“So-shell-a-sister-office,” she said. “Social assistance office—that’s it!” Micha exclaimed. “That’s where he came from.”
Abel lifted his cup and downed the rest of the chocolate like vodka. Then he covered his face with his hands, like he had done in the tower made of newspaper, in the literature classroom. As if he’d gone to a private room to calm down. When he took his hands away, he wore something resembling a smile on his face. It was a very strained smile.
“The black ship is still there,” he said. “But today … today, we wanted to celebrate, didn’t we, Micha?”
He got up and put on his jacket. “So let’s celebrate. We’ll … we’ll do something special, we’ll …” Behind his smile, the silhouette of a black ship loomed. She had to distract him, Anna thought. She had to make the black ship vanish before it came too close …
“I know what we’ll do,” she said. “We’ll have ice cream. Do you still have room for ice cream?”
“I think so.” Micha nodded. “We haven’t had lunch yet. But can you eat ice cream in winter?”
“Ice cream isn’t lunch,” Abel said. “We should eat something sensible.”
“Oh, come on.” Anna laughed. “Stop being sensible for a while, will you? Ice cream is the best lunch imaginable. When I was your age, Micha, we always went for ice cream when we had a reason to celebrate. Especially in winter. My father used to say that anybody can eat ice cream in summer—that’s no challenge—but we can do it in winter; then we’d go to the Italian restaurant at the market and get our ice cream cones and window shop and laugh at all the people who gave us strange looks. We still have a picture my mother took with an outstretched arm, of the three of us in the snow holding ice cream cones. And if we felt cold after eating them, we went home and sat in front of the fireplace …” She stopped.
“Rose girl,” Abel said softly, “you must be awfully happy on your island.”
“No,” Anna replied. “There are too many thorns. I started feeling them. Like the little queen …”
The man at the Italian restaurant was surprised, of course, that they wanted ice cream cones to take away. But only a little. Maybe he remembered a little girl and her parents, who had come from time to time, to do the same thing—a father with broad shoulders, who could save you from every danger in the world, and a very gentle mother, who was almost invisible. Had he seen the rose branches beneath their clothes? Anna wondered. The petals? Maybe even the thorns?
Micha tried to order four scoops of ice cream, but Abel said “two,” and then, “okay … okay, three,” and Anna paid without his saying a word about it. And finally, they all stood outside in the snow-covered market square, in the icy wind, with their cones. Abel pulled his gray scarf tighter and shook his head. Then he started grinning. And then he headed down the street, walking without any particular aim or direction, as Anna had earlier. But now it was totally different. They walked next to each other, in silence, while Micha ran ahead, stopping at this or that window, saying what she would buy when she was rich; between the shops, she decorated the snow with brightly colored drips of her turquoise, Smurf-colored ice cream.
The street was full of people: people pushing strollers, people on bicycles, people with heavy bags or dogs on leashes, people who blended into an anonymous mass. Unimportant and, somehow, almost invisible. The ice cream was long gone, but they just kept walking, walking slowly, without hurrying; Anna wondered whether they would walk to the end of the street, and on and on, to the end of the world, and whether there would be a blue ocean there and a green ship waiting for them. She thought about the very first time she had talked to Abel. How he had been sitting on the radiator in the student lounge, looking threatening. Back then, she never would have considered it possible to walk down the street next to him, in silence—and to think that for the moment, everything was all right.
When she had arrived at this point in her thoughts, she realized that her hand was in his. She was not sure how long it had been there, and she was afraid to move it even a millimeter, in case he shied away. Micha had run ahead; now she came back, looked at Abel and Anna, glanced at their hands and grinned. Anna thought he would pull his hand back then. But he didn’t. He squeezed her hand very quickly and very hard, and she squeezed back. Who had painted the snow golden?
Micha ran ahead again. They watched her draw something with her finger in the dirt on a shop window, then giggle and bounce away … a rubber ball with a fake fur collar and flying blond braids.
They stopped in front of the window; it was the window of a Chinese restaurant, and there was a red dragon painted on it. Next to that dragon Micha had written: “K IS EacH Oth ER.”
Abel looked at Anna. Anna looked at Abel.
“She is the little queen,” said Abel, “in our fairy tale, at least.”
“One must obey the queen,” said Anna.
Abel nodded seriously.
But, of course, we will walk farther now, Anna thought. And we will forget what was written on the window … It’s almost forgotten already. Then, very suddenly, Abel pulled her into the doorway beside the shop window, into the smell of hot vegetable oil and MSG, next to a glass door with another red dragon on it, and kissed her.
Damn, thought Anna. I’m nearly eighteen years old, and I’ve never been kissed. Not properly, anyway. His lips were as cold as snow, but beyond the lips lay the warmth of a fairy-tale sun. She felt his tongue search for hers, and she thought of the wolf. And if it is true, she thought … if the fairy tale is true? A shot in the neck and a deadly bite in the neck. It all fits. And if I am kissing a murderer?
And if so? Then what?
A murderer, a wolf, a brother, an innocent, a fairy-tale teller. She rested her hands on the rough, cold material of his military parka and kissed him back. She closed her eyes; she no longer saw the red Chinese dragon on the door; she was aboard a ship, far out on the ocean. She heard the waves beat against the rail; she felt the rolling of the ship beneath her feet. If only one could spin a thread of the froth of the waves to make clothes … She tasted the fairy tale’s words on his tongue, not vanilla ice cream or chocolate or cigarettes. No. She tasted the words themselves, the ocean’s salt water and the wolf’s blood … and behind the words, winter. But behind the winter, there was another taste, a taste she only recognized after a while: the taste of fear. He was afraid, and he was not holding her—he was holding onto her. She was suddenly and completely aware of that. Fairy-tale teller, she thought, where is the ship in your fairy tale sailing to? Where does the fairy tale lead? Will there be more blood, flowing into the cracks between the deck planks? I don’t need anyone to protect me, she had said.
Oh yes, you do, Bertil had said. More than you think.
• • •
They wandered back on the broad street that had once been the city’s rampart. It was lined with tall old chestnuts, which in summer were covered in white and red blossoms. Now, there was only snow. They were holding hands again. For a while, Micha had walked between them, and they had swung her in the air as if she were a much smaller child. But then she had run ahead again, and they took each other’s hands. When they reached Anna’s bicycle, back at the market, somebody in a dark blue woolen sweater came out of the bank next door. Knaake. Again, Anna expected Abel to pull his hand away, and again he didn’t. He just nodded in greeting; Knaake nodded back, and Micha asked a little too loudly, “Who’s that?”
“The lighthouse keeper,” Anna answered. And suddenly, she remembered something. The white cat.
“Michelle,” she whispered. “Is it possible that Michelle had come aboard, too?”
“Who knows,” Abel said.
“The white cat who sleeps all the time and blocks out the world … Has she come back, Abel? Have you spoken to her?”
Abel shook his head. “No. She just slipped into the fairy tale.”