At home, he hid the magazine under his mattress, between his Asterix comics and a worn-out copy of The Neverending Story . He didn’t look at it for the reasons a boy of thirteen might be expected to. He looked at it for the wide, uncomplicated smiles. For the caption under a photo of a grandmother peeling potatoes: "Even chores are more fun in the sun!" For the classified ads in the back, where families sought other families for "nordic walking and open-air chess."
So the magazine became his secret anthropology textbook. He learned the vocabulary: textile (the awful state of wearing clothes), free body culture (the utopia he craved), sun worship (the only religion that made sense). He memorized the editor's monthly letter, signed by a man named Dieter who wrote things like, "The soul can only breathe when the skin remembers the wind." fkk magazin
Something cracked inside Lukas. Not his heart, exactly. Something smaller and sharper. A rib of hope. At home, he hid the magazine under his
That night, after his parents went to sleep (in separate twin beds, wearing full-length flannel), Lukas crept outside. The moon was a bright, clean coin. The air was soft. He took off his shirt. Then his shorts. Then his underwear. He stood in the dewy grass, shivering, waiting for the lightning to strike him down. For the caption under a photo of a
His father wrapped a towel around his shoulders. "Close the door, Lukas."
His own family was a museum of tiny, polite horrors. His mother sprayed air freshener after using the toilet. His father wore pajamas with sleeves even in July. When Lukas accidentally walked into the bathroom while his father was shaving, shirtless, the man flinched as if he'd been shot.