The Storyteller (25 page)

“Do you really want to help?” she asked. “I mean … if you do … why don’t you just forget that Michelle Tannatek has disappeared?”

“Because that’s not an acceptable solution,” Marinke said. “You don’t believe that story about the call either, do you?”

Anna shrugged. “It’s not important what I believe,” she replied. “What’s important is that those two stay together, Micha and her brother.”

“I’ll try my best,” Marinke said seriously. “But to do that, I have to find out a few things.” He dug another card out of the pocket of his leather jacket and gave it to Anna. “Maybe you’ll feel like calling
me. After you’ve thought about things for a while. Maybe there are some things you could explain to me.”

“Sounds like lines you picked from a cheap detective story,” Anna said as she got onto her bike.

Marinke laughed. “Unfortunately, it’s quite an expensive detective story. My job, I mean. Considering the workload. And … tell your friend that I’m not so easily intimidated. In my job, I’m often in contact with people who are much more dangerous. The bar where they shot Rainer Lierski … you know, the Admiral … I know all the regulars there … unfortunately.”

“Wait,” Anna said. “You knew Rainer Lierski?”

Marinke nodded. “Another client of ours. He disappeared into thin air for a while, but then reappeared, and there were problems right away. I can’t say I’m sad he’s gone.” For the first time, his smile was grim, not friendly. And for the first time, it seemed genuine. He brushed a snowflake from the sleeve of his suede jacket. “In the end, he probably picked a fight with the wrong person.”

“Or with the right one,” Anna said. She thought about Marinke’s remark while she pedaled as fast as she could down Wolgaster Street. She wondered whether she should help him. Whether she should call. Whether he might be helpful in spite of his too-friendly smile and his you-can-call-me-Sören attitude. If Abel had money, she thought, if he didn’t have to work nights, if he didn’t have to miss all those classes to be with Micha … wouldn’t everything be better? No, Abel said in her head. Keep out of this. All of you, keep out. We don’t want charity. Leave us alone. That’s final.

When she got home, Magnus was waiting in the car with the engine running and her flute and music on the passenger seat. She was late
for her lesson. She couldn’t concentrate. She made a lot of mistakes. She fell asleep in the car on the way back, her head on her arms. She dreamed of Sören Marinke.

In her dream, he was sitting at a table in the Mittendrin, playing cards with Hennes and Bertil. Of course, this dream was utter nonsense. The minute Anna stepped through the doorway into it, she knew it was nonsense. Knaake stood behind the bar, watching the three players; at the very back of the room, on a long table, a coffin was open. Anna saw that it was filled with flowers, tiny white springtime stars. Anemones nestled between beech-tree leaves. It was like a scene in a kitschy Italian Mafia movie. Micha stood next to the coffin in her pink down jacket, hugging Mrs. Margaret. Anna craned her neck but couldn’t see the body. Rainer Lierski, she thought. Or was it someone else? Was it the body of a woman under the flowers and leaves? In a dream, anything is possible … She looked around. If everybody who played a role in this story was here … Wait, where was Abel?

“We’re back,” Magnus said, stroking her hair, and she jumped. “Anna, we’re home.” She blinked. He was still sitting behind the steering wheel; he didn’t move to get out of the car.

“Shouldn’t we go in?” Anna asked uneasily.

“No,” Magnus said. “I mean, yes, but in a minute. I’d like to know some things first.” He didn’t look at her; he was staring ahead. “Where were you? Were you where you’ve been spending more time lately? I’ve decided to ask as not asking gets me nowhere …”

“And if I don’t say anything now?”

“Anna, your mother’s worried.”

They sat quietly for a while. A long while. Then Anna got out. Magnus could have locked the car from the inside, forced her to
answer, but he wouldn’t do that. She felt his eyes on her as she opened the door. “I’m going to bed,” she mumbled. “I had a late night last night. I’m too tired for supper.”

As she lay in bed, she remembered that her last history test was on Friday. She should have spent today studying. She searched for her notebook and took it back to bed with her. But the words kept running into each other … like wet ink, like water in an icy winter ocean, like the blueness of eyes that could be very cold if they wanted to be.
If you have to go, go. Your lesson is more important. Go
.

She gave up. She found Knaake’s number and called him. It was eight thirty; it should be okay to call a teacher at eight thirty, shouldn’t it? And definitely a lighthouse keeper …

“This is Anna,” she said. “I’m sorry I’m calling so late … I just wanted to … you have the telephone numbers of everyone in your intensive class, don’t you?”

“I should,” Knaake answered. He sounded tired, as if he’d had enough of his students for the day and had just sunk into an armchair. She heard music in the background. She knew the tune … she wondered from where. “I need Abel Tannatek’s number.”

“Excuse me?”

“His cell phone number. Do you have it?”

“I do, but … hold on … I’ll look … but I have to go upstairs.” The music grew more distant. “Why don’t you have his number? I mean, he’s your boyfriend, isn’t …”

“Jeez,” Anna said, sounding almost angry. “It seems like as of today I’m officially married to him or something. I mean, I don’t live in his pocket …”

“Anna … why ‘as of today’?”

“Because today everyone was talking about the fight he almost had with Bertil last night.” How good it felt to tell someone!

“Was there a fight?”

“Don’t you listen to the rumors?”

“No,” Knaake said. “I guess I don’t. I just thought that the two of you … that it’s been quite some time that you’ve been … forget it. It’s none of my business. I have his number here. Do you have a pen?” As she took down the number, she realized that she was smiling.

“Okay, Anna … keep an eye on him, will you? I’m worried.”

“Me too,” Anna said.

“If he carries on like this, he won’t make it through finals. And I think it’s important that he pass them. Or am I wrong?”

“No,” Anna said. “It’s important. How well do you know him?”

“Not well at all,” Knaake answered. “He asked me to help him find a job … something for after seven … I mentioned I’d worked as a research assistant when I was at the university … maybe he imagined he could do the same thing. But for something like that, you’ve really got to be a student at the university … I don’t know … sometimes he seems to be dreaming up things that just aren’t practical. It’s more important that he studies for his exams.”

“How’s he doing in your class?” Anna asked. “I mean … are there any problems?”

“I’m not allowed to tell you. Don’t you guys talk about grades?”

“No.”

Knaake sighed. “Well, I’m not worried about my class. It’s his other classes. He won’t get credit if he’s never there; that’s the
bottom line. In literature, he’ll get the highest grade I give, and it’s rare that anyone does.”

Anna nodded. She’d known that, of course. “He wants to be a writer. Later. Books, I think.”

“Later …” Knaake said. “Well, for now he’s got to pass his finals.”

“I know,” she said.

There wasn’t anything more to say.

She took a deep breath and dialed Abel’s number. She wanted to say so many things … I didn’t plan to run away like I did today. It was bad timing. And … did Michelle really call? And … are you going to act like you don’t know me again tomorrow at school? And … what should I tell my parents? And … what was the point of the scene today with the social worker? And … I dreamed of Marinke and of a coffin full of anemones … but actually … maybe she didn’t want to say any of this. Maybe she just wanted to hear his voice and to know that everything was all right.

She let the phone ring fifty-seven times.

He didn’t pick up.

It was strange, but only after Anna had given up and turned off the lights, only when it was absolutely quiet and she was lying between the sheets alone, only then did the tune come back to her. The tune she’d heard through the lighthouse keeper’s telephone line. And suddenly, she remembered the words to that melody; she knew them from one of Linda’s old LPs.

Yes you who must leave everything that you cannot control

It begins with your family but soon it comes round to your soul

Well I’ve been where you’re hanging I think I can see how you’re pinned

When you’re not feeling holy your loneliness says that you’ve sinned
.

“Sisters of Mercy,” she whispered, nearly sleeping. “Leonard Cohen.”

The question of whether or not Abel would acknowledge her presence didn’t come up since Abel didn’t show up at school. She looked out the window every five minutes, waiting for a dark figure to appear at the bike rack, his hands dug deep into his pockets, his black hat pulled down low over his face, white noise in his ears. There was no one. A few other students also seemed to be looking for Abel during the break, hovering by the bike stands, trying to look inconspicuous. Clients, Anna thought, and she felt like smiling for a moment. She didn’t smile.

Abel had said that he would send Michelle to Sören Marinke’s office today. Had Michelle really come back? And if so, where had she been? She tried to call him twice. When she tried to call a third time, the line was dead.

“What’s the matter?” Gitta asked at lunch. “You look as if you’re nauseous.” She put her hands on Anna’s shoulders and looked at her closely. “Little lamb,” she said, “tell me what happened. You’ve hardly said a word since yesterday morning. Let’s skip class this afternoon and have a cup of coffee at the bakery instead.”

Anna let Gitta lead the way. And, actually, it calmed her down a bit to drink hot coffee, even if it tasted like lemon with artificial coloring.

“So,” Gitta began. “Everybody is talking. I say, let ’em talk. Let ’em fill their dirty mouths and minds with rumors.”

“I’ve been wondering why you, of all people, didn’t talk,” Anna said, not sarcastically but frankly. “Why you didn’t help to spread the rumors?”

“Little lamb, it might astonish you to hear this, but I am actually your friend, remember?”

“Hmm …,” Anna said.

“Now,” Gitta leaned across the table and lowered her voice, “what happened?”

“He’s gone,” Anna replied and heard how miserable she sounded. “Abel’s gone.”

“But you’re together, aren’t you? I mean, did the two of you …?”

“That’s not the issue! This isn’t a matter of passing a do-you-want-to-go-out-with-me-mark-with-an-x-yes-no-maybe note. And it isn’t a question of who did what with whom. Doesn’t anyone understand that? It’s the other things that matter! Abel has disappeared!”

“Nonsense,” Gitta said matter-of-factly. “Just because he wasn’t at school today, that doesn’t mean he’s disappeared. He’s gotta be somewhere.”

“He doesn’t answer his phone.”

“Maybe he wants to be alone.”

“Gitta, his mother has been gone for a while—nobody seems to know where she is—and yesterday he said she’d called, that she’d come back, and now he’s gone. And somebody has …” She stopped herself. No, she thought, Rainer Lierski was really none of Gitta’s business.

“Again, and in the right order,” Gitta said. “Is there a little sister or not? Or has she disappeared, too?”

Anna nearly knocked over her coffee cup. Of course. Micha. Something must have happened to Micha.

“That,” she whispered. “That just might be it.” She stood up and slid into her coat. “Gitta, I’m sorry. We’ll talk another time. I’ve gotta go.”

• • •

She pushed the buzzer for their apartment three times, waited for a while, then pushed again—three more times. Nobody answered. Anna covered her face with her hands, took several deep breaths, and tried to think. Then she noticed that she was doing what Abel usually did. And it helped. She knew now what she would do. She lowered her hands and tried the apartment on the ground floor. Someone buzzed Anna into the hall; Mrs. Ketow stood in her doorway, in the same tracksuit she’d had on the last time. She was carrying a child in her arms, a screaming and overfed baby with a dull look in his eyes. When she saw Anna, Mrs. Ketow stuffed a pacifier in the child’s mouth, and he was quiet.

“What a sweet child,” Anna said, though she didn’t think so at all.

Mrs. Ketow nodded. “I look after my children well. The oldest is three—they’re all foster children.” She rocked the baby in her arms and looked Anna over. “Why are you here?”

“Do you know where Abel and Micha are?”

“Those two? Gone,” Mrs. Ketow said. “Not that I’m surprised. I’ve always known that things couldn’t possibly end well for those Tannateks. It’s not the little girl’s fault—she’s a sweet child, that one—but the brother, he’s a different story. Do you go to school with him? If I were you, I’d keep away from him … but now they’re gone anyway …”

“What do you mean by
gone?”
Anna asked.

“I mean
gone …
done a moonlight skedaddle, the both of them,” Mrs. Ketow said, and for a moment Anna was relieved, for wherever Abel and Micha were, they had gone there together. Nobody from the office for shells and sisters had taken Micha away. The baby spat
out the pacifier and started screaming again, an unnerving, high-pitched wail. Anna picked up the pacifier and Mrs. Ketow wiped it pretend-clean on her tracksuit trousers, but this time the baby didn’t want to be pacified.

“Needs his milk,” Mrs. Ketow said. “You want to come in?”

Anna stepped into the narrow hallway behind her. The apartment was almost identical to Abel and Micha’s, the wallpaper almost the same. The dark cupboards looked newer than the ones on the fourth floor, but they were equally ugly. And yet, everything felt different here. This apartment didn’t breathe. It was dead. Maybe, Anna thought, it was that way because there weren’t any children’s drawings taped to the walls; maybe it was because of the broken plastic toys lying on a dresser in the hallway. There wasn’t disorder in Mrs. Ketow’s apartment, but there was something else … Anna searched for the word. Indifference, she thought. That was it. Nobody cared. The apartment was a lot sadder than the apartment upstairs. It was so sad, Anna wasn’t able to breathe for a moment. The office for shells and sisters would probably not have found anything wrong with this apartment; everything was as it should be if a social worker chanced to come by. In the back part of the apartment, the other two children were shouting. Mrs. Ketow found the bottle and stuffed it into the mouth of the screaming baby, like she’d done with the pacifier before; it was like pressing buttons to make a machine work properly. Then she lit a cigarette and opened the kitchen window. “Smoke isn’t good for the kids,” she said. “The social worker told me that. I do what they say in general, I mean, they’re paying for these kids. I look after them well.”