“Of course I am,” Anna said. “Of course I’m afraid. But that doesn’t help.”
He shook his head. “No,” he said, “it doesn’t help to be afraid. Bad things happen anyway. You’re right.” He took a step toward her, into the bathroom, and she wanted to step back, but there was nowhere to go. There was a single chair in the tiny room, next to the shower; they’d thrown towels and clothes over the back of it. He sat down, heavily, weapon still in hand, his eyes on its shiny black.
“Back then, when Lierski was living here with us, it was the same,” he said. “I was ten when he moved in—that was before Micha was born. I always knew he’d get me one day when I was alone. I was afraid, but it didn’t help to be afraid. Michelle didn’t believe me. She’d finally met a man who wanted to stay … Strange, next to nothing has changed in the apartment since then. The first time anything happened was here, in the bathroom. In this exact spot. On some days I find it hard to believe that the bathroom just went on existing afterward. As if nothing had happened …”
“What he did to you, I mean, did he …?”
“Of course. You don’t have to say it. It doesn’t help to call a spade a spade. She still didn’t believe me afterward. She said I was making things up. It took her a long time to throw him out. When he left, I was twelve.” He looked up, only for a second, and then averted his eyes. “Do you understand? Do you understand why I shot him? It wasn’t revenge. It was because of Micha. I didn’t want the same thing to happen to her. I don’t think he cared whether he had boys or girls—as long as they were young. There were so many people who knew about him … there was a lot of talk … you can go and ask at the Admiral … but nobody had any proof, and nobody did anything. And maybe a few of those guys at the Admiral even know it was me who killed him, but they’ve kept their mouths shut. We know each other … out there.”
She leaned back against the wall. The wall was colder than anything else had been this winter. The wall had been here back then, too. Tiles, she thought, easy to wipe clean, to sterilize. All the misery of the world focused in a tiny bathroom on the fourth floor. So that was what the night in the boathouse had been about.
“You said something about clenching your teeth, to Bertil …”
“Does that make sense to you? It’s got something to do with the inhibition threshold, I think. If Rainer Lierski hadn’t already done what he did to me, I’d never have said yes later … one night at a club, a guy propositioned me. It was a long time after Lierski. I don’t know how old I was. Maybe fifteen? Don’t ask me now what I was doing in a club at fifteen. I guess the ID wasn’t mine. You might not believe it now, but I was quite a pretty boy then. Blue eyes … blond curls. My hair was longer then … that was before the buzz cut.” He laughed. “That night, I suddenly understood that you could get money for doing it. That you didn’t have to suffer without payment. It was a revelation. What happened to me had already happened—there was no way to undo it—and I’d survived. I’d survived two years in this apartment with Lierski. And I knew that I would survive anything else, too. I mean, I did survive. Later on, it wasn’t clubs anymore. There are different places, places everybody knows about … they drive out to the parking lot at the B109, in the woods, when they want to hook up … damn far on a bike, but it’s not such a bad job after all, doing this from time to time. It’s …” He stopped. He did what he always did: he covered his face with his hands. But to do so, he had to put the gun down. It lay next to him now, on the chair he was sitting on.
That was Anna’s chance. All she had to do was to step forward, to snatch the gun. She didn’t. She stayed where she was.
“I hate them,” Abel said, his face still behind his hands. “I hate all of them. Every single guy.”
He looked at her again, picked up the gun. Chance squandered, Anna Leemann.
“I thought Marinke was someone I could offer a deal to,” he said. “I followed him … Jesus. I mean, who goes for a walk on the beach in Eldena at night? It was as if he wanted something to happen. Maybe he was looking for adventure, something different from his life at the office. There he was, with his leather jacket and his I-understand-you, you-can-call-me-Sören look … he looked so gay. But I was mistaken. I offered to go with him, to do it for free, to do whatever he wanted, if he’d just forget about Micha and Michelle. I misjudged him. He gave me a look of contempt, spat out in front of me. So this is how it is, he said. Forget it, boy, and while we’re talking about fucking … what about your sister? Am I wrong, or do you love her a little too much? That’s when I decided he had to die. He really believed that. That I would do that to Micha. It was easier the second time. Like it was with the other thing. The inhibition threshold drops. If you shoot one person, the second one is a game. He was a coward, by the way. He turned voluntarily …” He shook his head. “No, that’s not true. That’s a lie. It wasn’t easier.”
He rolled up his left sleeve. Anna counted three circular scars next to the long one. One more than last time.
“One for each of them,” Abel whispered. “These are scars of pity. I had to do something afterward. Something I’d feel … maybe not even out of pity but more for me, so I’d know I still exist in spite of everything … ridiculous, isn’t it? Like a child pounding its head against a wall. This is Lierski. And Marinke. And that is Knaake.”
“Knaake,” Anna repeated, her voice flat. “Why, Abel? Why did you do that?”
“He was finding out stuff,” he replied. “He was following me. I told you that. He took a step back, onto the ice in the shipping channel, to escape the bullet that I hadn’t even shot. I saw him fall through the ice … I called the fire department from a pay phone—it was the only number I could think of to call. I suddenly felt I just couldn’t do this anymore. I didn’t want him to die. He was a traitor, but I liked him. I … I really hope he makes it … I wish …”
For a moment, it was silent, the silence echoing and reechoing from the tiled walls of the bathroom, like the pain and fear of a small boy a long time ago.
“Bertil?” Anna asked.
“What about Bertil?”
“Is he still alive?”
“Of course he’s alive. Why would I do anything to Bertil?”
“After what he did yesterday …”
“You don’t get it, Anna. This is not about me. It’s about Micha. Bertil’s a different story. He’s never been any threat to Micha. If he’d started figuring out the truth about the murders … then, well … but he wasn’t even interested. He was only interested in this other thing, and that he figured out—as the whole school knows. I was stupid to talk to him. But I’m tired, Anna. I’ve had it.”
“And … Michelle?”
“Michelle. Michelle. Everything started with her.”
“But there’s no scar on your arm for Michelle. Or is she the long one? But that one came later, didn’t it …?”
“The long scar,” Abel said and smiled again, “that’s you, Anna. What happened in the boathouse was worse than anything else. I did to you what Lierski did to me. I didn’t want to. I just … how do you say it? I just lost control. It happens. Some things are just too much. But I don’t have a scar for Michelle because I didn’t kill her. That’s simple.”
“You didn’t? Then who did?”
He stood up without letting go of the gun. He stood in front of her and looked down at her … he was taller than she was. “There was so much blood,” he said. “Blood everywhere. On my hands, on her hands, on my shirt, her face, on the tiles, smeared in streaks, on the small round blue carpet … I threw it away later, that carpet … I hadn’t known that blood was that red, that light red: big, fallen, burst droplets of blood … the color of poppies. A sea of blood, a red endless sea, purple waves, carmine froth, splashing color … I remember that I thought all of this back then. Micha was still sleeping. I was the one who found Michelle.