The Storyteller

THAT NIGHT, ANNA SLEPT WITH THE FAIRY-TALE TELLER.

Not in reality. In her dreams. She lay in her bed, in the house of blue air, and dreamed a pocket of time into Abel’s fairy tale, a time pocket that would never be told. It was night on the deck of the green ship. The little queen was dreaming, too, between her polar bear skins in the cabin below, Mrs. Margaret in her arms, the asking man and the answering man, who had finally come in to get some sleep, beside her. And the lighthouse keeper. The lighthouse keeper slept in his boots and his glasses, which were pushed up into the graying hair on his head. The little queen was smiling in her sleep. Maybe she dreamed of the reality beyond her fairy tale, of turquoise ice cream on a snow-covered market square, of letters in the dirt on a window.

A

The white sails that the red hunter had torn to pieces with his rapier were still heaped on deck. A

The round burn on his upper arm was shining like a second moon, or an eye.

“Don’t look at it,” he whispered, as he pulled her down onto the deck, between the white sails that closed around them like a tent. It was completely dark in that tent; there was nothing to be seen, only to be heard and to be felt and to be tasted.

“It’s a dream,” A

“It’s a time pocket in the fairy tale,” Abel whispered. “That is what you wished for, isn’t it?”

In a dream, in a fairy tale, nothing has to be explained, everything happens of its own accord. That night, A

And the cocoon, the artwork, the tent rolled over the deck, rolled over the rail, and sank into the icy waters of the night ocean, with A

When A

• • •

“Check out our Polish peddler,” Gitta said on Monday, looking out the window. “If he keeps standing there, he’ll be covered in snow like a statue. I don’t get it. He’s been standing there since early morning; he wasn’t in French class—he’s just been standing out there with plugs in his ears.”

“White noise,” A

Gitta looked at her. “Excuse me?”

“Maybe he hasn’t earned his daily wage.” He

“He’s a peddler.” Gitta put a suggestive hand on He

“Today, I’m feeling generous,” He

He slipped into his ski jacket, and a moment later was walking across the yard, through the gently falling snowflakes. Gitta sighed and said, “Those snowflakes really look good in his hair. You could put that guy in a frame, hang him up on the wall …”

“If he really wants to party … maybe he’ll let you hang him on the wall. You never know,” Frauke said and laughed.

“Depends on what he arranges with the Pole,” Gitta said, “… and what he plans to smoke. A

“I’ll think about it,” A

She saw He

“You know, it’s possible to party without weed,” Bertil said. A

“What do you think?”

“I’m thinking,” A

The math test went well. At first, A

But during lunch, there he was, all by himself, as usual. He hadn’t had to take the math test since he wasn’t in the basic class—he was in the intensive—and suddenly, A