ANNA CLENCHED HER FISTS SO SHE WOULDN’T JUMP up from her chair. Never had she been so happy to see someone. She lowered her eyes, trying to hide her smile behind her hair. She heard the history teacher say something to Abel, tell him to take the last free desk at the far end of the room, and when she looked up again, Abel was walking back there, passing her desk. For a moment she looked into his eyes. And she got a fright.

The ice in his eyes had changed; it seemed to have become darker, like the dark, clear ice on a frozen lake whose depth suddenly becomes visible when the wind brushes the snow from the surface. It was an endless depth, bottomless, and almost totally black. She didn’t know which thoughts and creatures were swimming down there. They scared her. It was as if she were watching Abel drown in the waters of himself. She shook her head, trying to rid it of these thoughts. What had happened? Where had he been?

She turned to Gitta and Gitta shrugged. Their history teacher was distributing the tests now, densely printed with threatening instructions and questions. Concentrate, Anna thought. Read the text. Function.

And she did function. The facts were stored inside her head, reliable and secure—despite everything, she was still Anna Leemann, a good student. Her brain was complying, letting her fill it with things and then spitting them out as it was supposed to. She hurried, her pen gliding over the white paper, almost of its own accord. She felt strangely detached as she watched her small, tidy letters form on the paper in front of her. She didn’t look up again until after she finished the first set of questions—half the test. The others were bent over their desks, writing frantically. The history teacher was standing at the podium in front of them. There was a second teacher in the room as well, a proctor. It was a Latin teacher whom Anna knew only by sight. Now he consulted his watch and left the gym. He was replaced by another teacher, who entered through the same door. Knaake. Anna saw him search the room for something, someone, scanning the rows of desks. She knew whom he was searching for. She saw when he found him, saw him nod and start to walk past the desks thoughtfully, his hands folded behind his back. And now, finally, she dared to turn around, too.

Abel wasn’t writing. He was holding a pen; he had been writing, but now he looked at her and she read his eyes. This time they were easy to read. The message in them was not about the dark depth beneath the ice or about whatever had happened. It was about the history test. HELP ME, Anna read in those eyes. I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT TO WRITE. And she nodded, barely perceptibly, or so she hoped. She put her hand into her pocket, found something that felt like a piece of paper. She slid a pen into her pocket as inconspicuously as possible, stood up, and went to the front of the room. The history teacher noted the time on a list and nodded at her; she had official permission to go to the ladies’ room. Her heart was racing. Of course, the history teacher couldn’t read her mind. Anna hadn’t done anything forbidden, not yet anyway.

A few minutes later, she was sitting on the lid of a white toilet, writing. The paper in her pocket had turned out to be a ten-euro note. Whatever. She was writing. She was writing tiny letters; she covered the bill with them, her fingers flying. She wrote down the answers for the first section in short keywords, noting dates and giving brief historical background. The thinking, the “Interpret this text in a historical context. Discuss the questions” part he had to do himself. She had already read the second set of questions on the test; she made notes for this part, too, giving more dates, jotting down half-finished sentences, which hopefully would help him to remember. At some point, he surely must have learned all this, too … She wasn’t writing fast enough. She didn’t have enough space on the bill. She thought about using toilet paper. She looked at her watch. She had to go back.

She folded the bill and fastened it under the lid of the toilet paper holder. Then she tore off a piece of toilet paper and stuck it into the door of the stall in which she’d been sitting. It was visible from outside if you were searching for it—a tiny white flag, a white flag made of snow …

She had to force herself not to run back to the gym; she tried hard to look as if she was sick and that was why she had spent so much time in the bathroom. She was feeling sick. She didn’t know what would happen if someone figured out she’d cheated. She’d fail the test—she was sure of that—but what else would happen?

When she returned to the gym, thirteen minutes had passed. Thirteen minutes on the toilet. Of course, they would realize something was wrong … of course, of course, damn, Knaake was sitting at the desk now. She didn’t see the history teacher anywhere.

“Mrs. Meyer’s gone for a cup of coffee,” Knaake said in a very low voice, looking up at her. Then he looked at his watch and noted the time on a sheet. “I just hope this watch is correct,” he mumbled. “Gotta reset it one of these days …”

She wanted to hug him. She just nodded. According to what he’d jotted down, she’d been gone for only five minutes.

She threw Abel a short glance before she sat down again. Seven minutes later, he got up. Possibly it was more than seven minutes later—at least by Knaake’s watch. She tried to concentrate on the second set of questions and to remember the answers she’d already written down in keywords on a ten-euro note. Abel had to find the right toilet now. He had to memorize the dates and facts, or to remember them if he’d already learned them once. He couldn’t take that bill with him; he’d have to destroy it. What would he do with it? Tear it up and flush it down the toilet? She’d never thought this could work … Abel returned a few minutes after the history teacher, who came back with a cup of coffee. Knaake noted the time before handing the sheet back to his colleague. Abel sat down without looking at Anna. She didn’t dare turn around to see if he was writing.

After the test, Anna stood outside in the cold schoolyard with Gitta and the others, watching them smoke. It would have been too conspicuous to walk over to Abel now. The others seemed to have forgotten Wednesday’s gossip; they were talking about the test. Hennes had his arm around Gitta’s leather-jacketed waist, Frauke was talking to Gitta, and Bertil came and stood with them.

“So how was it?” he asked.

Anna looked at him. She didn’t want to talk to him. But his question was honest, and it seemed like ages ago that he’d said the things in the Mittendrin that he shouldn’t have said. She searched for her anger but couldn’t find it anymore.

“It was all right,” she replied. “But I’m not feeling so well … I got sick in the middle of it …”

“Poor lamb,” Gitta said. “That’s why you were gone for so long. You’re pale, too.”

Anna hoped that Bertil didn’t see her wink. He didn’t. He put a hand on her arm, worried. “Maybe you should go home.”

“It’s okay,” she said. “Probably it was just nervousness.”

“Sometimes it helps to get fresh air,” Bertil went on. “To clear your head, I mean. The sea has frozen totally now. I was thinking about going out to Eldena later … we could go together. If you want to.”

“The sea’s frozen?” Frauke asked. “Do you think it’s possible to walk to the other side of the bay, to Ludwigsburg?”

Bertil nodded. “Sure. I was at the beach yesterday, took our dog. He likes running over the ice. It’s nice to be at the beach alone, in winter, at dusk …”

“I thought your dog died,” Frauke said, giving a little shudder. “I thought your father shot him.”

“That was a long time ago,” Bertil replied, looking into the distance. “We have a new dog. Things are replaceable: dogs, friends, people … what do you think, Anna? Are you coming with me? I know you sometimes go for walks out there.”