SANG CHUNG

The Name After Death

There is an ancient Chinese proverb: “When a tiger dies, it leaves behind its pelt; when a person dies, they leave behind their name.” But I once met a man who left behind neither pelt nor name, but something else entirely.

I heard the sound of the door opening. I looked out and saw that Dieter had come home. He looked drunk, which didn’t surprise me. I would have been more surprised if he had shown up sober. He was a little wet and looked tired. He opened his black backpack, pulled out a bottle of sparkling wine, and tossed the backpack to me. There was no more alcohol inside, but I noticed a suspicious heaviness in his black jacket. It was obvious that he was trying to smuggle another bottle of sparkling wine. I kindly requested to check his jacket. “Dieter, could you show me what you have in your pocket?” Dieter responded, “No, I’m hungry and tired. Just let me go to the kitchen and put butter on bread.” He tried to pass by me and head to the kitchen, but I held him back. He sighed and gave up on his smuggling. “You fucking Statsi, here’s what you want. Take it, take it away from me, and be happy.” He handed me the other bottle of sparkling wine, and I put it on the shelf in the office, where there were many cheap cigars, packs of wine, and sparkling wine. These were all the “drugs” I had taken from the people like Dieter, who were heavily alcoholic and stayed in our house, where social workers like me helped them. I locked the shelf and went to the communal kitchen to open the door for Dieter.

Dieter always came home late, when everyone else was already in their rooms, finishing up their days by watching television. Every time Dieter came home, he had to show me his backpack and prove that he only had one bottle of sparkling with him. He wasn’t allowed to drink more than one bottle per night at home. However, I was not able to control what he did outside or how much he had already drunk. Some days he came home really drunk, smelling like a mix of sweet wine and weird German sausages. It was such a grotesque smell that I could not bear it, so I had to hold my breath. I often felt dizzy from holding my breath as I stood next to him. On those nights, he couldn’t even walk to his room because he couldn’t manage the stairs to the second floor. He just gave up and lay down on the stairs. Once, his head was lower than his legs, maybe because he had first tried to crawl up and then decided to come back down, then stopped. That night, he vomited several times; it was more like coughing than vomiting. Every time he coughed, some alcohol came out of his mouth.

Thank God he wasn’t that drunk tonight. He was even able to chat with me a little bit. After finishing his sandwich, he went up to his room. As soon as my duty was done, I returned to the sofa to take a rest. But my break ended ten minutes later, when Dieter came to me again asking me to fix his television. I had to go upstairs with him to set it up and this was my first time entering his room.

His room was full of surprises and randomness. The window was fully open on a cold January winter in Berlin. One bed, one table, one couch and countless dolls. Yes, there were dolls—not one or two, but many—all over his room. As I looked closer, I realized these were not just any dolls; they were all ducks. Dieter had all kinds of ducks. White ducks, yellow ducks, orange ducks, cute ducks, creepy ducks, weird ducks, Chinese ducks, French ducks, small ducks, big ducks—every kind of duck was there.

Overwhelmed by all the ducks, I said to Dieter, “Well, you have a lot of ducks. Why do you have so many?” Dieter looked at me and replied, “Hehe, I like ducks.” All right, that was enough explanation for why he had so many ducks. That’s all, you only need to simply like ducks to collect hundreds of them. When he talked about his love for ducks, his blue eyes seemed to turn even bluer—a light blue color, like a clear and shiny summer sky. At the same time, they looked scary, full of madness, reminding me of Klaus Kinsky and his fury. I had never seen anything like it before, it was a complex mix of the innocence of a boy and the madness of an old man with an obsession. The more he spoke about the ducks, the more excited he grew. He spoke clearly and calmly, almost as if he were sober. He picked up an orange duck, shook it, and mimicked it quacking: “Quack, quack.” While Dieter made duck sounds, I set up the TV correctly. The dark blue screen with “HDMI1” in the corner was replaced by the daily evening news reporting war and death in another country. There: terror and war. Here: Dieter, his hundreds of ducks, and I, enjoying a peaceful night. After finishing the TV setup, I left Dieter alone with his ducks.

The next day, when my colleague Sarah came in for the morning shift, I asked her, “Did you know that Dieter has a lot of ducks in his room?” Sarah nodded. “Of course. Dieter loves ducks. I’m not sure, but someone told me he has around 300 of them. Did you know he also names them all?”

“Oh, I didn’t know. Dieter hasn’t told me that yet.”

“He does. He’s even named some of them after us. There’s a duck named ‘Sarah,’ and also ‘Matthias’ and ‘Thomas.’ I’m not sure if there’s one with your name yet, though.”

I wondered if Dieter had named a duck after me and, if so, what kind of doll it was and how it looked. I remembered that some of the ducks were quite ugly, and I was afraid that an ugly duck might bear my name. When Sarah mentioned it, she didn’t seem to care much that one of Dieter’s ducks was named after her. But I took the naming seriously. If every social worker here had a duck named after them, then I wanted a match too. Even though I had been working here for over three months, I still felt like I wasn’t fully accepted—by the house, the social workers, or the people I was supporting. I thought that if there was a duck named after me, it would mean I finally belonged here. I started to consider having a duck in Dieter’s room named after me as the final step of onboarding into this house. This would be the confirmation that I was here as a member. With the hope that a duck in Dieter’s room bore my name, I went home, excited to return to work and discover my duck.

When Dieter came home the next night, he was heavily drunk again, and the night after that, he was even more intoxicated. The following days were the same: drunk, really drunk, and then insanely drunk. There was no chance I could ask him. Nearly a month had passed since I learned about the ducks in his room. My curiosity grew every day, but Dieter was always too drunk for me to find out if there was a duck named after me.

I wondered what he would do with a duck named after me if there was one. Maybe he would torture it. Dieter didn’t like me since I’d taken to rummaging through his backpack every night to catch him smuggling. But I doubted Dieter would harm one of his ducks. Even though he got aggressive from time to time, he had a kind nature, as many alcoholics do. I’ve learned that many alcoholics are incredibly fragile and vulnerable, often exposed to traumatic experiences in their early lives either in their families, friendships or schools. Alcohol became their escape, but that escape turned out to be a swamp, pulling them into an abyss for life. They might become aggressive due to alcohol, but they weren’t born that way. By nature, they are kind and gentle people. Dieter had a kind and gentle soul. He wouldn’t give my name to an ugly duck and torture it. At least, that’s what I believed, and I hoped it was true.

The day passed routinely, and the question about the duck remained unresolved. One sunny, peaceful Thursday evening, when nothing seemed out of the ordinary, I came to work and met Sarah to take over the shift. Sarah looked serious and said, “Dieter fell at the Spandau metro station. He was taken to the intensive care unit with a concussion.” I asked, “What happened to him?” Sarah replied, “I don’t know the details, it just happened. We can only deduce that alcohol caused the concussion. I was at the hospital to see him. The doctors discovered additional health issues during a thorough check-up; he is seriously ill. He’s not expected to live much longer.” Sarah’s tone was so calm it almost felt cold. She had worked here for over 20 years and had become accustomed to dealing with death. However, This was the first death I would have to confront in this house, and it was none other than Dieter’s. I was filled with sorrow as Sarah continued, “Dieter wished to have some of the ducks from his room. Would you like to bring a few to him?” I thought Dieter had preferences for certain ducks, which is why he named them. But it seemed Dieter didn’t care which ducks were chosen. He loved them all equally. It was a true realization of agape toward the ducks—like Christ’s love for all people, Dieter’s unconditional love embraced every duck in his room. He was the true father of all ducks, loving each one the same.

The next night, I visited Dieter in the hospital with some ducks from his room. Dieter was lying in bed, with tubes in his nose and other tubes attached to various parts of his body. He had lost a lot of weight and looked terribly weak. “Hello, Dieter. How are you? I brought some ducks,” I said softly. Dieter was unable to speak and could only move his eyes and blink. As I watched him so weak that he couldn’t do anything else than moving his eyes, I felt this might be my only chance to ask him. I could not stop myself from asking him about the matter. “Well, Dieter, there was something I’ve been really curious about and wanted to ask you for a while, but you were always so… so d.. dru… no, I mean you were in your own world, so I couldn’t ask. But I really wanted to know if there is a duck named after me. I heard you name ducks after the staff. I’ve worked here for almost four months. Is there a duck with my name?” Dieter’s blue eyes fixed on my face. There was a brief sparkle in his eyes at the mention of the ducks, and his pale chin gained a touch of red color. His gaze toward me was intense. I looked back into his eyes, which seemed to be trying to tell me something. I couldn’t understand what these blue eyes were indicating or trying to tell me. He attempted to speak but couldn’t manage more than breathing through the tube. I felt ashamed for digging into his eyes to get an answer when he was so close to death. I had to stop myself from looking at his eyes. I held his hand gently, touched his arm softly, and placed his lovely ducks between his arm and body before leaving.

Dieter passed away a week later. In the communal living room, I placed a picture of him. The photo was from over 30 years ago. Next to the picture was a candle. It wasn’t a real candle but a fake one, with an LED light on top of a white plastic base. While Dieter’s death was real, the memorial candle was not. I felt sorry, but I couldn’t light a real candle to avoid a fire in the house. I walked up to Dieter’s room. It was the same room filled with ducks, only Dieter was missing. I stood there, paralyzed by memories of Dieter and his excitement when talking about his collection. As I looked around, Dieter’s silhouette seemed to overlap with the ducks surrounding me. Among the 300 ducks, I found a particular duck that caught my eye. It was a chubby duck with blue eyes that reminded me of Dieter. I decided to take it with me, even though I had no right to any inheritance. But I thought Dieter would have wanted me to have this duck. So, I took it home. I placed it in a corner of my room and named it after Dieter. I still don’t know if Dieter ever gave my name to a certain duck, but it doesn’t matter anymore. I have this chubby duck with Dieter’s name on it now.

Sang Chung is a Korean writer based in Berlin. He studied Philosophy and Art History in Berlin. Currently, he works as a translator and writes short stories in both English and Korean.