You know that they will come. You think it’s appropriate to go back to the beginning, because everything started here on the shore, so it will end here too. Your head is dull and disconnected. Thinking doesn’t help right now, action is required.
The water glitters below you and reminds you of a dress. You were very small at the time and can’t remember where the party took place, just that there were unbelievably large quantities of cakes, and what that dress of your mother’s felt like. As if her skin had turned liquid. Look, what you’re doing, it is very clever. You’re thinking your way past your problem. Keep going like that. You consider surprising your father. Perhaps you’ll take that journey to Berlin, kidnap your mother and bring the family together. Your father would never forgive you. But it would be a heroic feat. You’ve felt heroic since abandoning the Range Rover. You’re also aware that there will probably be no Later as far as you’re concerned.
You shake your head. You know it’s nonsense. So much is unresolved. You’ve achieved so little in your life that it’s shaming. You haven’t climbed a mountain, and you haven’t swum in the ocean. You haven’t even solved your problem of falling in love. If you disappear right now, no trace will be left of you.
The footsteps behind you are different. They’re not the footsteps of strollers going somewhere. Not those footsteps. No. You don’t want to be afraid, and no one should be afraid. Fear is for sissies, Grandpa Max told you. Remember that. You never wanted to be one of those people who keep their heads down. Not then, not now.
Sweat trickles down the back of your neck, your clammy hands cling to the railing. You stare down at the water flowing by, as if the answers to all your questions were hidden in there. The footsteps fall silent behind you. The water flows and flows. The strollers are still walking, the day moves tirelessly toward evening and your instincts yell at you to get yourself in gear.
Run, get away, just do it.
You might be your father’s son, but at the same time you’re also his opposite—you aren’t going to run away and spend eight years licking your wounds.
Not you.
No, not me.
They lean against the railing, one on each side of you. They don’t touch you, you don’t look at them. You wait. You’re playing black, and that means being patient, because white makes the first move, it’s always been that way and it always will be. An eternity passes, then the first move is made and a voice on your left says, “We’re here.”