuous, but it’s there. The eyes, the nose, the mouth. A certain way of just standing there, and that smart coolness.
Yes.
Of course.
They’re siblings.
Hoogsmart seems to notice something too.
‘You look like,’ he pauses and looks more closely at the barwoman, ‘you look like Sandrine.’