The Storyteller Read Online Free PDF Page B

There was a broad strip of houses and gardens between the street and theriver so you couldn’t see from one to the other. She rode as fast as she could, for the route along the Ryck, with all its bends and turns, was longer. The gravel here clung together in small, mean, icy chunks. The thin tires of her bicycle slipped on the frozen puddles, the wind blew in her face, her nose hurt with the cold—yet something inside her was singing. Never had the sky been so high and blue, never had the branches of the trees along the river’s edge been so golden. Never had the growing layer of ice on the water sparkled so brightly. She didn’t know if this excitement was fueled by her ambition to find out something that nobody else knew. Or by the anticipation of finding out.
    The entrance to the dining hall was a chaos of people and bicycles, conversations and phone calls, weekend plans and dates. For a moment Anna was afraid she wouldn’t spot Abel in the chaos. But then she saw something pink in the crowd, a small figure spinning through a revolving door. Anna followed. Once inside, she climbed the broad staircase to the first floor, where the food was served. Halfway up she stopped, took her scarf from her backpack, tied it around her head, and felt absolutely ridiculous. What am I? A stalker? She took one of the orange plastic trays from the stack and stood in the line of university students waiting for food. It was odd to realize that she’d soon be one of them. After a year off working as an au pair in England, that is. Not that she’d study here—the world was too big to stay in your hometown. A world of unlimited possibility was waiting out there for Anna.
    Abel and Micha had already reached the checkout. Anna squeezed past the other students, put something unidentifiable on her plate—something that could be potatoes or could be run-over dog—and hurried to the checkout counter.
    She saw Abel tuck a plastic card in his backpack, a white rectangle with light blue print on it. All the students seemed to have them. “Excuse me,” she said to the girl behind her, “do I need one of those cards, too?”
    “If you pay cash, they’ll charge you more,” the girl replied. “Are you new? They sell those cards downstairs. You’ve gotta show them your student ID. It’s a five-euro deposit for the card, and you can load it with money in the machine near the stairs and …”
    “Wait,” Anna said. “What if I don’t have a student ID?”
    The girl shrugged. “Then you’ll have to pay full price. You’d better find your ID.”
    Anna nodded. She wondered where Abel had found his.
    Even at full price, the cost of run-over dog wasn’t especially high. And so soon Anna was standing at the checkout with her tray, scanning the room for a little girl in a pink down jacket.
    She wasn’t the only one craning her neck in search of someone; a lot of people seemed to be similarly occupied. The pink jacket had disappeared, and there wasn’t a child with thin blond braids anywhere. Anna panicked; she’d lost them forever and she’d never find them … she’d never talk to Abel Tannatek again. She couldn’t pretend to buy more pills she’d never use. She’d go to England as an au pair and never find out why he was the way he was and who that other Abel was, the one who had tenderly lifted his sister up into the air; she would never …
    “There are some free tables in the other room,” someone next to her said to someone else as two trays moved past her, out the door. Anna followed. There was a second dining room, across the corridor and down the stairs to the right. And on the left, behind aglass wall, right in the middle of the second room, was a pink jacket.
    The floor was wet with the traces of winter boots. Anna carefully balanced her tray as she wove through the tables—it wasn’t that she was worried for the run-over dog, that was beyond saving—but if she slipped and fell, dog and all, it would definitely draw