He watched the two at their separate tables as if he were studying a painting. No, not two. Three. There was a child with Abel, a little girl. So here he wasn’t the school drug dealer; here he was someone else. And Anna Leemann, with her head scarf, which she thought would keep people from recognizing her; Anna, too, was a different Anna. Not the nice, well-bred girl. They were actors performing roles in a school play. And him? He had a role, too …
Some roles were more dangerous than others.
Anna lifted her head and looked in his direction; he hid his face behind a newspaper like an amateur detective. He’d stay invisible for a little while longer …
“TELL ME ABOUT THE ISLAND,” MICHA SAID. “TELL me what it looks like.”
“I’ve told you a hundred times.” Abel laughed. “You know exactly what the island looks like.”
“I forgot. The last story was so long ago! A thousand years ago! You told me about the island when Mama was still here. Where’s she now?”
“I don’t know, and I’ve told you that a hundred times, too. The note she left only said that she had to go away. Suddenly. And that she loves you.”
“And you? Didn’t she love you, too?”
“The island,” Abel said, “is made of nothing but rocks. Or should I say, it was? The island was made of nothing but rocks. It was the tiniest island anyone can imagine, and it lay far, far out at sea. On the island, there lived a single person, a very small person—and because her favorite place was the cliffs, the very top of the cliffs, where she could look out over the sea—because of that, they called her the cliff queen. Or, actually, it was only she who called herself that, for there was no one else.
“The birds had told her about other islands. They had also told her about the mainland. The mainland, the birds said, was an unimaginably huge island, over which you could wander for weeks on end without ever reaching the shore on the other side. That was something the little cliff queen couldn’t picture. To walk around her own island took only three hours, after which you’d be where you started. And so, for the little queen, the mainland remained a faraway, unreal dream. In the evening, she told herself stories about it, about the houses that had a thousand rooms each, and about the stores in which you could get everything you longed for—you had only to lift things down from the shelves. But actually the cliff queen didn’t need a thousand rooms, nor did she need stores full of shelves. She was happy on her tiny island. The castle in which she lived had exactly one room, and in this room, there was nothing but a bed. For the little queen’s playroom was the island’s green meadows and her bathroom was the sea.
“Every morning, she braided her pale blond hair into two thin braids, put on her pink down jacket, and ran out into the wind. Mrs. Margaret, her doll with the flower-patterned dress to whom she could tell everything, lived in the pocket of the down jacket. And in the middle of the island, in a garden of apple and pear trees, a white mare grazed all day long. When she felt like it, the little queen raced across the island on the horse’s back, quicker than a storm, and she laughed out loud when the mane of the white mare fluttered in the breeze and her scarf was carried away by the wind. The mare’s scarf, of course. The cliff queen didn’t need a scarf; she had a collar made of artificial fur on her pink jacket, but she had knitted a scarf for the white mare. She had learned to knit at school.”
“But there isn’t anyone living on the island! Did you forget? How can I go to school?”
“Surely there must have been a school,” Abel said. “There was exactly one teacher. She was the cliff queen herself, and one headmistress, who was also the cliff queen, and one pupil, who was the cliff queen, too. She had taught herself how to knit, and for the mare’s scarf—it was green—she had given herself the best grade possible. And …”
“That’s silly!” Micha giggled.
“Well, who is the cliff queen, you or me?” Abel asked. “It isn’t my fault if you’re giving yourself grades! By the way, it was always summer on the island. The little queen was never cold. When she was hungry, the cliff queen plucked apples and pears from the trees, or she fetched her butterfly net and climbed to the top of one of the cliffs to catch a flying fish, which she fried over a fire. She made flour from her field of wheat, and sometimes she baked apple cake for herself and Mrs. Margaret. The cake was decorated with the island’s flowers—blue forget-me-nots, violet bellflowers, and red and yellow snapdragons …”
“And the tiny white flowers that grow in the woods?” Micha asked. “What’s their name—anemones? Were they there, too?”
“No,” Abel said. “And now it’s time for the story. But, Micha? Do you remember all those other stories I’ve told you about the little cliff queen? The story about the empress made of froth and the one about the melancholy dragon? The story about the sunken east wind and the giggling whirlpool?”
“Of course, I remember. The cliff queen makes everything turn out okay, doesn’t she? She always does.”
“Yes,” Abel answered. “She does. But this story is different. I don’t know if she’ll manage this time. I don’t know what will happen to her. This story is … dangerous. Do you still want to hear it?”
“Of course,” Micha said. “I’m brave. You know that. I wasn’t scared of the dragon. Even though it wanted to eat me. I solved all its problems, and then it was happy and flew away and …”
“Okay … if you are sure you’re ready to listen, I will tell you the story. It will take some time.”
“How long? As long as a movie? As long as reading a book?”
“To be exact … till Wednesday, the thirteenth of March. If everything turns out all right, that is.” He cleared his throat, because all storytellers clear their throats when their stories are about to get interesting, and began: “One night, the little queen awoke and felt that something was happening outside. Something big and meaningful. She lay motionless in her bed—it was a canopy bed, the canopy being the night sky itself, for there was a big hole in the ceiling above. Usually the little queen saw the stars when she awoke at night. This night, however, the sky was empty. The stars had run away, and she felt a pang of fear in her heart. She felt a different kind of fear than she had with the melancholy dragon or the empress made of froth. And all of a sudden, she understood that her adventures up to now had been nothing but games. But this—whatever it was—was serious.
“She owned two dresses—one nightdress and one day dress—and that being so, she was the person with the most dresses on the island. Now she put the red day dress over the blue nightdress, because if something important happens it’s better to wear warm clothes. In the end, she put the down jacket on, too, with Mrs. Margaret sleeping in one of its pockets. Then she pulled up the collar of artificial fur and stepped out into the night. It was very quiet. Not a single bird was singing. Not a single cricket chirping. Not a single branch rustling its leaves. Even the wind had died down. The little queen walked to her pasture, and there the white mare stood, looking as if she had been expecting her. Later, the little queen did not know how she could see the white mare in the starless darkness, but see her she did. If you have known someone your whole life, you can see her in the dark.
“The mare laid her head against the little queen’s neck as if trying to console herself. ‘Do you feel what’s going on?’ she asked. ‘Do you feel how afraid the trees are? They’re going to die. Tonight. And I’m going to die with them. I will never see you again.’
“‘But why?’ the little queen cried. ‘Why should that be so?’
“In that moment, a tremble rolled through the island, and the little queen grabbed onto the white mare so as not to lose her balance. The ground trembled a second time, a dark gurgling noise came from the depths of the earth, a dangerous rumble …