Текст книги "The Storyteller"

Автор книги: Antonia Michaelis

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Dance me to the children who are asking to be born

Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn

Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn

Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin

Dance me through the panic till I’m gathered safely in

Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove

Dance me to the end of love …

And for a moment, he wished he were back there, young again, or younger—a little—so he could do everything over again and make different decisions … Faust. But no, no … no Gretchen questions … please, no.

And then, as they left the market square, Abel and Micha taking one street and Anna taking another, he saw their shadows. He hadn’t noticed them before; he’d only seen the bright shining gold … their shadows were long and black. Of course, that was because of the setting sun; it didn’t mean anything. But suddenly he felt afraid. Afraid for these two young people.

He didn’t have children. But if he had, he thought, they’d be Anna and Abel’s age now. And he’d worry about them. He wouldn’t sleep at night; he’d lie in bed, sleepless, worrying. He’d yell at them when they came home late, or maybe he wouldn’t; maybe he’d be silent and lose them in silence. It just wasn’t possible, he thought, to do right by your children.

Better to be alone.

Abel and Anna weren’t his children. They were only his students. Damn. Yet he still carried his fear for them home with him.

Who’s that? That’s the lighthouse keeper

.

The lighthouse keeper? Why was he a lighthouse keeper? Which lighthouse did he keep, and what was it that kept him there?

THAT NIGHT, ANNA SLEPT WITH THE FAIRY-TALE TELLER.

Not in reality. In her dreams. She lay in her bed, in the house of blue air, and dreamed a pocket of time into Abel’s fairy tale, a time pocket that would never be told. It was night on the deck of the green ship. The little queen was dreaming, too, between her polar bear skins in the cabin below, Mrs. Margaret in her arms, the asking man and the answering man, who had finally come in to get some sleep, beside her. And the lighthouse keeper. The lighthouse keeper slept in his boots and his glasses, which were pushed up into the graying hair on his head. The little queen was smiling in her sleep. Maybe she dreamed of the reality beyond her fairy tale, of turquoise ice cream on a snow-covered market square, of letters in the dirt on a window.

Anna was standing on the deck all alone, watching the stars. She found the Big Dipper and Ursa Major and Minor, but Ursa Minor looked like a dog, Ursa Major, like a wolf. She found Perseus, but he looked like a hunter with a long robe, and he wasn’t alone; there were five hunters altogether—four of them, she thought, are still on the black ship. Four of them are still following us. Four of them want to catch us before we reach the mainland. She stepped to the rail and saw the moonlight on the waves. Small pieces of ice danced within it. The sea would freeze. Maybe soon. From one of the waves, a head appeared, the head of the sea lion. She wanted to reach out her arms to pull him on board. And suddenly the sea lion lifted himself out of the water and flew across the waves in a spray of small drops; in the next instant, the wolf was standing next to Anna. But no, she was mistaken. It was the silver dog with the golden eyes—but no, no, it wasn’t the silver dog either. It was a human being. It was Abel, and yet, not Abel. His eyes were the wrong color; they were golden. He wore black, but not the black Böhse Onkelz sweatshirt she hated so much. He wore an ironed black shirt that looked strange on him; it was the kind of black shirt you wear to a funeral. She wanted to ask him whose funeral it was, and if he’d just come from it or was he headed to it later, but before she could ask, he had pulled her into his arms. It was like a weird ballet.

The white sails that the red hunter had torn to pieces with his rapier were still heaped on deck. Anna saw that someone had started to mend them, probably she herself, the rose girl, who had also made clothes for everyone. She felt the red velvet on her skin. She felt the red velvet slide down. She was naked. For a moment she stood like that, in the moonlight, but she wasn’t cold. She undid the buttons of his black shirt—it was easy, like removing one’s own clothes—and the black material slid down, too, and got entangled with the red velvet; black and red like night and blood. She looked at Abel. She tried to smile. She was a little afraid.

The round burn on his upper arm was shining like a second moon, or an eye.

“Don’t look at it,” he whispered, as he pulled her down onto the deck, between the white sails that closed around them like a tent. It was completely dark in that tent; there was nothing to be seen, only to be heard and to be felt and to be tasted.

“It’s a dream,” Anna whispered.

“It’s a time pocket in the fairy tale,” Abel whispered. “That is what you wished for, isn’t it?”

In a dream, in a fairy tale, nothing has to be explained, everything happens of its own accord. That night, Anna knew everything and understood everything and was familiar with everything; she thought of Gitta and had to laugh because Gitta didn’t understand anything—she only talked like she did. The tent made of sails became a cocoon and moved over the deck, rolling to and fro in the rhythm of the waves, an artwork by Christo and Jeanne-Claude, a package whose contents were no one’s business. Anna felt blood on her fingers; she wasn’t sure whose blood it was … maybe her own, maybe blood from the wound on Abel’s temple, or maybe just a memory—or the blood of a third person? No, she thought, there is nobody here. Just the two of us.

And the cocoon, the artwork, the tent rolled over the deck, rolled over the rail, and sank into the icy waters of the night ocean, with Anna and Abel inside it. The white cat, who was lying on deck, silently shook her head at the sight.

When Anna awoke, it was five o’clock in the morning, and she was out of breath. The white cat, she suddenly thought—wasn’t the white cat blind? She sat up in her bed and realized that she was shivering. Her bed seemed vast, and she was very alone in it.

• • •

“Check out our Polish peddler,” Gitta said on Monday, looking out the window. “If he keeps standing there, he’ll be covered in snow like a statue. I don’t get it. He’s been standing there since early morning; he wasn’t in French class—he’s just been standing out there with plugs in his ears.”

“White noise,” Anna said.

Gitta looked at her. “Excuse me?”

“Maybe he hasn’t earned his daily wage.” Hennes laughed. He pushed his red hair back and nudged Gitta in a friendly way. “Hey, physics is over, and the math test tomorrow is the last one before finals … shouldn’t we celebrate? Tomorrow night … we could ask him if he’s got some weed. Or does he only sell pills?”

“He’s a peddler.” Gitta put a suggestive hand on Hennes’s arm. “I’m guessing he can get almost anything. But if you ask him for weed, he’ll laugh. Weed’s easy—it’s for children. I’m sure he makes more selling other stuff.”

“Today, I’m feeling generous,” Hennes said, grinning. “I actually feel like tipping. What do you think, does our Polish peddler take tips?”

He slipped into his ski jacket, and a moment later was walking across the yard, through the gently falling snowflakes. Gitta sighed and said, “Those snowflakes really look good in his hair. You could put that guy in a frame, hang him up on the wall …”

“If he really wants to party … maybe he’ll let you hang him on the wall. You never know,” Frauke said and laughed.

“Depends on what he arranges with the Pole,” Gitta said, “… and what he plans to smoke. Anna, do you want to come tomorrow?”

“I’ll think about it,” Anna said.

She saw Hennes standing at the bike rack next to Abel. She saw Hennes’s bright-colored ski jacket, his glowing red hair, his upright posture; she saw Abel beside him, hands dug deep into the pockets of his old parka, hat pulled down low, back bent—a dark lump of a human being, almost totally holed up in himself, nearly invisible, an ugly blotch in the immaculate white snow. She saw Hennes talking to Abel, who didn’t take the plugs out of his ears.

“You know, it’s possible to party without weed,” Bertil said. Anna jumped. She hadn’t seen him there. He looked at her.

“What do you think?”

“I’m thinking,” Anna replied in a low voice, “that I don’t like Hennes von Biederitz.”

The math test went well. At first, Anna thought she would be too distracted. All the words Abel hadn’t said to her since Monday were filling her head. She saw him sitting at his desk, his test in front of him. Halfway through, he pulled off his black sweatshirt and sat there in his T-shirt; she forced herself not to look at him too closely, not to search for the round scar, not to think of her dream. In the end, she managed to solve most of the test problems. She remembered Bertil’s patient explanations, the look behind his glasses, and his voice—the voice of an indulgent professor—and it was like Bertil was there, taking the test for her. She didn’t want to think that; she didn’t want to think of Bertil; she hated the way he kept sneaking up on her, seeming to appear out of nowhere, without a sound.

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.

“Bertil, sit down,” Frauke said.

“Don’t … don’t order me around,” Bertil said with his heavy tongue. And with a sudden, flailing movement of his arm, he pushed Anna aside and stood face-to-face with Abel. Anna lost her balance, grabbed onto the bar behind her, and knocked over a glass; she heard it crash, and felt a lot of faces turn toward her.

Staring at her and Abel and Bertil.

Abel stood motionless, as if he were made of stone. Even his face had turned to stone. Bertil took another step forward and flicked some snow off Abel’s jacket, like he was attempting to clean it, a strange gesture.

“Sure, I’ll never … never be as cool as T … Tannatek in his military jacket,” he slurred. “But listen here … you’re missing a button … a button on your jacket and … don’t you wanna cut your hair again? Your Nazi friends surely don’t … like you having it so l … long …” He reached out and plucked the black woolen hat from Abel’s head. Abel took it back from him. That was all he did. His face was stoney. They were extremely close now; Bertil was a little taller than Abel but not half as broad-shouldered. They stared at each other. The bar was silent.

Then Bertil noticed the silence. He looked around, seeming to enjoy the fact that everyone was listening to him for once, and turned back to Abel. “If I had a … a weapon,” he said, “I’d just … I’d just shoot you. L … like my fa … father did with that dog. One shot, poof, and that … that would be the end of you.”

When he said that, Abel suddenly came to life. He grabbed Bertil’s arm with his left, uninjured hand. Anna saw how tight the grip was, she heard Bertil gasp.

“If you want to fight with me, Bertil Hagemann, we’ll go outside,” he said in a low voice.

“Yeah. B-b-beating people up, that’s some … something you’re good at,” Bertil hissed. “Just words … words are not your spesh … speciality, are they? But maybe the girls l-l-like that … if a guy doesn’t talk much … but instead does oth-other things to them … maybe he’s good in bed, right, Anna? Why don’t you tell … tell us about it. We want all … all the details …”

At that moment Abel’s right hand slammed into Bertil’s face. His left hand was still gripping Bertil’s arm, and Anna saw him flinch as pain shot through his right hand.

“So,” Abel said, his voice still very low, “are you coming out with me or do I have to carry you?”

“Hennes,” Gitta said, “do something.” Anna actually heard something like fear in Gitta’s voice. Or was it her own fear? “If someone doesn’t bring him to his senses,” Gitta went on, “Bertil will let the Pole beat him to a pulp.”

Hennes got up from the sofa and stood next to Bertil. Hennes’s red hair shone, even in the darkness of the bar, even through the smoke; he stood as upright as always, in spite of the many colorful drinks, in spite of the joint. He put a hand on Bertil’s shoulder.

“Let go of him, Tannatek,” he said, very calmly. “We’ll look after him. He’s had too much to drink. He doesn’t know what he’s talking about.”

Abel released Bertil and folded his arms across his chest. “I think he knows perfectly well what he’s talking about,” he said. “He’s more honest than you, Hennes.”

“Of … of course, I know …” Bertil began.

“Shut up, Bertil,” Hennes said. And then, in a very loud and clear voice, continued, “Tannatek wants to leave now.”