mr frank is faithful to love

(FR. Hilde Frank)

Ethan fell asleep in my car.

He chewed a piece of peach-flavored gum, and now the car smelled of peaches. After waiting for a red light for more than eighty seconds, I turned down the volume of the radio, thought about it, and changed it again. Light music suitable for sleeping.

I picked up Ethan's hat from the floor and put it on his lap.

Later, when we parted, I told him that I was going back to Germany.

"Bon trip," Ethan said.

My eyes fell on his face, regretting that I didn't take a good look at him in the past 10 minutes, I didn't know whether I should smile, maybe I smiled stiffly, the smile was not wide, and it stayed on my face for a second.

I can feel that Ethan doesn't want to see me so much now.

It was seven in the morning when I woke up. I stared at the ceiling for a long time before I realized that this was already a quarantine hotel in Frankfurt, and I returned to my long-missed homeland once again.

Coincidentally, this time is the same as last time, and I feel lost, all because of Ethan.

I prepared several books in advance to read in the isolation hotel, and answered Nozawa’s calls every day like a telephone editor, and occasionally received calls from home. My parents asked if they wanted to find friends to send me some daily necessities.

Nozawa finally returned to Sapporo, the place he longed for. There was still snow falling in February, and Nozawa finally became the real Nozawa. We didn’t talk much, and he always shared everything he encountered in his hometown with me.

"You're fine there, aren't you? Is it snowing in Cologne too?"

I replied: "It rarely snows in Cologne."

"Yeah, I actually forgot."

The ten-day quarantine life is not long. In a blink of an eye, I have already flown back to Cologne to participate in the weekend family dinner, but I can’t talk to the elders. There is a huge meat platter in the middle of the table. There was fish and salad and all kinds of wine, and my dad bought a glass vat with a tap and made a bucket of lemonade with ice.

My cousin's child is only six or seven years old with two missing teeth. She asked, "Frank, I heard you're in love?"

Before I could fully react, my mother took the lead, and she said: "Son, this topic is forbidden now, if you don't want to be scolded at the dinner table."

The kid stuck out his tongue and didn't say anything else. Of course others don't know who I've been in a relationship with. It's just that my mother mentioned to them a few months ago that I'm not single.

I was still with Ethan back then.

I smiled back at her, but I was actually trying to cover up my indifference. I almost fell asleep after eating a meal, and I haven't finished chatting with the elders. In short, they are all topics that I have no interest in.

I left for a while to go into the kitchen and talk to the sitters, one I knew and the other a newcomer, who were scrubbing my dad's wine glasses and cleaning up a whole cabinet.

I stared at it for a long time and asked, "Can I take one?"

"Okay, your dad probably won't say anything, which one do you like?" The younger blond nanny came over and asked me.

I replied: "Look... that one, the prettiest one, it's very small."

"Frank, that's the most expensive one, and Arendt and I are planning to use finger-guessing to decide who will win."

"I like that."

"You can like it, your father's will be yours in the end."

The two ladies burst out laughing, and I didn't get the wine glass in the end. After dinner, my dad was chatting with relatives, and my mom came to my room to talk to me.

Wearing a newly bought long-sleeved skirt, she still maintained the elegance of the editor-in-chief. She had already retired, but she chose to continue to do the work he loved.

"What's the matter?" I asked.

"I can't ask in detail on the phone, but now I can ask, why did you break up with Ethan?"

"Do you have to explain why everything?"

I asked questions in a rebuttal tone, and sat on the computer chair and turned half a circle.

"I don't mean anything," said my mother, sighing, "I'm just sorry I haven't seen him yet."

Perhaps, from this moment on, Ethan has been classified as someone she will never see in this life. I turned the knob of the speaker to make the reverberation weaker.

My mother asked, "How is it? Have you thought about coming back?"

"return?"

"You haven't made a home in China yet, I thought you had plans to come back, I was thinking, if you like Berlin, I can redecorate the house there."

"I don't like Berlin," I said.

It's even weird, I can feel that my mother is using the art of speaking carefully, whitewashing expectations and demands into conjectures, so all she says is "I thought you..."

"I thought you liked it."

"I prefer Beijing, Ms. Judith," I said.

It wasn't an argument, it wasn't even an argument, and I did feel down when Ms Judith brought up Ethan, but not to the point of throwing a tantrum.

If I were to speak of regrets, it would have to do with Ethan, not bringing him back to Cologne, and not spending many happy years with him.

The memories between us are counted in days.

Nozawa's attitude towards me made me fall into a cycle of depression.

He seems to be a very business-like person, and he has great tolerance and obedience to me, as if he was forced to be obedient. Therefore, sometimes his attitude and personality do not match.

He asked, "Do you miss me?"

"Pretty much." I said.

"I regret coming back. Actually, I should have stayed with you," Nozawa said implying something. He paused and said, "You should have read the news, right?"

"What do you mean?"

"Ethan."

My dad's car had just pulled in through the gate and he was going to wash it, so I could hear my heart beating as I called the nanny to help get things ready.

The fingers were almost numb.

I asked, "What happened to him?"

"It seems that you don't know yet. Ethan's band suddenly announced the suspension of activities. I heard that some members are involved in drugs."

I took a deep breath and said without much hesitation, "That must have nothing to do with Ethan. Although he was rebellious when he was young, he has grown up now, so it is impossible for him to be so irrational."

"That's what a doting guardian would say."

"Not everything in the news is true."

"It's up to you to see if it's true or not," Nozawa said, "If we didn't go home separately, I can still comfort you now. After all, the fact that the ex reveals his true face makes people have mixed feelings."

This is the end of this phone call. I hung up Nozawa's phone without saying goodbye, and was anxious to read the news on the Internet. Many rumors and conjectures were just as Nozawa said.

But I still don't believe it.