At home, she avoided Linda’s questioning looks, mumbled something about studying, and went straight to her room. She knew that Magnus was angry that she’d refused to explain anything to her mother. But wouldn’t Linda have been more worried if she’d explained? Anyway, this was not about Linda.
Anna felt like she was drowning in the blue air of home. She almost longed for the ugly gray staircase at 18 Amundsen Street. She took out Sören Marinke’s card and laid it on her desk.
Had it been a lie? Had Michelle really called? Were Abel and Micha with Michelle now? Or had Abel just run away with Micha because he knew that Marinke would take her from him sooner or later? If Marinke found out they’d fled, he’d send the police after them. Wherever they were heading, they would need a good head start. Anna mustn’t call the number on Marinke’s card … but then she picked up the phone and dialed it anyway.
She had to call. She had to find out what he knew. She invented a complicated introductory sentence, saying she wanted to talk to him and to find out whether he’d returned to the Tannatek’s place or not … she knew she’d feel tongue-tied. Her heart raced.
But the voice that finally came through the telephone line belonged to a woman.
“I … I’d like to talk to Sören Marinke,” Anna said.
“I’m sorry but that’s not possible at the moment,” the woman answered.
“Would it be better if I tried again later?” Anna asked. “I can do that. It’s just that he had asked me to call him …”
“You won’t be able to talk to him today,” the woman said. “He’s not in the office.”
“So … do you know when he’ll be back?” Anna asked.
“I can’t tell you. I’m sorry.”
“Is he ill?” Anna asked. “This is an important call; it’s about one of his … what do you say … cases? Maybe I can talk to someone else?”
“I’m afraid not. There isn’t anyone else. I’m sure he’ll get back to you once he’s in the office again. We’re hoping that will be tomorrow.”
“On his card his cell phone number is also listed,” Anna said. “Do you think it would be rude to call him on it?”
The woman at the other end of the line sighed. “You can try, of course,” she said. “But you won’t have any luck. We tried the same thing.”
“I … I don’t understand …”
“Neither do I,” the woman replied. “Listen, honey, Mr. Marinke hasn’t come into the office today and he isn’t answering his phone, and I think he’s probably sick, but no one knows for sure where he is. So please be patient. Hopefully we’ll know more tomorrow.”
Anna dialed the second number on the card. The nameless woman was right. She got his voicemail.
Had the whole world decided to disappear? Michelle, Abel, Micha, Sören Marinke? Had they all disappeared? Would she be the only one left in the end? With the blue light and the robins in the garden?
When she woke up the next morning, the first thing she did was dial Abel’s number. She knew it by heart now. Nobody answered. She left for school without eating breakfast. Maybe he was there. Maybe he was standing by the bike rack, his hands in his pockets, Walkman plugs in his ears … but he wasn’t there. It wasn’t just that there was no one at the bike rack. It was that there seemed to be a hole in the shape of a person. Abel’s absence was almost visible.
The others were talking about history. Dates of events buzzed above their heads like strange, shapeless winter bees. Anna stood next to Gitta, and Gitta said, “Let’s talk later, little lamb. Old Gitta has to stuff her face with facts till third period today.” Anna had managed to hammer those same facts into her brain the day before—everything would be okay. She had to count on remembering everything she had learned before this week. Nothing could be less important than a history test. The silver-gray dog in the fairy tale had made a leap for the hunter’s black ship—had he leaped out of Anna’s world for good? In her head, a sentence kept coming up like an old-fashioned screen saver: What if I never see him again? What if I never see him again? What if I nev …
When the sheets of white paper, with the official school stamp—the only paper you were allowed to write on—were set in front of her at the beginning of third period, she had to pull herself together not to write this sentence into the upper-right corner instead of her name. They were taking the test in the gym, as a sort of dry run for their finals, which would take place there.
Final exams, Anna thought … and she heard Knaake’s words again: Keep an eye on him, will you? If he carries on like this, he won’t pass … and in the background, Cohen’s ancient, Old World voice … Then she heard the gym door open; somebody walked in late but just in time to take the test. She looked up. It was Abel.
Gitta looked from Anna to Abel and back again. Of course he hadn’t vanished. She’d told Anna that. Someone like Tannatek didn’t just vanish; he was gone for a while, but then he turned up again. Or was she wrong? Could someone like Tannatek vanish? One day? Forever?
She tried to catch Anna’s eye, but Anna didn’t look at her. In a strange way, Anna had vanished, too. She had drifted away from Gitta, from everybody … so far away that she might never be able to find her way back, and Gitta wouldn’t be able to reach her anymore.
She wasn’t God after all; it wasn’t her job to save Anna. She wasn’t cut out to save anyone, and you couldn’t save someone from herself anyway. Shit.
She looked over at Hennes, saw his red-gold hair glowing in a sun ray, saw him smile and wink at her before he bent over his test again. Tonight (and why wait till night fell, by the way?) she would forget about Anna. She wondered if she was the only one here who hung out in the streets enough to know the truth about Tannatek. And if he knew that she knew. She’d keep her mouth shut as she’d promised herself she would, and everything would take its course. Shit. Shit. Oh, what the hell.
ANNA CLENCHED HER FISTS SO SHE WOULDN’T JUMP up from her chair. Never had she been so happy to see someone. She lowered her eyes, trying to hide her smile behind her hair. She heard the history teacher say something to Abel, tell him to take the last free desk at the far end of the room, and when she looked up again, Abel was walking back there, passing her desk. For a moment she looked into his eyes. And she got a fright.
The ice in his eyes had changed; it seemed to have become darker, like the dark, clear ice on a frozen lake whose depth suddenly becomes visible when the wind brushes the snow from the surface. It was an endless depth, bottomless, and almost totally black. She didn’t know which thoughts and creatures were swimming down there. They scared her. It was as if she were watching Abel drown in the waters of himself. She shook her head, trying to rid it of these thoughts. What had happened? Where had he been?
She turned to Gitta and Gitta shrugged. Their history teacher was distributing the tests now, densely printed with threatening instructions and questions. Concentrate, Anna thought. Read the text. Function.
And she did function. The facts were stored inside her head, reliable and secure—despite everything, she was still Anna Leemann, a good student. Her brain was complying, letting her fill it with things and then spitting them out as it was supposed to. She hurried, her pen gliding over the white paper, almost of its own accord. She felt strangely detached as she watched her small, tidy letters form on the paper in front of her. She didn’t look up again until after she finished the first set of questions—half the test. The others were bent over their desks, writing frantically. The history teacher was standing at the podium in front of them. There was a second teacher in the room as well, a proctor. It was a Latin teacher whom Anna knew only by sight. Now he consulted his watch and left the gym. He was replaced by another teacher, who entered through the same door. Knaake. Anna saw him search the room for something, someone, scanning the rows of desks. She knew whom he was searching for. She saw when he found him, saw him nod and start to walk past the desks thoughtfully, his hands folded behind his back. And now, finally, she dared to turn around, too.