The Storyteller

by Antonia Michaelis

  • • •

  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.”

  “I’m not a social worker,” Anna said. “I don’t care what you do. I just want to know where Abel and Micha went.”

  “If you ask me, you won’t see them again,” Mrs. Ketow replied and took a drag. “I saw them, him with a big backpack like he’s going on a trip and the little one, too. That was this morning … five or so … I get up early ’cause of these damn kids. They’re a lot of work, three kids. I’ll tell you … with three of them, I work a whole fuckin’ day … what about you? You’re young. You want kids? What do you want from life?”

  “I want to find Abel and Micha,” Anna said and turned to go.

  But she couldn’t find Abel and Micha. There was no trace of them anywhere. She wasn’t a detective, and besides, those who don’t want to be found won’t be found …

  At home, she avoided Linda’s questioning looks, mumbled something about studying, and went straight to her room. She knew that Magnus was angry that she’d refused to explain anything to her mother. But wouldn’t Linda have been more worried if she’d explained? Anyway, this was not about Linda.

  Anna felt like she was drowning in the blue air of home. She almost longed for the ugly gray staircase at 18 Amundsen Street. She took out Sören Marinke’s card and laid it on her desk.

  Had it been a lie? Had Michelle really called? Were Abel and Micha with Michelle now? Or had Abel just run away with Micha because he knew that Marinke would take her from him sooner or later? If Marinke found out they’d fled, he’d send the police after them. Wherever they were heading, they would need a good head start. Anna mustn’t call the number on Marinke’s card … but then she picked up the phone and dialed it anyway.

  She had to call. She had to find out what he knew. She invented a complicated introductory sentence, saying she wanted to talk to him and to find out whether he’d returned to the Tannatek’s place or not … she knew she’d feel tongue-tied. Her heart raced.

  But the voice that finally came through the telephone line belonged to a woman.

  “I … I’d like to talk to Sören Marinke,” Anna said.

  “I’m sorry but that’s not possible at the moment,” the woman answered.

  “Would it be better if I tried again later?” Anna asked. “I can do that. It’s just that he had asked me to call him …”

  “You won’t be able to talk to him today,” the woman said. “He’s not in the office.”

  “So … do you know when he’ll be back?” Anna asked.

  “I can’t tell you. I’m sorry.”

  “Is he ill?” Anna asked. “This is an important call; it’s about one of his … what do you say … cases? Maybe I can talk to someone else?”

  “I’m afraid not. There isn’t anyone else. I’m sure he’ll get back to you once he’s in the office again. We’re hoping that will be tomorrow.”

  “On his card his cell phone number is also listed,” Anna said. “Do you think it would be rude to call him on it?”

  The woman at the other end of the line sighed. “You can try, of course,” she said. “But you won’t have any luck. We tried the same thing.”

  “I … I don’t understand …”

  “Neither do I,” the woman replied. “Listen, honey, Mr. Marinke hasn’t come into the office today and he isn’t answering his phone, and I think he’s probably sick, but no one knows for sure where he is. So please be patient. Hopefully we’ll know more tomorrow.”

  Anna dialed the second number on the card. The nameless woman was right. She got his voicemail.

  Had the whole world decided to disappear? Michelle, Abel, Micha, Sören Marinke? Had they all disappeared? Would she be the only one left in the end? With the blue light and the robins in the garden?

  When she woke up the next morning, the first thing she did was dial Abel’s number. She knew it by heart now. Nobody answered. She left for school without eating breakfast. Maybe he was there. Maybe he was standing by the bike rack, his hands in his pockets, Walkman plugs in his ears … but he wasn’t there. It wasn’t just that there was no one at the bike rack. It was that there seemed to be a hole in the shape of a person. Abel’s absence was almost visible.

  The others were talking about history. Dates of events buzzed above their heads like strange, shapeless winter bees. Anna stood next to Gitta, and Gitta said, “Let’s talk later, little lamb. Old Gitta has to stuff her face with facts till third period today.” Anna had managed to hammer those same facts into her brain the day before—everything would be okay. She had to count on remembering everything she had learned before this week. Nothing could be less important than a history test. The silver-gray dog in the fairy tale had made a leap for the hunter’s black ship—had he leaped out of Anna’s world for good? In her head, a sentence kept coming up
like an old-fashioned screen saver: What if I never see him again? What if I never see him again? What if I nev …

  When the sheets of white paper, with the official school stamp—the only paper you were allowed to write on—were set in front of her at the beginning of third period, she had to pull herself together not to write this sentence into the upper-right corner instead of her name. They were taking the test in the gym, as a sort of dry run for their finals, which would take place there.

  Final exams, Anna thought … and she heard Knaake’s words again: Keep an eye on him, will you? If he carries on like this, he won’t pass … and in the background, Cohen’s ancient, Old World voice … Then she heard the gym door open; somebody walked in late but just in time to take the test. She looked up. It was Abel.

  Gitta looked from Anna to Abel and back again. Of course he hadn’t vanished. She’d told Anna that. Someone like Tannatek didn’t just vanish; he was gone for a while, but then he turned up again. Or was she wrong? Could someone like Tannatek vanish? One day? Forever?

  She tried to catch Anna’s eye, but Anna didn’t look at her. In a strange way, Anna had vanished, too. She had drifted away from Gitta, from everybody … so far away that she might never be able to find her way back, and Gitta wouldn’t be able to reach her anymore.

  She wasn’t God after all; it wasn’t her job to save Anna. She wasn’t cut out to save anyone, and you couldn’t save someone from herself anyway. Shit.

  She looked over at Hennes, saw his red-gold hair glowing in a sun ray, saw him smile and wink at her before he bent over his test again. Tonight (and why wait till night fell, by the way?) she would forget about Anna. She wondered if she was the only one here who hung out in the streets enough to know the truth about Tannatek. And if he knew that she knew. She’d keep her mouth shut as she’d promised herself she would, and everything would take its course. Shit. Shit. Oh, what the hell.

  ANNA CLENCHED HER FISTS SO SHE WOULDN’T JUMP up from her chair. Never had she been so happy to see someone. She lowered her eyes, trying to hide her smile behind her hair. She heard the history teacher say something to Abel, tell him to take the last free desk at the far end of the room, and when she looked up again, Abel was walking back there, passing her desk. For a moment she looked into his eyes. And she got a fright.

  The ice in his eyes had changed; it seemed to have become darker, like the dark, clear ice on a frozen lake whose depth suddenly becomes visible when the wind brushes the snow from the surface. It was an endless depth, bottomless, and almost totally black. She didn’t know which thoughts and creatures were swimming down there. They scared her. It was as if she were watching Abel drown in the waters of himself. She shook her head, trying to rid it of these thoughts. What had happened? Where had he been?

  She turned to Gitta and Gitta shrugged. Their history teacher was distributing the tests now, densely printed with threatening instructions and questions. Concentrate, Anna thought. Read the text. Function.

  And she did function. The facts were stored inside her head, reliable and secure—despite everything, she was still Anna Leemann, a good student. Her brain was complying, letting her fill it with things and then spitting them out as it was supposed to. She hurried, her pen gliding over the white paper, almost of its own accord. She felt strangely detached as she watched her small, tidy letters form on the paper in front of her. She didn’t look up again until after she finished the first set of questions—half the test. The others were bent over their desks, writing frantically. The history teacher was standing at the podium in front of them. There was a second teacher in the room as well, a proctor. It was a Latin teacher whom Anna knew only by sight. Now he consulted his watch and left the gym. He was replaced by another teacher, who entered through the same door. Knaake. Anna saw him search the room for something, someone, scanning the rows of desks. She knew whom he was searching for. She saw when he found him, saw him nod and start to walk past the desks thoughtfully, his hands folded behind his back. And now, finally, she dared to turn around, too.

  Abel wasn’t writing. He was holding a pen; he had been writing, but now he looked at her and she read his eyes. This time they were easy to read. The message in them was not about the dark depth beneath the ice or about whatever had happened. It was about the history test. HELP ME, Anna read in those eyes. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO WRITE. And she nodded, barely perceptibly, or so she hoped. She put her hand into her pocket, found something that felt like a piece of paper. She slid a pen into her pocket as inconspicuously as possible, stood up, and went to the front of the room. The history teacher noted the time on a list and nodded at her; she had official permission to go to the ladies’ room. Her heart was racing. Of course, the history teacher couldn’t read her mind. Anna hadn’t done anything forbidden, not yet anyway.

  A few minutes later, she was sitting on the lid of a white toilet, writing. The paper in her pocket had turned out to be a ten-euro note. Whatever. She was writing. She was writing tiny letters; she covered the bill with them, her fingers flying. She wrote down the answers for the first section in short keywords, noting dates and giving brief historical background. The thinking, the “Interpret this text in a historical context. Discuss the questions” part he had to do himself. She had already read the second set of questions on the test; she made notes for this part, too, giving more dates, jotting down half-finished sentences, which hopefully would help him to remember. At some point, he surely must have learned all this, too … She wasn’t writing fast enough. She didn’t have enough space on the bill. She thought about using toilet paper. She looked at her watch. She had to go back.

  She folded the bill and fastened it under the lid of the toilet paper holder. Then she tore off a piece of toilet paper and stuck it into the door of the stall in which she’d been sitting. It was visible from outside if you were searching for it—a tiny white flag, a white flag made of snow …

  She had to force herself not to run back to the gym; she tried hard to look as if she was sick and that was why she had spent so much time in the bathroom. She was feeling sick. She didn’t know what would happen if someone figured out she’d cheated. She’d fail the test—she was sure of that—but what else would happen?

  When she returned to the gym, thirteen minutes had passed. Thirteen minutes on the toilet. Of course, they would realize something was wrong … of course, of course, damn, Knaake was sitting at the desk now. She didn’t see the history teacher anywhere.

  “Mrs. Meyer’s gone for a cup of coffee,” Knaake said in a very low voice, looking up at her. Then he looked at his watch and noted the time on a sheet. “I just hope this watch is correct,” he mumbled. “Gotta reset it one of these days …”

  She wanted to hug him. She just nodded. According to what he’d jotted down, she’d been gone for only five minutes.

  She threw Abel a short glance before she sat down again. Seven minutes later, he got up. Possibly it was more than seven minutes later—at least by Knaake’s watch. She tried to concentrate on the second set of questions and to remember the answers she’d already written down in keywords on a ten-euro note. Abel had to find the right toilet now. He had to memorize the dates and facts, or to remember them if he’d already learned them once. He couldn’t take that bill with him; he’d have to destroy it. What would he do with it? Tear it up and flush it down the toilet? She’d never thought this could work … Abel returned a few minutes after the history teacher, who came back with a cup of coffee. Knaake noted the time before handing the sheet back to his colleague. Abel sat down without looking at Anna. She didn’t dare turn around to see if he was writing.

  After the test, Anna stood outside in the cold schoolyard with Gitta and the others, watching them smoke. It would have been too conspicuous to walk over to Abel now. The others seemed to have forgotten Wednesday’s gossip; they were talking about the test. Hennes had his arm around Gitta’s leather-jacketed waist, Frauke was talking to Gitta, and Bertil came and stood with them.

  “
So how was it?” he asked.

  Anna looked at him. She didn’t want to talk to him. But his question was honest, and it seemed like ages ago that he’d said the things in the Mittendrin that he shouldn’t have said. She searched for her anger but couldn’t find it anymore.

  “It was all right,” she replied. “But I’m not feeling so well … I got sick in the middle of it …”

  “Poor lamb,” Gitta said. “That’s why you were gone for so long. You’re pale, too.”

  Anna hoped that Bertil didn’t see her wink. He didn’t. He put a hand on her arm, worried. “Maybe you should go home.”

  “It’s okay,” she said. “Probably it was just nervousness.”

  “Sometimes it helps to get fresh air,” Bertil went on. “To clear your head, I mean. The sea has frozen totally now. I was thinking about going out to Eldena later … we could go together. If you want to.”

  “The sea’s frozen?” Frauke asked. “Do you think it’s possible to walk to the other side of the bay, to Ludwigsburg?”

  Bertil nodded. “Sure. I was at the beach yesterday, took our dog. He likes running over the ice. It’s nice to be at the beach alone, in winter, at dusk …”

  “I thought your dog died,” Frauke said, giving a little shudder. “I thought your father shot him.”

  “That was a long time ago,” Bertil replied, looking into the distance. “We have a new dog. Things are replaceable: dogs, friends, people … what do you think, Anna? Are you coming with me? I know you sometimes go for walks out there.”

  “Not today,” Anna said quickly. “It’s too cold for me out there today.”

  She thought of the black depth in Abel’s eyes. He was standing in his usual place. She saw him shake his head ever so slightly. Don’t come over here. Not now. Later, when the test isn’t floating around in the air like this anymore. He was right.

  “Now that the last history test is history,” Hennes said, “we should keep our Polish peddler in business, don’t you think? I mean … seeing as how he’s bothering to hang around … Gitta, what are we doing Saturday night?”