The Storyteller

  But during lunch, there he was, all by himself, as usual. He hadn’t had to take the math test since he wasn’t in the basic class—he was in the intensive—and suddenly, Anna felt sorry for him. Bertil, who understood all numbers and integrals and statistics, and whose glasses were always sliding down his nose, and whose soap bubble was fogged up from inside. She went over to him and thanked him again for his help, and he smiled.

  “We’re all getting together tonight to celebrate before finals,” she said. “Why don’t you come too?”

  “Me?” Bertil asked.

  Anna nodded. “Yes, you,” she said. “Just do me a favor. Don’t appear out of nowhere.”

  “I’ll try and walk like an elephant,” Bertil promised, grinning. She’d never seen him look so happy.

  Linda didn’t ask where Anna was going to celebrate with the others. All she said was, “Be careful on your bike; the streets are slippery.”

  “Just imagine! Your last test!” Magnus said.

  “Only for Hennes,” Anna replied. “We’ve still got our last history test on Friday. And then finals.”

  Magnus shook his head. “God, it seems like only yesterday you were in kindergarten.”

  Before she left to meet the others, he bent down—he was still so much taller than she was—and said in a low voice, “What of the world has been on your mind lately? Has it passed? Or … is it possible … that you’ll meet whatever it is tonight, when you’re out celebrating with the others?”

  “No,” Anna said. “The others are absolutely unworldly.”

  Magnus watched her smile. “One day you’ll tell us, won’t you? Linda’s worried, you know. Because lately, you’ve been … she says you’ve been acting so different.”

  “One day I’ll explain,” Anna said. “But tonight is just a perfectly normal night at the bar, with Gitta and the others. It’s got nothing to do with anything.”

  But Anna was wrong.

  They met at the Mittendrin, opposite the dome. The Mittendrin was one of the few bars where you could still smoke. In the tiny side room, separated from the bar by a heavy black curtain that extended from ceiling to floor, a cigarette machine blinked.

  Anna always felt like she’d stepped onto a stage when she passed through the curtain. Magnus had told her that in his day there had been a table made of an old door, complete with the handle and everything, and that the armchairs had been more comfortable. The Mittendrin had been renovated a dozen times since then, but the only real change was that there were more smokers. The air in the bar was 70 percent cigarette smoke, 28 percent alcohol and slightly strained coolness, and 2 percent the smoke of something that wasn’t cigarettes. It was also dark, and Anna wasn’t sure whether this was because of the absence of light or the presence of smoke, which prevented the light from passing through.

  Gitta leafed through the drink menu, happily taking a drag, when Anna joined her and the others. The list of cocktails seemed endless.

  “Sex on the beach,” Gitta said.

  “In this weather?” Hennes asked.

  “That’s the drink I’m gonna order, stupid.”

  Bertil was sitting with a beer, trying to look relaxed, which he wasn’t; Frauke threw Anna a glance, cursing her for inviting him. Anna shrugged and ordered a glass of vodka.

  “You don’t even like vodka,” Gitta said. “Have a cocktail with us, little lamb. They have the weirdest things—I’ll find something pretty for you, something nice and colorful, with a lot of fruit … we’re celebrating math after all …”

  “Why don’t you let her have what she wants,” Bertil said.

  “I get it.” Gitta looked over at Frauke and winked. “I know why she brought him. He’s her bodyguard. Come on, Bertil, don’t look so stricken; it was a joke, all right? Relax. So, what I wanted to say was … once these final exams are over, we’ll …”

  Anna leaned back and watched Gitta, who was, simultaneously, planning their futures, gesturing wildly, smoking, drinking something that looked like a cross between a palm tree and a swimming pool, and trying to move closer to Hennes. Anna thought about how much she liked Gitta and about how little Gitta actually knew of the world, even though she always acted like she knew everything. She felt a strange disconnect from her old friend, and from Frauke and Hennes and Bertil, too. She sat there and heard them talking but didn’t listen; she watched them but looked through them, like she was watching a movie. She was sitting on the other side of the screen with her vodka, and she was a thousand years old. None of them had ever seen an island sink into the sea; none of them had ever removed as many splinters from a wound as she had—the splinters from what seemed like half a cupboard full of plates. None of them had ever been in the stairwell of 18 Amundsen Street. And then it came to her, all of a sudden, like the crack of a shotgun: they’re the ones inside a soap bubble. Not me.

  She talked to them without even listening to herself, talked to them about unimportant things; she saw that glasses were emptied and refilled with more brightly colored liquids, with different flower-shaped fruits; she passed the joint that Hennes gave her without touching it; she saw the time go by but wasn’t there. She was on a ship; she was out on the ocean; she was walking with Abel between the winter chestnuts, his hand in hers. At one point, she realized that Bertil was no longer drinking a beer but instead sharing a cocktail with Frauke—the two of them drinking out of the same glass with two straws. Anna thought this was cruel of Frauke because she knew that Frauke didn’t take him seriously. No one took Bertil seriously. And she wondered if Bertil had shared Hennes’s joint. Probably. Just to be cool. But she was too far away to give it more thought.

  “Anna,” Gitta said, “you’re dreaming. And you haven’t smoked anything … are you dreaming of your university student?”

  “Which stu—ah, my student,” Anna said. “Yeah. Yeah, I am. I think I’m gonna go out for a minute, I need a bit of fresh air, a few double Os.”

  “What?” Gitta asked, leaning against Hennes. “What are you talking about, little lamb?”

  “O2, Gitta,” Anna replied. “Oxygen.”

  She got up and elbowed her way through the crowd; by now, too many people were squeezed in the spaces between tables.

  “Wait,” someone behind her said. Bertil. “Anna! I’ll come with you.”

  She shook her head. “Thanks, Bertil,” she said, “but I want to be alone for a minute. Not long, okay? I …” I want to see if the stars here form a dog and a wolf, too, she thought. If Perseus looks like a hunter, and how many hunters there are. “I’ll … I’ll be back in a minute,” she said.

  Walking into the cold outside was like walking into an icy wall. She chided herself for not taking her coat. She pulled her hands into the sleeves of her sweater and saw that she wasn’t the only person who’d come out for fresh air. To the left of the entrance, there was a small aluminum table and a bench that was used more in summer; a few guys—guys Anna didn’t like—were standing there in the darkness, holding beers. Two of them had extremely short hair and necks like bulls. She took a step back, instinctively, and then heard a voice she knew. The voice named a price, and Anna looked again. It was a voice that usually said very different words, melodious words, fairy-tale words. Abel. Of course. Abel on his nightly round through the bars. Somehow she hadn’t thought … she hadn’t expected to meet him here. She figured he’d be working the Seaside District. Stupid of her, she thought. There weren’t many bars out there. By comparison, the city was packed with them. She felt warmth rise inside her, a nice and friendly warmth, like the warmth of a fireplace. It was strange: she heard him talking to guys who made her afraid; she met him while he was dealing; and still she felt warm inside.

  “Hi ya, darlin!” one of the two guys said, noticing her. “Can I get a light?” He came over to where she stood, followed by his friend, who had a cigarette between his fingers. “My lighter’s fucked up,” he said, looking at her in a way that she definitely didn’t like. She thought that it might be a
good idea to go back inside now, but the two guys were standing between her and the door to the bar. She wasn’t sure how sober they were. “Sorry,” she said. “I don’t smoke.”

  “See, Kevin, she don’t smoke,” the guy with the cigarette said. “Very reasonable. Gotta think of a better pick-up line than that if you want to take this sweet thing home!” They were standing much too close; she could smell the booze on their breath. Shit, shit, shit, Anna thought, why did I have to come outside alone? Abel wouldn’t help her. Abel wouldn’t know her here, like he didn’t know her at school.

  Kevin put his hand out to touch her hair. At that moment, someone laid a hand on his shoulder and yanked him back with a jerk. It was Abel’s hand. “Leave her alone,” he said.

  “Hi … Abel,” Anna said. That was all she could think to say.

  “That your fuckin’ first name, Tannatek?” Kevin said. “Abel? I can’t believe it. What kind of a name is that? And who’s the chick?”

  “Her name’s Anna,” Abel answered, putting his arm around her. “And keep your hands off her if you don’t want things to get messy, got it?”

  “Whoa. Steady … steady!” Kevin said. “Relax, dude.”

  Abel was probably ten or twenty pounds lighter than Kevin-with-the-bull-neck. But for some inexplicable reason, Kevin seemed to respect him. “That means … Don’t tell me she’s with you, Tannatek?” the other guy asked in disbelief. “I thought you …”

  “Don’t think too much,” Abel said. “It’ll make you grow ulcers on your head, Marcel.”

  Kevin laughed, and Abel pulled Anna to the side. “What are you doing here?”

  “Gitta and the others are inside. I just wanted to get some air …”

  Abel put his hands on her shoulders. “You’re cold. You’re shivering.”

  She nodded. “It’s not important …”

  “Sure it is,” and then, in a very low voice, with a private kind of a smile, he said, “Rose girl, I told you the branches would wither and you would freeze. You wanted to stay on board …”

  Anna nodded. “I’m staying.”

  He took off his parka, slid out of the black sweatshirt, and gave it to her before putting the parka back on. “Take this.”

  Marcel whistled through his teeth. “Striptease!” he said. “Just go on, Tannatek, strip! She can join you …”

  “Shut your fuckin’ trap, Marcel,” Abel said, taking a step toward him. Marcel didn’t move. He narrowed his eyes and looked Abel over, almost pleased. “Aw … whatsa matter?” he said. “You really want trouble? You can have it.” Kevin laughed again, but more uncomfortably now.

  Anna hurried up and put on Abel’s sweatshirt. She had the thought that it would be better to have her hands free if it came to a fight, but of course that was silly …

  “Come on,” Abel said. He took her hand and pulled her away.

  They headed down the street next to the Mittendrin, the dome towering behind them, piercing the winter sky like a strange, glowing plant. The street lay empty and quiet. Nobody followed them. On the walls of the old houses, the snow stuck to the frozen ivy leaves.

  “I can beat up the two of them if I have to,” Abel said. “Kevin knows that. But I won’t have to. Don’t worry.”

  “But I do worry,” Anna said. “It’s about all I ever do these days. I’m afraid.”

  He stopped and looked at her. He’d let go of her hand. “Me, too,” he said. “But not of those guys. They’re dumb. They’re so dumb. They live out there, you know, where we live, too. Everyone there … well, almost everyone … is dumb. Ignorant. It’s not their fault. They inherit the ignorance of their parents and hand it onto their children like a tradition, like a craft. They drink in the ignorance with their powdered milk, with each bottle of beer, and in the end they make their coffins of ignorance.”

  “And … you?”

  “Me?” He understood and laughed. “I don’t know. I’m a slipup. A mistake. An accident. I guess Michelle managed to bed some intellectual. I’ve always been different. And maybe back then … when I was very small … maybe she was different, too. I don’t remember. Maybe she was a mother … before she gave up being anything at all. We … we got a letter from that social services office, the one with the shells and sisters, you know. It says Michelle needs to show up there and asks why she hadn’t checked in lately. They plan to stop by again to ask questions …”

  Anna put her arms, in the black sleeves, around him and hugged him, holding him tight for a minute. “Somehow, everything will turn out all right,” she whispered. “Somehow … I don’t know how … not yet, anyway … Let’s walk in the snow for a while. It’s so beautiful … they said it wouldn’t snow again this winter, but now …”

  “What about the others? The bar?” Abel asked as he walked along beside her. “Don’t you want to go back?”

  “Later,” Anna said. “Though, to be honest, I don’t even know why. I don’t feel like sitting there, celebrating with them. They’re celebrating that math is over, but really they’re celebrating their own ignorance. They’re just as ignorant as the people in your apartment building … just in another way, you know what I mean? I want something different … I want … I want to go to the U.S. on a cargo ship. I want to cross the Himalayas. I want … to fly … far away … somewhere. To some … desert. To the end of the world.” She held out her arms and turned in the snow like a plane, like a child pretending to be a plane.

  “Yeah,” Abel said. “Maybe I’ll come with you … to the U.S. and the Himalayas and the desert.”

  She stood, out of breath, and realized that she was beaming. “Let’s do it,” she whispered. “Let’s go ahead and do it. After finals. Let’s go away, really far away.”

  “And Micha?”

  “We’ll take her with us. It can’t be bad for her to get to know the world a bit … we can do everything, Abel … get anywhere … together …”

  He smiled. “Everything?” he said. “Together. With me? Anna Leemann, you don’t even know me.”

  He took her hand and led her back to the Mittendrin. She wished he would kiss her again; she wished it so much it hurt, but she didn’t dare to initiate it. She didn’t know what he thought or what he wanted. He was right. She didn’t know him.

  Kevin and Marcel weren’t standing in front of the Mittendrin anymore.

  “So …” Abel said, “the others are waiting for you.”

  “Come in with me,” she said suddenly. “Have a glass of vodka with us. I’m inviting you. You’ve taken the math exam …”

  “I don’t think I fit in with those people you’re with,” Abel said.

  “Neither do I. Come anyway. They’re harmless.” Reluctantly, Abel let her pull him through the door. “Wait,” he said. “Anna, what’s this supposed to be? An introduction to refined society? Think about what you’re doing …”

  Anna laughed. “We’re not living in the Middle Ages. Or in India—there are no castes here. Come on … Frauke will be excited to see you for sure. She once considered falling in love with you ‘experimentally.’”

  “Oh my God.” He rolled his eyes.

  And for a moment, Anna thought everything would be all right. Abel would sit at the table with them and laugh with them and cease being the Polish peddler and change into a fellow student … a fellow fighter in the fight against finals, a human being with a first name.

  The smoke-filled air surrounded them like a strange kind of ocean, an ocean very different from the one on which the little queen was sailing. Anna made her way through the crowd, to the table where the others were sitting. Abel followed her. She saw him greet some people with a nod, people she didn’t know … and didn’t want to know. He swam in the thick bar air like a fish in water, and still he hesitated to come to her table. Gitta was on the black leather sofa with her head on Hennes’s knees. She looked sleepy in a comfortable sort of way, not really tired; she looked as if she had very definite plans for the night.

  “Anna,” she said, “where
’ve you been hiding?”

  “I met someone outside,” Anna said and stepped aside to make a vague gesture in Abel’s direction. Everyone at the table looked at her. Gitta sat up. She seemed to awaken from her sleepiness—or pretended sleepiness—with a start. “Oh, Tannatek,” she said. “Hi.”

  The others didn’t say anything. They just stared. And suddenly, Anna remembered that she was still wearing Abel’s black sweatshirt. So what? She straightened up.

  “Is there an extra chair somewhere?” she said. “I think I saw one before. We …”

  She didn’t get any further. For just then, Bertil stood up, made his way past Frauke, and came toward her. He was unsteady on his feet.

  “So this is how things are,” he said, very loudly, at least for Bertil. “I get it. I understand. I understand everything now. I’m good enough for math. For helping you study. But that’s the only time. I … you … so you, Anna Leemann. I’ve been … I … suspected this all along … I should have known … It was clear … absolutely fucking clear … It …” He held onto Frauke’s chair. His glasses were sliding down his nose again, and then, with a sudden movement, he tore them from his face and threw them on the table.

  “Bertil,” Anna said, “you’re drunk!”

  “I’m … I’m not,” Bertil said, but his words were heavy and slow. “I’m … I’m abso … absolutely … so … so-sober. F … f-f-for the first time perf … ectly … sober. You … it must be you … who is drunk. Look at your … yourself, how you’re running around, in that disgus … disgusting sweatshirt … you’re joining the club of anti … antisosh … antisocial elements now?”

  He came closer, still unsteadily, awkwardly, almost blind, but his eyes were burning with an unexpected and dangerous rage. Anna stepped back; she saw Abel take a step backward, too. He hadn’t backed off from the guys outside the bar, she thought.