Final Whistle

"-still talking about the Rome match," Dieter says, unlacing his boots.

Klaus doesn't answer. The envelope sits on the bench between them, brown paper that arrived during warm-ups. Official seal. He's been staring at it for twelve minutes.

"Open the damned thing."

Klaus tears the paper. Scans typed lines that reorganize his life into military coordinates. Report to Kaserne Dachau. 0600 hours.

"Christ," Dieter whispers.

Through the dressing room walls, crowd noise builds toward kickoff. Eighty thousand voices that don't know their striker just became infantry. Klaus folds the conscription order, tucks it into his kit bag next to boots he'll never wear again.

"The exemption-"

"Expired." Klaus stands, pulls his jersey over his head. "August thirty-first."

Dieter kicks his locker. "Bastards waited until the season started."

Klaus changes into street clothes with mechanical precision. The uniform hanging in his locker-red and white stripes, number 9-stays on its hook like skin he's shed. Someone else will wear it tomorrow. Some kid from the reserves who dreamed of this moment before the war made dreams into casualties.

"Manager knows?"

"Manager's the one who handed me the envelope."

Outside, the referee's whistle signals teams taking the field. Klaus recognizes the crowd's shift-anticipation building toward that moment when players emerge from the tunnel like gladiators entering an arena that belongs to them completely.

Belonged to him, past tense.

Dieter grabs his shoulder. "Run."

"Where?"

"Switzerland. France. Anywhere that isn't here."

Klaus almost laughs. "With what papers? What money?" He gestures toward the window where searchlights sweep autumn sky. "They're watching the borders now. Watching everything."

The crowd roars. Match beginning without him, formation adjusted around the hole where Klaus Hoffmann used to exist. His replacement-Weber, nineteen, too eager-will try to fill spaces that can't be filled, play a position that no longer exists in any meaningful way.

Klaus picks up his bag. Leaves the locker open, jersey hanging like a flag of surrender.

"This isn't over," Dieter says.

"This is exactly over."

Klaus walks toward the exit where his father waits beside a black sedan, engine running.