“And what’s the story with me? Can you tell me?”
And then he told me.
I reached behind me for a wall to brace my suddenly wobbly spine against. Unfortunately I didn’t find one.
“Thanks for the talk,” I said and staggered away.
I puttered around the garden for a long time. It got cooler and the guests retreated to the house, jamming the place up to the last hallway until there was no place else left to stand. I could see them through the fogged up window. The black clothes melted into a single mass, the faces slowly lost their mournfulness. Here and there I could make out familiar facial features. At one stage I jumped because I thought I saw Lucy. The sound of the voices condensed into a single ill-defined cloud that sent out occasional thunderclaps of laughter. Suddenly I heard guitar chords accompanied by other tones that I couldn’t immediately place. I pressed my nose to the glass and saw an accordion.
Evgenija was sitting on the table; the musical instrument that I had at first taken for some kind of animal whined ruefully in her lap. Her left foot hung in the air; the high-heeled shoe had slipped down. A massive knee in black pants, whose owner I couldn’t make out, pushed under Evgenija’s toes to brace them as they felt around in the air.
She couldn’t start singing along now too, I thought, but right at that moment she showed that indeed she could. I couldn’t see who was playing guitar. I just hoped it wasn’t Claudia.
I stepped back from the window. If someone inside saw me like that, his or her hair would immediately turn white. I needed to show some regard for the guests. A maniacal grin wafted across my face. I went farther into the garden, cut my shoe on a piece of broken glass in the grass, and then I saw that someone was standing next to me.
“Tammy,” I said. “You’re dressed too lightly again.”
At the funeral she’d worn a jacket over her short black dress even though it was fairly warm. Now she no longer had the jacket on, and didn’t have shoes on her feet. Maybe it was a Ukrainian custom to go barefoot at some stage during a funeral.
She took a step toward me and I searched for her face, first with my fingers and then with my lips. Her skin tasted bitter then sweet then both at the same time. I pulled away from her because my stomach started to growl.
“Can’t you wash that off?”
“You’re drunk,” she said.
“Never,” I said. I pulled a crumpled tissue out of my pocket, spat on it, and tried to wipe Tammy’s mouth with it. She pushed my hand aside.
I held her so she didn’t run away from me and get lost in her own garden. She nuzzled up to me. Maybe she was just cold.
“It’s a killer funeral,” I said. “You guys really did a great job putting it together. The food, incredible.”
“Did you try it?”
“No,” I said. “But I really need to tell you that you picked super music for the ceremony. I nearly cried.”
“That was Claudia’s music,” said Tammy into my shirt. “I can burn you a CD.”
“No, thanks,” I said quickly. “I don’t listen to music.”
I stroked her hair. My finger got caught in a curl, my finger-tips were raw and cracked like those of a laborer. I stroked her head with the flat of my hand, the way you pat a child or a dog. Then I kissed her head and her temples, which smelled like smoke and her unbearable perfume. She wrapped both arms around me and we stood there like that, as if nothing on earth could part us.
“Tammy,” I said. “I have to confess something to you.”
She lifted her face inquisitively.
“You see that girl in there?”
“The snow queen in the wheelchair?”
“Exactly.”
“What about her?”
“I love her,” I said.
Tammy nodded. I’d been a little worried that it would hurt her feelings that I was kissing her here in the garden and confessing my love of another woman at the same time. If I’d been just a touch more sober I would have kept my mouth shut.
“You all have a crush on that girl.” Tammy sounded totally indifferent. “The guests are all smitten. I thought they’d all try to start something with me, but as soon as she showed up… I wonder how she does it. I don’t think she’s really paralyzed.”
“No idea,” I said. “It actually doesn’t even matter.”
I stroked her head again as she leaned against my shoulder.
“I’d like to start something with you,” I said.
“Why? You have a chance with that girl.”
“Nice of you, but not a chance in hell, Tammy. I think I’m going crazy. People are trying to tell me weird things. Look for example at that girl in the wheelchair again. Do we look similar?”
“Maybe.”
“But she has black hair.”
“It’s dyed, you idiot.”
“No,” I said. Even though I immediately believed her.
She reached out her hand and tussled my hair. “I think you and your friends all look a little alike.”
“You did not just say that!”
“You’re so sweet, and the princess must have understood immediately that you two would make a very effective couple.”
“What are you talking about?”
She suddenly shrunk back and pushed me toward the house. “Go talk to her,” she said.
The feeling of loss I felt when she slid out of my arms was insufferable. And I wasn’t planning to suffer it. I pulled her back to me.
“I love her but I’m afraid of her,” I said. “She’s a much worse monster than I am. And even though I know that, it still pulls at me when I look at her. I want to take her in my arms and carry her through the world so she doesn’t have to cry anymore. So nobody has to cry anymore.”
“You’re a true superhero,” said Tammy, and as hard I tried I couldn’t hear any sarcasm in her voice this time.
I have no idea how much longer we stood there in the garden before I hit on the idea to put my hand under her dress and realized when I did that her ass was ice-cold.
“Let’s go inside,” I said and we walked around the house. We didn’t want to go in by the patio because there were too many people standing there, and the front door was also no good, it was completely blocked. Tammy took me around another corner, on the side of the house, to a spiral staircase. The steps wobbled and creaked feebly beneath our feet, but then we were standing in my attic room, though my joy was premature. Marlon was lying in the double bed. Next to him was Ferdi.
“Ferdi!” screamed Tammy shrilly. I’d bet anything that she’d completely forgotten him. She’d forgotten that she even had a son. Ferdi didn’t wake up, but Marlon could no longer pretend he was asleep.
“He wanted to come with me,” he said. And the helplessness in his voice was as ill-suited to him as the look on his face, the same look he’d had on his face at the train station when we left Berlin for Marenitz. “Then he fell asleep here.”
Tammy rocked back and forth and stared at Marlon with her eyes wide open. He smiled pitifully past her.
“It’s fine,” I said and lifted Ferdi up. He was sweaty again and smelled like rye bread. I nuzzled his hair then nodded at Marlon as if he could see, wished him goodnight, and carried Ferdi down to his room.
“I want to have one of my own someday,” I said after Tammy had tucked in her son and pulled the door to his room closed from outside.
“Take this one,” said Tammy.
I wasn’t planning to sleep at all. How would it even be possible with the noise downstairs coming through the floor of Tammy’s bedroom, it was so loud that I was afraid it might lift up the floor. I didn’t think anyone could hear anything. I was woozy, the walls were spinning, we were all over one another, everywhere all at the same time, I couldn’t tell up from down. It felt like gravity had dissipated and I was stuck to the ceiling like a fly, and I kept reaching my hand out to Tammy until she pulled away and squeezed a pillow between us.