Is it possible to punch the wall in your sleep?
Why can’t I dream about Volker, I think angrily. Or at least Felix?
After that I don’t want to risk falling asleep again. I sit up in bed, lean against the wall, and freeze. When it starts to get light, I pull a sweater on over my pajamas, creep out of the apartment, and walk down to the mailbox.
It’s much too early for the postman to have come, and once again there’s nothing in the box. Of course. Only the paper, which I pull out.
I scan the front page. I don’t notice anything of interest.
In the elevator I look over the headlines. I still don’t see it. A boring news day, and it puts me at ease.
I love boring things. They’re comfortable.
I lie down in bed with the paper. But instead of reading it, I fall right to sleep. I’m awoken by the phone. It makes me jump — it’s already after nine.
I brace the phone between my ear and my shoulder and gather up the pages of the paper. They’re scattered around the bed and floor.
“There’s no point in canceling, Angela,” I say. “I’m going to come anyway.”
But it’s Anna.
“Is it true?” she asks without so much as a hello.
“What?”
“That he’s dead.”
“Who?” I ask. I don’t know why she’s asking me — I left broken glass park before she did that night. “Are you crazy, asking me that?”
But it’s not Anna who doesn’t get it, it’s me.
“Him,” says Anna. “Vadim. I heard that. My mother said. . ”
The phone slips and falls to the floor. The back comes off and the battery flies out.
“No,” I say. “It can’t be true. I didn’t. . ”
Then I see it in the paper. A little box at the top of the page. “Emerald murderer dead.”
“No,” I say to the paper. “Where did you hear that shit?”
Vadim E. is dead, the paper says. I don’t suppose they care that my head is spinning, that I feel nauseated.
“It can’t be,” I say. “I didn’t kill him yet. I still have that ahead of me. I have so many good ideas for how to do it. I’m definitely going to do it. Kill him and write a book about my mother. Before he manages to do it. He’ll never beat me to it. NEVER!”
I pull out the local section and spread it on the floor, holding it open with my knees so the breeze doesn’t rustle it.
It takes some time for me to find it. Here, too, it’s just a small item.
“Vadim E. has hanged himself in his cell.”
“He left a letter.”
I just can’t comprehend the words in this blurb.
“No,” I say. “It must be a mistake. They would have informed us. Somebody would have told us. There’s no way they would let us hear about it in the paper first. No way. They must have made it up.”
What a stupid article. A canard. Why is it called that?
I’ll ask Volker.
I pick up the phone, put the battery back in, and click the housing back together.
The phone starts ringing immediately. The ringtone sounds somehow hysterical, I think. I should change it.
“Naimann,” I say calmly.
Someone is whimpering on the other end.
“What?” I say. “Who’s there?” Suddenly I’m completely disoriented. It’s Vadim, I think. Despite his love for AK-47s, he had a pretty high-pitched voice, the old eunuch. Or maybe it’s Maria and she’s just heard about Vadim’s death at the pool. Even though it can’t be true.
Or it’s my mother. The voice sounds so familiar. It could be her. It sounds as if she’s hurt herself.
She’s not dead, just injured, I think. Crashed her bicycle or something. How can she be dead? I got it wrong. It was all a nightmare. A horribly long one. And the night isn’t over yet.
I don’t say anything. I wait.
“Sascha? Are you there?”
Yes,” I say. “I’ve been here the whole time.”
“Please come. Please come now. Please.”
“Where?” I ask. I don’t know what kind of instructions to expect. Go around the Emerald; there will be a white winged horse — get on and hold on tight. Or go around the Emerald to the broken phone booth; don’t worry that it’s not connected — pick up the receiver. Or go to the front of the building; a black car with no license plate will stop. .
I would do anything right now.
“What do you mean, where? You know where I live. Take the elevator.”
It’s Angela.
“I don’t want to right now,” I say. “Leave me alone. Everyone just leave me alone.”
“Please, Sascha. Please, please, please.”
“Grigorij?” I ask. “Is something wrong with him?”
“What? Yes!”
Since I imagine Angela would make a cup of instant lemon tea before calling an ambulance even in an emergency, I run up to her place without waiting for the elevator.
I burst through the open door. I’m in the hall again, and all the doors are closed except Angela’s. There are sobs coming from her room.
“Where is he?” I ask, standing there helplessly. Angela is lying on her bed in Mickey Mouse pajamas, crying uncontrollably into her pillow.
“Where is Grigorij?” I ask.
“He’s snoring,” Angela says into her pillow. “I only said it so you’d come. Would you have come otherwise?”
“No. Not today.”
“See.”
She starts crying again. I can’t believe how much water a crying person can produce. She’s spraying all over the place. I step back so as not to get hit. Then I hand Angela a pocket pack of tissues. She gingerly takes it, lays it on the bed, and wipes her nose on her sleeve.
I sigh.
“You should be glad he left you,” I say. “He’s not worth crying over.”
“Who?” Angela asks, surprised.
“Mohammed or whatever his name is.”
“Murat,” Angela says with a smile. Her face is red and puffy. Tears are running down her face. The smile makes her look kind of crazy.
“Okay, Murat, whatever.”
“He didn’t leave me,” says Angela. “Just the opposite. Tell me — what should I do? I just don’t know. I’m. . ” She turns away ashamed. As if she’s just correctly solved a math problem.
“Yes? You’re. .?”
“I’m. . ” She rolls her eyes and bites her lower lip.
“. . Dumb as a box of rocks?” I ask.
“No. Well, I am that, too. But no. I’m pregnant.”
“Oh,” I say. “Since when?”
“That’s all you can think to say?” Angela asks, looking at a new blue spot on her upper arm. It’s a strange-looking one. It’s actually four round marks next to each other.
It looks like the imprint of a set of fingers.
Angela spits on the end of her index finger and rubs off the mark.
Why are her eyes so bright, I wonder. Is it because of the tears?
“What am I supposed to say?” I ask, clueless.
“Something.”
“Should I say congratulations?”
Suddenly Angela becomes very matter-of-fact. “No idea,” she says, sitting up and frowning. “What do you think?”
“Me? Why me? Why should I have an opinion about it at all?”
“You know everything. Everything’s easy for you to figure out. What would you do in my position?”
“Use condoms,” I say quickly. “Before it happened.”
Angela sticks out her lower lip.
“What do I do now?” she says pensively. “Do you think Murat would marry me?”
“If Murat is anything like Mohammed, he’ll be cracking jokes about the blond slut he nailed. He’ll marry an imported virgin. And you’re lucky there. Didn’t I already say that?”
“Yep,” says Angela, and I wonder — not for the first time — how she can listen to all of this and not defend herself.
“When did you find out?” I ask. “You weren’t pregnant yesterday.”