FÜNFZEHN
Wehmut
A few days later
"Hermann, wake up! For God's sake, wake up!"
Hermann sleepily opened his eyes and saw Markos standing next to him. "What is it?" he asked.
"Stuttgart's been hit. They've shut down German airspace and suspended all traffic in and out of the country."
"What do you mean, 'Stuttgart's been hit'? By what?" Markos said nothing and handed his friend a Kenyan newspaper clipping in English. It was dated from two days after Hermann and Markos's arrival in Kenya.
"Europe's worst fears of an impending terrorist attack were realized yesterday in the German city of Stuttgart, where a package bomb exploded at 3:15 pm," Hermann read, "killing seven and injuring twelve more. German authorities suspect the explosives were flown into the country on an international flight from the Middle East, but have not been able to pinpoint the exact origin. An affiliate of al-Qaeda has taken responsibility for the attack, which was carried out at Stuttgart's Olga Hospital. Among the victims of the explosion was Doctor Friedrich Ross, the hospital's chief of…No!"
Markos didn't quite know all the details of the attack, and asked Hermann to fill him in. "The bastards hit the hospital," he said with a quiver in his voice. "They got a letter bomb inside and blew it up in the main office."
"And?" Markos asked, knowing there was something more that Hermann wasn't telling him.
"And…it killed Herr Friedrich!" Hermann felt like he was going to vomit. Ever since his first day of medical school, Friedrich Ross had been like a second father to him. He had taught Hermann almost everything he knew, shared in his passion for classical music, and had been responsible for both arranging the trip to Kenya and getting Hermann accepted into the hospital's residency program…and now he was dead, a man who had dedicated his life to helping other people, killed by a terrorist's mail bomb.
Nala had heard Hermann's reaction to the news article from outside, and came running in asking what had happened. Hermann could only manage a few words, but Nala could tell what had happened, even though she didn't exactly know what a letter bomb was. She was going to try and say something, but before she could, Hermann rose unsteadily to his feet and made off as fast as he could for outside, trying to hide his face from everyone. Nala tried to follow him, but was met with the angriest glare she had ever seen in her life.
"Lass mich in Frieden!" Hermann kept walking toward the exit, not even bothering to translate "leave me alone" into English.
"Hermann, wait, at least talk to me in…"
"Nein! Hau ab! Lass mich in Frieden!" Markos put a hand on Nala's shoulder as Hermann stormed outside, nearly falling down twice as he did so.
"Warten. Wait. Don't…follow him," he told her in what English he could muster. "Not now." Both could still hear Hermann yelling things in German from outside.
Hermann didn't stop walking until he reached the same pond where he had gone swimming a few days ago. In his haste to get away, he had already fallen once, scraping his hands and knees, but he didn't care in the least. All he could think about was the hospital back home, the front desk blown to bits with Friedrich Ross's body lying in a heap nearby. He threw his cane off into a stand of reeds and glared up at the sky, speaking as if someone above could hear him.
"What's the deal here? What the hell did he do to deserve a death like that? Blown to bits by some terrorist's letter bomb…is that the best you can do for a man who might as well have been my father? You worthless, no-good son-of-a-bitch, why can't I get a break? First it was my great-grandfather in the Holocaust, and now Herr Friedrich's dead too?" He heard the echo bounce off a few distant rocks before dying away, and sat down heavily on a log, holding his head in his hands. That was the last time I got to see him, Hermann thought, thinking back to his last day in Germany before he had left for Africa. When I said 'goodbye' that afternoon, it wasn't supposed to be permanent!"
Hermann sat by the pond for hours, his mind a whirlwind, alternating between grief, confusion, and outright rage. He didn't want to go back home, and wished the airspace over Germany would remain closed forever, that the border blockades would never be lifted so that he wouldn't ever have to step inside the city limits of Stuttgart again. All the name 'Stuttgart' meant to him now was death…a hospital destroyed, an old friend killed. Hermann could find no good reason for Friedrich Ross's death, as there was none, and he knew there would be no way of getting back at the person ultimately responsible for killing his mentor. I'll never go back, he thought. I'll go anywhere…Munich, Berlin, Hannover, even someplace outside Germany…but not Stuttgart.
Even though Hermann didn't know it, Nala had been watching him almost the entire time, not interested in following Markos's instruction to leave Hermann completely alone. She decided that this was as good a time as any to try and get through to the man who had saved her son's life, and carefully stepped out from behind a thicket of grass. "Bist Du…was willst?" Hermann snapped as soon as he saw her. He wasn't trying to sound the way he did, but he couldn't help himself; the morning's news had turned him into someone even he didn't recognize.
"Please, Hermann, stop speaking in German. I can't do anything for you if I can't understand you."
"And what would you do? There's nothing anyone can do about anything now, you can't reverse death."
"He was a good friend to you?"
"Friedrich Johann Ross…he wasn't just a good friend. He was like a father to me. Everything that I've become is because of his efforts; everything that I know, he taught me from my first days in Stuttgart." Hermann spat out the last word as if it were poisonous; even the sound of that city's name was enough to make him feel ill. "I'm never going back there," he added, "not after what just happened. I can't stand to see it again."
"Hermann, staying away won't change what's happened. Stuttgart is still your home; I've heard you talk about how much you—"
"Nothing will change what's happened! He's dead, OK? If we could bring the dead back to life, I wouldn't have a job, for starters. And as far as I'm concerned, I've left that city for good. "
Nala let the ensuing silence linger for a few minutes, deciding to stay well away from the ground she had already covered. "I'm sorry for what's happened," she said sympathetically. "I know I won't be able to bring Friedrich back, but I do know what it's like to lose a good friend. I'm sure…he would be very proud of you, if he could see all you've done here."
"Proud of me for what? I'm no different than any other person with a medical degree and a lab coat. Doctor Ross was ten times the man I'll ever be, professionally or otherwise."
"Maybe not, but you saved my Kopa's life when he was on the brink of death, not anyone else. If I'm not mistaken, it was Friedrich who arranged this trip for you, right?" Hermann nodded his head. "Then more than one of us owes him a debt too great to be repaid. It might not have been intentional, but his sending you here was the reason Kopa is alive today. Hermann…do you have any idea how much Kopa looks up to you? All my son talks about these days is leaning to speak your language, about how much he wants to see Stuttgart and learn more of those little songs you taught him when he was afraid and in so much pain."
"Lieder… they're called Lieder," Hermann said with a faint grin.
"Whatever you call them, if you hadn't taught those songs to Kopa, I'm not sure he would have been able to get through everything the way he has. And even though he's on the road to bouncing back, he's still far from back to normal; it's only been a week or so since the attack. Kopa still needs you around to take care of him, songs and all, and so do I. We all do. If everything you do reflects on what Doctor Ross taught you, as you've already said it does, you can't turn and run now."
There was a pause of a few seconds, after which Nala added, "He must have been an incredible person, to have someone like you to his credit. He must have taught you very well." Hermann smiled a weak smile. "Let's go home," Nala said. "They'll want to know what's happened."
Shortly thereafter
Hermann stood next to Markos, addressing the entire pride. "For all those who died in Germany as a result of this attack, we pledge to carry on—" Hermann turned and looked over at Kopa, "—in their names, and to do as they would have done. The city of Stuttgart, which will surely recover from this unprovoked attack of terror, will not be the same without them."
Hermann walked over to where he had hung the German flag over the entrance to the cave, and pulled it down. He then tied it to a long stake, which he stuck in the ground where everyone could see it. He took the newspaper clipping from out of his pocket and began to read off the names of the dead.
"Richard König. Elise Wagner. Johann Bauer. Andreas Hahn. Wilhelm Schneider. Marie Ackermann…"
He paused for a few seconds, a lone tear streaking down his cheek, before reading the last name.
"And Friedrich Ross. In their honor, and in support of our countrymen and fellow citizens, we dedicate and fly this flag here from now on." Markos spoke a few lines of Heine, and then he and Hermann walked silently back inside. Kopa and Vitani followed them, but most simply stood where they were, watching the red, yellow and black flag blowing in the breeze.
That night
Hermann was back at the hospital, wearing a white coat with "H.W. Sterlitz" neatly embroidered in italics above the breast pocket. He saw the mailman walk through the main door and hand off a pile of letters and a small brown package to the receptionist, who then turned around and carried everything over to the office. Hermann tried to stop her from taking the mail, but his legs turned to rubber, unable to carry him forward even one step. "It's a bomb!" he screamed out, but nobody could hear him, or even see that he was there. As Friedrich Ross rounded a corner with a chart in his hand, he looked over at the paper-wrapped box which was now sitting on the table and picked it up.
"Herr Friedrich, run! It's a bomb!"
A deafening explosion ripped through the room, blowing him out a window and sending him falling ten stories toward the ground below.
Hermann woke up in a cold sweat before he hit the pavement, gasping as if he were being choked in his sleep. He threw off the covers, sat up and frantically looked around, but there was no hospital, no charts, no doctors, no exploding letter bombs…just himself, Markos, and a bunch of sleeping lions. Nala, Kopa and Vitani were curled up in a corner, the latter two tucked securely inside the sleeping bag; Hermann on the other hand, couldn't help feeling cold and alone as he listened to the rain coming down outside, occasionally broken by a distant thunderclap or flash of lightning. He lay back down and stared at the ceiling, but heard another voice speak to him before he could think of anything.
"I guess I'm not the only one who can't sleep tonight." Hermann recognized the voice as belonging to Markos.
"I just can't stop thinking about what happened," Hermann said without looking at his friend. "Did you check on Kopa, by the way?"
"He's fine, Hermann. I've never seen anyone sleep as well as he does, especially when you're the one who tucks him in for the night. You know, I've been thinking—"
"Don't hurt yourself."
"Very funny. Maybe Friedrich sent us here because he knew that somehow, somewhere, we'd be needed. Maybe he knew that someone like Kopa would need someone like you to take care of him."
"Herr Friedrich sent us here because we were both due for a vacation, for that reason and nothing more," Hermann said matter-of-factly, unable to speak his dead mentor's name without adding the honorific before it. "But I will say that this much is for certain: when he bought us those airline tickets, he saved our lives. Our shifts lined up—we would have been in that same exact room when the bomb went off—and that's what I can't get out of my mind…that we're supposed to be dead."
Markos shook his head. "No, Sterlitz, we're not. At least, you're not. Look over there, what do you see?"
"A brave little lion cub named Kopa, wearing a German football jersey."
"OK, fair enough, but I see a brave little lion cub named Kopa that you saved, not just any old lion cub running around the plains out here. Let me tell you something…none of what you've done for him, not even the smallest fraction, could have happened if you were truly supposed to die that day in Stuttgart. Every breath that Kopa takes, everything he sees, every moment of happiness that he has and will have for the rest of his life is now thanks to you, because you were here. Alive. Because you weren't in that room when the bomb exploded. You're not 'supposed to be dead', Hermann; you're supposed to be right where you are."
Hermann thought for a moment. "Then you're not supposed to be dead either, seeing as there's no way I could have done any of this without your help. Even if you can't sing the alphabet and stay on key."
"That's OK, you walk like an eighty-year-old man, so we balance out well enough. Let's try and get back to sleep; there's no sense in staying up all night. Friedrich wouldn't want us agonizing over him anyways."
"Right, good night then. Oh, Markos?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks."
Hermann heard his friend walk back over to his side of the cave. He lay down once again, looking up at the rocks above him. The sound of snoring a few minutes later told him that Markos had fallen asleep, and the lack of any other noise meant that their conversation had luckily not disturbed anyone else.
I owe you everything, Herr Friedrich. Kopa's life, my life, Markos's life…and even that isn't the half of it. If there were some way to repay you only for that much, I would still be in your debt without possibility of paying it all back. Maybe one day I'll be the kind of man you were; until then, I'll just have to make do with aspiring to be like you. I didn't want our last conversation to be our last ever, but I suppose I must accept the way things are as the way things are. I will miss you terribly, along with everyone else, and promise to never forget who you were and what you did for all of us. Farewell, Lebe wohl, mein Herr. And thank you.