Not until . Till. With a capital T. His name.
Not till 6 . With Till.
I still drive the van sometimes. Still pick up strange packages. And every time someone asks how long I’ve got, I smile and say: "Machs mit. Bis sechs." machs mit till 6
I was nineteen, broke, and had a scar on my chin from a fight I didn’t start. Till was fifty-two, smelled of coffee and old paper, and ran the last independent courier service in the city— Till & Sohn . Except the Sohn had run off to Berlin two years ago.
I sat in the van, engine idling, watching the second hand crawl toward 5:47. The address was a steel plant on the outskirts—already closed, gates chained. The instructions in Till’s spidery handwriting: "Machine Hall 4. Leave on the blue table. Don’t wait." Not until
Till always said the same thing when he handed you the keys to the delivery van. "Machs mit, bis 6." Make it work, till 6.
Make it with me. Till six.
So I became the stand-in Sohn.