Henry Ebert

Henry Ebert is Gino’s father and the source of the violence that drives the novel’s final crisis. The reader learns about him chiefly through what others report: Gino’s mother describes a frightening attack and calls for help, while Julius explains the abuse and confinement behind Gino’s actions. Henry is therefore less a directly observed character than a powerful presence in the family’s accounts of fear, helplessness, and escape.

Identity and Family

Henry is identified as Gino’s father and as the strict parent whose authority shapes Gino’s life at home. Gino’s mother, Giovanna Ebert, says that Henry has become markedly different over the past few years. She acknowledges that he can be very strict with Gino, though she does not fully understand or accept his treatment of their son and says she tries to persuade him to behave differently. Her account conveys both her concern for Gino and the difficulty of challenging Henry within the household.

The family’s circumstances are presented through the friends’ conversations rather than through a scene from Henry’s point of view. Julius says that Henry drinks and beats both Gino and Giovanna Ebert, sometimes in Gino’s presence. He reports that Gino hears Henry shouting and his mother screaming, yet feels unable to intervene. This makes Henry’s domestic authority more than a matter of strict rules: as described by Julius, it is reinforced by violence and by Gino’s inability to protect the people he loves.

Violence and Confinement at Home

Gino’s friends understand that he is not allowed to leave freely. When Lukas visits, Giovanna Ebert explains that Gino’s father is very strict and that this situation is hard for Gino. Julius later gives a more severe account: Henry prevents Gino, his mother, and his brother from leaving, and Gino has spoken of wanting to get them away from him. According to Julius, Gino feels like a failure because he cannot help his mother when Henry assaults her. The family’s confinement thus appears not simply as a restriction on Gino’s movements but as a barrier to the escape he imagines for all three of them.

Julius also tells Lukas that Henry took the 200 euros Gino had received from the computer theft. The money links the family’s abuse to the boys’ criminal activity: the proceeds that might have represented a gain for Gino were, according to Julius, taken by his father. The account does not establish what Henry did with the money, but it makes clear why its loss intensifies the friends’ anger and their sense that Gino is trapped in a household where he has little control.

The Attack and Its Uncertain Outcome

The crisis reaches the boys by phone. Gino’s mother is crying and reports that he has run away, that there is blood everywhere, and that Henry is on the floor. She does not know whether Henry is still alive. She says she has called the police and an ambulance for him, while pleading with Julius and the others to tell her if Gino appears or contacts them. Her distress makes the immediate aftermath vivid, but it does not resolve what happened inside the home or confirm Henry’s condition.

Julius then explains that Gino struck Henry on the head with a glass bottle and kicked him while he was down. He says Gino’s hand was badly cut by the broken glass and that Gino fled afterward. Lukas struggles to believe that Gino could have done this; Julius answers by disclosing the beatings, Henry’s drinking, and the stolen 200 euros. The explanation supplies a context for the attack without turning the reported events into a complete account: the assault itself remains offstage, and Henry’s survival is left unknown in the evidence presented here.

The Friends’ Intervention and Narrative Role

Julius reveals that he had urged Gino to hit his father with a bottle, intending, as he tells it, for Henry to be knocked unconscious long enough for Gino’s mother and brother to escape. Because Gino had hesitated, Julius arranged to get him Tilidin, believing the drug would remove his inhibitions. Gino eventually contacted him for it on a day when Henry had again become violent. Julius’s account makes his intervention an act of friendship with grave consequences: he wanted to help Gino escape, but supplied a means that contributed to a physical attack whose result he cannot control.

Henry’s importance in the novel comes from this collision between reported abuse and the boys’ improvised response. The adults and institutions who might intervene are discussed, but Julius rejects calling the police, insisting that they would not help and describing the family as effectively locked in. That belief is Julius’s, not an independent confirmation that no help was possible; the mother’s call to the police and ambulance shows that she does seek outside assistance after the attack. Henry’s condition, Gino’s whereabouts, and the eventual consequences for the family remain unresolved here. The uncertainty prevents the violence from becoming a closed episode: the friends must act without knowing whether Henry will live or what will happen next.