Free Next World Novella by Matthias Politycki Page B

long ago, but the story had not point – apart perhaps from the fact that he had never felt so ashamed in his life, what was there to say? Soon after he had unselfishly paid off Dana’s debts, she had disappeared again anyway. This time for good. Paulus didn’t know why. No, she had left of her own accord, disappeared from one day to the next, that was her way, he had no means of keeping her.
    And this time Schepp had no means of getting her back. Yes, he kept ringing her at different times of the day and night, but he always got her voicemail, left good wishes ‘from all at La Pfiff’, at first even whistled a little goodbye tune. His sense of humour took a beating when, one day, the digital voice told him that the number he wanted was unavailable – Schepp understood at once, even if he didn’t get a word of the Polish message. He cursed the doctor who had advised him to have his eye operation. In his old half-blind condition he would never have found his way to La Pfiff, would never have seen Dana and therefore would not be missing her now, missing her in this pathetic way. If only he had stayed in the peaceful routine of his old life with his wonderful wife! Who now lay dead beside him, and had taken any resentment she might have had with her –
    Taken it with her?
    On the contrary. Schepp flew into a rage. Behind his back, she had maliciously compiled a reckoning, had left him all her resentment in black and white, and he couldn’t even contradict it. Oh no? He’d see if he couldn’t! Once again he was pacing back and forth in full flow, one last time, right hand keeping precise time in the air with his thoughts, index and little fingers, the rest of his hand a clenched fist. He was so angry with Doro (even though he had been angry with the ophthalmologist a moment earlier) that he could have knocked her down or done something else to hurt her.
    Schepp stamped, Schepp snorted, Schepp was a caged wild beast, he was going to bite the next hand that came close, watch out! When the doorbell rang he stood still for a moment, holding his breath, but it would only be the postman looking for the nearest idiot to deliver some neighbour’s package to. The hell with the postman. The doorbell rang a second time, rang in a demanding way and for rather too long. Schepp stood there trembling, gasping for breath, his glance roaming until it came to rest on Doro’s nose. The nose definitely looked sharper, he didn’t need convincing, her face was altogether thinner.
    Bonier.
    Uglier.
    Yes, he hissed, you’ve become uglier. Your own fault. It serves you right.
    From outside came the sound of a car driving away, from inside not even a buzzing, even the fly was hiding from him. A few breaths later he discovered it crawling out of Doro’s nose. ‘Filthy creature!’ he shouted, so loudly that it immediately settled on Doro’s cheek. The way it crawled out and the way it settled struck him as outrageous, incredibly nasty. All the bottled-up anger against Doro tried to discharge itself in determined gesticulating: ‘You just wait, you’ll be sorry!’
    The fly showed no alarm at his flapping. ‘Damn you, get out!’ If it stayed on Doro’s cheek he surely couldn’t – ? Then it all suddenly poured out of him. A desperate bitterness about his entire life: about the Emperor of China, whom as a little boy he had been so keen to meet and who had enticed him into this wretched life as a Sinologist; about his colleagues who had laughed at him for years; about his mother who had always blamed him for being a failure because he hadn’t become a professor, as if he hadn’t done far, far more in life than she had – she who hadn’t even been able to provide him with a proper father; about his parents-in-law, who thought that their daughter should have married someone better, and who had insisted on a prenuptial agreement with a strict division of property; about Doro, who never openly contradicted them to declare her belief in