The street was full of people: people pushing strollers, people on bicycles, people with heavy bags or dogs on leashes, people who blended into an anonymous mass. Unimportant and, somehow, almost invisible. The ice cream was long gone, but they just kept walking, walking slowly, without hurrying; Anna wondered whether they would walk to the end of the street, and on and on, to the end of the world, and whether there would be a blue ocean there and a green ship waiting for them. She thought about the very first time she had talked to Abel. How he had been sitting on the radiator in the student lounge, looking threatening. Back then, she never would have considered it possible to walk down the street next to him, in silence—and to think that for the moment, everything was all right.

When she had arrived at this point in her thoughts, she realized that her hand was in his. She was not sure how long it had been there, and she was afraid to move it even a millimeter, in case he shied away. Micha had run ahead; now she came back, looked at Abel and Anna, glanced at their hands and grinned. Anna thought he would pull his hand back then. But he didn’t. He squeezed her hand very quickly and very hard, and she squeezed back. Who had painted the snow golden?

Micha ran ahead again. They watched her draw something with her finger in the dirt on a shop window, then giggle and bounce away … a rubber ball with a fake fur collar and flying blond braids.

They stopped in front of the window; it was the window of a Chinese restaurant, and there was a red dragon painted on it. Next to that dragon Micha had written: “K IS EacH Oth ER.”

Abel looked at Anna. Anna looked at Abel.

“She is the little queen,” said Abel, “in our fairy tale, at least.”

“One must obey the queen,” said Anna.

Abel nodded seriously.

But, of course, we will walk farther now, Anna thought. And we will forget what was written on the window … It’s almost forgotten already. Then, very suddenly, Abel pulled her into the doorway beside the shop window, into the smell of hot vegetable oil and MSG, next to a glass door with another red dragon on it, and kissed her.

Damn, thought Anna. I’m nearly eighteen years old, and I’ve never been kissed. Not properly, anyway. His lips were as cold as snow, but beyond the lips lay the warmth of a fairy-tale sun. She felt his tongue search for hers, and she thought of the wolf. And if it is true, she thought … if the fairy tale is true? A shot in the neck and a deadly bite in the neck. It all fits. And if I am kissing a murderer?

And if so? Then what?

A murderer, a wolf, a brother, an innocent, a fairy-tale teller. She rested her hands on the rough, cold material of his military parka and kissed him back. She closed her eyes; she no longer saw the red Chinese dragon on the door; she was aboard a ship, far out on the ocean. She heard the waves beat against the rail; she felt the rolling of the ship beneath her feet. If only one could spin a thread of the froth of the waves to make clothes … She tasted the fairy tale’s words on his tongue, not vanilla ice cream or chocolate or cigarettes. No. She tasted the words themselves, the ocean’s salt water and the wolf’s blood … and behind the words, winter. But behind the winter, there was another taste, a taste she only recognized after a while: the taste of fear. He was afraid, and he was not holding her—he was holding onto her. She was suddenly and completely aware of that. Fairy-tale teller, she thought, where is the ship in your fairy tale sailing to? Where does the fairy tale lead? Will there be more blood, flowing into the cracks between the deck planks? I don’t need anyone to protect me, she had said.

Oh yes, you do, Bertil had said. More than you think.

• • •

They wandered back on the broad street that had once been the city’s rampart. It was lined with tall old chestnuts, which in summer were covered in white and red blossoms. Now, there was only snow. They were holding hands again. For a while, Micha had walked between them, and they had swung her in the air as if she were a much smaller child. But then she had run ahead again, and they took each other’s hands. When they reached Anna’s bicycle, back at the market, somebody in a dark blue woolen sweater came out of the bank next door. Knaake. Again, Anna expected Abel to pull his hand away, and again he didn’t. He just nodded in greeting; Knaake nodded back, and Micha asked a little too loudly, “Who’s that?”

“The lighthouse keeper,” Anna answered. And suddenly, she remembered something. The white cat.

“Michelle,” she whispered. “Is it possible that Michelle had come aboard, too?”

“Who knows,” Abel said.

“The white cat who sleeps all the time and blocks out the world … Has she come back, Abel? Have you spoken to her?”

Abel shook his head. “No. She just slipped into the fairy tale.”

Anna wasn’t sure she believed him. Something about the Michelle story was strange. That day, when he hadn’t let her in … who had been in the apartment with him? Was Abel hiding his own mother? Protecting her? But from whom?

He let go of her hand. “Time to go home,” he said. “Take care of yourself, rose girl. They say it’s going to get even colder.”

He watched them ride away on their bikes, ride away in separate directions. And he remembered the day he had seen them together for the first time, in the student dining hall. He smiled. Their outlines seemed to radiate light, seemed to sparkle. Like something dipped into liquid gold. How long had it been since he’d been part of a story outlined in gold? Except when he read literature? Too long. He remembered one golden story, the last one. He remembered the smell of her hair, the intoxicating smell of cheap shampoo; he’d bought her nice, expensive shampoo and later missed the smell of the cheap one … he remembered talking about things she hadn’t understood, things that had meant too much to him … he remembered the music from the old, scratched LPs. Dancing in a tiny living room. An old sofa and dreams that had broken into pieces, later.

Dance me to the children who are asking to be born

Dance me through the curtains that our kisses have outworn

Raise a tent of shelter now, though every thread is torn

Dance me to the end of love

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin

Dance me through the panic till I’m gathered safely in

Touch me with your naked hand or touch me with your glove

Dance me to the end of love …

And for a moment, he wished he were back there, young again, or younger—a little—so he could do everything over again and make different decisions … Faust. But no, no … no Gretchen questions … please, no.

And then, as they left the market square, Abel and Micha taking one street and Anna taking another, he saw their shadows. He hadn’t noticed them before; he’d only seen the bright shining gold … their shadows were long and black. Of course, that was because of the setting sun; it didn’t mean anything. But suddenly he felt afraid. Afraid for these two young people.

He didn’t have children. But if he had, he thought, they’d be Anna and Abel’s age now. And he’d worry about them. He wouldn’t sleep at night; he’d lie in bed, sleepless, worrying. He’d yell at them when they came home late, or maybe he wouldn’t; maybe he’d be silent and lose them in silence. It just wasn’t possible, he thought, to do right by your children.

Better to be alone.

Abel and Anna weren’t his children. They were only his students. Damn. Yet he still carried his fear for them home with him.

Who’s that? That’s the lighthouse keeper

.

The lighthouse keeper? Why was he a lighthouse keeper? Which lighthouse did he keep, and what was it that kept him there?