The Storyteller

by Antonia Michaelis

  “Okay,” Anna said. “Okay. Thanks. Linda, I … I’ll go now. I don’t know how many bars there are in the city, but I have to at least try to find him. He must be somewhere …”

  “Do you want me to come with you?” Linda asked. She was serious.

  Anna shook her head. “Tell Magnus that I’ve gone out with Gitta.”

  Strange, she thought, when she left the house. Hadn’t it always been the other way around? Tell Linda that I’m fine … tell Linda that she doesn’t have to worry … let’s not tell Linda about it, she’ll just be alarmed. Nothing seemed to stay the way it had been since she had met Abel. He still didn’t answer the phone.

  He wasn’t there. He was nowhere. He’d vanished, dissolved, disappeared into thin air, melted away like the snow in the thaw. She’d never been in so many bars in a single night. She hadn’t known that there were so many. Students’ town, she thought. She wouldn’t study here; she hadn’t ever planned to, but today it had become an impossibility. She had to leave this place as soon as possible. She had to leave it and go far, far away.

  After a while, she got better at walking into a bar and looking over the heads in the crowd as if searching for someone. Well, she was … she was searching for someone. She forced herself to ask. People knew him, of course. Some of them gave her a smile of pity. Poor little girl, was written in their faces, you’re searching for that guy? You don’t think he’s waiting for you, do you? What kind of adventure do you think you’re having? She wondered how many of them knew. Did the whole city know more than she did? The part of the city that existed beyond well-lit school desks … beyond the blue air and the robins in nice little backyard gardens … far away from the freshly painted, sleek fronts of old, renovated houses?

  It was after two when she reached the student dining hall. The student dining hall offered music on Thursday and Saturday nights, but today was Monday … still, she heard music spilling out onto the street. Obviously, there was some kind of party going on down there, some kind of unscheduled event. She was tired. She wanted to go home. She would have just walked past the dining hall, but somebody called her name. Gitta. And suddenly, she was thankful for Gitta’s presence. She drifted through the darkness toward her, as if she were a safety buoy.

  Gitta was standing in the black night in her black clothes, smoking. Next to her were a group of other smokers whom Anna didn’t know. Gitta said something to them, put an arm around Anna’s shoulders, and walked her a couple of paces away.

  “Little lamb,” she said. “I fucked up. I was too late. I’m sorry.”

  Hadn’t she lost Gitta? Or had Gitta forgiven her for not letting her in, for shutting the door in her face, for hardly talking to her anymore …?

  “I should have been faster,” Gitta went on. “He’d just said his last insane sentence when I got to the secretary’s office. I was so mad, I knocked him down. Don’t you ever get mad?”

  “Yes,” Anna said. “Often. Much too often. You knew about it already, didn’t you?”

  “About Abel?” She drew on her cigarette. “Possibly. Is that important?”

  “Yes,” Anna said. “It’s important because you didn’t tell me. Gitta … thank you. But it doesn’t change anything. I’m here because I’m looking for him. To tell him it doesn’t change anything.”

  “Don’t you go and say ‘I love him’ now or I’ll start crying,” Gitta said. Then she hugged Anna, her cigarette in her outstretched hand, and her face seemed indeed to be wet.

  “You haven’t found him, have you?” she asked, her voice a little hoarser than usual.

  “No.”

  Gitta pointed to the black hulk of the student dining hall with her cigarette. “Try in there, my little lamb.”

  At first, they didn’t want to let her in. The bouncers wanted to see her ID. Anna didn’t have it with her, of course, but she was eighteen … This was ridiculous … She was looking for someone, damn it … Could she just take a look to see if he was there? No, she didn’t have any beverages in her bag that she planned to consume inside the club. What was all the fuss about? She covered her face with her hands for a moment, took a deep breath, went up to one of the bouncers, stood on her toes, and kissed him … on the cheek, but still. “Thank you so much,” she whispered. “Thanks for letting me in.”

  She felt his eyes following her. He hadn’t planned to let her in. She disappeared into the crowd of sweating bodies trying to get rid of—or get into—jackets and coats near the door. There was a single room in which you could dance; chaos ruled the long bar; the old tables and benches along the wall were filled with sweaters, glasses, beer bottles, and more bodies. It took her a while to get used to the darkness, which was pierced and flecked by the shimmering light of a disco ball. The music was as loud as a construction site. She felt the bass in the soles of her feet, in the tips of her fingers, in the roots of her hair. The outlines of the bodies around her melted into one another; black light interrupted, broke, shattered the images into a thousand tiny pieces of a puzzle she would never complete. On one bench, she saw a couple kissing, but she couldn’t find them again moments later. Had it just been two jackets? It was impossible to find anyone in this confusion. Why had Gitta told her to look in here? Was he here? Had she seen him? Why hadn’t Gitta joined her?

  Because, she thought, if I find him, I have to find him on my own.

  And then she did. She found him.

  He was sitting in the far corner, on a bench behind a table stacked with jackets and sweaters. It was stupid, but the thing that caught her eye was his black woolen hat. First, she hadn’t thought it was him. There were dozens of people with black woolen hats like his. But when she squeezed her way through people and chairs around the table and sat down next to him, she could see that it was him. He was sitting there, leaning against the wall behind him. For a moment, she thought he was asleep. He wasn’t. His eyes were open, staring at the blob of bodies on the dance floor. It looked as if the earplugs of his Walkman had just slid out of his ears, as if he’d tried to listen to white noise even in here—or maybe to the incomprehensible words of the old Canadian—but then given up. He was still wearing his military parka, despite the unbearable heat, and holding a half-empty bottle of beer.

  She put her hand on his, and only then did he take note of her and turn his head, with unnatural slowness. Something like a smile appeared on his face. It was a bitter smile, bitter like his voice on Bertil’s recording.

  “So?” he said, and she leaned over to hear him through the noise. “So, did you come to talk to the outlaw?” Something was wrong with his voice … it wasn’t just bitter. “That’s what it is, right?” he went on. “A … a beautiful story. The princess and the outlaw. The underdog. The pariah.” He spat the words into her face, and now he was laughing. “How come the best … the best descriptions come from India, country of castes?”

  “It’s you who knows about words, not me,” Anna answered. “And right now, you’re talking nonsense! Abel! I’ve been searching for you! I’ve been searching for you all day!”

  “Search … for someone else,” Abel said. His voice was still strangely slow, and then Anna saw that there was something wrong with his eyes as well. The ice in them had eaten up the pupils; the thaw had set in everywhere, she thought; the hole in the ice had grown bigger and bigger, but here, in Abel’s eyes, the opposite seemed to have occurred. The dark windows of his pupils were nearly frozen over.

  “Shit,” she said. “What did you take?”

  His hand moved through the air, a gesture meaning nothing and everything. He put his beer bottle on the table, an exercise that seemed to require maximum concentration. “Is that … important?”

  Anna grabbed his shoulders and started to shake him, and he just let her. There was no tension under her hands; he was a bundle of clothes. “You said you don’t take the stuff you’re selling!” she shouted against the noise of the music. “You said …”

  “Let go of me, princess,” he said with a we
ird smile that she didn’t like. “Said, said. Did you actually believe me?”

  “Yes!” Anna shouted. “I did! I did believe you, you idiot!”

  “It was true, too,” he said, and suddenly, he found enough strength to slap away her hands. He knocked the beer bottle over in the process, and the beer leaked out onto the table. He seemed not to realize, and he put his arms in the puddle on the table and his head on top of them as he’d done on the mornings he’d slept through literature class. Finally, he turned his head to face her, his changed eyes meeting hers. “True,” he repeated. “It was true. I told you … I can’t afford to lose my head … with Micha … but now it doesn’t matter anymore. Not one bit.”

  He put his face back onto his arms, as if to leave her, to walk away, but she wouldn’t let him, she was shaking him again. “Where is she?” she shouted. “Where’s Micha?”

  “At home,” he answered. “In bed. We were … we went on an outing … and now she’s in bed, sleeping. What did you think? Did you think I stopped looking after her?”

  “If nothing matters anymore?”

  He tried to focus on her but didn’t quite manage. “Go away,” he said. “Leave me alone. What do you want?”

  “To bring you home.”

  “Forget it,” he said and got up. He was unsteady … holding onto the table. “Leave me alone.” He pointed to a collection of empty bottles, letting himself fall back onto the bench. “See, I’ve got company. Ha.”

  She moved closer, so close their shoulders touched. She didn’t want to shout anymore to be heard. He smelled like beer. She still didn’t know what he’d taken, but he was right, of course. It didn’t matter. He’d given up.

  “I don’t know if this will get through to you,” she said. “Probably not. But in the event you’ve forgotten it tomorrow, I’ll just say it again then. I’ve been searching for you, because I wanted to tell you that Bertil didn’t achieve anything with his announcement. He could have saved himself the trouble of recording your conversation. I know something now that I didn’t know before. So what?”

  “But everybody … everybody knows everything,” Abel murmured. “Now. No, everybody knows nothing. Nobody knows anything. Nobody knows everything …”

  “Can you hear yourself talking? Does it make sense?”

  “What does make sense in life, anyway?” he asked. “Go away, princess. Leave your outlaw alone. You won’t … you won’t change him.”

  “I’m not going anywhere without you,” Anna said decisively.

  “God, look how they’re dancing!” he said, as if he hadn’t heard her. “How they’re dancing! Isn’t it insane? The world is turning the wrong way around, and they don’t notice … they’re just dancing! Do you want to know how the fairy tale continues?”

  “Yes,” she said, “please.” And she leaned her head on his shoulder, where his jacket was wet with spilled beer, and watched the dancing … they were dancing … it was insane, true enough.

  “The little queen and her crew saw the mainland … that evening,” Abel began, haltingly, stumbling over the words, tripping, falling, like a child learning to walk. But he got up each time he fell, and then the words came quicker. “And they cheered and hugged each other. ‘It won’t be long now!’ the rose girl said. ‘Maybe we’ll reach it tonight!’ the little queen exclaimed. ‘Where is the weapon?’ the asking man asked; ‘soon,’ the answering man answered, but this time it was obviously the wrong question and the right answer. High above them the silver-gray seagull shrieked, her shriek a shrill warning, and at first they didn’t understand. They raced on their skates, toward the dark mass of land. And then the gull shrieked again, louder, and they came to a halt quite abruptly. One step ahead of them, the ice ended. They saw now how strong the ice was. It was nearly three inches thick, but then it suddenly stopped. Between the mainland and the edge, there was a wide stream, a roaring river of water that had been snow not long ago, an insurmountable monster of ice-cold water.

  “They took off the skates and stood there at the edge of the ice silently. The silver-gray seagull landed in front of them, inclined her head, and squinted at them. The pupils in her golden eyes had nearly vanished, as if she were turning blind like the white cat. Maybe the wind up there above the sea had been too cold. The little queen bent down to pet the gull’s feather coat, but it was the silver-gray dog again, and her hand touched fur. He pressed against her legs, as if he was trying to find shelter from the cold, and then he barked loud and bared his teeth. He had sharp teeth, teeth like a wolf. The little queen followed his gaze, and the rose girl turned, too.

  “‘Here she comes,’ she whispered. ‘The cutter with her sparkling tools. We have to swim.’

  “But the raging current was too strong, too powerful.

  “‘We will swim,’ said the little queen. ‘But if we swim, we will die. And I still don’t know what death is like. Our journey was so long, and I’ve met so many people, and nobody, not a single soul, has explained death to me.’”

  “And?” Anna asked. “What happened then?”

  “There’s no then,” Abel said, turning the beer bottle upside down, and a last drop fell down onto the table.

  “But that’s not the end of the story,” Anna said. “The end takes place the day after tomorrow. Till then, we’ll find a way to get across the water. The sea lion can swim. He’s a strong swimmer. Come on.”

  She took his arm and pulled him up, wanting to pull him with her, get him out of that corner, pull him around the table—and that was the moment he found his strength a second time. This time, he really did find it. He pushed her away … she staggered back and held onto a chair so as not to fall; she saw how he lifted his right arm as if to hit her. She ducked. There was no blow. He stood there looking at her for a second, arms hanging limply by his side, then he sank back onto the bench and closed his eyes. “Go away, Anna,” he said once more, in a voice too low to hear. She read the words on his lips, “Go away now. Far away. And don’t ever come back. The fairy tale doesn’t have a happy ending.”

  She left. She left him alone, alone with the dancing crowd, where you could be lonelier than anyplace else.

  “Little lamb,” Gitta said when she met her in the lobby of the dining hall, “didn’t you find him?”

  “No,” Anna said. “I’ll find him tomorrow. Tomorrow, when he’s sober again and has had some sleep.”

  “Yes, do,” Gitta said, and Anna saw that Hennes was standing behind her.

  “Yes, do,” he repeated and pushed the red hair out of his face with that unbearable gesture. He was holding a glass, and the color of the liquid in the glass was beautiful, and the glass was beautiful, and the hand was slender and beautiful. Look, she thought, how they’re dancing. Insane. “Anna!” Hennes said. “Wait! What Bertil did today … that conversation he recorded … I … I’m really … if I say anything now …”

  “Then it will only be wrong,” Anna said. “Go, Hennes. Take Gitta inside and dance with her.”

  That night she did not dream of flames. She dreamed of Ludwigsburg. Of the pines creaking in the snowstorm. And she knew who’d followed her. Who’d scared her.

  “I passed you already,” Bertil had said. “I just had to find a place to turn the car …”

  She hadn’t seen him come toward her from the big road, hadn’t seen him drive by, because he hadn’t. In her dream, she saw the three snow-covered cars in the parking lot, behind the restaurant, near the beach, at the very end of the little lane. And suddenly, she was sure one of them had been a Volvo. And suddenly, she thought she remembered the panting of a dog between the pines. And suddenly, she heard Gitta say again, don’t believe everything you hear. Gitta hadn’t told Bertil that she’d seen Anna ride out to Ludwigsburg. Oh no. He’d followed her. He’d followed her to Abel’s apartment back then—somebody has to look after you, he’d said, more than you think—and had kept following her, creeping after her. He’d scared her on purpose, out there, in the woods, so that he could sav
e her.

  He’d let her go ahead, let her push her bike through the storm, for a long, long time, until she was exhausted enough to let him rescue her. He’d been waiting, lurking … that was why the car hadn’t been warm—he’d been driving for only a few minutes. Of course. Of course. Of course.

  When she awoke, it was late morning, nearly noon. She must have slept hard. Outside the window, in the yard, the snow had nearly melted. The sun was shining in a new and golden way. She dressed hurriedly.

  She knew what she had to do. Right now.

  She’d go out to the woods, to the Elisenhain, to see if the anemones were already there, their little blossoms peeking through the leftover snow. And she had the feeling she’d find some. The feeling they’d be waiting for her. The anemones … and spring itself. She’d pick a bunch of them, a bunch of tiny white flowers, and then she’d ring Abel and Micha’s doorbell, and they would have breakfast together, a very late breakfast. And Abel and she would talk about everything. Since she’d known him, life had been a roller coaster, up and down. At one moment she was shouting in triumph, at another she was sunk in despair—even old Goethe had known the feeling—and this was a day for shouting in triumph. A day on which everything could and would be explained—and settled. A day made to talk about the future, a future in which he’d no longer have to do what he’d done to earn money. She’d tie him to a chair and slap him with Magnus’s money if she had to.

  She knew a good place for anemones, the best; it was near that place where Micha’s invisibles lived, by the hazelnut bushes. She’d tell Micha that the invisibles had melted away with the snow.

  That they didn’t exist in spring.

  It was high time spring came. It was the twelfth of March.

  THE WOODS WERE IN FLOWER—THEY WERE BLOSSOMING!

  There was still snow between the high gray trunks of the beeches, silver-gray, Anna thought, but between the last patches of cold, new patches of white had come into being, as well as a few yellow and violet patches. Cowslips, liverworts, and of course her anemones—such a difficult word for such a tiny flower.