When she fell into darkness, she knew that she would never see him again.
She’d loved him to the very end.
“THEY STOOD AT THE EDGE OF THE ICE, YOU KNOW, and looked over at the mainland. It was so close and yet so far away that they could never reach it. And behind them, the cutter came closer and closer. They could hear her golden skates scratching over the ice.
“‘So I will drown,’ the little queen said. She jumped into the ice-cold water headfirst, and the blind white cat, whose absolute blindness several people had begun to doubt, shook her head. ‘Tz-tz-tz,’ the cat hissed, and then she rolled into a ball on the ice and fell asleep. The asking man and the answering man put their hands in front of each other’s faces so as not to see the little queen drown.
“Only the rose girl acted. She jumped into the water after the little queen, without thinking twice.
“She found her hand in the roaring stream, a small, helpless, royal hand, and they clung to each other. But they couldn’t swim against the current. It was much too strong, and the water was much too icy. And then they felt something pulling them; there was something pulling them against the current. The rose girl managed to lift her head out of the water and saw the sea lion’s head next to them. He had sunk his teeth into the little queen’s sleeve and was swimming against the stream. And suddenly, she could feel herself moving toward the shore. The rose girl saw the sea lion fighting the water. He needed all his strength to pull her and the little queen along. He was a strong swimmer, but the current was stronger. She tried to help him, tried to swim by herself, but he shook his head. ‘Hold still,’ his golden eyes begged. ‘It’s easier if you’re still. You can’t help me.’
“So she held still, and the little queen held still as well, and the cutter stood on the ice, watching them. She lifted her hand and made a barely perceptible movement, and the little queen and the rose girl both knew that the movement was a signal, that she was calling someone—the ocean riders. The ocean riders on their seagrass-green and snow-white horses, who would come to restore the order they believed to be justified.
“The current tugged at the three, trying to drag them away. It hit them and bit them and drooled on them greedily, but in the end they reached the shore. With the last of his strength, the sea lion crept onto the beach, and there he lay, limp and motionless. The rose girl got up and started patting him, to bring life back into his body; and the little queen laid her hand on his neck, so that he knew she was there and that he’d managed to get her onto land safely.
“When she did this, he lifted his head.
“And on the other side of the stream, the ocean riders dashed over the ice. At its edge, they stopped their horses, who reared and whinnied. Maybe it wasn’t true. Maybe it was only a rumor that the ocean riders could gallop over the water. Or maybe the current was just too strong here, even for them.
“The cutter pointed at the little group on the mainland. ‘Do you see the sea lion?’ they heard her say. ‘He took them over there, the silver-gray sea lion with the blue eyes.’
“The rose girl looked into his eyes. They weren’t golden anymore; they’d frozen to blue ice. At this moment, one of the ocean riders lifted his rifle—they all carried hunting rifles—and a shot rang out over the water. With the sound came a bullet, and that bullet hit the sea lion between the eyes.
“‘No!’ the little queen screamed, and she jumped up. Before the next shooter could fire his deadly rifle, tears sprang from her eyes and fell down into the stream, flooding it. And it became so warm that the rest of the ocean warmed up in milliseconds. For someone who has a diamond for a heart also has tears that are as warm as the sun. The ice melted in an instant, and the ocean riders sank into the sea, together with the cutter. Then the current carried them away, along with the asking man and the answering man and the sleeping white cat and the lighthouse keeper, who had still been lying somewhere on the ice.
“The little queen and the rose girl watched them drift away. They would never find out what happened to them in the end.
“Finally, they turned and started to walk away from the sea. The rose girl had lifted the sea lion up and was carrying him with her. But he wasn’t a sea lion anymore.
“He had changed into a human being.
“‘He saved me,’ the little queen said.
“‘He saved us,’ the rose girl said.
“‘But he lost himself in the process,’ said the little queen. ‘He will never know that he saved us. And I will cry. I don’t cry now because all of my tears have fallen into the ocean. There will be more tears, though, growing inside me, and I will cry them all my life. I still don’t know what death means, but my sea lion knows it now …’
“‘Don’t cry,’ the rose girl begged. ‘Don’t cry all your life, little queen. He does know that he saved us. He will stay with us. As a memory. Do you see the house up there on the cliff?’
“The little queen swallowed the tears that had already started to grow back. ‘Yes,’ she replied. ‘I see it. It’s beautiful. There are roses in the garden, and someone is feeding the robins.’
“‘Do you hear the music spilling from the windows as well?’ the rose girl asked. ‘Piano and flute. You could live there. You could live in that house and play music instead of crying.’
“And the little queen nodded.”
“And that’s the end of the fairy tale?” Micha asked.
“That’s the end of the fairy tale.”
“No,” Micha said and stood up. “No, that’s not the end. Because, you know, the little queen decided something else. She didn’t want that diamond heart anymore. She exchanged it for a normal heart. The diamond heart she put on the sea lion’s grave.”
“That was a very good idea.”
“So … did it end well, in some ways?”
“Yes, it did … in some ways. It was the sea lion’s greatest wish that the little queen would reach the mainland. And his wish was fulfilled, and, I think, in the end he was happy.”
She stood up, too. They’d been sitting on folding chairs in the yard, watching the robins, but when Micha had jumped up, all the robins had flown away.
“I can hear the piano,” Micha said. “Linda’s playing. I think I’ll go in and help her. I have to think of something else now, quickly, otherwise …”
“Go ahead and help Linda with the piano,” Anna replied. “I’m going to stay here a little longer.”
She closed her eyes and saw the landing on the fifth floor again.
She couldn’t help it.
She saw Abel standing there. He smiled. She saw that he was holding the gun. She heard the release of the safety catch.
“Anna,” he said. And he lifted the weapon. It was then that she understood his way out and why he’d asked her what would become of Micha. He hadn’t wanted to leave like Michelle, not without taking care of everything first. He put the barrel of the gun into his mouth. He didn’t hesitate, not for one second. She didn’t hear the shot. The world became strangely silent, and she fell into a cold darkness, dark like the ocean deep … deep under the ice.
The darkness only lasted for seconds, maybe not even that long. She opened her eyes, and, up there on the landing, he wasn’t standing anymore. She looked down the stairs and saw that Linda had buried her face in her hands. She saw that Bertil wanted to come up the stairs, saw Magnus grab his arm and hold him back, his grip as firm as steel. None of the policemen moved. She thought she should have run. But she didn’t.
It was Micha who ran.
She freed herself from Anna’s arms and ran up the stairs, and Anna followed her, climbing the steps very slowly. She saw him lying there, saw the blood in which he lay, so incomprehensibly red, light red—big, burst droplets of blood the color of poppies. A sea of blood, a red endless sea, crimson waves, carmine froth, splashing color … Micha was kneeling next to his legs and had laid her arms and her head on his knees, where there was no blood. And she was singing, very, very softly.