The Storyteller

  “Okay …” Linda said, hanging up.

  Abel shook his head. “So now I’m Gitta …”

  “Should I have told the truth?”

  “No. I don’t think at the house of blue air they’d like the fact that Anna Leemann is hanging out with the Polish peddler. By the way, I know exactly three words of Polish.”

  “That’s two more than I know,” Anna said. “But that’s not the reason I lied. I thought … I thought you wouldn’t want them to know … but for the record, in the house of blue air, they really wouldn’t mind. They’re not like you think.”

  Abel turned to collect the glasses.

  “You should go.”

  ANNA SPENT ALL OF SUNDAY WONDERING WHETHER she should drive out to Abel’s. To make sure that everything was all right. She would have called, but she didn’t have his number. She finally figured out how Abel had gotten her number—the lighthouse keeper must have given it to him. He had the cell phone number of everybody in his intensive class, just in case of an emergency. Emergency and Anna were the two words Abel had written on the note that Micha had found stuck to the mirror … she almost called Knaake to ask him for Abel’s number.

  “Excuse me, I’m sorry to bother you on a Sunday, but Abel Tannatek left his ecstasy in my backpack …”

  She put the phone back on the bookshelf. She didn’t call.

  Later, she would think, what if she had called, if she had talked to him on that Sunday, if she had … but who cares about later? Later is always too late.

  Anna studied for her math exam. She did her homework for literature class, lying on the sofa in the living room, reading some random book, not taking any of it in. She practiced her flute as an afterthought. Music had been her passion, her purpose in life; she shouldn’t neglect it, like a lover she no longer wanted. The flute didn’t seem to take it personally … it lay in her hands, calm and cool as always, seeming to understand why, on that particular Sunday, she played so many wrong notes.

  Only Magnus and Linda were surprised.

  “Is there something on your mind, bunny?” Magnus asked. “Is it life again? Or something different?”

  Anna shook her head and smiled. “It’s life,” she said.

  Monday morning, Magnus opened the local newspaper and said, “Chicago.”

  “Chicago?” Linda asked with a laugh, pouring more tea. “Are we going on vacation?”

  Magnus laid the paper down on the table as Linda instinctively put her hand on the light-blue ceramic butter dish to keep him from knocking it to the floor.

  “We don’t need to go to Chicago,” Magnus said. He whistled through his teeth, impressed. “Chicago has come here. Listen to this: ‘Deadly bar brawl. On Sunday morning, after a heated argument at the Admiral, a bar in the woods District of Wieck, Rainer Lierski, forty-one, was found dead between two parked cars. A resident of the area discovered the snow-covered body as he headed to his own car …’ Imagine going out to your car after breakfast and finding a dead body next to it. Jesus Christ!”

  “You usually bike to your office,” Linda said.

  “Yes, and thank God I do,” Magnus said cheerfully, “with dead bodies popping up in parking lots … ‘Mirko Studier, fifty-two, the owner of the bar, stated that Lierski was a frequent customer. “Lierski liked to pick fights,” says Studier, “always wanted to argue, but I never thought it would end like this. When things started to get violent, I threw him and his three friends out. By the time I closed up for the night, I figured they’d all gone home.” The police are still searching for Lierski’s companions, ages twenty-five to fifty, according to Studier. They are also looking for possible witnesses to the crime and/or anyone in the vicinity of the Admiral between ten o’clock and midnight on Saturday night …’ Hey, they don’t give the ages of the witnesses they’re looking for. What a surprise!”

  “Magnus,” Linda said. “This isn’t funny.”

  “No … I’m sorry. Of course it isn’t. It’s just this local paper is so ridiculous … Anna? Anna, are you okay?”

  Anna nodded. She held her teacup in both hands and pictured Micha’s hands around a cup of hot chocolate and Abel’s hands around a glass of vodka. Abel’s injured wrist. The tiny cuts in his face. The splinters. She closed her eyes for a moment. If he touches Micha, I’ll kill him. Had he really meant it? Had he been at the Admiral? Or had he been close by, at just the right place and time to get hold of Rainer Lierski? She opened her eyes. She felt dizzy. For a second she wished her parents would dissolve into fog, that she was sitting at the table alone. She’d take the newspaper and read the article herself, leave her breakfast untouched, and make a cup of really strong coffee. No. She’d take the whiskey bottle down from the shelf, pour a drink, pace back and forth, get her thoughts in order …

  “I’m fine,” she replied and forced herself to finish her yogurt. “That article … I was just thinking … It reminds me of something we’ve been talking about at school … Can I have the paper?”

  Magnus refolded the pages and passed them to her, almost knocking over a jar of jam in the process. “Don’t get into ‘a heated argument,’” he joked. “You don’t want it to end up ‘deadly.’”

  “Ha-ha,” Anna answered shortly. “I gotta go.”

  She couldn’t focus in her literature class that day. She watched Knaake opening and closing his mouth, but she didn’t hear what he was saying; it didn’t get through. It was in this class that she had studied Abel Tannatek, hoping to learn more about him. That seemed like ages ago.

  Abel didn’t sleep in class this time. Anna saw how the others were looking at his face, at the black eye and thousand tiny cuts on his temple—a thousand small, single wounds, a field of dark, dried blood. He took his time gathering his things after class; he let the others go first, like he always did. Anna waited for him. She told Frauke that she had to talk to Knaake.

  Knaake knew that she didn’t have to talk to him.

  He looked from Abel to Anna and back, saw that they needed to talk, shrugged, and said that he was desperate for a cup of coffee; he’d leave the room open, come back later to lock it up.

  Anna spread the newspaper on the table and pointed to the article: “Deadly Bar Brawl … Rainer Lierski (41)” … Abel put his hands on the table on either side of the newspaper and leaned over it, reading without looking at Anna. A big gray wolf, she thought, that had its paws to the left and right of its victim, on a ship’s railing—an instant before it kills that victim by breaking his neck with its long teeth.

  “Shit,” he finally said, stepping back and covering his face with his hands, taking a deep breath. “Shit.”

  When he moved his hands away from his face, she saw that he’d grown pale. “He’s dead,” he said.

  Anna nodded.

  “And I said I’d kill him.”

  She nodded again.

  “I would have done it,” Abel whispered. “I would have done it if he’d come back.”

  “Did he come back?”

  “No.” Abel shook his head. He went over to the window and looked down at the schoolyard on which more snow silently fell. Anna stood next to him. Fifth graders in colorful coats were making a sled run; a small group of smokers was standing near the bike stands—Anna saw Gitta. The lights in the classroom weren’t on. To the people outside, they were invisible, high in their tower.

  “I wasn’t there,” Abel said. “I wish I could feel relief … he’s never gonna bother us again. But I wasn’t there.”

  “At the Admiral?”

  He nodded. He didn’t ask the question that needed to be asked. He didn’t ask, Do you believe me?

  “You need an alibi,” Anna said. “I left your apartment on Saturday night, a little after midnight.”

  “No,” Abel whispered and turned to her. “You didn’t. It was much earlier.”

  “No, it was past midnight,” Anna insisted. “I remember how I looked at my watch and thought, it’s already twelve thirty … and if my parents imagined that I wa
s home earlier, then I guess they were mistaken.”

  He shook his head, slowly. “No,” he repeated. “No. My alibi is my business.”

  And then he did something absolutely unexpected. He pulled her close and held her for a moment, so tight she thought she could feel every single bone in his body. And somewhere between them, she felt his heart beating, fast and nervous. Hunted. He let go of her before the hug became a real hug, left her standing there, and fled from the tower. Anna balled up the paper and threw it in the wastebasket.

  When Linda came home that afternoon, Anna was sitting on a folding chair in the snow-covered garden, listening to the birds. She was wearing her winter coat but no hat, and white snow crystals, which the wind had brought down from the roof, were blooming in her dark hair. The snow had stopped falling at midday; the world was very quiet, apart from the twitter of the birds in the rosebushes.

  Linda stood in the doorway for a moment, watching her daughter. Anna was sitting as motionless as a statue, a work of art someone had installed in the garden, like a birdbath maybe, a birdbath in the shape of a seated girl. Linda stepped forward and put a hand on the statue’s shoulder, and the statue jumped and turned back into a girl. And all the robins flew away.

  “Have you been sitting here for a long time?” Linda asked.

  “I don’t know,” Anna said, looking up. Her lips were blue from the cold. Even her eyebrows were laced with snow crystals.

  “Come inside?” Linda asked. She didn’t command; she asked. “Have a cup of coffee with me. Tell me … if you want to … tell me, what happened.”

  “Nothing,” Anna said. “Nothing has happened. I’m just thinking … I’m still thinking about that article … Chicago … the man who was beaten to death. I wonder … I wonder how furious you would have to be to kill someone and if you can do it with your fists or … or if one fist is enough, because you can’t use the other one … I wonder how somebody dies then … I mean, even if he’s deserved it …” She got up and followed Linda inside, and Linda took Anna’s coat off with gentle hands.

  “You’re ice-cold,” she said. “Anna, this man … he didn’t die from a fistfight. It wasn’t in the paper but … well, I shouldn’t be telling you this, I guess.”

  “What—what did he die from then? How come you …?”

  Linda turned away and put the kettle on.

  “The husband of a colleague of mine works in the forensics department. She told me. I don’t know why they didn’t give this information in the newspaper … maybe the police have their reasons for not saying … but I’ll tell you. He died instantly. He was shot.”

  Anna grabbed her mother’s arm and saw the surprise in Linda’s eyes. “Shot? Are you sure?”

  Linda nodded. “From behind, she said. A shot in the neck. He didn’t suffer. I just want you to know that.”

  Anna looked at her watch. “Oh no. I almost forgot that I promised Gitta to … I have to go, I’m sorry,” she said. “Thanks for the coffee.”

  Linda shook her head while Anna put her coat back on. “I haven’t even made the coffee.”

  “Then go ahead and make it now,” Anna said. “I won’t be gone long.”

  She knew Linda was standing at the window, watching her ride away, watching her teeter as her bike wheels slid in the snow that was turning to ice on the road. Linda had always wanted another child, but it hadn’t worked out. After Anna, all her pregnancies had dissolved into nothingness, each and every one of the possible children shifting from nearly being to not being—too soon for Linda to get used to a presence, but late enough to feel its loss. She feared for Anna, always had—from her first step—and Anna knew it. This made life difficult. Linda tried to conceal her fear, by not controlling Anna, by not asking her where she went, by not ordering her around, by saying she thought it was a great idea to go to England for a year, that it was great she wanted to study in a different city. Though if it had been up to Linda, she would have tucked Anna into a small pocket, lined with soft fabric, next to her heart, where she would be safe and warm and nothing would ever happen to her. Like Abel would have done with Micha, if he could have, Anna thought, surprised by this thought: Abel. You’re just like Linda.

  She rang the doorbell three times before he opened. He was wearing a faded T-shirt and his hair was messy—messier than usual—as if he had just gotten out of bed or toweled himself off after showering. Two of the tiny cuts next to his eye had opened and were glistening, wet and red.

  “Do you know how to shoot a gun?” Anna asked without any introduction.

  “What? No,” Abel said. “Do you need to find someone who does?”

  “No. You’re sure you don’t know?” she asked. “And that you don’t have a weapon, either?”

  “No!” he repeated. She thought he would step back to let her in. He didn’t. He stepped forward and almost pulled the door closed behind him. He was shivering in his thin T-shirt, she could see. “Why are you asking me this?” he said.

  “If you’re telling the truth, you’re safe,” Anna said. “He was shot. Rainer was shot. My mother knows someone in the forensics department. He was shot in the neck; he wasn’t beaten to death.”

  Slowly, very slowly, a smile started to broaden on his face.

  “Thank God,” he said. “I’ve never been so glad that somebody was shot.”

  For a while they were standing there in the cold staircase. Then his smile disappeared. “But I can’t really prove that I don’t know how to shoot a gun,” he said. “Can I? I mean, it’s hard to prove that you can’t do something.”

  “Why would you have to prove that?” She nearly started to laugh.

  “They will think it was me,” he said in a low voice. “Despite everything.” He glanced back at the apartment.

  “Micha?” she asked. “Is she not supposed to hear what we’re talking about? Haven’t you told her …?”

  “Micha’s on a field trip with her school.” He folded his arms across his chest, as if this would protect him from the cold. Or possibly, from something else. On his upper-left arm she saw a shiny round red spot, like a burn. It looked new. It looked like a cigarette burn. He saw what she was looking at and put his hand over the wound.

  “Abel …” she began, “do we have to stay out here on the landing?”

  He shook his head. “No. You have to go home. You don’t belong here. You’ll catch cold.”

  “It’s warmer in your apartment.”

  “Anna,” he said, his voice even lower than before, and very insistent. “I don’t have time now.” He seemed to be listening for something, straining his ears in the direction of the apartment.

  “You’ve got a visitor,” she said.

  “Someone I owe money to.”

  “I could lend you …”

  “Please,” he said. “Go.”

  For a moment, he hesitated. As if he would prefer to stay on the landing, forever. But finally, he smoothed back his hair and turned to go. He closed the door behind him, with a click.

  Anna kicked the tires of her bike because there wasn’t anything else to kick. The voices of children shouting abuse at one another came from the first floor. Anna was pretty sure Mrs. Ketow was watching her again, but she didn’t care. Who was with Abel? It’s none of my business, she told herself. It definitely isn’t. I’m interfering, and he was right. I don’t belong here.

  But why, when they were alone in the classroom, had he hugged her? She walked back to Wolgaster Street, dragging her bike, in the event she found anything suitable for kicking. Only at the traffic lights, where she had to cross Wolgaster Street to reach the path on the other side, did she get on her bike. She was sitting there, holding onto a lamppost with one hand, waiting for the light to turn green, staring at the cars with hostility, when a hand landed on top of her own. She started.

  “Bertil!” He was next to her, sitting on his own bike, his feet on the pedals, keeping his balance by resting his hand over hers. She smiled. His glasses were halfway down his
nose again. “What a small world,” he said. “Have you been at your flute lesson?”

  She narrowed her eyes. “And where are you coming from?”

  He didn’t give her any more of an answer than she had given him.

  “If I asked you something that’s none of my business …,” he began.

  “I wouldn’t reply,” Anna said, pulling away her hand so that he nearly lost his balance. The light turned green, and they crossed together.

  “You’re spying on me,” Anna said. “Aren’t you?”

  “Is there anything worth spying on? Maybe I’m just making sure you don’t do anything stupid.”

  “Bertil Hagemann, leave me alone,” Anna said. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

  “Oh yes, you do,” Bertil said. “More than you realize.” Then he pedaled away, leaving her behind. He was more athletic than she had realized.

  The sword of Damocles hovered. Anna tried to stay angry, to sustain the anger that had compelled her to kick the wheel of her bike. It didn’t work. Abel’s fear was too palpable. She felt the sword hanging over him from a thin, fragile thread; he looked at her now in class—that was new—and in his eyes she saw fear. They will think it was me. It’s impossible to prove that you cannot do something. He no longer slept in class. Maybe he wasn’t working nights anymore. Or, maybe he just couldn’t sleep, not even in class, because he was no longer safe—anywhere. When the classroom door opened because someone was late, he started as if he expected the police. The sword was lowering. Its tip was the bullet that had pierced Rainer Lierski’s neck like the long teeth of a wolf.

  On Wednesday, Anna stood at the window of the student lounge, which was humming with excitement before the physics exam. She didn’t have to take it—she’d completed physics last semester. She realized that Abel was standing beside her.

  “I’d be relieved if they’d come for me,” he said in a low voice. “If they’d show up at our front door and demand an explanation. Where I was that Saturday night … so I could tell them … So I could tell them that I wasn’t there, I don’t own a gun, I don’t know how to use one, I didn’t kill him … But they don’t come; they don’t give me a chance to defend myself …”