Boris, Hansie, Eddie, and Rieke – the deep-sea divers, and Rieke, the girl and the girl
I’ve got a few days until the next heavy interview. I’m taking advantage of it and getting drunk at Lehmanns Idee. Not here though—I first met Hansie at the harbor, then Boris, and finally Eddie. Insane bunch. And Rieke? She’s just the cherry on top.
The guys are deep-sea divers. They didn’t meet each other here, but this is where a bond formed that neither the Reef nor their contracts can break. Especially when you include Rieke. And of course Frauke, the little girl. I first ran into the crew along the Rotterdam–Amsterdam axis. By then, they were already touring with the little girl and the kid-girl. Correction: the little girl is Rieke, barely twenty, the kid is Frauke, barely six.
The boys are total maniacs, but absolute pros at what they do. Rieke… I don’t even know how to describe her. Small, blonde, and if you call her cute, she’d rip your balls off. Frauke, her little daughter, is the team’s badass. Unsere kleine Frauke, härter als wir all.
Fuck, the basic question: where did you guys come from?
Boris: Rostock. Where else?
Hansie: Chemnitz. laughs
Eddie: Somewhere in between, a nameless little town.
Boris: I just came along, really. Worked near Helsingborg, for the Swedes and the Danes. On platforms, and, well, under them.
Hansie: Yeah, we all worked there, except for the Russians. They screened us, as they called it—screening. That was sketchy, we were shitting ourselves over the joint. But they didn’t care, they weren’t looking for weed, just James Bond–type shit.
Boris: They were scared, yeah. Looking for super-secret gadgets. Don’t know, maybe a laser or something.
Eddie: The cow. I saw it, with my own eyes.
Hansie: Sure, at Toaré. Let’s make this clear, nobody else saw the cow.
Boris: Thoiry, if we’re being precise.
Hansie: Fine, fuck it. But let’s stop for a second: the cow, nobody saw it except Eddie. The cow wasn’t there. The music? That was there. But the cow wasn’t.
This is the point where I give up. These guys are either complete idiots, or I just don’t want to talk to them. The one I do want to talk to is Rieke. She’s been listening resignedly so far, maybe shaking her head now and then. I finish my beer and sit next to her. I wouldn’t say she’s happy to see me. I’m accepted… and my fucking life too. I swallow it, drunk.
Hi. Can I ask something?
Glad she didn’t spit. I ask: how did you meet the guys?
This is the moment I think she’s going to spit. I would spit if I were me. Instead, she answers. She makes me feel like a total nobody, but she answers. Or at least she addresses me.
Don’t listen to them. – She looks at me, winks, and man, this is a different kind of wink. Totally different from Fi’s wink. Here and now I’m supposed to listen to the guys. Or Evelyne Brochu. Or get the fuck back. Doesn’t matter, one line hits me: “Don’t listen to them.” Frauke, the real little girl, runs around our feet.
I don’t listen, I can’t listen to anything I ever learned—but I do listen to Rieke: I listen to what she says, what she throws at my head.
The guys dive every day, and from below they see the Depth. And the Surface too, from below. Every day they dive, and maybe they don’t come back. You might be loved, up here, but you don’t know what it means to be loved down there. Down there, every morning, the monster opens its mouth to us, and every afternoon, the relief. You might get it, but please, tell Frauke. Fuck it, be here when Boris doesn’t come up, tell him—pointing to Frauke—tell him his father didn’t come up.
She sobs hysterically. I want to comfort her, but I can’t, I have no right.
“Your fucking mother, you worthless bastard, you have no idea what’s happening here!” – she slams it into my head, and she’s right. And honestly, yeah… I have no fucking clue.
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