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“The doll, I figured … I figured she belonged to a little girl …,” A
He nodded. “She does belong to a little girl.” And suddenly he was the one to smile. “What did you think? That she’s mine?”
The moment he smiled, A
“Well, whose is she?” A
“I’ve got a sister,” said Abel. “She’s six.”
“And why …” Why are you carrying her doll around with you? And how did you manage to lose her under a sofa in the student lounge, the great interrogator A
“Micha,” said Abel. “Her name is Micha. She’ll be glad to have her dolly back.”
He glanced at his watch, stood up, and slung the backpack over his shoulder.
“I should get going.”
“Yeah … me too,” A
Side by side, they stepped out into the blue, cold day, and Abel said, “I suppose you don’t mind if I put my hat back on again?”
The frost on the trees glittered so brightly now one had to squint, and the puddles in the schoolyard reflected the sun—gleaming, glaring.
Everything had become brighter, almost dangerously bright.
A chatting, giggling group of ninth graders was gathered next to the bike rack. A
“Why didn’t you say it was your sister’s doll … when they were throwing it around?” she asked. “Why did you wait until everyone had left?”
He pulled his bike out backward, from the tangle of other bicycles. He was almost gone, almost somewhere else. Almost back in his own world. “They wouldn’t have understood,” he said. “And besides, it’s nobody’s business.” Me included, A
“Do you really listen to the Onkelz?” she asked, looking at his sweatshirt.
He smiled again. “How old do you think I am? Twelve?”
“But the … the sweatshirt …”
“Inherited,” he said. “It’s warm. That’s what matters.”
He handed her an earplug. “White noise.”
A
“It helps keep people away,” said Abel as he gently pulled the earplug from her ear and got on his bike. “In case I want to think.”
And then he rode away. A
Everything had changed.
White noise.
She didn’t ask Gitta for the old sled with the red stripe. She rode out to the beach by herself later, as it was getting dark. The beach at twilight was the best place to get her thoughts in order, to spread them out over the sand like pieces of cloth, to unfold and refold them, again and again.
It wasn’t even a proper ocean. It was only a shallow bay, no more than several meters deep, nestled between the shore and the isle of Rügen. Once the water was frozen over, you could reach the island on foot.
A
She thought about her “soap bubble” life. The house A
With Abel still next to her, she had climbed the wide, wooden staircase in the middle of the living room, up to her room, where a music stand was waiting for her next to the window. She tried to shake Abel Ta
She caught herself trying to blow a different kind of sound from her instrument, a tuneless, atonal sound, something more scratchy and unruly: a white noise.
Outside her window, a single rose was in full winter bloom on the rosebush. It was so alone that it looked unbearably out of place, and A
Now, as she stood on the beach, the air above the sea had turned midnight blue. A fishing boat hung between ocean and sky. A
And then she walked into the water until it seeped into her boot, until the wetness and the cold reached her skin. “I don’t know anything!” she shouted at the sea. “Nothing at all!”
About what? asked the sea.
“About the world outside my soap bubble!” A
And the sea laughed, but it wasn’t a friendly laugh. It was making fun of her. Do you think you could get to know somebody like Ta
“Oh, be quiet, will you,” A
To her left, behind the beach, there was a big forest, deep and black. In spring there would be anemones blooming underneath the tall leafy-green beeches, but it would be a long, long time till then.
“DO YOU THINK YOU COULD ACTUALLY GET TO know somebody like Ta
Everything about it was too tidy, even the garden. Gitta was almost positive her mother disinfected the leaves of the box hedge when no one was looking.
Gitta didn’t get along well with her mother, who worked as a surgeon at the hospital where A
“A
“I was thinking … about our parents,” A