“See, Kevin, she don’t smoke,” the guy with the cigarette said. “Very reasonable. Gotta think of a better pick-up line than that if you want to take this sweet thing home!” They were standing much too close; she could smell the booze on their breath. Shit, shit, shit, Anna thought, why did I have to come outside alone? Abel wouldn’t help her. Abel wouldn’t know her here, like he didn’t know her at school.

Kevin put his hand out to touch her hair. At that moment, someone laid a hand on his shoulder and yanked him back with a jerk. It was Abel’s hand. “Leave her alone,” he said.

“Hi … Abel,” Anna said. That was all she could think to say.

“That your fuckin’ first name, Tannatek?” Kevin said. “Abel? I can’t believe it. What kind of a name is that? And who’s the chick?”

“Her name’s Anna,” Abel answered, putting his arm around her. “And keep your hands off her if you don’t want things to get messy, got it?”

“Whoa. Steady … steady!” Kevin said. “Relax, dude.”

Abel was probably ten or twenty pounds lighter than Kevin-with-the-bull-neck. But for some inexplicable reason, Kevin seemed to respect him. “That means … Don’t tell me she’s with you, Tannatek?” the other guy asked in disbelief. “I thought you …”

“Don’t think too much,” Abel said. “It’ll make you grow ulcers on your head, Marcel.”

Kevin laughed, and Abel pulled Anna to the side. “What are you doing here?”

“Gitta and the others are inside. I just wanted to get some air …”

Abel put his hands on her shoulders. “You’re cold. You’re shivering.”

She nodded. “It’s not important …”

“Sure it is,” and then, in a very low voice, with a private kind of a smile, he said, “Rose girl, I told you the branches would wither and you would freeze. You wanted to stay on board …”

Anna nodded. “I’m staying.”

He took off his parka, slid out of the black sweatshirt, and gave it to her before putting the parka back on. “Take this.”

Marcel whistled through his teeth. “Striptease!” he said. “Just go on, Tannatek, strip! She can join you …”

“Shut your fuckin’ trap, Marcel,” Abel said, taking a step toward him. Marcel didn’t move. He narrowed his eyes and looked Abel over, almost pleased. “Aw … whatsa matter?” he said. “You really want trouble? You can have it.” Kevin laughed again, but more uncomfortably now.

Anna hurried up and put on Abel’s sweatshirt. She had the thought that it would be better to have her hands free if it came to a fight, but of course that was silly …

“Come on,” Abel said. He took her hand and pulled her away.

They headed down the street next to the Mittendrin, the dome towering behind them, piercing the winter sky like a strange, glowing plant. The street lay empty and quiet. Nobody followed them. On the walls of the old houses, the snow stuck to the frozen ivy leaves.

“I can beat up the two of them if I have to,” Abel said. “Kevin knows that. But I won’t have to. Don’t worry.”

“But I do worry,” Anna said. “It’s about all I ever do these days. I’m afraid.”

He stopped and looked at her. He’d let go of her hand. “Me, too,” he said. “But not of those guys. They’re dumb. They’re so dumb. They live out there, you know, where we live, too. Everyone there … well, almost everyone … is dumb. Ignorant. It’s not their fault. They inherit the ignorance of their parents and hand it onto their children like a tradition, like a craft. They drink in the ignorance with their powdered milk, with each bottle of beer, and in the end they make their coffins of ignorance.”

“And … you?”

“Me?” He understood and laughed. “I don’t know. I’m a slipup. A mistake. An accident. I guess Michelle managed to bed some intellectual. I’ve always been different. And maybe back then … when I was very small … maybe she was different, too. I don’t remember. Maybe she was a mother … before she gave up being anything at all. We … we got a letter from that social services office, the one with the shells and sisters, you know. It says Michelle needs to show up there and asks why she hadn’t checked in lately. They plan to stop by again to ask questions …”

Anna put her arms, in the black sleeves, around him and hugged him, holding him tight for a minute. “Somehow, everything will turn out all right,” she whispered. “Somehow … I don’t know how … not yet, anyway … Let’s walk in the snow for a while. It’s so beautiful … they said it wouldn’t snow again this winter, but now …”

“What about the others? The bar?” Abel asked as he walked along beside her. “Don’t you want to go back?”

“Later,” Anna said. “Though, to be honest, I don’t even know why. I don’t feel like sitting there, celebrating with them. They’re celebrating that math is over, but really they’re celebrating their own ignorance. They’re just as ignorant as the people in your apartment building … just in another way, you know what I mean? I want something different … I want … I want to go to the U.S. on a cargo ship. I want to cross the Himalayas. I want … to fly … far away … somewhere. To some … desert. To the end of the world.” She held out her arms and turned in the snow like a plane, like a child pretending to be a plane.

“Yeah,” Abel said. “Maybe I’ll come with you … to the U.S. and the Himalayas and the desert.”

She stood, out of breath, and realized that she was beaming. “Let’s do it,” she whispered. “Let’s go ahead and do it. After finals. Let’s go away, really far away.”

“And Micha?”

“We’ll take her with us. It can’t be bad for her to get to know the world a bit … we can do everything, Abel … get anywhere … together …”

He smiled. “Everything?” he said. “Together. With me? Anna Leemann, you don’t even know me.”

He took her hand and led her back to the Mittendrin. She wished he would kiss her again; she wished it so much it hurt, but she didn’t dare to initiate it. She didn’t know what he thought or what he wanted. He was right. She didn’t know him.

Kevin and Marcel weren’t standing in front of the Mittendrin anymore.

“So …” Abel said, “the others are waiting for you.”

“Come in with me,” she said suddenly. “Have a glass of vodka with us. I’m inviting you. You’ve taken the math exam …”

“I don’t think I fit in with those people you’re with,” Abel said.

“Neither do I. Come anyway. They’re harmless.” Reluctantly, Abel let her pull him through the door. “Wait,” he said. “Anna, what’s this supposed to be? An introduction to refined society? Think about what you’re doing …”

Anna laughed. “We’re not living in the Middle Ages. Or in India—there are no castes here. Come on … Frauke will be excited to see you for sure. She once considered falling in love with you ‘experimentally.’”

“Oh my God.” He rolled his eyes.

And for a moment, Anna thought everything would be all right. Abel would sit at the table with them and laugh with them and cease being the Polish peddler and change into a fellow student … a fellow fighter in the fight against finals, a human being with a first name.

The smoke-filled air surrounded them like a strange kind of ocean, an ocean very different from the one on which the little queen was sailing. Anna made her way through the crowd, to the table where the others were sitting. Abel followed her. She saw him greet some people with a nod, people she didn’t know … and didn’t want to know. He swam in the thick bar air like a fish in water, and still he hesitated to come to her table. Gitta was on the black leather sofa with her head on Hennes’s knees. She looked sleepy in a comfortable sort of way, not really tired; she looked as if she had very definite plans for the night.

“Anna,” she said, “where’ve you been hiding?”

“I met someone outside,” Anna said and stepped aside to make a vague gesture in Abel’s direction. Everyone at the table looked at her. Gitta sat up. She seemed to awaken from her sleepiness—or pretended sleepiness—with a start. “Oh, Tannatek,” she said. “Hi.”