The Storyteller (38 page)

“‘Aren’t those our pursuers over there?’ the asking man asked.

“‘Under the beeches, where the anemones bloom in spring,’ the answering man answered, and the rose girl had the distinct feeling she’d heard that answer before. Possibly, she thought, the pool of answers was limited. There are fewer answers in the world than questions, and if you ask me now why that is so, I must tell you that there is no answer to that question.’

“The little queen saw their pursuers had reached the green ship. The black ship was also stuck in the ice, and now the fat diamond eater and the two haters were on foot as well. But there was another person with them, a young woman who had pulled her blond hair back in a very serious, grave way … like a teacher. She was wearing teacher’s glasses.

“‘Who’s that?’ the little queen wanted to know and held the binoculars down to the golden eyes of the dog.

“‘That’s the gem cutter,’ the dog answered. ‘Do you see the tools sticking out of her coat pocket? Take good care, little queen; the gem cutter, too, wants to own your diamond heart. She wants to grind and polish and form it after her own ideas. But if she manages to do that, you won’t recognize your own heart …’

“‘Look! There!’ the little queen exclaimed. ‘They are climbing aboard our ship! Do they think we’re still there?’

“But shortly after that, from the deck of the green ship, a colorful balloon drifted up into the cold air. A gondola hung beneath it, a gondola designed only for emergencies, and in the gondola, sat the two haters and the diamond eater.

“‘They’re fleeing!’ the little queen said and started to dance in the snow, jumping up and down happily. ‘They’re afraid of the endless ice! Look, the wind is blowing them away from us! They gave up! I guess they will return to their own islands!’

“‘They will,’ the lighthouse keeper said gravely, ‘and I can tell you why. They don’t think we’ll make it. They think the diamond is lost anyway, lost in the eternal ice of this story. There’s only one person who believes that the diamond will survive. One single person who is not aboard the gondola.’

“‘The cutter,’ whispered the rose girl.

“The silver-gray dog nodded. ‘She will keep following us,’ he said. ‘We should hurry.’

“That was when the rose girl remembered something. She reached into her backpack and took out a pair of skates. And then another pair and another pair … the whole backpack had been full of skates.

“Only there weren’t any skates for the blind white cat. ‘And all the better,’ said the cat. ‘Cats are not made for ice-skating. It’s much too undignified. Who’s going to carry me?’

“The asking man asked the answering man if he would like to take turns carrying the cat, and the answering man answered: ‘In the box on top of the bathroom cupboard.’ Another answer, the rose girl thought, that she had heard already.

“So they started skating, and the gently falling snow covered their traces. The silver-gray dog was running next to them, on foot.
When he had tried to skate, his four legs had gotten into such confusion that he almost couldn’t sort them out again. And any way, he preferred being a tragic character as opposed to a comic one.

“They skated over the ice for a long time; they skated a long way; they skated through a snowstorm, holding onto each other so as not to get separated. They skated through clear weather and drank hot chocolate from a thermos the rose girl had found in her backpack. After that, the backpack was empty and she wanted to leave it behind, but the silver-gray dog shook his head. ‘An empty backpack would be a trace,’ he said. ‘And all our traces must be wiped out so the cutter can’t find us.’

“And so when the snow had stopped falling and covering their traces, they wiped them out very thoroughly themselves. Still, every time they looked back through the lighthouse keeper’s binoculars, there was a tiny, stubborn figure following them with jewel-cutting tools sticking out of her coat pockets. The cutter. She didn’t seem to have binoculars of her own. So how did she know the right way?

“‘Let’s wait for her!’ the little queen begged. ‘Maybe she’s cold. Maybe she’s afraid of being on the ice all by herself. She is only one, and we are many …’

“‘If she finds us, she will be more than one,’ the silver-gray dog said. ‘Little queen, haven’t I told you about the ocean riders?’

“‘Never,’ answered the little queen. ‘Mrs. Margaret, do you know about the ocean riders?’

“Mrs. Margaret shook her head and lifted her arms, patterned with white and blue flowers, helplessly.

“‘But me, I know about them,’ the lighthouse keeper said. ‘I saw them race by from my window up there in the lighthouse once; I saw them on their horses. Their horses are green like sea grass and white
like shells and as fast as the night. They gallop over the water; they fly over the ice. The ocean riders guard the seven seas and see to it that everything is in order there. They never sleep, and when they’re called for, they follow the call … over the waves, through the white foam, through the storm …’

“‘Yes,’ the silver-gray dog said, and he bared his teeth when he said this. ‘Yes, they see to it that everything is in order on the seven seas. But what order means, what the rules are, what is right and what is wrong … that is decided by the ones paying the ocean riders. The red hunter has been paying them, the diamond trader has been paying them, and the gem cutter is paying them as well. But us, little queen, we have never paid them. What could we have paid them with? An apple from the garden on your island?’

“‘A splinter of the diamond,’ the white cat remarked, stifling a yawn, and the little queen started, frightened.

“‘But if we had paid them with a splinter of my heart, my heart would have a missing piece!’ she exclaimed. ‘And I …’

“‘Don’t worry, little queen,’ said the silver-gray dog. ‘Nobody’s going to break a splinter off your heart. For the ocean riders, traveling over the ice is forbidden, and fleeing is against their law. As long as the cutter doesn’t call them, you have nothing to fear. And she will only call them when she is absolutely sure that she’s following the right wanderers. When she’s caught up with us.’

“They skated on all day long. When evening came, the distance between the cutter and them had grown smaller. She wasn’t near enough yet, but just the same, she was much too near.

“‘Could I borrow the binoculars again, please?’ the rose girl asked, but the lighthouse keeper said that he had misplaced them somewhere and couldn’t find them.

“‘I’ve got pretty good eyes,’ the silver-gray dog growled. ‘I don’t need binoculars.’ He narrowed his golden eyes and stared a hole into the thickening dark. ‘All day long … I wasn’t sure whether I was only imagining it, but now I’m sure … red threads. We’re all wearing red coats. One of us has left red threads in the white snow to show the cutter the way. One of us is a traitor.’”

Abel fell silent.

“And? Who is it?” Micha asked, out of breath. He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“It can’t be the cat,” Micha said. “She doesn’t have a red coat, only her fur. Or do you think … she might have pulled some threads out of someone else’s coat? She’s probably got sharp claws … The silver-gray dog can’t be the traitor either, for the same reason. And he was the one to discover the thing …”

“The asking man and the answering man are too dumb,” Anna said. “And apart from that, they’re just made up.”

Abel lifted his arms. “But it’s all made up!”

“No,” said Anna. “No. That’s not true. There are only two people who could be the traitor. The lighthouse keeper … and the rose girl.”

Abel stood up. “We’ll see,” he said. “We’ll see what happens and how the story goes on. I can’t tell you yet. I guess it’s going to be sometime till our laundry is dry, even with the dryer … tell me, what would you be doing now … if we weren’t here?”

She thought. “I’m afraid I’d be studying. What would you be doing if you were at home?”

He smiled. “Studying, I’m afraid.”

“You can have my desk,” Anna said. “I’ll sit on the bed with my books. I do that a lot because it’s more comfortable … we should
really be doing something to prepare for final exams. They won’t just take themselves. Not really anyway.”

“I’m really lucky that I don’t have finals,” said Micha. “I’ll go downstairs and see what Linda’s doing.”

“Linda,” Abel repeated when Micha had left to hop down the wooden stairs. “Linda. So she’s already on a first-name basis with your mother. Like she’s known her for years.”

“I think,” Anna said, “I think … Linda always wanted a second child, you know. Another child she’d watch grow up and keep safe …”

Piano notes drifted up from the living room, single notes without a real tune; someone was just seeing what happened if she touched the keys. And between the notes, you could hear Micha’s and Linda’s voices.

“Damn finals.” Anna gathered her books on her bed. For a moment she thought that there were a hundred things she’d prefer to be doing right now, but then, when she looked up from her book, she thought that, actually, everything was as it should be: Abel was sitting at her desk, his head bent over a different book, lost in what he was reading, and it looked as if he belonged there. They had slipped into a surreal kind of everyday life: Anna was on her bed, and he was at the desk; they were studying for exams, like a thousand other people in Germany were doing. She smiled and read on, marked lines, words, passages of text; she tried to build rooms in her brain, create drawers, file facts. A safe and absolutely normal occupation … miles away from a dark boathouse.

The piano downstairs had fallen silent; she heard the clatter of baking trays, and the smell of fresh cookies crept to her nose. Linda and Micha were working together in the kitchen.

At some point, Anna got up and walked over to the desk, stood behind Abel, put her hand on his back. He looked up and smiled.

“When I say to the moment flying …” she whispered the words from
Faust
, putting her arms around him, “… linger a while—thou art so fair.”

“Yeah.”

“Are you still stuck on
Faust
? I’ve made my way to Herta Müller …”

“Everything I own,” Anna said, quoting, “I carry with me …” She looked at her arms still wrapped around him. “But it’s true, you know,” she added.

He understood, but he laughed away the romance of the moment. “You better not try to carry me,” he said. “I might be a bit heavy …”

“You could take a one-minute break from Herta and kiss me.”

“I could. But after that I’ve got to read on. Final exams …”

“Sure. Final exams …”

Later, Abel took another break, a longer one, but not to kiss Anna. He went outside to help Magnus shovel the driveway. She stood at the bathroom window, watching. It was odd to see them together: Magnus’s broad back in his ski jacket, Abel in his worn, old military parka, which was not made for this weather. They were shoveling equally fast, but not too fast. They weren’t in a hurry; this was not a competition. For the first time in days, Anna thought of Abel’s right hand. He was using it in a normal way again. So Rainer hadn’t broken the joint after all. Anna saw that they were talking. She wondered what about. Maybe about Magnus’s offer of a loan. Maybe about the snow.

“Linger a while,” she repeated, whispering, “thou art so fair …”

And she imagined how things could be later. It was stupid, but the picture just appeared in her mind: she saw Abel and Magnus shoveling snow together … in twenty years, in thirty. Magnus had grown old, his broad back still strong but bent from time, his hair nearly white at the temples. And Abel … Abel was a different Abel, an adult one, one who was absolutely self-confident and didn’t let his eyes dart around the dining room at lunch, as if he were caught in a trap.

“Nonsense,” she whispered. “Thirty years? You don’t stay with the person you meet at seventeen … What kind of fairy tale are you living in, Anna Leemann?”

And still the picture seemed right.

“Look at that,” Linda said, stepping up behind her. “They do get along, after all.”

“There are fresh cookies!” Micha said and held a plate out to Anna. “And we have to stay. Linda just realized that the dryer is broken! Totally broken! We’ve already hung the clothes on the line in the basement … I’ve been standing on a chair helping … and tomorrow, everything will be dry for sure, but tonight we’re allowed to sleep here. What do you think of that?”

“I don’t know,” Anna said slowly as she turned toward Linda, “what Abel will think of that. Is the dryer really broken?”

Linda shrugged and nodded. Anna went down to the basement and tried to turn it on herself, but Linda and Micha were right. The machine was silent; it didn’t work. Anna unplugged the cord and plugged it in again—without success.

When she came back from the basement, Abel was brushing the snow off his parka while Micha was dancing around him, still balancing the plate of cookies, singing, “We’re staying, we’re staying,
we’re staying overnight! We’re drying! We’re drying! We’re drying on the line!”

Abel lifted his arms defensively. “Will you stand still for a second?” he said. “Micha. We can’t stay overnight. We have our own home, and it’s not here. We can come back tomorrow and pick up the damn laundry then.”

“Damn is a word you’re not allowed to say,” Micha declared, folding her arms. “And did you look outside? It’s snowing again, and I’m sure there will be another storm! Please, Abel! Please!” She put down the plate on the floor and clung to his leg. “Please, please, please! Only this one night! I still want to play the piano a little bit and decorate the cookies and everything!”

“Do you have to go out tonight?” Anna asked in a low voice.

Abel covered his face in his hands. This time, he left them there longer, and she saw him try hard to make a decision. She actually thought she saw him curse silently behind his hands.

“I’ll just end up saying yes again,” he whispered. “I’ll end up saying yes to so many things, I’ll forget the difference between yes and no—and I’ll lose my mind.” He looked at Anna. “Keep my mind for me. See to it that nobody steals it. I might have to go out tonight. I don’t know yet.”

Was he waiting for a call? She didn’t ask. He was not an answerer after all. He was everything else. A seller of white cats’ fur. A storyteller. A stranger, still.