Will, стр. 81
‘And?’ Meanbeard asks while he too removes his coat and rolls up his sleeves.
‘It’s taking too long for my taste,’ Omer whispers.
The professor starts sobbing and swears quietly, ‘Bastards, dirty bastards…’ The words come bubbling out. Snot is running from his nose. His face is completely swollen. One of his arms looks broken. His hands are curled like talons. Some of his fingers no longer have nails. The rest of his body is a patchwork quilt of bruises, deep wounds, clotted blood and splashes of brown.
Omer pours himself another and looks at us questioningly. No, I don’t feel like a cognac. Neither does Meanbeard. Omer shrugs and knocks his back in one go. Four-eyed Joris takes a sip of his too.
The professor’s sobbing grows louder. ‘It’s enough!’ he shouts suddenly. ‘It’s enough, you fucking bastards!’
‘Now he’s getting a big mouth,’ Omer grins. ‘Listen to him bleat…’
Meanbeard goes up close to the professor. ‘You’ll have to excuse me, you piece of shit, I wasn’t able to persevere with my studies like you. So I’m a bit slow on the uptake when an intellectual like yourself chooses to communicate that he’s sick to death of something. I don’t get what he’s saying, you see. Then I try to work out what exactly “it’s enough” might mean.’
Omer goes over to Meanbeard’s side, though not without giving Joris and me a wink first, as if we’re in for a treat, the biggest joke ever. ‘We’re actually the ones who get to decide what’s enough and what’s not. I know this is difficult for an elite chap like you, one who’s spent his entire life looking down on people like us. Yes, spit it out, feel free. Aren’t we traitors in your eyes, you Jew-lover? People you’re allowed to shoot in the back and leave to bleed to death on their own doorstep? Am I lying, maybe? But now, unfortunately, you with all your so-called intellectual disdain are a complete nothing.’ Omer gives the professor a tremendous punch in the stomach. The sobbing stops for a moment. Everything stops for a moment. For a moment I think, when will it be him? When will the lawyer get his?
‘Joris! Water!’
Four-eyes reaches for a bucket.
‘Out of the way…’ he mutters. Omer and Meanbeard both take a step to one side. Joris throws the water over the professor as hard as he can. He comes to with a start, raises his head and looks at me; I’m standing back a little but still in plain view. The professor keeps staring at me, opens his mouth, vomits blood and suddenly seems to smile. It’s a mad sight that makes my heart beat so loud I’m afraid everyone will hear it.
‘Robert,’ the professor exclaims. ‘Robert and Vincent, those two together, those two from the p— from the p— from the police…’ He shakes his head and vomits up more blood.
I try to stand straight, but the sound of the stupid false names Lode gave almost makes me faint. Immediately the professor’s head droops again.
‘Robert who?! Vincent who?!’ Omer and Meanbeard shout at the same time, pounding him with their fists. The professor has stopped groaning and sobbing, and is nothing but a lifeless punching bag.
‘Joris!’
Four-eyes holds the bucket under the tap, fills it with water and says again, as calmly as last time, ‘Out of the way.’
Again the bucket of water splashes over the professor. Again he comes to with a start. Again his gaze seeks me out where I’m standing nailed to the spot.
He splutters out bubbles of blood first, then nods, half in my direction, ‘He’s jus—’
I see myself charging towards him in a complete panic, shoving Omer and Meanbeard out of the way. ‘Who is Robert?! Who is Vincent?!’ I hear myself bellow while kneeing him in the balls. The professor blacks out, deflating like a balloon.
‘Idiot…’ Meanbeard sneers.
‘Joris!’
Another bucket of water in that battered face.
Nothing.
He hangs there without a peep.
Omer sighs. ‘I think we need to fetch the doctor. Joris?’
‘I’m on my way…’ Joris sighs, and snaps at me that I’m an ‘amateur’.
It’s now 2 p.m. and pouring with rain.
‘Fuck…’ says Lode for the third time. ‘How do you know?’
‘You know how I know.’
‘Is that swine with the goatee involved?’
I nod.
‘So we’re in deep shit.’
‘If I’m not mistaken that bungler you call a professor doesn’t know our names, or does he?’
Lode shakes his head vacantly. Meanwhile I see him thinking about a dozen other things. ‘He doesn’t know any names, but… we did once have a meeting where we’ve stashed Lizke. God that was stupid of me. That’s where we took the photo for his identity card.’
‘And now?’
‘The Jew has to go. Today.’
Lizke is shocked and flinches away from us while raising his arms protectively in front of his face. The chair he’s sitting on falls back; the lamp over the table starts to swing. Immediately he grabs a hammer that he probably found lying around here and has kept close as his only weapon ever since. We can no longer help him and he’s sensed it at once. The hammer in his hand states clearly that we’re now like all the rest.
‘Keine panic!’ Lode says with all the calm he can muster.
Lizke wavers before sitting down again and apologizing while he wipes the sweat from his forehead. He puts the hammer down and listens to what we expect of him.
‘Nein. Nein!’
I look at Lode and sigh. After all, what are we asking of him? We’re proposing that he set out without any papers to make his way to an address in a city he hardly knows. We’re trying to fob him off with a lottery ticket instead of a feasible escape plan. And he knows it.
‘Ich gehe nicht. I stay here.’
‘Hier bleiben, kaputt. We kaputt too. Alles fucked, Herr Lizke! Keine chance.’
I have to look away from Lode, otherwise