Broken Glass Park (10 page)

“It’s just blind rain,” I say.

“Sorry?”

“Blind rain. Haven’t you ever heard that before?”

“No.”

“That’s what you call it when it rains while the sun is shining.”

“That’s what who calls it?”

“People where I live. Have you really never heard of it?”

“No, never. We don’t call it that.”

Soon he exits the autobahn. The car zips around through an area that’s more rural than I expected it to be. In one field are sheep—hard to believe they stay outdoors overnight. He looks over at me. One corner of his mouth turns down. “Not the big city here,” he says.

“So I see.”

Around another bend and then we go steeply uphill. He stops at the top of the slope and puts on the emergency brake.

“We’re here,” he says. “Welcome.”

I open the passenger door.

It’s a big house next to a few others along the ridgeline. He holds open the gate for me and we go up some stairs to the door of the house. There are flowers to the left and right of the door and lawns beyond.

“It’s beautiful,” I say unprompted.

The entryway is dark and cool. I start to take off my sneakers.

“You can leave them on,” he says. “The floor’s cold.”

“I’d rather not,” I say. I’m standing in my socks in front of a big entryway mirror, trying not to look at myself in it.

He has my backpack slung over his shoulder.

Now what, I think.

And for a moment I’m happy not to have any parents to be accountable to. I feel free. There’s not a single person who cares whether I misbehave here. I can do whatever I want. I’m in charge of myself.

But I’m still nervous.

The house is very, very quiet.

“Are you tired?” he asks. “Do you go to bed early? Normally?”

“Depends,” I say. “If I have to get up early, then yes. But lately I’ve slept through entire days.”

Weighty conversation here.

“I’ll show you the guest room,” he says. “Come on.”

He walks ahead and I follow. There are a lot of stairs in this house. At one stage I hear a noise I can’t place. Screechy, fast, but off a ways.

“What’s that?” I ask, but so softly he doesn’t hear me.

“Have a look,” he says. “This look okay for you?”

He opens the door to a room that’s twice the size of mine at home. My room at home is only eighty square feet. Here there’s a bed at the window, and the light-colored sheets seem to glow in the dark room. Next to that is a heavy old bureau, a little round table, and a rattan chair.

I take a step and am inside the room. I breathe in the air, the scent of freshly washed linens. I take another step and am face to face with a glass door that leads out into the garden.

“What kind of tree is that?” I ask. “The one with the white blossoms.”

“Cherry,” he says. “Can you not tell? Behind it are blackberry patches. But they won’t be ripe until August.”

“I don’t know anything about trees,” I say. “My mother knew a lot. She always explained what you called various herbs and all that, but I never cared. I have a hard time remembering things that bore me.”

The silence he answers with is awkward.

“Thanks,” I say sheepishly. “For the room. It’s really nice here.”

“My pleasure,” he says. “Are you hungry?”

“No,” I say.

“What do you mean? What do you like to eat for dinner?”

I think. He does, too.

“We have bread and cheese in the house, I think,” he says. “But I can also order a pizza.”

“I’m fine,” I say. “I’m going to go to bed.”

“You should eat something. You are already so thin.”

“I’m just kind of tired.”

“Okay. There are towels in the armoire. The bathroom is over there. You need anything else?”

“A book,” I say. “I didn’t bring anything to read.”

“What do you like to read?”

“Doesn’t matter,” I say. “Everything.”

“Then you can pick something out yourself. Come on, I’ll show you the living room—that’s where we keep the books.”

We.

“I’d rather you recommend something.”

“Okay.”

I sit down on the bed. He puts the backpack down at my feet and looks at me.

“Would you like to have some time to yourself?”

I nod.

“Call me if you need anything. I’ll be . . . somewhere in the house. I’ll pick out a book for you.”

“Okay.”

He closes the door. I hear his shoes squeak on the wood floor.

I take off my socks. Who else lives here? Do you have a wife? They would have been such easy questions. Curiosity is not a sin but it can get messy. That’s what my mother always said. It’s a Russian expression, too. She was very curious. I’m not. Maybe that’s why I experience things early. Usually earlier than I would like.

I pull my pajamas out of my backpack. I open the drawer of the armoire and touch the snow-white bath towels perfectly folded inside. I pull one out. In the process I step on my mobile—it must have fallen out of my backpack.

I pick up my phone and hold it in my hands until it’s warm. Then I dial the number.

“We can’t pick up the phone right now!” screams Alissa’s voice in my ear.

“You should answer ‘Alissa Naimann.’”

“I know!” she shouts. “Sascha! When are you coming home?”

“Soon. But not yet. Why aren’t you in bed?”

“We’re reading.”

“What are you reading?”

“Little Red Riding Hood.”

“Do you like it?”

“Nope. Little Red Riding Hood is stupid. She should be able to tell it’s a wolf and not her grandmother.”

“Maybe she doesn’t want to see. Maybe she is so afraid of the wolf that she wants the wolf to think she believes him. She’s fooling herself, thinking he won’t hurt her if she plays along.”

“It’s baby stuff.”

“No, no, it’s actually quite grown-up. Say hello to the others, Alissa. Tell them I called. Sleep well.”

Alissa hangs up without saying goodbye. She probably nodded her head. She doesn’t understand that people can’t pick that up over the phone. She holds pictures up to the phone. Once she even held up a piece of cake. “Smell that,” she said. “Fresh out of the oven.”

I walk down the hall to the bathroom. It’s gigantic, gleaming, covered in mirrors. I feel like the hooker in the movie “Pretty Woman.” It’s an unsettling feeling. I lock the door, throw my clothes onto the bathmat, and get into the shower. I stand under the piping hot water for half an hour—until my skin is all red. Afterwards I wrap myself in a towel and comb my hair.

With my clothes in my arms, I walk back toward my room in my pajamas. I hear the strange noise again. It also sounds as if people are talking upstairs. Quiet, distant voices, but I can’t tell whether it’s two or more.

I’m relieved when I make it into my room and close the door.

There’s a pile of books on the bureau. I look through them: the autobiography of Marcel Reich-Ranicki, John Irving’s latest novel, Max Frisch’s Homo Faber, and Der Schwarm by Frank Schaetzing. Next to the books are two apples.

There’s a bottle of mineral water and a glass on the round table now, too.

I look around more closely. I even kneel down and look under the bed, to see if anything has wriggled its way under there. I’m not sure what I’m looking for—or perhaps I don’t want to admit what it is to myself.

But there’s nothing else to find. So I lie down in bed, stick my mobile phone under my pillow, pull the covers over my head, and close my eyes. I don’t cry.

I fall asleep quickly. When I wake up again it’s dark outside. I grab my mobile and look to see what time it is. Three-thirty in the morning.

I sit up.

I know exactly where I am. But suddenly I’m frightened and uneasy—much more so than earlier. The blossoming cherry tree in the garden spreads its ghostly boughs across the window.

I’m cold. My hair is still not completely dry.

Maybe they have a hair dryer in the bathroom. Of course they do.

I push aside the covers and put my jean jacket over my pajamas.

I can’t find my socks in the dark—or the light switch. I tiptoe into the hallway.

Right now I wish from the bottom of my heart that I were home. It’s so intense my eyes almost well up with tears. Maybe next time you should think of that before you do something like this. Thinking first is probably a good idea in general.

Upstairs must be the bedroom where the owner sleeps. Or owners? I heard multiple voices. Or were they just voices coming from a TV?

I turn the corner and find myself in the living room. I have to shield my eyes because there’s a bright TV on. The sound is off. Christina Aguilera is dancing on the screen, her blond dreads flying around and her mouth straining. She seems distraught that she’s unable to make a sound.

Against the wall is a couch, long and oddly shaped, like a giant shrimp. There’s a mound on the couch.

Shit, I think, trying to back out of the room.

But the mound begins to rise. It sheds its husk—a blanket. I retreat, startled, and step on the remote. Christina Aguilera’s voice blasts through the air at full volume.

The noise is so jarring that I squat down and put my hands over my ears. My eardrums feel like they’ve just burst. And it’s still loud as hell. The mound on the couch morphs into a human shape, jumps onto the floor, and pounds a button on the remote.

The TV screen goes dark. I can hardly believe how immediate the silence is. I stand up again. In the dark, I can’t tell who is standing in front of me.

But one thing is clear: It’s not a woman.

“You can stop covering your ears. I turned it off.”

“What?” I ask.

The person in front of me grabs my wrists and pulls my hands away from my ears.

“Hello,” I say, pulling my wrists out of his hands.

“Hello.”

He takes a step back and sits back down on the couch. Throws the blanket over his legs and looks me up and down. It’s a guy, skinny, but tall—must have been a head taller than me when he was standing. I have no idea how old he is. His hair falls to his shoulders in scraggy strands.

“You must be the . . . ,” he says, knitting his brows.

“Sascha.”

“Right. Volker told me about you. You stayed out of sight all evening. I was wondering where you were hiding.”

“I was tired. I fell asleep.”

“Aha.”

I lean against the wall and examine him. He’s still eyeballing me unapologetically.

“I’m Felix,” he says. “Can you understand me?”

“Can you understand me?”

“Don’t be insulted. Volker said you were Russian.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Why are you so pissed off?”

“I’m not pissed off.”

“You speak good German.”

“Thanks. You, too.”

“I fell asleep out here, too,” he says. I can see his teeth in the dark as he smiles. “I was lying awake for ages. So I came out to watch TV and fell asleep at some stage. Until you decided you needed to wake me up by cranking the speaker up full blast.”

“You were already awake. You sat up—that’s what startled me.”

“True, I was half awake. But I only really woke up after that jolt.”

I smile despite myself.

“My name is Felix,” he says.

“You said that already. I’m not that forgetful.”

“Seriously? I am.”

“I think I heard you earlier,” I say. “Voices upstairs. Was that you?”

“I only have one voice. But it could only have been me or Volker. Or the computer or the TV.”

“Only you or Volker?” I ask.

He looks at me quizzically.

“Yes,” he says. “Nobody else lives here. Other than a few friendly ghosts. Haven’t you seen any of them? There’s a swarm of them under the bed in the guest room.”

I smile back at him.

“Do you know Calvin and Hobbes?” he asks.

“No.”

“It’s a comic strip. Calvin’s a little boy and Hobbes is his stuffed animal—a tiger. In one strip Calvin is sitting on his bed, scared, and asks, ‘Are there ghosts under the bed?’ And from under the bed comes a speech bubble saying, ‘No.’ Then Calvin, trembling, asks, ‘If there were ghosts under my bed, would they be big or small?’ And the speech bubble from under the bed says, ‘Very small.’”

“Hmm,” I say. “Funny.”

“You want to see my room?” Felix asks after a pause.

“Why?” I ask.

“Why not? Volker said you’d be staying a few days. Said you had your reasons. But he didn’t say what they were.”

“I’m sure he had his reasons.”

“How old are you?” he asks distrustfully.

“Seventeen.”