And he reads the answer in her cold hands.
Do you remember? The woods? It was spring, and under the beeches, small white flowers were blooming … we were walking hand in hand and you asked me the name of the flowers … I didn’t know … the woods. The woods were the only place we had to ourselves, a place just for us … back in the only time we had together, just the two of us … do you remember, do you remember, do you remember?
“I do,” he whispers. “I remember. The woods. Anemones. I know what they’re called now. Anemones …”
He lifts her up in his arms like a child. She is heavy and light at the same time. His heart is beating in the rhythm of fear as he carries her outside, into the night. Hold onto me so I don’t drop you. Hold on, will you? Why won’t you help me? Help me! Please … just this once!
The cold envelops him like an icy robe; he smells the frost in the air. The ground hasn’t frozen yet. He’s lucky. A strange thought … that he’s lucky on this February night. The woods aren’t far. They are too far. He looks around. There is no one. No one knows … no one will remember what happened tonight.
There aren’t any small white flowers blooming in the woods. The ground is muddy and brown, and the gray beeches are bare, leafless. He can’t make out the details … it is too dark. Just dark enough. There aren’t streetlights here. The earth gives way, reluctantly, to the blunt spade. He swears under his breath. She still won’t look at him. Propped against a tree, she seems far away in her thoughts. And suddenly, anger wells up in him.
He kneels in front of her for the third time. He shakes her, tries to pull her up, make her stand on her feet; he wants to shout at her, and he does, but only in his head, silently, with his mouth open wide.
You’re the most selfish, thoughtless person I’ve ever known! What you’ve done is unforgivable. You know what’s going to happen, don’t you? You knew it all along. But you didn’t care. Of course not. All you thought about was yourself and your small, pitiful world. You found a solution for yourself, though not a solution for me … for us. You didn’t think about us for a second … and then he’s crying, crying like a child, with his head on her shoulder.
He feels her stroke his hair, her touch light as the breeze. No … it is only a branch.
THE DAY THAT ANNA FOUND THE DOLL WAS THE first really cold day of winter. A blue day.
The sky was big and clear, like a glass dome over the town. On her bike, on her way to school, she decided she would ride to the beach at noon to see if the ocean was frozen at the edges. It would ice over—if not today, then in a few days.
The ice always came in February.
And she breathed in the winter air with childish anticipation, pushing her scarf away from her face, slipping her woolen hat off her dark hair, inhaling the cold until she felt drunk and dizzy.
She wondered which of the many boxes in the attic held her skates, and if it would snow, and if her skis were sitting in the basement. And if she could persuade Gitta to get out her heavy old sled, the one with the red stripe. Gitta would probably say they were too old, she thought.
My God, Gitta would say, do you want to make a complete fool of yourself? You’re graduating this summer, little lamb. Anna smiled as she parked her bike at school. Gitta, who was only six months older, always called her “little lamb.” But then Gitta behaved like a grown-up—or like someone who believed herself to be grown-up—unlike Anna. Gitta went out dancing on Friday nights. She’d been driving a scooter to school for two years and would trade it in for a car as soon as she had the money.
She wore black; she wore thongs; she slept with boys. Little lamb, we’re almost eighteen … we’ve been old enough for a long, long time … shouldn’t you think about growing up?
Gitta was leaning against the school wall now, talking to Hennes and smoking.
Anna joined them, still breathing hard from the ride, her breath forming clouds in the cold air.
“So,” Hennes said, smiling, “it looks like you’ve started smoking after all.”
Anna laughed and shook her head, “No. I don’t have time to smoke.”
“Good for you,” Gitta said and put her arm around her friend’s slender shoulders. “You start, you can’t stop. It’s hell, little lamb, remember that.”
“No, seriously.” Anna laughed. “I don’t know when I’d find the time to smoke. There are so many other things to do.”
Hennes nodded. “Like school, right?”
“Well,” said Anna, “that too.” And she knew Hennes didn’t get what she meant, but that didn’t matter. She couldn’t explain to him that she needed to go to the beach to see if the sea had started to freeze. And that she’d been dreaming about Gitta’s sled with the red stripe. He wouldn’t have understood anyway. Gitta would make a show of not wanting to get the sled out, but then she would, finally. Gitta did understand. And as long as no one was watching, she’d go sledding with Anna and act like a five-year-old. She’d done it last winter … and every winter before that. While Hennes and the other kids at school were sitting at home studying.
“Time’s up,” said Hennes, glancing at his watch. “We should get going.” He put out his cigarette, tilted his head back, and blew his red hair off his forehead. Golden, Anna decided. Red-gold. And she thought that Hennes probably practiced blowing hair from his forehead every morning, in front of the mirror. Hennes was perfect. He was tall, slender, athletic, smart; he’d spent his Christmas vacation snowboarding somewhere in Greenland … no, probably Norway. He had a “von” of nobility in his last name, a distinction he left out of his signature. That made him even more perfect. There were definitely good reasons for Gitta to hang out smoking with him. Gitta was always falling in love with somebody—and every third time, it was with Hennes.
Anna, however, could not stand the slightly ironic smile that he gave the world. Like the one he was giving now. Right now.
“Should we tell our Polish peddler?” he asked, nodding in the direction of the bike stands, where a figure in a green military jacket was hunched over, a black knit cap pulled low over his face, the plugs of an old Walkman in his ears. The cigarette in his bare hand had almost burned down. Anna wondered if he even noticed. Why hadn’t he come over here to share a smoke with Gitta and Hennes?
“Tannatek!” Hennes called out. “Eight o’clock. You coming in with us?”
“Forget about it,” said Gitta. “He can’t hear you. He’s in his own world. Let’s go.”
She turned to hurry after Hennes as he strode up the stairs to the glass front doors of the school, but Anna held her friend back.
“Listen … it’s probably a silly question,” she began, “but …”
“There are only silly questions,” Gitta interrupted good-naturedly.
“Please,” Anna said seriously, “explain the ‘Polish peddler’ to me.”
Gitta glanced at the figure with the black knit cap. “Him? Nobody can explain him,” she said. “Half the school’s wondering why he came here in the eleventh grade. Isn’t he in your literature class?”
“Explain his nickname to me,” Anna insisted. “The Polish peddler? Why does everyone call him that?”
“Little lamb.” Gitta sighed. “I’ve really gotta go. Mrs. Siederstädt doesn’t like people being late for class. And if you strain that clever little head of yours, you’ll guess what our Polish friend sells. I’ll give you a hint: it’s not roses.”
“Dope,” Anna said and realized how ridiculous the word sounded when she said it. “Are you sure?”
“The whole school knows,” Gitta replied. “Of course I’m sure.” At the entrance she turned and winked. “His prices have gone up.” Then she waved and disappeared through the glass doors.