Why We Took the Car (6 page)

Tschick nodded. He nodded in a very understanding kind of way, and then it happened. He fell off his chair, right at Strahl's feet. Strahl flinched and Patrick and Julia jumped up. Tschick lay on the floor as if he were dead.

We all figured the Russian was capable of a lot of things, but passing out because he was so sensitive about getting an F on his math homework was not one of them. But as it turned out, it had nothing to do with any sensitivity on his part. He hadn't eaten anything all morning and had obviously drunk a lot of alcohol. In the school nurse's office he filled the sink with puke and then was sent home.

Still, it didn't help his reputation much. Nobody ever found out what the jokes were that he put in his notebook instead of the math problems, and I can't remember who ended up having the A. But what I do know and will probably never forget, is the look on Strahl's face when the Russian keeled over at his feet. Holy crap.

The annoying thing about the whole story, however, wasn't that Tschick fell out of his seat or that he got an F. The annoying thing was that two weeks later he got a B. And then an E after that. And then another B. Strahl was going bananas. He said things like, “Your studying paid off,” and “Don't let up now,” but even a blind person could see that his Bs had nothing to do with whether he was studying or not. All it had to do with was whether he was drunk or not.

This slowly dawned on the teachers as well, and Tschick was reprimanded and sent home a few times. There were discussions with him behind closed doors too, but the school didn't do much about it at first. Tschick had had a difficult time in life or whatever, and in the wake of recent education system scandals everyone wanted to prove that even a low-class, drunken Russian would be given a fair shake in the German school system. So there were no real consequences. And after a while, the situation got calmer. Nobody knew what had been bothering Tschick, but after a while he got by okay in most subjects. He chewed less and less peppermint gum in class. And he didn't create any disturbances. If it wasn't for his occasional bender, you might even have forgotten he was there.

CHAPTER 11

“
A man who has not seen Herr K. in a long time greeted him with the words, ‘You haven't changed at all.' ‘Oh,' said Herr K., turning pale
. Now that was an agreeably short story.”

Mr. Kaltwasser took off his jacket as he walked in and threw it over the back of his chair. Kaltwasser was our German teacher, and he always entered the class without saying hello. Or at least, you never heard a greeting because he started the lesson before he even walked in the door. I have to admit that I didn't really know what to make of Kaltwasser. Besides Wagenbach, Kaltwasser was the only other staff member who actually did a decent job of teaching. But while Wagenbach was an asshole — as a person — you couldn't really tell what Kaltwasser was like. I couldn't, anyway. He came in like a machine and just started talking. That went on for precisely forty-five minutes. And then Kaltwasser left again. You never had any idea what to think of him. I couldn't say what he was like as a person. I couldn't even say whether I thought he was nice or not. Everyone else seemed to think he was about as nice as a frozen turd, but I'm not so sure. I could imagine that, outside school, he might be okay in his own way.

“Agreeably short,” Kaltwasser repeated. “And I'm sure some of you thought you could keep an interpretation of the story just as brief. But of course it's not that simple. Or did someone here find it that simple? Who would like to begin? Volunteers? Come on, people. The back row seems to be catching my eye.”

We turned and followed Kaltwasser's glance to the back row. Tschick had his head on the desk and you couldn't tell whether he was looking at his book or sleeping. It was sixth period.

“May I be so bold as to disturb you, Mr. Tschichatschow?”

“What?” Tschick's head rose slowly. The ironic formality of Kaltwasser's question set off alarm bells.

“Are you there, Mr. Tschichatschow?”

“On the job.”

“Did you do your homework assignment?”

“Of course.”

“Would you be so kind as to read it to us?”

“Uh, okay.” Tschick looked quickly around, spotted his bag on the floor, plunked it down on his desk, and began looking for his notebook. As always, he hadn't unpacked his things at the beginning of the period. He kept pulling more and more notebooks out and seemed to be putting real effort into finding the right one.

“If you didn't do the assignment, just say so.”

“I have the assignment — where is it? Where is it?” He put a notebook down on his desk, shoved the rest back into his bag, and started paging through the one on his desk. “Here it is. Shall I read it?”

“I insist.”

“Right, I'll get started. The assignment was the
Stories of Herr K
. Here we go. Interpretation of the
Stories of Herr K
. The first question you have, of course, when you read Precht's stories . . .”

“Brecht,” said Kaltwasser. “Bertolt Brecht.”

“Aha.” Tschick fished a ballpoint pen out of his bag and scribbled in his notebook. He put the pen back in the bag.

“Interpretation of the
Stories of Herr K
. The first question you have, of course, is who this mysterious person behind the letter
K
might be. Without overstating things, it's possible to say that it is a man who avoids the spotlight. He hides behind a letter — the letter
K
. It is the eleventh letter of the alphabet. Why is he hiding? Because in actuality, Herr K. is a weapons dealer. Along with other murky figures (Herr L. and Herr F.), he founded a criminal organization that considers the Geneva Convention a joke. He's sold tanks and fighter jets and made billions, but nowadays avoids getting involved in the actual dirty work. Instead, he cruises the Mediterranean on his yacht, where the CIA came after him. So Herr K. fled to South America and had his face altered by the renowned plastic surgeon Dr. M. And now he is taken aback that someone has recognized him and thus turns pale. It goes without saying that both the man who has recognized him on the street and the renowned plastic surgeon will soon find themselves in very deep water wearing cement shoes. That's it.”

I looked at Tatiana. Her brow was furrowed and she had a pencil in her mouth. Then I looked at Kaltwasser. There was nothing to read in his face. Kaltwasser seemed to be tense, but more the kind of tension you show when you're interested in something. Nothing more. He didn't give Tschick a grade. Next Anja read the proper interpretation, the one that Google gives. Then there was a long discussion about whether Brecht was a communist. And then the period was over. All this happened shortly before summer break.

CHAPTER 12

Now I have to talk about Tatiana's birthday. Tatiana's birthday fell during summer break, and there was going to be a huge party. Tatiana had announced the party way in advance. Word was that she was going to celebrate her fourteenth birthday out in Werder, near Potsdam, just southwest of Berlin, and that everyone would be invited to stay overnight and everything. She asked all her best friends about their schedules because she wanted to make sure they'd be able to come. And since Natalie was leaving for the summer on the third day of break, the whole thing had to be pushed forward to the second day of summer break. Which is why all the details came out so early.

The house in Werder belonged to an uncle of Tatiana's and was right on a lake. The uncle was willing to basically hand it over to Tatiana, and there wouldn't be any other adults around except for him. The party was going to go all night and everyone was supposed to bring their sleeping bags.

Obviously it was a big topic of conversation in class, for weeks in advance. I kept thinking about the uncle. I'm not sure why I found him so fascinating, but I figured he must have been a pretty interesting guy — I mean, he was willing to hand over his house for a party, not to mention that he was related to Tatiana. Anyway, I was excited to meet him. I pictured myself talking to him in the living room, standing next to the fireplace, having a great conversation. Though I didn't even know if there was a fireplace in the house. I wasn't the only one excited about the party. Julia and Natalie had been thinking for ages about what they were going to give Tatiana — you could read that in the notes they passed to each other in class. That is, I could read it because I sat in a chair that was in the direct line between the two of them and had to pass the notes. I was electrified by their gift ideas, and couldn't think about anything except what I could give Tatiana for her birthday. Julia and Natalie had finally decided to give her the new Beyoncé CD. Natalie had to check something from a list Julia made that looked something like this:

• Beyoncé

• P!nk

• the necklace with the [illegible]

• make a list with more suggestions

Natalie put a check next to the top item. Everybody knew Tatiana loved Beyoncé. Which at first was a bit of a problem for me, because I always thought Beyoncé was shit. At least musically. She looked great, of course, and actually there was definitely some similarity between the way she looked and the way Tatiana looked. So after a while, I didn't think Beyoncé was so shit after all. On the contrary. I began to like Beyoncé. I even liked her music suddenly. No, wait, that's not right. I thought her music was
fantastic
. I bought her last two albums and listened to them nonstop while thinking of Tatiana and wondering what I was going to show up at her party with to give her for her birthday. There was no way I could give her a Beyoncé album. Julia and Natalie and probably thirty others had already come up with that idea — Tatiana was going to get thirty Beyoncé CDs and would have to exchange twenty-nine of them. I wanted to give her something special but couldn't think of anything. Until that note with the multiple choice question crossed my desk.

I went to the store and bought an expensive fashion magazine with Beyoncé's face on the cover and started sketching it. Using a ruler, I drew evenly spaced lines vertically and horizontally across the photo until the whole thing was divided up into little squares. Then I took out a huge piece of paper and penciled in a set of squares five times larger than those on the magazine cover. I learned this method from a book.
The Old Masters
or something like that. You can use the method to make a large picture based on a small one. You just recreate it square by square. You could do it on a copy machine too. But I wanted it to be a drawing. I guess I wanted people to be able to see that I put real effort into it. If you show a lot of effort, people can figure out the rest. I worked on the drawing every day for weeks. I worked really hard. With just a pencil. And I just got more and more worked up while working on the drawing, thinking about Tatiana and her party and the supercool uncle I was going to have such a witty conversation with next to the fireplace.

There may be a lot of things I'm no good at, but drawing isn't one of them. It's like the high jump. If drawing Beyoncé and doing the high jump were the most important disciplines in the world, I would be way ahead. Seriously. But unfortunately nobody gives a damn about the high jump, and as for drawing I was beginning to have my doubts. After four weeks of hard work, Beyoncé looked almost like a photo — a giant pencil Beyoncé with Tatiana's eyes — and I probably would have been the happiest person in the universe, if only I had then gotten an invitation to Tatiana's party. But I didn't get one.

It was the last day of school, and I was a little nervous because the classroom was bursting with thoughts of the party. Everyone was talking nonstop about Werder, but no invitations had been passed out. At least I hadn't seen any. Nobody knew exactly where the party house was, and Werder isn't so tiny that you couldn't miss it. I had already memorized the map of Werder. I figured Tatiana would tell everyone the address on the last day of school. But that's not what happened.

Instead, two rows in front of me, I spotted a small green card in Arndt's pencil case. It was during math. I saw Arndt show the little card to Kallenbach, who frowned. I could see there was a little map in the middle of the card. And then I looked around and realized everyone had these green cards. Almost everyone. Kallenbach didn't have one, given the way he was staring at Arndt's like an idiot. Though he always looked liked an idiot. He was an idiot. That's probably why he wasn't invited. Kallenbach bent down to look closely at the writing on the card — he was nearsighted but for whatever reason never wore his glasses. Then Arndt pulled it away from him and shoved it into his bag. As I figured out later, Kallenbach and I weren't the only ones who didn't get invitations. The Nazi didn't get one, Tschichatschow didn't get one, and neither did one or two others. Of course. Boring kids and losers weren't invited — Russians, Nazis, and idiots. I didn't have to think for long to figure out what Tatiana thought of me. Because I wasn't a Russian or a Nazi.

Otherwise pretty much the entire class was invited, along with people from some of the other classes. Probably a hundred people. But I wasn't invited.

I kept hoping right until the last period of the day and the distribution of our final report cards. I hoped that it was all a mistake and that when the final bell rang Tatiana would come over to me and say, “Psycho, man, I forgot to give you one of these! Here's the invite! I hope you can make it — I'd be terribly disappointed if you, of all people, weren't able to come. Have you thought about what you're giving me for a present? Of course, I can depend on you! Okay, see you there. I really hope you can make it! My God, I can't believe I almost forgot to give you one!” Then the bell rang and everyone went home. I packed up my things slowly, to give Tatiana every opportunity to realize her mistake.