The Storyteller

Ah, but who is it climbs to your picture

With a garland of freshly cut tears

Take this waltz, take this waltz

,

Take this waltz, it’s been dying for years …

“The little queen bent down to pet the silver-gray dog,” Abel said. “And in this very moment, the dog blinked. He lifted his head ever so slowly, looked at her with his golden eyes, and wagged his tail. Then he rose, crept out of the cabin, and jumped into the water. A little later, a sea lion was swimming in the waves, next to the green ship. But the waves had almost stopped moving, and the lighthouse keeper scratched his ear with the arm of his glasses. “Soon, soon the sea will freeze,” he said, “and we won’t be able to sail on any longer. And what will we do then?”

A

Abel took her free hand and led her off the pier, back to the café. Micha ran along beside them like a little dog.

“‘The sea hasn’t frozen yet, has it?’ the little queen said. ‘But what’s that over there? Another island? Shouldn’t we go there and have a look?’

“‘No, we shouldn’t,’ the lighthouse keeper replied. ‘For that, my little queen, is the island of the murderer.’

“‘I don’t believe that,’ the little queen said, shaking Mrs. Margaret so hard that her blue flowered dress flew up and down. ‘Mrs. Margaret is shaking her head, do you see? I want to go there and find out for myself who lives on that island.’

“The lighthouse keeper heaved a deep sigh and steered the ship toward the island. It was a tiny island, tinier than all the islands they had visited so far. On one side, somebody had erected a sign that read: ISLAND OF THE MURDERER.

“‘Huh!’ the little queen exclaimed. ‘Who writes signs like that? Stop! I want to go ashore!’

“‘Ashore?’ the lighthouse keeper, the rose girl, the blind white cat, and the asking man asked in a neat choir. Only the answering man answered, murmuring something about ‘seven times daily.’

“‘You can’t go ashore on an island where a murderer lives,’ the rose girl said.

“‘Oh yes, I can,’ the little queen said. ‘A queen with a diamond heart can go ashore on any island. Maybe the murderer doesn’t want to be a murderer anymore but, instead, someone else, something opposite, like … a savior, for example. He needs someone to tell him how he can change.’

“And with these words, she climbed over the rail and jumped onto the cliffs of the tiny island.

“‘Wait!’ the rose girl called and jumped after her. The lighthouse keeper, the asking man, and the answering man followed her. Only the blind white cat, licking her paws, stayed on deck, and the sea lion was nowhere to be found … in any of his forms.

“The little group began to wander over the tiny island. It wasn’t just the tiniest, it was also the barest island they had seen. There were no trees, no bushes, no grass—not even a house. But the murderer who lived there … where was the murderer? Where was he lurking?

“‘He is here,’ the little queen whispered after a while. ‘Very near. He can see us. I can feel his eyes on me. But he doesn’t want to talk to us. How can I help him turn into something different if he doesn’t show himself?’

“‘Let’s go,’ said the lighthouse keeper. ‘Let’s leave this creepy island before one of us is murdered.’

“‘No,’ the rose girl said. ‘No, I don’t think the murderer is here anymore. He must have left a long time ago. Or swam away.’

“‘But where is he then?’ the little queen whispered uncomfortably. ‘Maybe … maybe he is on board? Maybe he has been on board for a long time?’

“‘Where—on board what?’ the asking man asked.

“‘On the thirteenth of March,’ the answering man answered, though this answer didn’t fit the question, of course.

“‘The black ship,’ the little queen said doubtfully. ‘He’s already turned into someone else. We just don’t recognize him. Or … is he on board our own ship?’

“When she said this, everybody looked at each other: the lighthouse keeper looked at the rose girl, the rose girl looked at the asking man, and the asking man looked at the answering man. The answering man looked back to the ship, where the white cat was still grooming.

“When the green ship cast off a little later, distrust was creeping over the deck like an unwanted passenger who had come aboard at the tiny island. Maybe, each of them thought, one of them was a murderer. Maybe someone they had previously trusted was someone who murdered because he or she was born on an island with a sign saying ‘Island of the Murderer.’

“The waves looked like dark green honey. It must be the distrust. They were stuck in a sea of suspicion, hardly moving anymore. If things stayed like this, they would never reach the mainland.”

Abel fell silent, and A

“Knaake,” Abel said in a low voice. A

“Let’s go in,” Abel said.

“Why? You don’t want to see him?”

“I want to see what he does,” Abel answered. “Where he goes and how he behaves. Just … so … Come on.”

“Will you tell the fairy tale inside, and will there be hot chocolate, and can I have a piece of cake with it?” Micha asked as she raced up the stairs without waiting for answers. She was a little queen. Of course there would be hot chocolate and cake.

A

“Seems like everyone’s here today,” Abel said in a low voice.

It was a weird situation: They looked at each other, two versus two, here versus there, this side versus the other.

“So, little lamb,” Gitta said finally, “here you go, have our table. Have you been over there? At the beach? You heard what happened, right? It was all over the news …”

A

“Yeah,” Gitta said. “It was kinda creepy. I mean, that guy found the dead body, just this morning, and it had been there for a day or so … in our neighborhood, all hell’s broken loose, police driving by regularly … I actually started wondering if it might be a good idea to open up a snack bar, you know, for anyone who’s coming by to look … He

She pressed her body, in a black leather coat, against him, and he tried to pull her away. “Come on, didn’t we want to …”

“He’s also good at finding footprints in the woods,” Gitta went on, winking at A