Chapter 3

Erik emerged from the side door of the butcher shop with its shutters tightly closed, holding a thick white paper bag in his hand.

“Good timing, the shopkeeper was still inside doing the accounts,” he said to Felix. “I bought half a kilo of minced pork. We can make lasagna tonight.”

“I hope when you say ‘we,’ it’s just a friendly way of speaking and actually means you, not including me,” Felix said slowly. “I can cover the cost of the ingredients, but I’m afraid… I’m not very good at cooking.”

“Of course, I’ll be the one cooking,” Erik replied.

He got back into the car and restarted the engine. The car soon left the town center and headed toward the southwestern district. As dusk fell, the distant hills and nearby fields were swallowed by a gray-blue shadow. In the not-yet-completely-dark sky, a full moon emerged from behind the clouds, casting a faint glow.

“Are you okay?” Felix asked. “Are you sure you don’t need to stop by the doctor’s before we go home?”

Erik shook his head. The pain in his ribs and abdomen had mostly subsided now (provided he didn’t press hard on the areas where he’d been punched). The only thing still bothering him was the spot in his mouth he’d bitten: he had to keep resisting the urge to lick the slightly stinging wound.

“I feel fine for now,” he said casually. “But if I suddenly pass out later, I authorize you to call an ambulance for me.”

“In exchange, you have to promise not to report that I was the one who injured you.”

There was a hint of teasing laughter in Felix’s voice. Erik suddenly had the urge to turn and look at the smile on his face but quickly dismissed the idea. That would be too strange, he thought. Besides, it was too dark in the car to see clearly.

“Of course not,” he said. “I wouldn’t admit to something so embarrassing.” Being knocked to the ground by a boy half his size.

“I don’t think it’s embarrassing at all: you were being kind, trying to save a runaway delinquent with suicidal tendencies.”

There it was again. Words that were clearly sarcastic, but in that soft accent, they sounded more like a muttered complaint, or even a coquettish whine. Erik felt his ears burning.

“Thank you for the compliment,” he said, trying to make the irony in his tone sound natural.

“And thank you—for inviting me to stay at your place.”

“You’re welcome, it’s no trouble,” Erik replied. “I couldn’t let a wandering child have nowhere to sleep.”

“I wish I really were a child,” Felix said. “Then, when my workaholic boss comes to drag me back to work, I could just tell him to fuck off.”

Erik didn’t respond. The way Felix talked about his work always felt strangely incongruent with his appearance. If Erik hadn’t already seen Felix’s ID, he would have found it hard to believe that Felix was twenty-three, the same age as him.

He looks much younger, Erik thought to himself. And… much more fragile.

He was startled by the word that suddenly popped into his mind. Fragile?

Why would he use that word to describe Felix? He wasn’t weak at all. Though slim, he looked quite healthy, and he was agile and strong.

Maybe it was his overly large green eyes and the line of his upper lip that made people unconsciously imagine things that weren’t part of everyday life—like how he might be fragile, or in need of protection—specifically, protection from Erik.

Erik felt his ears burning again and shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He really didn’t understand what was going on. He wasn’t the imaginative type at all. But this afternoon, his mind seemed to be bursting with absurd thoughts like popcorn from a machine: forest nymphs, runaway children, suicidal figures on cliffs, and now a fragile, needy object of protection. For a twenty-three-year-old man, these weren’t exactly the best associations, and they were utterly ridiculous, considering he was the one who had been beaten.

The reality was that Felix was sitting next to him, chatting casually. Since getting into the car, he seemed to have shed the reserved attitude they’d had when they first met, and their conversation had become friendly and natural. In this short time, Erik had learned that Felix was born and raised in Kehl,* his father was German, his mother was French, he had studied communications technology at a vocational college in Lyon for a few years, graduated this spring, returned to his hometown, and now worked at an internet company in Strasbourg. These facts explained Felix’s slight French accent and his somewhat out-of-place (and, in Erik’s eyes, slightly odd) appearance, but they didn’t provide any basis for Erik’s strange imaginings. In fact, Felix was just one of the millions of tourists who flocked to the Swabian Alps each year for sightseeing or outdoor activities—an outsider, even a foreigner, to this mountain town, despite his German ID and half-German heritage.

“We’re here, this is it.”

The backyard gate didn’t open automatically; perhaps the remote control’s battery was dead. Erik had to get out of the car to open the gate manually, then drive into the courtyard. The sensor light in front of the house flickered on.

From beside him came a soft inhale and a muttered whisper.

“O merde.”

Erik turned his head.

Felix was leaning against the car door, staring at the building in front of him with a look of astonishment. “…This is your house?”

“I live here,” Erik said.

Felix muttered something under his breath and rubbed the corner of his eye with his finger. Then, as if he’d recovered, he made an exaggerated face at Erik. “Erik, are you the only son of a millionaire heir, living in such a massive penthouse mansion?”

“Of course not!” Erik exclaimed, feeling a bit annoyed.

“This isn’t a mansion at all. Take a closer look: this is a climbing gym—a very small one. This is the back door; the main entrance is on the other side facing the street. It just looks a bit taller, but in terms of climbing facilities, it’s the smallest standard.

“And I’m not the heir to any millionaire. I…”

He suddenly stopped. After a pause of a second or two, Erik said, “I’m just a working coach. This gym isn’t mine.” His voice had returned to calm.

“Got it,” Felix said. “So you live where you work?”

“Yes.”

He walked up the steps, took out his keys, and opened a glass door.

“Come in.”

Felix stood still.

“Are you sure… I can really stay here tonight?” he asked hesitantly. “I mean, I don’t want to get you fired or anything.”

“I’m sure,” Erik said. “There’s no one else here. We’ve stopped operating for now.—It’s just me.”

He tapped a piece of paper taped to the other door. Felix took a couple of steps closer and saw the two lines written in bold marker: “We are temporarily closed and will reopen soon. (Wir sind geschlossen um die Zeit und machen bald wieder auf.)” The handwriting was crooked, with each letter large and spaced out.

Erik stepped inside and turned on the hallway light. Felix followed.

“That’s the practice hall over there. Do you want to take a look?”

Felix nodded and followed Erik to the end of the hallway.

The practice hall was about twelve or thirteen meters high. The wall next to the floor-to-ceiling windows was covered with photos of the Huber brothers, Alexander Megos, and Olympic posters.** The cold fluorescent lights illuminated three walls of varying specifications and the large polyhedral climbing pillar in the center of the room, all marked with routes in different colors. The equipment looked somewhat aged, with small scars covering the walls and floor, and the bolts had faded in color, but there were no missing or broken parts. Everything was spotlessly clean.

“It doesn’t look too bad,” Felix said. “Why did you stop operating?”

“The owner passed away,” Erik said shortly.

He flicked off the fluorescent light.

Next to the practice hall were the changing rooms and a small self-service coffee bar. They walked up the stairs one after the other, their footsteps echoing faintly in the empty corridor. At the top of the stairs was a white wooden door. Erik took out his keys and unlocked it.

Behind the door was an apartment living room connected to an open kitchen. In the center of the living room was a large sofa, neatly covered with a red velvet throw, and opposite it was a tiled fireplace. Like the climbing gym downstairs, the furniture in this room also looked quite old, even more so, but everything was exceptionally tidy. In the connected kitchen, a beechwood countertop held a shiny glass kettle, a coffee machine, and a toaster. On the windowsill, a row of colorful pots were densely planted with herbs: basil, thyme, cilantro, and parsley.

“There are two bedrooms here. The one on the left is mine,” Erik said. “If you don’t mind, you can take the one across from it. We also have single rooms for temporary stays for trainees, but they’re all in the basement, and there’s no heating there right now.”

“Of course, I’d rather stay here,” Felix said.

He took off his shoes and walked toward the sofa but immediately straightened up. “Sorry, I’m too dirty,” he said, looking down at his mud-splattered pants and the spotless floor.

“Can you find some old clothes for me to wear?”