The Storyteller

“Oh, how exciting,” Frauke said. “Tell us, A

A

Abel was standing in the yard as always, in the freezing cold, his hands dug deep into his pockets. There was no fresh white snow today to cover the dirty old snow that wouldn’t melt.

During lunch break, Bertil approached A

“Children and drunk people always tell the truth,” A

“I’m … I’m sorry!” Bertil repeated, in despair. “Can’t you forgive me?”

“Not now,” A

“No way.” Bertil shook his head. “No, A

A

He nodded.

“Please,” she said, “can I have one of your earplugs? The others are making me ill. I can’t listen to their questions anymore. Their stupid comments.”

He didn’t look at her. He handed her an earplug in silence. He seemed to have decided that it no longer made sense to pretend he didn’t know her. The white noise from the old Walkman enveloped them both; like a blanket of new snow, it draped itself over them, shutting out all the curious looks.

And the world under the blanket was—surprisingly, wonderfully—absolutely quiet.

• • •

At four o’clock in the afternoon, the sign in front of the Russian store at the corner of Hain Street swung to and fro in the wind, like it always did, alternately revealing its Russian name one side and the German translation on the other. Russian candies in their gold paper boxes were fading in the window, as were the Russian Matryoshka dolls, piled high behind the window blind. Farther along the street, three figures walked next to each other, toward the woods.

The beech trees towered against the winter sky in silence, their snow-covered branches like the work of fairies who had decorated the forest with a thousand tiny songbirds. The Elisenhain at four o’clock on a February afternoon seemed the most wonderful place in the world. A fairy-tale forest full of invisible stories, a storybook forest full of untold fairy tales, a forest full of fairylike tales …

“Bertil apologized,” A

“Bertil,” Abel repeated. “Do me a favor, will you, and don’t mention that name for a while.”

“He’s a sad person in his own way,” A

“Is that it?” Abel asked bitterly. “Is that the reason you’re walking next to me? You’re collecting ‘sad’ people you feel sorry for and want to help?”

“You know very well why I’m here,” A

So she threw her fear overboard and kissed him in spite of everything. And he didn’t back away, and she wondered if he had been waiting for her to make a move.

“Hey,” he asked after quite a while, a little out of breath, looking at the top button of her coat, which had come loose, “are you still wearing my sweatshirt? I didn’t notice at school.”

“I … I’ll give it back …”

“Not now,” he said. “We should catch up with Micha.”

He took her hand in his, and they started to run, along the old street, sliding on the ice-covered cobblestones that lay beneath the snow. It was like they were children, two children about to enter a fairy-tale forest. It could have been Christmas, A

“Catch me!” the third child called out, the child in the pink down jacket, as she fled into the woods, along a narrow path, through the giant columns of trees. A frozen rivulet wound its way along the path, meandering through the kitschy winter postcard scene; Micha jumped over the ice, giggling and carefree, ru

A short way ahead, the path disappeared into a dense thicket of hazelnut bushes, covered with snow. Maybe this wasn’t the path after all but a deer trail … A

“This is the wrong path,” Abel said. “The woods are too dense in this direction.”

“But it’s beautiful here! In spring, it’s filled with anemones. I often come to this part …”

Abel pulled her back onto her feet. His grip was still iron. It was his right hand that held her; in his hurry to hold her back, he probably hadn’t remembered it was hurt. She could tell he was clenching his teeth with pain, but he didn’t let go. “In winter, there aren’t any anemones blossoming here,” he said. “Micha is afraid of the dark. Let’s go back; we’ll take the other path at the fork.” He was right. Micha was still there waiting for them. She hadn’t moved even a step in their direction.

When they were back with her, Abel released A

A