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The young trainee finally seemed to notice his distress. But when she dared to call in Child Protective Services, Philipp’s mother used all the power she had accumulated in the meantime. She overwhelmed the trainee teacher with charges, libel suits, and disciplinary complaints until she had to leave her education due to burnout.
“Hard to believe.” Philipp snorts. “Even though… she made me pay bitterly for confiding in the trainee teacher. Nevertheless, this unexpected support of mine changed something in me. I had become aware that I wanted to live. To survive. And that’s why I made a plan…”
Breathlessly, I follow his description of how he had to wait for his piano teacher in the stairwell of the apartment building—after being set down by the security officer who hurried on.
Bored, he played on a knob sticking out of the wall and discovered an ideal hiding place in the distribution box of the underfloor heating system hidden behind a plastered panel.
For weeks and months, he hoarded there what he thought would be useful for his escape: the sleeping bag and the sleeping pad for the tent camp to which he had not been allowed to go. Hiking boots and warm clothes. In addition, he turned everything into money at school that he could steal inconspicuously from his parents’ villa. And on an exceptionally sunny day in November, he took advantage of the fact that his music teacher was late again. He packed his belongings and ran away.
27. To Be Nothing but Smoke andMizzle
Philipp
The morning with the first-half-of-my-life confession passed in record time. Way too fast, and in the middle of my report, I had to drop Celine off for her unpostponable appointments at the Chamber.
In the meantime, until I could pick her up again a while ago, I killed my whirlwind of thoughts by going for an aggravated run in the woods.
Now she’s refreshing herself at her apartment.
Later, we plan to watch the press conference together, which will be broadcast on North Rhine-Westphalian television. And I hope to get the rest of my past off my chest before then.
How strange it felt to get rid of all the fucking bullshit. Weird.I think if I had known that beforehand, I would have come up with the idea much sooner.On the other hand, who was I supposed to tell?
Who else but her would have listened to me without probing questions?
She knocks.
“Come in,” I call to her, arranging the remotes for the third time.
“So,” she says, sinking down on my sofa. “Here I am.” She looks up at me; I read uncertainty in her eyes. Then she raises her right hand with miniature bottles clamped between her fingers. “I thought… something to strengthen your nerves?”
“For after?” I allude to the press conference.
Celine shrugs. She sets three of the bottles on the coffee table, then unscrews the fourth, and raises it to her lips. “How was that?Na zdorov’ye?” She takes a sip, coughs, and offers me the vodka.
Are you kidding me?Although it is too clear in my mind how the joint consumption of Vodka Gorbachev ended last time, I overcome the last distance between us. Our fingers touch as I take the bottle.
The contact tingles like a carelessly touched pasture fence, and before I can think about it, I dump the alcohol in one go.
“Where did we leave off?” I ask her, sinking down on the sofa.
“How you were hoarding stuff in your secret stash in your piano teacher’s stairwell.” Celine pulls her feet up on the sofa and wraps her arms around her knees.
“Yeah, right,” I remember again. “For months I dragged everything there that seemed useful: sleeping bag, sleeping pad. Hiking boots, warm clothes. Banknotes I had taken from my… father’s wallet. And the ones I’d taken when I sold my stolen goods…”
Celine draws in the air with a sharp sound.
Cha, not particularly confidence-inspiring to learn that your business partner has a past as a thief.“Don’t worry,” I reassure myself even more than her, “the statute of limitations has long since run out on that.”
“And then…” Celine’s slightly parted lips quiver. “…you really ran away?”
I nod.Can she understand that there was no other choice?“On November 3.”I’ll never forget that day.“It was exceptionally sunny. As usual, security had dropped me off downstairs at the front door. The awkward strumming of a student came from my music teacher’s apartment, punctuated by her fluid playing. It was clear that she was going to go on forever with him again.It’s now or never!I encouraged myself. And then I dug my shit out of the stash. I changed my clothes and put on a cap. I shouldn’t be recognized at first sight. Finally, I shouldered my backpack. Then I left the apartment block as inconspicuous as possible.”
Her unspoken questions hover in the air:What happened next? Where did you end up? Have you seen your parents again?
To keep her voice from breaking the magic of the moment, I talk on. “Even though the money had seemed like so much: no sooner was I living on the street than it just slipped through my fingers…”
…on top of that, the newfriendsI had mademugged meone night. It must have been in the pre-Christmas season because the Christmas carols blaring from all sides annoyed me. In addition, professional beggar gangs drove us, homeless people, away from the good places on the main shopping streets. At some point, I was totally broke and run down. I hadn’t eaten for days except for a discarded hamburger that I had stolen from a raven.
