But why, when they were alone in the classroom, had he hugged her? She walked back to Wolgaster Street, dragging her bike, in the event she found anything suitable for kicking. Only at the traffic lights, where she had to cross Wolgaster Street to reach the path on the other side, did she get on her bike. She was sitting there, holding onto a lamppost with one hand, waiting for the light to turn green, staring at the cars with hostility, when a hand landed on top of her own. She started.

“Bertil!” He was next to her, sitting on his own bike, his feet on the pedals, keeping his balance by resting his hand over hers. She smiled. His glasses were halfway down his nose again. “What a small world,” he said. “Have you been at your flute lesson?”

She narrowed her eyes. “And where are you coming from?”

He didn’t give her any more of an answer than she had given him.

“If I asked you something that’s none of my business …,” he began.

“I wouldn’t reply,” Anna said, pulling away her hand so that he nearly lost his balance. The light turned green, and they crossed together.

“You’re spying on me,” Anna said. “Aren’t you?”

“Is there anything worth spying on? Maybe I’m just making sure you don’t do anything stupid.”

“Bertil Hagemann, leave me alone,” Anna said. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

“Oh yes, you do,” Bertil said. “More than you realize.” Then he pedaled away, leaving her behind. He was more athletic than she had realized.

The sword of Damocles hovered. Anna tried to stay angry, to sustain the anger that had compelled her to kick the wheel of her bike. It didn’t work. Abel’s fear was too palpable. She felt the sword hanging over him from a thin, fragile thread; he looked at her now in class—that was new—and in his eyes she saw fear. They will think it was me. It’s impossible to prove that you cannot do something. He no longer slept in class. Maybe he wasn’t working nights anymore. Or, maybe he just couldn’t sleep, not even in class, because he was no longer safe—anywhere. When the classroom door opened because someone was late, he started as if he expected the police. The sword was lowering. Its tip was the bullet that had pierced Rainer Lierski’s neck like the long teeth of a wolf.

On Wednesday, Anna stood at the window of the student lounge, which was humming with excitement before the physics exam. She didn’t have to take it—she’d completed physics last semester. She realized that Abel was standing beside her.

“I’d be relieved if they’d come for me,” he said in a low voice. “If they’d show up at our front door and demand an explanation. Where I was that Saturday night … so I could tell them … So I could tell them that I wasn’t there, I don’t own a gun, I don’t know how to use one, I didn’t kill him … But they don’t come; they don’t give me a chance to defend myself …”

She felt his hand on hers as he gave her something. A piece of paper.

“Good luck with physics,” she said.

“I’m not taking the exam.”

She looked at him. He looked away. No one could take an exam with a sword hanging over his head. Anna felt rage build inside her. Lierski had really managed to mess life up for Abel. Now he was keeping him from passing the classes he needed to graduate.

She looked at the paper during her next class. It was folded to form an envelope and closed with pieces of scotch tape. It was even decorated with a not-really-round red circle, which might have been meant to be a seal. In one corner, someone had written “ANNA” in pencil. She opened the envelope, carefully smoothed the paper, and saw little hearts drawn with an orange magic marker. The letter was from Micha; Abel hadn’t opened it.

Deer ANNA

,

You hav to com agan soon so the farytal can go on

.

Love MiCHA

.

Deer ANNA 2

kwestions that I do not no

:

1

were dus a persun go when he dies?

2

is the red hunter gon now or will he com bak?

3

kan you help Abel not be afrad any moor deer anna

Love micha

.

Anna took a pen to write an answer on the paper. “Dear Micha,” she wrote. But she didn’t know what to say after that. She couldn’t answer a single one of Micha’s questions.

On Friday after school, Anna rode her bike into town and wandered aimlessly down the main shopping street. Her legs wanted to carry her to the student dining hall, but she didn’t let them; instead, she forced them to walk in the opposite direction, to take her window shopping … as if she wanted to buy something, as if she had a reason for being there. She didn’t. She just didn’t want to go home. At the beach in Eldena, where she usually went if she felt this way, there were too many thoughts strewn in the sand near the frozen sea; it was too lonely there. And besides, maybe her stupid legs would win and carry her to the dining hall, where she’d find Abel and Micha, sitting at one of the tables, eating dead dog and drinking hot chocolate with five straws each.

She wandered over to the old snow-covered fish market behind the town hall, where they hadn’t sold fish for a long time. Children were ice-skating on the shallow pond in front. She could, she thought, walk over to the fair trade shop on the other side of the square and buy a bar of chocolate, to at least do something that made sense. As she climbed the steps to the store, the winter scene at the pond swam in her head, a picture of children, in colorful snowsuits, laughing—and all of a sudden, she remembered a small pink down jacket. She turned around. Of course, there wouldn’t be a pink down jacket, and if there was one, it would belong to another child, one that Anna didn’t know and … somebody was running toward her from the pond. It wasn’t a child. It was someone in an open green military parka and a gray scarf, which was trailing behind. Someone without a hat, someone with snow in his blond hair. She thought of the scene in the schoolyard; she thought: he’s flying, flying like he did then; then he was there, sweeping her up the stairs with him, into the store, between the boxes of half-frozen leeks and bright orange pumpkins. Somewhere behind him, she saw the pink jacket now, playing on the ice with the other children.

“They … they got him,” Abel gasped. He had snow on his jacket, snow on his sweater, snow in the folds of his gray scarf, as if he’d been playing on the ice with the children and fallen on his nose. He was out of breath and his eyes sparkled with laughter.

The sword … the sword was gone.

“Who?” Anna asked. “Who did they get? Who?”

“The guy who shot Micha’s father.” He seemed to realize that he was still holding her arm and let go as he tried to catch his breath. “It’s … it’s almost certain it was him. I’ve been asking around a bit … maybe it will be in the papers tomorrow. Rainer shouldn’t have picked a fight with at least one of those three guys last Saturday. The police didn’t find just one gun in his apartment—they found a whole arsenal. It looks like he was trading in weapons. In any case, they’re holding him now for illegal possession; he had run away after they found Rainer’s body, but then he seems to have come back to his apartment to get something; the guy from the bar saw him, and now they’ve got him. And …” He stopped, panting.

“That … that’s … great,” Anna said, smiling. “Did he confess?”

“I don’t know,” Abel said. “But even if he doesn’t … it’s got to be him, don’t you think?”

She nodded, slowly. “Yeah. It’s got to be him.”

Micha came toward them now, swinging her turquoise backpack. And she was carrying something else, too, a bag that looked as if it was from a bookshop. She tried to wave with the bag and the backpack, dropped both, and picked them up again. “What are you doing in the vegetables?” she asked, grinning, as she entered the store. Her face was red from cold and excitement, and she was beaming.