the beginning there had been promises, vague ones at that, but promises all the same; Dad and Tobias would move in with Albert and his bride Cordula, live in their great big house, a wedding gift from Cordi’s father. The renovated mansion on Hüschebrink twenty-one boasted more bedrooms than Albert and Cordula could ever fill, even if they became fruitful and multiplied beyond their wildest dreams.
As it turned out, however, they only had one kid and Albert quietly reneged on his promise. Tobias never doubted that Cordula was behind it all, was really wearing the pants in his brother’s marriage. She had put her foot down, said ‘no way’ whenever Albert gently broached the subject of Gerhardt and Tobi moving in. She was more than happy to take care of the medical bills for her father-in-law; money was not the issue. As far as Cordula was concerned, marrying below her elevated social strata was one thing, but sharing her house with a bitter old man and her husband’s less likeable look-alike – well, that would have spoiled the happy-ever-after she had wished for so hard as a girl.
Albert never explained any of this to his brother. He didn’t have to. In those days the twins still had the extra-sensory way of communicating they had developed as kids, could still finish each other’s sentences if they chose to and still knew at all times how the other felt. Whenever Tobias broached the subject all he had to do was look at Albert’s pained face to correctly predict his answer and the reasons behind it. After a while, though Tobi had stopped asking, Albert knew full well that his brother merely held his tongue. He had not changed his heart, however.
Things were tough for Tobi. The Ith was isolated and dad wasn’t getting any younger. Gerhardt learned to speak and walk again, though with great difficulty. If Tobias didn’t stay with him around the clock, he would have to be hospitalised permanently. Unexpectedly, looking after Dad became a multifaceted raison d’être for Tobias in which paternal love only played a subordinated part. Albert felt he had forsaken his own family in their hour of need in favour of his rich wife. His growing, unacknowledged guilt was expressed in cash contributions to Gerhardt’s household. At least there was that.
*
After Tobias finished cleaning Gerhardt, he operated a mechanical hoist to lift his father from the bathtub back into this wheelchair without breaking his own back. The old man had put on pound after pound since the strokes, and Tobias’ upper body had strengthened from lifting and shifting his dad day-in, day-out. He wheeled Gerhardt to his bedroom, attached a fresh adult-diaper to his groin and thighs and got him a glass of water from the kitchen, the better to down the medication.
Only then did he take a moment to look at the old man, his eyes, to gauge the degree of lucidity in them. For now they were clear. Cold and distant as usual, but seemingly all there.
Well, it wouldn’t hurt to give it a try.
‘Dad…how are you feeling? Clean and fresh again?’ he said, and Gerhardt blinked expressionlessly at him.
‘You know, I don’t know if you remember this, but I want to talk about your job, the one at the ministry, you know, the last one you had. You always said…’
He hesitated when he saw that his dad was turning his eyes away.
Already Tobias knew he wasn’t going to get a straight reply, or any, for that matter. Still, he gathered up enough courage to finish the sentence.
‘You always said that you left the ministry because of health reasons. But I know, Dad. I know the truth.’
He spun the old man around in his wheelchair so he had no choice but to look at his son.
‘F…f…fuck all. You know fuck all,’ Gerhardt finally managed to say, spitting out the words and saliva with the limited muscle control he retained over his face. ‘Alb…Alb…’
He didn’t have to say any more — his eyes, near hateful now, said it all.
‘Albert’s not here. I am. I know you didn’t quit just to look after us. I know you lied about that and I also know you worked for the foreign ministry before that. What were you, some sort of a spy catcher?’ Tobias said.
Suddenly, and much to his surprise, the hatred in his father’s eyes disappeared. Were the pills kicking in already? They couldn’t be, it was too soon for that. And then something happened that Tobias couldn’t understand, that messed with his emotional compass. Gerhardt’s eyes welled up and out spilled tears of sadness and of loss; first one, then another one and then a thin, constant trickle.
His son, momentarily overwhelmed by a never previously experienced pity for his father, placed one hand on Gerhardt’s head, another on his shoulder. Tender, unfamiliar instincts drove him. He wanted to reach out and hug Dad in spite of the wheelchair that made embraces awkward if not downright impossible. He stepped behind him, laid his head on Gerhardt’s shoulder and found this position no less unusual than a frontal hug.
‘Oh, Dad. I’m sorry I asked,’ he said, not because it was true but because he wanted to say something reassuring.
Behind his father’s silence there was a bottomless well of sadness and an invisible force pulled Tobias inside, dragged him down into the depths of it, nearly under. He fought back the urge to join in the spillage of tears. He was not accustomed to showing himself raw, least of all in front of his father.
He had never seen Dad cry.
But what about the other way around —when was the last time Dad had seen him cry? He couldn’t remember. It had been a long time ago, that much was sure, but when he looked his father in the eye to ask him as much, it was too late. The moment had passed; the drugs had taken him far away.
*
One hour later Tobias had calmed down after the muted emotional outbreak. He knew that his father would never share any of the traumatic memories that obviously plagued him with his least favourite, arse-wiping son. If Gerhardt could talk he would surely curse the day that brought him into this close physical dependency on Tobias. Why not his golden boy, why couldn’t it be Albert?
Of course Albert would never stoop this low; Gerhardt hadn’t brought up Albert to be a bottom-wiper, an emasculated male nurse. If his brother was here instead of Tobi, Dad surely would have spilled the beans, would have told him everything they always wanted to know about Mum, about why he stopped working, and everything else that merited being passed on.
There were a number of things that Tobias wished he understood. Why did they fire Dad? Why didn’t he hire a wet nurse or a nanny and get himself another position? It would have made financial and professional sense. Why hadn’t he remarried, provided a substitute mother for his offspring? As far as Tobias was aware, there had never been another woman in his father’s life after Tatjana. Not a one.
Tobias knew that Albert cared little for these things, just wasn’t interested. Why should he be? Albert’s life was complete, perfect. He didn’t feel like Tobias did, didn’t suffer from emptiness, self-loathing or loneliness. Albert was Albert and never aspired to be anybody else.
An idea dawned on Tobias, a way to find out whatever dark secrets might be lurking in the family closet. Of course, why hadn’t he thought of it before? He’d cut out the middleman; better yet, he’d become the middleman. Rather than talking Albert into coming up to the Ith – which he rarely ever did – in the hope that Dad would be willing and lucid enough to talk to him, he, Tobias, would become Albert. He wouldn’t have to rely on anybody’s unpredictable timetable and he’d get the juice fresh from the source. And at the same time he would have fun, enjoy being the ‘real’ Albert again, the man he had tried and failed to become when he was away at university, when he’d toiled under the delusion that he could be somebody who was liked and loved for his own sake.
Yes, it was a good plan. Even the timing fit. The Albert Hoffmanns were going away for a week to Sylt, a small German island in the Baltic Sea. Cordula had graciously asked Tobi to water their garden while they were away. That’s when he’d do it.
Tobias didn’t and couldn’t have reckoned with the fact that the nature of the Hoffmann family secret he would manage to elicit