Chapter Thirty
Hans
Warnemünde, Germany
Hans sat staring at his phone long after the line had gone dead.
Not ended—dead. No goodbye, no click, just silence swallowing Adrik’s voice mid-sentence. Hans checked the screen, half-expecting it to correct itself, to light up and prove this was some technical hiccup.
Nothing.
He thumbed the call button again. It rang. And rang. Then stopped.
He tried once more. Straight to nothing. No voicemail prompt. No polite recorded voice. Just absence.
Hans leaned back in his chair, the edge of the desk pressing into his ribs. His foot started tapping before he noticed it. He forced it still. It started again anyway.
Adrik never did this. Never. Even when he was irritated, even when he was in a rush—there was always a wait, a hang-on, something.
Hans unlocked his phone, scrolling through recent calls as if the answer might be hiding there. The office felt too quiet now. The radiator clicked. A student laughed somewhere down the hall. Ordinary sounds, all of them suddenly wrong.
Maybe the signal dropped.
Maybe his phone died.
Maybe—
Hans stood abruptly, chair legs scraping against the floor. His hand shook just enough that he noticed it when he tried dialing again.
Still nothing.
He exhaled through his nose, slow and deliberate, the way he did when he needed to keep his thoughts in line. It didn’t help. His mind had already jumped ahead, assembling scenes he hadn’t invited.
Something had interrupted Adrik. Something close. Something sudden.
Then there was a knock on his door. He got up and answered it. Amelia stood there carrying folders.
“Looks like you have your work cut out,” Hans said.
“Yes, but half is already done. I haven’t seen Adrik in a while.”
“He’s visiting his mother.”
“I miss seeing him.”
“Really?” Hans paused. “I don’t think Adrik has relationships.”
“Relationships? I just want to dance with him at a club. Why do you have a problem with that?”
“No problem. He told me he doesn’t go on dates or have relationships.”
“What does he do then?”
He answered slowly, buying himself time to steady his voice. “Ask him.”
Amelia sat in a chair in front of his desk and began working.
Hans was halfway through answering student emails when his phone rang. An internal number. University extension.
He frowned at the screen and picked up.
“Morning, Professor Schroeger,” a woman said, brisk but pleasant. Administrative pleasant. “This is the Rector’s office.”
Ah. That tone. Neutral. Smiling through the receiver. Dangerous.
“Yes?” Hans said, sitting a little straighter.
“Rector Hoffmann would like to meet with you,” she continued. “Today in an hour, if that suits your schedule.”
In one hour. Not sometime next week. Not when convenient. Today in one hour meant important, which in university language usually meant paperwork, or worse, decisions.
“Of course,” Hans said. “May I ask what the meeting is regarding?”
There was the briefest pause. A breath taken with professional precision.
“It’s a formal discussion,” she said smoothly. “The Rector will explain everything.”
Of course he would.
Hans nodded, even though she couldn’t see it. “All right.”
“Excellent. His office, main building, third floor,” she added, as if Hans hadn’t been there a dozen times already. “You’ll receive a calendar confirmation shortly.”
“Thank you.”
“You’re welcome, Professor Schroeger. Have a nice day.”
The line went dead.
Hans stared at the phone for a second longer than necessary.
Formal discussion.
Still, his mind jumped to the most reasonable conclusion—contract renewal. Timing fit. December was coming. He even felt faintly pleased. Rector Hoffmann wouldn’t bother with a meeting otherwise.
He glanced back at his open email draft, suddenly unable to remember what he’d been writing.
“Hans, is everything okay?” Amelia asked.
“Just need to go to a meeting in an hour.” Then he muttered, “In an hour,” to himself.
Plenty of time.
Too much time, really.
He tried to work. Answered two emails without absorbing a word of either. Straightened a stack of papers that didn’t need straightening. Checked the clock. Checked it again. The minute hand seemed to be moving out of spite.
When the hour finally arrived, Hans grabbed his coat and headed across campus, the familiar corridors feeling slightly off, like he’d walked them in a dream before. By the time he reached the main building, his earlier confidence had thinned into something quieter and heavier.
Outside the Rector’s office, he stopped, adjusted his sleeve—no idea why—and raised his hand.
He knocked.
A moment passed. Then, from inside, the voice he’d been expecting since the phone call. “Come in.”
Hans had assumed this was paperwork.
That was the problem, really—he’d walked into Rector Hoffmann’s office with the relaxed dread of a man expecting to sign something mildly annoying and then reward himself with coffee. A renewal. A stamp. A handshake. Done.
Instead, the office felt… staged.
Too neat. Too quiet. Rector Hoffmann stood by the window instead of behind his desk, hands folded like he was about to officiate a funeral or a wedding—hard to tell which. The city of Rostock lay gray and respectable outside, as if it had also agreed to behave.
“Herr Schroeger,” Rector Hoffmann said warmly, turning. “Please sit.”
Hans sat. The chair was firmer than expected. He adjusted anyway, folding his hands in his lap like an employee.
“This won’t take long,” Rector Hoffmann added.
That should have been comforting. It wasn’t.
“So,” Rector Hoffmann began, smiling the way administrators did when they were about to remove something important from your life, “I’ll come straight to the point.”
Ah, there it was. Hans felt his shoulders tense before his brain fully caught up.
“Your contract,” Hoffmann said, “will conclude at the end of December.”
Hans blinked once.
“Oh,” he said. Then, because his mouth was still optimistic, “Right. And the renewal—”
“There will be no renewal.”
The words landed with surprising politeness. They didn’t shout. They didn’t accuse anyone. They simply existed, and Hans suddenly had to rearrange his entire understanding of the next year to make room for them.
“I don’t understand,” Hans said, and hated how stupid that sounded. “My evaluations—”
“Excellent,” Rector Hoffmann said immediately. “Across the board. Your teaching, your research, your engagement with students. Truly exemplary.”
Completely useless.
Rector Hoffmann finally moved to the desk and sat, folding his hands now like this was the serious part. “This has nothing to do with performance.”
Hans exhaled slowly. His heart was already racing ahead, cataloging disasters. Funding cut? A complaint? Some forgotten form?
“The English Department,” Hoffmann continued, “is being merged into a broader Foreign Languages faculty.”
Hans frowned. “Merged?”
“Yes, structural reorganization. The university is merging departments. Fewer separate chairs. Fewer courses overall.”
Hans felt a hollow open in his chest—not pain, exactly, just absence. “And my position?”
“Is being eliminated.”
There it was. Clean. Administrative. Bloodless.
“So I’m not… fired,” Hans said carefully.
“No,” Rector Hoffmann said quickly. “Absolutely not. Your contract is simply ending as scheduled.”
Hans nodded because nodding was easier than speaking. His mind raced backward through his last lecture, his syllabus drafts, the office plant he’d finally managed not to kill. He’d been planning for the next year in advance.
“I assumed.” Hans paused. “This meeting was for renewal.”
Hoffmann’s expression softened. “I suspected you might.”
Hans looked away, pretending to study the papers on the desk.
“I’m very sorry,” Rector Hoffmann said. “Truly. If it were up to academic merit alone, this would be a very different conversation.”
Hans almost laughed. Almost.
“So that’s it,” Hans said. “December.”
“Yes.”
A pause stretched between them, thick and awkward.
Then Hoffmann reached for a folder. “I want you to know—we will provide you with an exceptional reference. I will ensure it reflects the full scope of your abilities. Teaching, research, professionalism—on all levels.”
Hans swallowed. Praise felt strange now, like receiving compliments at a breakup.
“I have no doubt,” Rector Hoffmann continued, “that another university will be fortunate to have you.”
Another university. Another city. Another set of hallways to memorize.
“Thank you,” Hans said.
Rector Hoffmann stood. “Again, I’m deeply sorry.”
Hans stood too, his legs moving on autopilot. They shook hands. Rector Hoffmann’s grip was firm, sincere, regretful. The kind of handshake that said this is unfair without saying this is my fault.
When Hans stepped back into the corridor, the building looked exactly the same as it had an hour earlier. Students laughed somewhere. A door slammed. Life, apparently, had not received the memo.
He strolled, stunned, his thoughts looping uselessly.
Position eliminated.
Structural reorganization.
Excellent on all levels.
He had done everything right. And it still hadn’t mattered.
By the time he reached the stairs, one thought finally broke through the fog, sharp and unwanted.
I need to tell Adrik.
And suddenly, December felt very close.