The Storyteller (6 page)

“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 …

“‘Take good care of yourself,’ the mare said. ‘Should you meet a man with a blond mustache, a man who is wearing your name, turn around and run. Have you got that?’

“The little queen shook her head. ‘How can a man be wearing my name?’

“A third earthquake made the ground shake, and the first trees fell.

“‘It is the island,’ the mare said. ‘Run, my little queen. Run to the highest cliff. Run quick. The island is sinking.’

“‘The island is … sinking?’ asked the little queen. ‘How can an island sink?’

“But the mare just inclined her head, silently.

“‘I … I will run to the highest cliff,’ the little queen said. ‘But what about you? Aren’t you coming with me?’

“‘Run, my little queen,’ the mare repeated. ‘Run quick.’

“So the little queen ran. She ran as quick as her bare feet would carry her; she ran like the wind, like the storm, like a hurricane. Mrs. Margaret woke up and peeked out of her pocket fearfully. As the little queen reached the bottom of the highest cliff and started climbing up it, the night was torn open and a light came crashing through. The light swept the little queen off her feet, but she kept climbing on her hands and knees, higher and higher on the bare, rocky cliff, and when she arrived at the top, she turned and saw that the light was coming from the island. It rose from the middle like a column of fire, and she covered her face with her hands. All around her, the other cliffs broke; one after the other, she heard the pieces fall into the sea. Her heart was paralyzed with fear. Finally, after an eternity, the earth stopped quivering and the little queen dared to look up again.

“The island had disappeared. Only a few cliffs were left, sticking out of the sea. In the sky, though, there hung the memory of the light that had risen from the middle of the island like a flame. In that nightmare light the little queen saw the sea. And the sea was red with blood.

“It was made of crimson waves, carmine froth, splashing color. It was beautiful, like a field of poppies on a day in spring, though spring was far away. The little queen realized that she was shivering. And in that instant, she understood that winter had come.”

• • •

Anna heard a chair scraping the floor, being drawn back. She blinked. The dining room was nearly empty. Two women in striped coats were wiping down the tables with wet rags and throwing angry looks at those who hadn’t yet left. The handsome student was no longer sitting at Anna’s table. When had he left? Had she said goodbye to him?

“And then?” she heard Micha ask. “What happened then?”

“Then it was time to go,” Abel replied. “You can see they want to close. Is there any space left in your tummy for chocolate milk or an ice cream?”

“Oh yes,” Micha said. “I can feel an empty space right here, see … there’s actually space for ice cream
and
chocolate milk.”

“You’ve got to choose,” Abel said, and Anna heard him smile. “Let’s go back to the kitchen, shall we?”

Anna got up in a hurry. She wanted to leave the room before Abel saw her face. She put the orange tray with the barely touched potato-dog onto the conveyor belt, where it was sucked into a hole in the wall on two moving rubber strips. Gitta’s mother would have liked the tray and the rubber strips—they were probably easy to sterilize.

Anna pulled the head scarf tighter. Then she remembered that she wasn’t the one sitting on the edge of a cliff in soaking-wet clothes; it was somebody else, and for the millionth time that day, she felt extremely stupid.

She reached the kitchen without being seen or recognized. Abel and Micha took their time—the kitchen was crowded with people. Anna felt herself becoming almost invisible in the crowd; she dissolved into the anonymous mass of students and pretended
to study the party flyers lying on the windowsill. And then she heard Micha’s high, childish voice behind her. She let the voice pass and then turned and followed it between glass shelves laden with cake and sandwiches. Suddenly too close to the voice and its owner, she busied herself with the complicated procedure of getting coffee from a machine without flooding the whole place. But somehow she ended up standing at the counter behind Micha and the pink down jacket. Micha stood on tiptoes, pushed a slightly sauce-smeared strand of hair out of her face, and said, “I think I’d like to have hot chocolate. But if you have vanilla ice cream with hot chocolate, I’d take that.”

The woman behind the counter straightened her white-and-blue-striped apron and stared at the child blankly. “Excuse me?”

“Um, maybe you have something like vanilla ice cream plus hot chocolate for less money? Like they have at McDonald’s. You can buy coffee and a hot dog there for just one euro fifty.”

“We’re not McDonald’s,” the aproned woman said. “And we definitely don’t sell hot dogs here. So you need to decide what you want, young lady. You’re not the only one waiting in line.” The tone of her voice was at least as cold as ice cream, but it didn’t taste of vanilla. It tasted of scrubbing powder and a white-and-blue-aproned disappointment in life. Around the woman’s mouth were wrinkles, carved by bitterness, in which Anna read: You! All of you! You don’t know nothing about nothing. You’re eating and drinking and wasting your parents’ money. Upper-class brats, you haven’t worked a day in your educated little lives. Bah. Nobody’s ever given
me
anything for free.

But it isn’t our fault, Anna wanted to reply. Whose fault is it? Can you explain that to me? I want to understand, to understand so many things …

The aproned woman put a white cafeteria cup with pale hot chocolate onto Micha’s tray. Obviously the little girl had decided on hot chocolate. Micha nodded, reached out her hand for the straws on the side of the counter, straws surely not meant for hot chocolate—they were the grass thin, brightly colored kind—and took two, a green one and a blue one. “Well, young lady, I’d say one is enough,” the aproned woman said, as if those straws were her own personal ones and she had to take special care of them. In reality, there were thousands of straws; Micha could have taken a dozen and nobody would have noticed. The aproned woman now tried to retrieve one of the straws from Micha’s grip, but Micha held onto both of them. The struggle took place just above the counter, just above the tray with the cocoa. Anna shut her eyes and heard the cup fall. She opened her eyes again. The floor was covered with hot chocolate and broken pieces of cup.

Micha just stood there, both straws in her hand, looking at the aproned woman with big blue eyes filled with terror. The people in line were shuffling their feet.

The aproned woman lifted her hands. “I don’t believe it!” she exclaimed. “How clumsy can you be? Young lady, that cup … you’re going to have to pay for that cup. Now look what you’ve done. What a mess! And I’m the one who has to clean it up. You hurry up and pay for that cup now and leave. The hot chocolate and the cup, that’s two euro fifty; the cup is one fifty.”

When she said that, light rain began to fall from the sweet blue eyes. A small fist—the one without the straws—was held out, and in it, lay a single euro coin. “I only have this,” Micha’s voice said through the rain.

“Don’t tell me you’re here by yourself!” Now the aproned woman
was nearly shouting. “There must be an adult somewhere who can pay for this!”

“No,” Micha said, bravely, fighting against her tears. “Nobody has to pay for me. I’m all alone. On the cliff. All alone.”

“Oh my God, would you leave her alone! She’s a kid! Just a kid! Don’t you have kids?”

Anna looked around for the person who’d said this and realized that it was her. Damn. She’d sworn she wouldn’t interfere, wouldn’t draw attention to herself, wouldn’t give up her invisibility …

“I do have children, as a matter of fact,” the aproned woman said. “Two, if you must know. But
they
know how to behave.”

“Oh sure,” Anna said, bitterly; now that she had started she couldn’t stop. “And they’ve never broken a single cup in their lives, and they’ve never wanted two straws. And you, you’re perfect, of course. You never drop anything, right? And this cup, lady, is worth twenty cents at most.”

Now it wasn’t just the aproned woman who was staring at Anna, mouth open wide, but Micha as well. Anna was swimming on a wave of anger, and, though it felt good, she had an inkling that she’d be sorry in about three seconds. “I’ll pay for that hot chocolate and my coffee and another fresh hot chocolate,” she said. “And if you’d be kind enough to hand me a dustpan and broom, I’ll clean up the mess on the floor. And when you have a chance, you should see if adult ed offers evening classes in friendliness.”

“You don’t have to shout at me like that,” the aproned woman said as she took Anna’s money. “I didn’t do anything …”

Now Anna noticed the other students in line, impatient students with coffee trays and tired eyes, and suddenly felt embarrassed by her outburst. But then two guys behind her started laughing and both
reached for the broom at the same time, trying to help her. “You’re absolutely right,” one of them said. “These people are impossible … there’s another piece of the cup over there …”

“What are you studying?” the other one asked. “I haven’t seen you before.”

“Gardening, third semester,” Anna murmured, and a strange thought popped up in her head. I’m collecting male students. Gitta’d be surprised.

When she finished cleaning up and went to put the pieces of the cup into the trash, someone took the dustpan from her. But it wasn’t one of the students she’d been talking to—it was someone in a green military parka.

“Abel?” she asked, sounding as surprised as possible. She looked from Abel to Micha, who stood next to him with her fresh cup of hot chocolate and a broad grin—and back to Abel. “What a small world. Are you … is this … your sister?”

One of the guys who’d been helping her placed a coffee tray in her hands. “You better take this and go now,” he said. “Otherwise, our friend at the counter will totally lose it.” Anna smiled a thank-you. Now I’m stuck with one of these students, she thought, and Abel will leave. Maybe that’s better anyway … but Abel didn’t leave.

“You’ll get the money back,” he said. “Thank you. I didn’t see what happened exactly …”

“Oh, some stupid thing with the straws,” Anna answered. “Forget about the money. You must be … Micha?”

Micha nodded.

“Is your doll okay?” Anna asked politely. “She was lost at our school. Underneath a sofa. I found her, accidentally.”

“Mrs. Margaret,” Micha said. “Yes, I think she’s fine. She’s at
home now. We’re not allowed to bring dolls to school, and anyway she always wants too much dessert when we come to the dining hall. Can I keep my euro then, for ice cream?”

“Sure,” Anna said.

“No way,” Abel shook his head. “You’ll give that euro to Anna. Now.” And to Anna he said, “Take it. We’re against antiauthoritarian education here.”

“What?” Anna asked, confused, and then they both followed Micha, who’d worked the small wonder of discovering an empty table. And Abel asked, “Why are you wearing a head scarf?”

“Oh, this, well, um,” Anna said and took it off. “It’s … uh, kind of a replacement for a hat I lost and … um, it’s a long story. So, um, have you seen Gitta? We were supposed to meet here and she’s fifteen minutes late …”

Abel looked around, but of course there was no Gitta. “Hmm, I guess I’ll have to keep waiting,” Anna said. “Does Micha have enough straws for her hot chocolate now?”

“Five. I’ll tell her that she shouldn’t—”

“Tell her that she can bend them when they’re warm,” Anna said quickly. “You can curl them like hair. And make people, too. But I guess she knows that already.” With those words, she sat down at the next table—even though there was room for her at the table that Micha had found.

She took a yellow paperback from her backpack:
Faust II
, one of the books they had to read before finals. As she opened the thin pages with the tiny letters on them, she thought about a small island in a blood-red sea. She didn’t read
Faust II
. She hadn’t really planned to. Instead, she listened to the conversation at the table behind her, just as she’d done before. Eventually, Anna thought, her ears would
turn around and slowly migrate to the back of her head. And what would that look like?

“Go on,” Micha said. “I will make a cliff with this straw. The island reappeared the next day, didn’t it? And the mare was still there and everything, right?”

“No. The little cliff queen sat on her cliff for a long time, shivering in the cold. When dawn broke, the sea was blue once more. But the sun that rose over the sea that day was a cold winter sun, and it didn’t warm the little queen.

“‘Mrs. Margaret,’ the little queen said. ‘Maybe we’ll die.’ Mrs. Margaret said nothing. She always listened but never spoke. ‘I don’t know what it feels like to die,’ the little queen went on. ‘Nobody ever explained death to me. Not the birds and not the white mare, either. I think they were afraid to talk about it …’ At that moment the water next to the cliff stirred. The little cliff queen grew frightened. A dark round head emerged from the waves, a head with whiskers and glittering sea eyes.

“‘Who are you?’ the little queen asked. ‘Are you death?’

“‘No,’ the something in the sea said, and then he laughed a deep, bass laugh. ‘Death is much bigger than I am. I am a sea lion. Or let’s say: I am the sea lion. The others swam away so long ago that I don’t remember if there were others.’

“‘What is a sea lion?’ the little cliff queen asked and leaned forward to see the creature better.