For all that Michael worries about how perpetually ill Wolfgang appears (it’s reassuring that they bundled up today), he’s continued to look more and more run-down and disheveled himself. Work-related stress, lack of sleep, and other problems he’ll never quite talk about keep the circles under his eyes dark and a fine tremor in his hands—the kind that can be felt but is too small to see. His clothes go longer than they should without a wash: shirts collect stains from toner and Coke and dish soap, the crusty grey of street salt and slush climbs ever higher up the legs of his jeans. When he thinks about fixing it, he finds he’s too tired, or too distracted, or it doesn’t even seem real.
He’s done his best to clean up for this, though. To not look like a wreck. To just look like a normal guy. Michael knows Wolfgang doesn’t care about normal, but that’s hard to get used to. He doesn’t want to mess anything up, that’s all. Much of the tension built up from the week has fallen away from him over the course of the evening, though, the way it tends to on the Saturdays he spends with them. It’s a relief.
“Tons of people do it,” he argues. “We’re not crazy. Not for that, anyway. It’s cold, you work with what you got. I can’t believe it snows in Israel, though, really? You know what, I bet you there's ice rinks somewhere over there.”