Yes you who must leave everything that you cannot control
It begins with your family but soon it comes round to your soul
Well I’ve been where you’re hanging I think I can see how you’re pinned
When you’re not feeling holy your loneliness says that you’ve sinned
.
“Sisters of Mercy,” she whispered, nearly sleeping. “Leonard Cohen.”
The question of whether or not Abel would acknowledge her presence didn’t come up since Abel didn’t show up at school. She looked out the window every five minutes, waiting for a dark figure to appear at the bike rack, his hands dug deep into his pockets, his black hat pulled down low over his face, white noise in his ears. There was no one. A few other students also seemed to be looking for Abel during the break, hovering by the bike stands, trying to look inconspicuous. Clients, Anna thought, and she felt like smiling for a moment. She didn’t smile.
Abel had said that he would send Michelle to Sören Marinke’s office today. Had Michelle really come back? And if so, where had she been? She tried to call him twice. When she tried to call a third time, the line was dead.
“What’s the matter?” Gitta asked at lunch. “You look as if you’re nauseous.” She put her hands on Anna’s shoulders and looked at her closely. “Little lamb,” she said, “tell me what happened. You’ve hardly said a word since yesterday morning. Let’s skip class this afternoon and have a cup of coffee at the bakery instead.”
Anna let Gitta lead the way. And, actually, it calmed her down a bit to drink hot coffee, even if it tasted like lemon with artificial coloring.
“So,” Gitta began. “Everybody is talking. I say, let ’em talk. Let ’em fill their dirty mouths and minds with rumors.”
“I’ve been wondering why you, of all people, didn’t talk,” Anna said, not sarcastically but frankly. “Why you didn’t help to spread the rumors?”
“Little lamb, it might astonish you to hear this, but I am actually your friend, remember?”
“Hmm …,” Anna said.
“Now,” Gitta leaned across the table and lowered her voice, “what happened?”
“He’s gone,” Anna replied and heard how miserable she sounded. “Abel’s gone.”
“But you’re together, aren’t you? I mean, did the two of you …?”
“That’s not the issue! This isn’t a matter of passing a do-you-want-to-go-out-with-me-mark-with-an-x-yes-no-maybe note. And it isn’t a question of who did what with whom. Doesn’t anyone understand that? It’s the other things that matter! Abel has disappeared!”
“Nonsense,” Gitta said matter-of-factly. “Just because he wasn’t at school today, that doesn’t mean he’s disappeared. He’s gotta be somewhere.”
“He doesn’t answer his phone.”
“Maybe he wants to be alone.”
“Gitta, his mother has been gone for a while—nobody seems to know where she is—and yesterday he said she’d called, that she’d come back, and now he’s gone. And somebody has …” She stopped herself. No, she thought, Rainer Lierski was really none of Gitta’s business.
“Again, and in the right order,” Gitta said. “Is there a little sister or not? Or has she disappeared, too?”
Anna nearly knocked over her coffee cup. Of course. Micha. Something must have happened to Micha.
“That,” she whispered. “That just might be it.” She stood up and slid into her coat. “Gitta, I’m sorry. We’ll talk another time. I’ve gotta go.”
• • •
She pushed the buzzer for their apartment three times, waited for a while, then pushed again—three more times. Nobody answered. Anna covered her face with her hands, took several deep breaths, and tried to think. Then she noticed that she was doing what Abel usually did. And it helped. She knew now what she would do. She lowered her hands and tried the apartment on the ground floor. Someone buzzed Anna into the hall; Mrs. Ketow stood in her doorway, in the same tracksuit she’d had on the last time. She was carrying a child in her arms, a screaming and overfed baby with a dull look in his eyes. When she saw Anna, Mrs. Ketow stuffed a pacifier in the child’s mouth, and he was quiet.
“What a sweet child,” Anna said, though she didn’t think so at all.
Mrs. Ketow nodded. “I look after my children well. The oldest is three—they’re all foster children.” She rocked the baby in her arms and looked Anna over. “Why are you here?”
“Do you know where Abel and Micha are?”
“Those two? Gone,” Mrs. Ketow said. “Not that I’m surprised. I’ve always known that things couldn’t possibly end well for those Tannateks. It’s not the little girl’s fault—she’s a sweet child, that one—but the brother, he’s a different story. Do you go to school with him? If I were you, I’d keep away from him … but now they’re gone anyway …”
“What do you mean by gone?” Anna asked.
“I mean gone … done a moonlight skedaddle, the both of them,” Mrs. Ketow said, and for a moment Anna was relieved, for wherever Abel and Micha were, they had gone there together. Nobody from the office for shells and sisters had taken Micha away. The baby spat out the pacifier and started screaming again, an unnerving, high-pitched wail. Anna picked up the pacifier and Mrs. Ketow wiped it pretend-clean on her tracksuit trousers, but this time the baby didn’t want to be pacified.
“Needs his milk,” Mrs. Ketow said. “You want to come in?”
Anna stepped into the narrow hallway behind her. The apartment was almost identical to Abel and Micha’s, the wallpaper almost the same. The dark cupboards looked newer than the ones on the fourth floor, but they were equally ugly. And yet, everything felt different here. This apartment didn’t breathe. It was dead. Maybe, Anna thought, it was that way because there weren’t any children’s drawings taped to the walls; maybe it was because of the broken plastic toys lying on a dresser in the hallway. There wasn’t disorder in Mrs. Ketow’s apartment, but there was something else … Anna searched for the word. Indifference, she thought. That was it. Nobody cared. The apartment was a lot sadder than the apartment upstairs. It was so sad, Anna wasn’t able to breathe for a moment. The office for shells and sisters would probably not have found anything wrong with this apartment; everything was as it should be if a social worker chanced to come by. In the back part of the apartment, the other two children were shouting. Mrs. Ketow found the bottle and stuffed it into the mouth of the screaming baby, like she’d done with the pacifier before; it was like pressing buttons to make a machine work properly. Then she lit a cigarette and opened the kitchen window. “Smoke isn’t good for the kids,” she said. “The social worker told me that. I do what they say in general, I mean, they’re paying for these kids. I look after them well.”
“I’m not a social worker,” Anna said. “I don’t care what you do. I just want to know where Abel and Micha went.”
“If you ask me, you won’t see them again,” Mrs. Ketow replied and took a drag. “I saw them, him with a big backpack like he’s going on a trip and the little one, too. That was this morning … five or so … I get up early ’cause of these damn kids. They’re a lot of work, three kids. I’ll tell you … with three of them, I work a whole fuckin’ day … what about you? You’re young. You want kids? What do you want from life?”
“I want to find Abel and Micha,” Anna said and turned to go.
But she couldn’t find Abel and Micha. There was no trace of them anywhere. She wasn’t a detective, and besides, those who don’t want to be found won’t be found …