The Storyteller

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 u

“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,” A

“Search … for someone else,” Abel said. His voice was still strangely slow, and then A

“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?”

A

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

“Yes!” A

“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 a

“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,” A

“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?” A

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