Ugh, God, how, how? You just pound at the keys and hope for luck, what else? Isn’t it always the same every time you face the indifferent chill of the blank screen? And isn’t what you’re doing right now only an attempt to prettify, to sweeten, to sell the story a little more favourably? Zlatko, you’re neither the first nor the last to drown in the froth of your own eloquence – so pull your pants up and get a grip before it’s too late! Aren’t you supposed to be grown up by now?

All right, all right. I’m starting.

“Come into the other room, please. I need to tell you something.”

Damn it, I feel a tearful fit coming on again – it just won’t do, it won’t work! All day today it’s been like this – wherever I look, it’s all rags before my eyes, everything watery, blurred, nothing clear. I’ve cranked up Herbert Grönemeyer beside me, hoping he’ll help somehow, but of course it’s useless. All I keep hearing is:

“Wann ist ein Mann ein Mann? Wann ist ein Mann ein Mann? Wann ist ein Mann ein Mann?”

Not that I was entirely unprepared, of course. Not that it came like lightning from a clear sky. Otherwise I wouldn’t have received it the way I did – how shall I put it – as a deserved sentence rather than some cosmic injustice. I’ve always suspected that closeness with me sooner or later begins to sting, to chafe, like raw skin – you know? Doreen simply confirmed my own sense of things, albeit in a way that brought me crashing down from the heights of self-delusion. (“Well, I know I’m not easy, but surely there are upsides – look how capable I am, how I make sure everything runs smoothly, what a breadwinner of a father I am.”) The usual self-justifications of any male trying desperately to shield himself from the inevitability of the conclusion flashing before his eyes: “Your time’s up, buddy. That’s it.”

At first, of course, I hoped the storm would rumble on and then pass. I crouched low, started waiting, stalling, dragging my feet – still hoping she’d change her mind. Alone, with this child? With both of them? Are you out of your mind, woman?

Outwardly, I mostly kept quiet, tried to be helpful however I could, but I knew Todorka well enough not to lapse into foolishness – no attempts at pleading, grovelling, or persuasion. She’s a tough German, northern stock. Her whole family’s like that. When they love you, they love you all the way. But if you’ve messed up your own path – may God help you! Forgiveness exists only where it makes sense. Otherwise – everyone goes their own way, and that’s that.

So I kept quiet, shrank into myself, and waited. A week passed. Then a second, a third. Todorka was starting to lose patience. “What – you think this is just going to blow over?” she said. “That it’ll all be fine? It won’t. I’m sorry. Pack your things and go. It’s over between us.”

I stayed silent. Buzzing like a live wire. My brain – it always looked as if it was on full power, always able to find a way out, a solution, salvation – hey, this is a brain, not a cabbage! But this time, not a single green light, only red everywhere, brother, no hope at all! In my blindness, I hadn’t even begun to grasp how much of a rootless tree I was in this foreign land, among foreign customs, foreign people, foreign waters, foreign everything – without the saving warmth and shelter of that tucked-away place, the harbour, the home. What the hell am I gonna do here without them, flung aside like a pile of rags on a trash heap, alone, alone, alone? What am I gonna do?

I stared, I blinked, and I couldn’t see a thing. No way out, nothing but the knife at every turn. I knew my own sort well – never once did it cross my mind that I’d just go out and find something else, someone else, yippee, whoopee. No. That’s not how I tick. I know myself. Back then the word “Asperger” wasn’t yet part of my self-understanding, but the feeling that I tick differently, that for me to bond with someone, to stay with someone, to put down roots with someone – that it’s a one-in-a-million chance – that feeling had always stalked me from the dark edge of consciousness, the vile beast! That, and the maddening fear that if I failed as a parent, I was finished. Let’s not beat around the bush – I’m a provincial boy, I can’t look at these things broadly. For me there’s no wiggle room. Children are the supreme duty in life, the work shaped by all your effort, thought, and ability. What else you do is your business – free programme. But fail at that, at the essential task, and you pack your bags and leave the field. There’s no place for you here. Next one, please. You’ve been tested, you failed – now there’s the door.

And the vibrations only grew stronger. At some point my machinery really began to give – shuddering, vibrating, then parts started dropping off here and there. Quietly, without fuss, falling one by one. And I stared, blinked, shrank, and saw nothing, nothing, nothing. Everywhere the same thing, everywhere the same flashing sign: “End! End! End!”

All right, I shrank and blinked, but Todorka didn’t let go. When she saw that, left to myself, I’d probably keep delaying until the Second Coming, she forced the issue: “If you don’t move out by this date, I’ll do it myself, with the kids. Your decision.”

And so I finally accepted my sentence. Crawled out on my belly, and started trudging through Berlin in search of a new place to live. Alive, dead – I had to act, time waits for no one. Still, I calculated: the way I was sinking, if I ended up completely alone, I’d snap and do something stupid – better find a place with other people, at least some shelter in the storm, so it wouldn’t sweep me away like some helpless kitten. So I looked for a shared flat, something communal. There are plenty of those here – a bit in the Russian style, but not out of poverty; just more convenient when you’re young. Same everywhere, I suppose.

Well, I’d made my plans – but clearly without reckoning with reality. They were twenty, maybe thirty tops, while I was pushing forty-five, my head already bald, my body betraying me with folds here and there – you can’t exactly pack your age into a suitcase. The kids looked at me, sized me up, and instantly sensed that something was strangling me from the inside. I strained to make a solid impression – a bit like a job audition – but it just wouldn’t work. Once, twice, five times, ten – everywhere the youngsters ran from me as if I were rotten goods. They just didn’t want me. I was stunned.

Todorka, meanwhile, eased up a bit, loosened the vice. She looked at me with pity – she could see I was about to blow a fuse. Not a joke. The deadline of her ultimatum came and went, and we were still under the same roof, still tolerating each other, even sleeping in the same bed. Habits – what can you do?

And so I kept searching…

And the children? Well, nothing – or at least nothing dramatic. Can anyone really see everything? Little Pavel puffed himself up and closed off, like a young hedgehog – his spines still soft, but trying to protect himself, not letting pain or fear devour him. He kept silent, spent the whole day on the computer, trying not to run into anyone in the house, walking on tiptoe as if he were the one to blame for everything that was happening. And little Lea? Lea, of course – carefree, or at least that’s how it looked from the outside. Now cheerful, the next moment furious – whatever current came her way. Normality lurking around every corner, brother.

Maybe by now you’re thinking: “Wait, this was your big death? Come on, tone it down – dim your lights a bit. After the way you talked it up, I thought you were hanging from some hook. But it turns out you’re just some whiner. You should be ashamed.” So let me explain, as best I can: when some other clever folks asked Goethe (yes, Johann Wolfgang – bless his radiant kingdom) why he was still alive after writing the most famous death-soaked book of the time, The Sorrows of Young Werther, he simply replied that Werther was dead inside him. That’s all I can say too. If you want to get a closer look – from just under the skin – read these two short stories here, Fear and The Yellow Eyes of Horror. I wrote them years ago, and they’re the closest I’ve got to the madhouse of that time. Maybe then you’ll see for yourself that that man is dead. Gone. Left. That’s all I can say.

Yeah. And then the miracle happened…

Zlatko Enev is a Bulgarian writer and publisher of the webzine Liberal Review. He has published seven books in Bulgaria (the children’s trilogy Firecurl, 2001-2005), the novels One Week in Paradise (2004) and Requiem for Nobody (2011), the collection of essays The Heat as the Embodiment of the Bulgarian (2010) and the autobiographical novel Praise of Hans Asperger (2020). His children’s books have been translated into several languages, including Chinese. He has lived in Berlin since 1990.