Текст книги "The Storyteller"

Автор книги: Antonia Michaelis

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Текущая страница: 17 (всего у книги 23 страниц)

The beach lay silent under the snow.

But all this, she thought, this summer scene … if it happened, it would mean I’ve forgiven him. That I’ve forgiven what happened in the boathouse. The hand. The pain. The sound of running feet, fleeing.

No, thought reasonable Anna. It is not possible. Not this. That cloak of love you were wearing—he’s torn it to shreds, undoing the seams of trust that held it together. How can you ever wear those shreds?

I could mend it, said unreasonable Anna, with impossibilities; with the impossibility of forgiveness itself, use that as a thread. You would always see how torn the cloak is, of course. It would never look new again. A love in pieces. And I would never be warm in a cloak like that, of course.

Abel knew that, Rose girl, the sea is cold.

She realized that the temperature had dropped suddenly. The thaw had stopped; the wind was icy, and it was bringing new snowflakes, only a few at first, but there was a dense white wall closing in, slowly consuming the sky. For a moment, she still felt the sun of the daydream on her skin, and then she noticed she didn’t feel anything at all. It had been an illusion. The cold had rendered the skin on her cheeks numb. There was no feeling in them anymore, and her fingers in the gloves seemed to belong to someone else. How long had she been sitting here? How long had she been dreaming of summer? She’d thought it was only seconds, but now she wasn’t sure. Evening was creeping in, the sky was darkening. Stiff with cold, she had trouble standing up. She had to go back, back to her bike, back home, back to where it was warm.

The moment she stepped onto the path leading back through the pines, the snowstorm reached Ludwigsburg. The wind threw handfuls of snow into her face; she ducked down, crouching low; she heard the pines creak and moan; and somewhere, a big branch broke with a loud crack. It sounded like a shot. She hunkered down deeper, trudging as best she could, but she wasn’t really getting anywhere. The storm was filling the path with snow, making it disappear. Snow found its way into Anna’s boots, her clothes; she cursed under her breath, bracing herself against the wind, her head lowered. By now, she could no longer feel her feet. The way back had become endless.

And then she saw that someone was following her. Someone was there, a dark figure in the swirling snow between the dark tree trunks. She could only see it out of the corner of her eye. She turned around. There was no one. She must have imagined it. It must have been something else—a bent tree, a thicket, a shadow. She fought her way on, step by step, and the shadow returned to the edge of her field of vision, a flexible shadow, hunched like herself. Again she turned, and again there was no one.

She knew, though, that the figure would reappear once she turned her back to it.

And suddenly, fear gripped her with icy claws. Absolute, sheer terror.

Fear of the storm that was too strong for her, fear of the shadow behind her, fear of the cold and the dark that would inevitably come, fear of being alone. Was the figure behind her just something bred and born of this fear? A creature sprung from her own imagination? What if it wasn’t? She stood, holding onto the trunk of a pine, her breath unsteady; she was freezing, shivering. She could almost feel the metal at her neck, the metal of a weapon pressed against her skin. It was only her wet scarf, of course. I’m afraid, she’d told Knaake, afraid that another dead body might be found in the snow.

But never, not even for the blink of an eye, had she thought this body might be hers. She forced herself to walk on, but she still didn’t seem to be moving forward; she looked back, far too often, in vain; the figure following her melted into the forest every time she turned her head. She thought of Linda and her insane fear that something might happen to her only daughter.

How sensible Linda’s worries seemed now!

All the worst things, the things at the mention of which you would just shake your head and laugh, all those things were coming true. Stop worrying, I’ll be home on time, I’m not gonna get raped. Stop worrying, I’m not gonna get myself killed. Stop worrying. Stop worrying.

She felt the person following her coming closer; she felt it clearly. And something in her longed to drop in the snow and wait. Her breath became more ragged; it felt as if she were breathing snowflakes, in and out, along with the sharp and icy wind.

“Abel,” she whispered. “If that’s you, hurry. Come here. End all this. I’ve had enough.”

But suddenly, she knew it wasn’t Abel. It was someone else. She didn’t know how she could tell—she just could. That wasn’t much use, she thought.

And she understood that she wasn’t only fighting the snowstorm, she was also fighting herself and her capacity to forgive. If the absolutely impossible was possible … the snowflakes the wind hurled at her were wet with the blood of the night in the boathouse, the icy storm that took her breath away felt like a hand covering her mouth. Could she leave this behind? Find something beyond?

She moved through a snowstorm made from the tiny white pieces of torn envelopes. And she was alone in this storm. She realized she longed for Abel’s presence, the Abel he had been before the night in the boathouse, the Abel she had kissed on a sunny day in town. If that Abel had been here, she would not be so afraid, even of death.

“I will die,” she whispered, almost soundlessly, as she stumbled on. “I will die, and I know what will happen. They will make him responsible for my death. They’ll think it was him, that he killed me out here … the real killer will make them believe that. It all makes sense. But who …” Who knew that she’d come out to Ludwigsburg? Only Knaake. She began to feel colder. What if she’d confided in the wrong person? The murderer’s island, she thought, is empty; the murderer is among us … what about the lighthouse keeper’s glasses, the glasses he’d supposedly forgotten on the ship? The little queen had returned to search for them, and she’d run directly into the arms of the red hunter … and why had the lighthouse keeper made them take down the sails in the storm? It had sounded sensible, but still, the little queen’s green ship lost speed, allowing the black ship to close in … but wasn’t that just a fairy tale?

She could see the figure clearly now; she whirled around—nothing. It was a broken tree. And then, she made out the long silhouette of the café. Soon, she was struggling to unlock her bicycle. The lock was covered in ice … finally, thankfully, it gave way. But the storm was too strong for her to ride. So she just pushed the bike along the road, against the storm.

There were three cars in the parking lot next to the café, all three of them covered with snow. She didn’t remember if there’d been any cars when she’d arrived. Maybe. Maybe their owners were out walking like she was, or maybe they’d left their cars here weeks ago. She pushed her bike on against the storm, along an endless, narrow lane; at some point, the path would lead onto Wolgaster Street, but that wouldn’t be for another mile. A mile more of white, icy nothingness—a mile along which no one could help her. A grave a mile long.

She lowered her head again and clutched the bike. Could she use it to defend herself somehow? To push it toward the person following her—to shove it in his face and run? It’s no use, she told herself. Where would you run to? But she didn’t let go of the bike.

It was her last comfort.

She didn’t turn around again. She knew her pursuer was still there. Turning around wouldn’t help; he could choose any moment to catch her. Maybe he liked chasing her, making her afraid; maybe he liked it when she turned; maybe he was secretly laughing. She wouldn’t do him any more favors.

She tried to recall her dream of the warm summer day. If this snowstorm was to be the last thing she saw, she wanted to picture something pleasant in the meantime. But the cold wind blew the nice pictures and thoughts right out of her head; all it let stay was the fear.

It was beginning to get dark now; she was barely moving forward anymore because the snowdrifts on the lane were too high—then, behind her, she heard the sound of a car engine. She stopped. It was him. It had to be him. Him or her. Her pursuer. When the car stopped beside her, she realized that tears where streaming down her face. It was a miracle she actually felt those tears; she’d thought she couldn’t feel anything anymore.

She let the bike drop into the snow. She let herself drop into the snow. Somebody jumped out of the car, came toward her, grabbed her, and pulled her up.

“My God, are you mad?” said Bertil. “What are you doing here?”

Ten minutes later, she was sitting in the passenger seat of an old Volvo, still crying. She couldn’t stop. Bertil had put her bike in the backseat next to his dog. The car had gotten stuck in a snowdrift when he’d stopped, and he had to drive backward and forward several times before it pulled free. Warm air from the heater was starting to fill the car.

“It’s going to get warmer in a minute,” Bertil said. “I’ve been looking for you. I just had to find a place where I could turn the car …”

“A place … to turn the car?”

“Yes. I passed you once already, a few minutes ago. But I could only turn in front of the café. Don’t say you didn’t see the car. I flashed the lights at you so you’d see me and know I was coming back for you …”

“I was walking with my head down,” Anna said. “I didn’t see you. You’ve … you’ve been looking for me? How come you knew …?”

When she said this, he stopped the car, reached over, and pulled her into his arms; and she didn’t fight it. He smelled different from Abel. He smelled of snow and peppermints and dog.

He was warm and alive. He was there. He’d been looking for her.

“Gitta saw you ride out here,” he explained. “She told me. She said that if you were going in this direction, you were probably heading out to Ludwigsburg … she knows you … I waited for a while. In case you came back. But then I thought it might be a good idea to go and have a look just in case.”

“Yeah,” she replied between the sobs she still wasn’t able to control. “Yeah, that was a good idea. Bertil, I … I thought someone …” She stopped.

“You’re ice-cold,” he said and turned the heat up. “Why did you come out here? Didn’t you hear the storm warning? Or have you just gone crazy? I don’t even know if we can make it back in the car. The roads are a mess.”

“Yeah,” was all she said. “Yeah.” She held onto him, onto the warmth of a living being. She didn’t want to go anywhere; she just wanted to sit here in the car and hold onto someone. No matter who it was. At some point, he let go of her and started driving again. In the back, the silver greyhound was panting. Anna turned around. He had golden eyes. How strange.

The windshield wipers were racing. Bertil drove along in second gear, avoiding the snowdrifts. In some places, he had to pick up speed to get over one, and then he’d stretch out his arm in front of Anna as if to keep her from flying through the windshield. He was swearing through clenched teeth. Then, between the curses, he asked, “What happened, anyway? With Tannatek and you?”

She swallowed the last sobs. “Nothing.”

“Are you kidding me? Of course something happened. And that’s the reason you rode out here in spite of the storm warning, isn’t it? Did he harm you?”

She looked away. More than I could find the words for, she thought. But I am not going to tell you. The pain is mine alone.

“If he did,” said Bertil as he maneuvered the Volvo around another snowdrift, “if he harmed you, I’ll kill him. I’ll kill him.”

Anna held onto the door handle and noticed that she hadn’t fastened her seat belt. “Better watch the road,” she said, “or you’ll kill us instead.” But inwardly, she thought that she’d heard almost exactly the same sentence before. Abel had said that about Micha’s father. If he touches Micha, I’ll kill him.

The wheels slipped and spun for a moment, but Bertil managed to right the car again. “Snow chains,” he said, “what you need now are snow chains. Damn. I can’t see a thing.” The wind blew snowflakes against the windshield, the flakes like mad dancers seeking the spotlight; it was hypnotizing, the to and fro of the wipers and the steady appearance of new flakes, coming nearer, growing bigger, and disappearing.

“How can you drive in this weather?”

“I can’t,” said Bertil. “I have to. You would have frozen to death out there … There’s the big road.”

The turn was so treacherous that the Volvo skidded again. On the big road, there were other cars, and at first, Anna felt safer, but then a car in front of them skidded and stopped. Bertil cursed, loudly this time. The Volvo came to a halt a few inches from the other car’s bumper.

“Somebody was following me,” said Anna. “Out there, in Ludwigsburg, between the pines. Maybe the person who killed those two men—Lierski and Marinke. You know who I’m talking about.”

“Do I?” Bertil asked as he waited for the other car to drive on and then stepped on the accelerator again. Somewhere ahead of them, the orange lights of a snowplow and a tow truck were blinking. One side of the road was completely filled with snow, and only one lane was open. Bertil stopped again to let a car coming from the other direction pass them.

“Aren’t you afraid?” Anna asked.

He shook his head. “The worst that can happen is … what? That we get stuck? That we have an accident?” He looked at her. “The worst is always death. I don’t mind that. Then I’ll die in this car with you. That would be okay.”

“Bertil, please … watch the road.” The dog was whining behind Anna. He had crouched down, his head beneath the front tire of Anna’s bike.

“The road!” Bertil laughed. “What does the road matter. I love you.”

“I know,” Anna said. “But watch the damn road!”

“You know? You don’t know anything, Anna,” Bertil murmured, turning his attention back to the road. “I’m the one who’s always there, who’ll always be there for you. But I’m always second best. I’m the freak with the thick glasses, the too-tall freak who’s too cautious, the freak who’ll never be cool. The teachers say that I’m intelligent! Intelligent? Fuck intelligent. I’ve always wanted to be something else. If I had a choice, I’d choose to look like Tannatek. You can bet I would. I don’t, though. I don’t have a choice.”

“Bertil …”

“People like you always end up with guys like him, and later, they’re surprised by what happens … Do what you want, Anna Leemann. Do what you think you have to do, but whatever that is, I’ll be there, in case of emergency … I hate being the safety net, nothing more than the safety net. But if I can’t be anything else, I will be that.”

There was another snowdrift. He braked too hard, the dog howled, and the Volvo lost its grip on the road. When Anna opened her eyes again this time, the car was turned around. “Shit,” Bertil said, for the umpteenth time. “The wheels are spinning again. We gotta put something under the front tires … I’ve got a blanket in the back …”

He jumped out, and Anna stayed behind, alone in the car, in the tiny capsule of warmth. She turned to the silver-gray dog. “He’s mad,” she whispered. “He’s absolutely mad, you know that? I should love him for this, for getting me out of the storm, for wanting to take care of me, for the very fact that he loves me … but you can’t force yourself to love somebody. And it’s true, everything he says about himself. The world is so unjust. We …”

Bertil opened the driver’s door, and an icy gust of wind blew a handful of snowflakes into the car. “Move over!” he shouted against the storm. “Into the driver’s seat! I’ll push. You drive!”

“I can’t drive a car!” Anna shouted back, but she slid over anyway.

He bent into the car, put her right hand onto the clutch. “Foot onto the left pedal, first gear, gas is on the right side!” he shouted. “You’ve never done this?”

“I did once, with Magnus …”

“If we wait any longer, it’s going to get worse, and we might never get the car going again. Come on! I’ll push!”

He slammed the door shut, and Anna started the engine, but the tires still didn’t have a grip on the road, and outside, the snow was turning the world into a whirling chaos.

“Abel,” whispered Anna. “Abel, I don’t want to freeze out here with Bertil! Where are you? Where are you?”

And all of a sudden, she knew what she wanted. Very clearly. She wanted to be with him. If she made it out of this, she would go and find him … walk, run, pedal, let the wind blow her toward him … whatever. She couldn’t forgive him, for that was impossible. The cloak of love would be forever torn, never new and beautiful again, allowing the wind to blow through the holes, making her freeze in the cold. But she would live on wearing it for she couldn’t do anything else. And he couldn’t go back to being the Abel he was before the night in the boathouse, for that wasn’t possible either. He’d have to live on wearing the memory of what he did. And still … and still.

Magnus had been right: in love there wasn’t rationality.

But where would she find Abel? At school, sure, tomorrow, but it was impossible to talk to him at school, where the others were watching. She accelerated again, the car seemed to want to move and didn’t. The wheels were spinning. The dog behind her was whining, a high, desperate sound.

If we lose each other in this endless icy winter, where will we find each other? she heard the little queen ask. And she heard the answer: Where it’s spring.

The tulips. Red tulips in white vases in the café at the beginning of the pier in Wieck. “Here, spring has already arrived,” Micha had said.

Anna pushed the accelerator once more, and this time, the car leaped forward. She let it roll, braked, and disengaged the clutch; I can do it, she thought, I can drive; if I have to, I can do anything. She slid back into the passenger seat, and the storm blew Bertil back into the car. His dark hair was full of white snowflakes, his glasses instantly fogged up in the warmth.

“Cheers,” he said. “That driver’s license is all yours.”

He leaned over, and Anna knew he was hoping for a kiss. For a moment, he seemed so full of hope, so happy—she kissed him on the mouth with closed lips, quickly. “Come on,” she said, “let’s get out of this.”

When they saw the lights of Eldena, the neon advertising of the supermarket there, the street lamps of the new housing development, Anna felt a great relief. The snowdrifts in the fields were behind them. Here, the road was a road once more.

Anna looked at the clock on the dashboard. Five thirty. It was as dark as midnight. “Can you let me out at the bridge in Wieck?” she asked. “Linda … my mother … she meets friends at the restaurant there every Wednesday. I can go home with her.”

“Don’t you want me to take you home?”

“You really don’t have to,” Anna said. “Just drive me to the bridge. That way you won’t have to go into the city. You can just go around it and avoid the traffic. You live on the other side of the city, don’t you?”

He nodded. “Okay … you’re sure your mother’s there?”

“Absolutely sure,” Anna replied. And she was sure that her mother was there. It just depended on what was meant by “there.” In Linda’s case, “there” was a house full of blue air in Greifswald. She would never do something as weird as meet her friends in a restaurant in Wieck every Wednesday. Bertil helped her get the bike out of the back.

“You’re soaking wet,” he said. “You should get home fast.”

“Yes,” she said. For a moment they stood there, facing each other through the snow, freezing. The wind had subsided a little, but the snowflakes were still falling steadily, as if they wanted to cover the whole world.

“You said someone’s been following you,” Bertil said. “Are you sure about that? Did you see anyone?”

“Yes. No. When I turned around, there was no one … What do you think? That I imagined the whole thing?”

“I don’t know. I think I should stay close. The safety net.”

“Thanks,” said Anna. “Thanks for getting me out of that storm. But I don’t need a safety net.”

“Ha,” Bertil said.

She flung her arms around him and hugged him very tight for a very short second, thinking, I am sorry, I am sorry, I am sorry, Bertil, but it will never be the way you want it to be. And she turned around quickly, walked toward the door of the restaurant, and leaned her bike against some patio chairs. She lingered in the waiting area of the restaurant until she heard the Volvo leave. She counted to a hundred. The warmth in that tiny room was seductive—a part of her wanted to stay, wanted to sit down, wanted to order hot tea, wanted to call Magnus and ask him to come pick her up. She didn’t stay. She stepped out into the cold again, out into the snow. She ran the whole way over the bridge, skidding, slipping, nearly losing her balance twice. She ran along the river, to its mouth, ran till she reached the café, her wet pants sticking to her legs. She saw the lights inside as she approached it—pale, white lights—it wasn’t open anymore, probably they had closed at six, maybe they’d just locked the doors now. She ran even faster.

The chairs on the terrace, chained together, were hardly perceptible under the snow. The glass window was towering over them like a glacier. And there, on the lee side of this glacier, someone was cowering. She saw the tiny orange glow of a cigarette. A single bike stood in front of the stairs that led up to the café. Anna stumbled over her own feet, rushing up the slippery metal steps; she fell, got up again, and saw the cowering figure get up as well. For a moment she was afraid it was someone else.

It was no one else.

It was Abel.

He didn’t say anything. He ground out his cigarette and stood there, waiting until she caught her breath. He looked away, out over the ice lit by the floodlight on the side wall of the café.

“If we lose each other, we’ll meet where it’s spring,” she said, finally. “How long have you been waiting for me out here?”

“Since Monday,” he replied. “I’ve been waiting every afternoon since Monday.”

“Since … Monday,” she repeated. “Every single afternoon?”

He nodded. “It was cold.”

“And … Micha?”

“She was with me the first two days. Sliding over the ice, watching other people ice-skating. Now she’s got this idea in her head that she needs ice skates, too. Today, she’s visiting a friend she knows from school. I … I didn’t let her go anywhere for a long time, because I was afraid somebody else would come for her and take her away … but first graders do have to visit their friends, don’t they? You can’t forbid it forever … I’m going to pick her up now. It’s just about time.”

He hadn’t looked at her while he spoke. His voice said, I’m talking about other things so that I don’t have to talk about this one thing. But to find each other again, Anna thought, they had to talk about it. They had to try at least.

“What happened …” she began.

“What happened can never be undone,” he said. “I wrote that to you. I don’t know if you’ve read the letters …”

She shook her head.

He nodded. “That’s good. They were stupid letters. Stupid words. Useless.” And at last he did look at her. There was snow in his eyebrows. He must have been waiting a very long time, here in the cold, where spring existed only behind the glass window of the café. “I don’t ask you to forgive me. What happened is unforgivable. It’s the worst … the worst of all things. It’s exactly what I didn’t want to happen.”

She found his hands and for a moment she pulled back from the touch, her body remembering the danger of touches. But then she took them in hers. He wasn’t wearing gloves. How many hours had he been here, waiting? How many ice-cold, endless hours?

“So let’s not forgive,” she whispered. “Nor forget. The night will remain there. Behind us.”

“But still you’re here.”

“But still I’m here.”

She opened her arms to him, but he shrank back. “I’d rather not,” he said. “You shouldn’t touch me.”

But she took his hands in hers again and held them for a long time, and the wind blew through the cloak of torn love and she was cold, very cold. They were cold together, inside all the impossibilities of the world. Behind the window of the café, the tulips were blooming in the dark.

“I didn’t tell anybody about that … night,” she said and felt how he nodded.

“I kind of concluded that from the fact that I’m still alive. Your father hasn’t killed me.”

Together, they wandered back. He pushed his bike along with one hand. She said nothing about Bertil, nothing about her insane walk in Ludwigsburg, nothing about the talk she’d had with Knaake, nothing about being followed. What she said, after a long time of silence, was, “Let’s go skating. Tomorrow, after school. With Micha.”

And then they got onto the bus, with their bikes, because it was still impossible to ride them. The bus moved so slowly that they could have walked. It didn’t matter. They stood there, holding their bikes, without talking, and Anna leaned against Abel very lightly. He didn’t draw back this time.

When he got out, she stayed in the bus, singing to herself silently. There was no pain in her any longer, nowhere. The cloak she had put back on had covered everything like snow.

“My God,” Linda said when Anna came in through the door, just in time for dinner. “You’re all wet. What happened?”

“Everything,” Anna answered, shaking her hair like a dog. “The worst and the best. I need to take a hot shower. And I need to practice the flute after dinner, and … Linda … can I ask you something? Something important?”

“Yes.” Linda sighed. “Whatever you want.”

“Okay,” Anna said. “Are my old ice skates still in the basement?”