“Oh, how exciting,” Frauke said. “Tell us, Anna, what’s he like? I mean, deep down inside, under the military parka and the black sweatshirt and …” She giggled. “Underneath everything?”

Anna didn’t answer. She didn’t answer anybody. Strangely, Gitta didn’t say anything.

Abel was standing in the yard as always, in the freezing cold, his hands dug deep into his pockets. There was no fresh white snow today to cover the dirty old snow that wouldn’t melt.

During lunch break, Bertil approached Anna, obviously unsure of himself. “I wanted to apologize,” he said. “For last night. I mean, I can’t really remember what I said … but judging from what the others told me, it can’t have been too nice. I should have drunk less.”

“Children and drunk people always tell the truth,” Anna said.

“I’m … I’m sorry!” Bertil repeated, in despair. “Can’t you forgive me?”

“Not now,” Anna said. “And anyway, you’re asking the wrong person for forgiveness. You need to walk across the schoolyard to the bike stands to find the person you should apologize to.”

“No way.” Bertil shook his head. “No, Anna … you’re not really dating him, are you? Tell me it’s not true.”

Anna walked away without another word and went across the schoolyard herself; she was fed up with the talk—she was fed up with everyone, all of them. She didn’t give a shit what they thought, and she couldn’t do anything about the wall that Abel was building around himself out here. She stood next to him and asked, “White noise?”

He nodded.

“Please,” she said, “can I have one of your earplugs? The others are making me ill. I can’t listen to their questions anymore. Their stupid comments.”

He didn’t look at her. He handed her an earplug in silence. He seemed to have decided that it no longer made sense to pretend he didn’t know her. The white noise from the old Walkman enveloped them both; like a blanket of new snow, it draped itself over them, shutting out all the curious looks.

And the world under the blanket was—surprisingly, wonderfully—absolutely quiet.

• • •

At four o’clock in the afternoon, the sign in front of the Russian store at the corner of Hain Street swung to and fro in the wind, like it always did, alternately revealing its Russian name one side and the German translation on the other. Russian candies in their gold paper boxes were fading in the window, as were the Russian Matryoshka dolls, piled high behind the window blind. Farther along the street, three figures walked next to each other, toward the woods.

The beech trees towered against the winter sky in silence, their snow-covered branches like the work of fairies who had decorated the forest with a thousand tiny songbirds. The Elisenhain at four o’clock on a February afternoon seemed the most wonderful place in the world. A fairy-tale forest full of invisible stories, a storybook forest full of untold fairy tales, a forest full of fairylike tales …

“Bertil apologized,” Anna said. They turned onto the old street, the one with the uneven cobblestones, on which you could still see the hollow tracks made by horse carriages in olden times. But now the cobblestones were buried deep in the snow. Micha was running ahead, like she usually did, counting the footprints of rabbits and deer.

“Bertil,” Abel repeated. “Do me a favor, will you, and don’t mention that name for a while.”

“He’s a sad person in his own way,” Anna said. “He …”

“Is that it?” Abel asked bitterly. “Is that the reason you’re walking next to me? You’re collecting ‘sad’ people you feel sorry for and want to help?”

“You know very well why I’m here,” Anna said, stopping to look at him. And she thought that maybe she should be the one to initiate a second kiss, if only to be sure there’d actually be one. She was afraid he’d back away after everything that had happened last night, afraid he’d had a change of heart. She looked up at the beeches, hoping for a sign, but the towering trees remained silent.

So she threw her fear overboard and kissed him in spite of everything. And he didn’t back away, and she wondered if he had been waiting for her to make a move.

“Hey,” he asked after quite a while, a little out of breath, looking at the top button of her coat, which had come loose, “are you still wearing my sweatshirt? I didn’t notice at school.”

“I … I’ll give it back …”

“Not now,” he said. “We should catch up with Micha.”

He took her hand in his, and they started to run, along the old street, sliding on the ice-covered cobblestones that lay beneath the snow. It was like they were children, two children about to enter a fairy-tale forest. It could have been Christmas, Anna thought. She wouldn’t have been surprised to see tiny silver bells hanging from the branches and maybe polished red apples, too; to hear music coming from the treetops, very quiet music; or to find Gitta’s old sled with the red stripe waiting behind one of the trunks …

“Catch me!” the third child called out, the child in the pink down jacket, as she fled into the woods, along a narrow path, through the giant columns of trees. A frozen rivulet wound its way along the path, meandering through the kitschy winter postcard scene; Micha jumped over the ice, giggling and carefree, running farther into the trees on the other side. Anna had fallen behind Abel after they’d let go of each other’s hands on the narrow path, but now he slipped and landed on the frozen brook, and she laughed and ran past him. She caught up with Micha at a fork in the path. But she didn’t stop. Instead, she ran past Micha, calling back over her shoulder, “Now you catch me!”

A short way ahead, the path disappeared into a dense thicket of hazelnut bushes, covered with snow. Maybe this wasn’t the path after all but a deer trail … Anna looked behind her as she ran. But Micha hadn’t followed; she was still standing at the fork, strangely undecided. But now, Abel was coming. Anna ran on, toward the hazelnut thicket. She could dive into it and try to hide, she thought—though of course he would find her instantly. It was all a game, a children’s game … he caught up with her just before the thicket and pulled her to the ground; they lay in the snow, panting. Anna tried to get up, to slip through his fingers, and, giggling, to run on; but he wouldn’t allow it, and his grip was so firm it hurt. She looked up at him. His eyes were golden. No, she had imagined that, they were blue, like always. “Hey!” she said, “let go!”

“This is the wrong path,” Abel said. “The woods are too dense in this direction.”

“But it’s beautiful here! In spring, it’s filled with anemones. I often come to this part …”

Abel pulled her back onto her feet. His grip was still iron. It was his right hand that held her; in his hurry to hold her back, he probably hadn’t remembered it was hurt. She could tell he was clenching his teeth with pain, but he didn’t let go. “In winter, there aren’t any anemones blossoming here,” he said. “Micha is afraid of the dark. Let’s go back; we’ll take the other path at the fork.” He was right. Micha was still there waiting for them. She hadn’t moved even a step in their direction.

When they were back with her, Abel released Anna’s arm and took Micha by the hand. Her eyes were big and frightened. “I thought Anna would go in there,” she whispered, barely audible. “Into that part of the woods. You’re not allowed to go there, Anna. Did you know that? There are fallen trees back there; the trunks are hollow, and the invisible live inside. They’ve got sharp teeth that glow like hot iron. And they can bite you.”

Anna followed them along the other path, which led back to the old street, and only when they had reached it did the fear in Micha’s eyes dissolve. “It’s much better here,” she said. “I shouldn’t ever have run down that path, I forgot … the invisibles … they bit Abel once … there was blood; his whole sleeve was covered in blood …”