Broken Glass Park (21 page)

“What do you mean—prepare?” I said, imitating her. “It’s simple. I come to your apartment, you open a book, I explain things, you solve the problems, and you start to understand more and more. Ever tried that?”

She shook her head morosely. So morosely that it was as if I had asked whether she started her day with group sex.

“But,” she asked, “why?”

“Maybe so you can pass your stupid exam?”

At this point she started crying again. I watched with fascination as the lumps of mascara stuck her eyelids together and she wiped them away with her hand and rubbed the black clumps between her fingers. Then she wiped her fingers off on the wall.

“I don’t know,” she said, which I found hilarious.

“We’re doing it,” I said. “A little bit of studying. It’s not fatal. You won’t get addicted. No chance of that.”

“And what if I still don’t pass the fucking exam?” she asked.

“Yeah?”

“You’ll get angry.”

I laughed. “You have no idea how angry I’ll get,” I said. “If you fail, you better steer clear of me.”

Then she laughed, too.

I go to her place every morning around ten. I get up a half an hour before that and shower and eat breakfast, while reading a book. Maria and Anton have already gone to the pool and Alissa is off at kindergarten. It’s the best part of the day.

Almost every second day I have to ring the bell for ages and kick the door just to wake Angela up. She always opens the door just as I’ve given up and am about to head back to our apartment. Then suddenly the door opens and she appears in her pajamas, with a teddy bear, her dyed blond hair sticking up, lines from the pillow pressed into her face.

“Huh?” she says. “Who is it?”

“Huh?” I say. “Integers?”

Then she snaps to. “Shit,” she says, depressed. “Fucking shit. I was having such a nice dream.”

She always takes off her pajamas as if I’m not there and puts on a miniskirt or something else along those lines. She has pale, milky-white skin and there are always bluish mother-of-pearl-like splotches on it. She changes in seconds flat and then makes a cup of instant lemon tea. Then she pulls out a slice of bread, toasts it, tops it with a piece of cheese, a thick slice of salami, and—struggling, her tongue out—squeezes a spiral of ketchup on top, and then sits down next to me with all the enthusiasm of a galley slave.

It’s a shame nobody has ever videotaped us. Angela’s not completely idiotic, just in spurts. Sometimes she understands things, though most of the time she’s completely lost. She needs her fingers to help count. She often holds up her hands in front of her face as if to shield herself from a math problem she’s just glimpsed.

“They’re just numbers,” I say. “They don’t bite. You have to play with them.”

“Play?” she asks, looking at me horrified. She’s afraid of me, like Maria. I try to remain patient with her, but I’ve yelled at her a few times.

But that’s not the only reason she cries. She’s plagued by fundamental doubt. She cries at some point during almost every session.

“I don’t understand anything,” she often says. “Why do they want to torture me with this stuff?”

“So your pretty little head doesn’t just float away because it’s so light and empty,” I say. “Or maybe you think you wouldn’t even miss it?”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“I’m going to fail,” Angela says. “I know it. Do you really think my head is pretty?”

“It’s okay,” I say. “But I’m not a boy.”

Still, it’s not as if our sessions are worthless. She is getting a little better. When she understands something, she flushes with happiness. She looks down and waits with rosy cheeks for my praise.

“See,” I say, “you can do it if you just set your mind to it.”

“It was just luck,” she says. “I’m telling you, I can’t do math.”

“But you just got that right.”

“Like I said, it was by accident.”

“You don’t have to be coy with me. I know how much trouble you have with this stuff. But you got that right.”

She leans back over the books with a look on her face as if she’s about to throw up.

It’s strange that I never see Grigorij in the apartment.

“Where’s your father hiding?” I ask one time. “Does he work mornings now? I haven’t seen him in ages.”

“He’s in his room,” says Angela.

“Why—is he sick?”

“He’s drinking,” Angela says casually. “He usually drinks all night long. Then he sleeps like a log all morning.”

A chill runs through me.

“Is that something new?”

“What?”

“That he’s so hardcore.”

Angela shrugs her shoulders. “He used to do it once in a while,” she says. “But it used to be rare. After three weeks he’d be clear-headed again and wouldn’t drink at all for six months or so. It was no big deal. But it’s been two months straight now with just a couple of days off.”

“Holy shit,” I say. “Why?”

“I don’t know,” Angela says. “Maybe because that fat-ass in your apartment threw him out.”

“How does he make it to work?” I ask.

“How could he go to work—on all fours? He got fired.”

“He was a . . . ”

“Cab driver. Good job. Always worked nights. And I had peace and quiet here.”

I look around, forgetting the math for a minute.

“Who takes care of the household here?” I ask. “I thought he cooked and ironed.”

“Household?” Angela looks at me, bewildered.

“Yeah, I mean, everything’s cleaned up.”

“Only my room’s clean. Nobody cleans the rest of the place. I don’t have time. I have to study.”

I laugh.

“What?” Angela says angrily. “It’s enough that I do the shopping and cook. What else should I have to do? You have it good, that fat old lady does everything.”

“Don’t talk about her like that,” I say automatically. “Anyway, she’s not old. She’s only thirty-seven.”

“So? My father’s thirty-six and he ain’t young.”

“What?” I blurt. “I thought he was at least fifty.”

“Listen,” says Angela, “are you here to talk about my father?”

I hunch over a piece of paper with an equation on it.

As I’m leaving I look around furtively. There are three other doors off the hallway. They are all closed. Behind one of them is Grigorij. I hold my breath but can’t hear anything. I can’t believe he’s been lying here every morning and I didn’t realize it. I thought he had avoided being around when I was there. Now I also notice that there are dust bunnies the size of tennis balls in the corners. And that the winter jackets are still hanging in the entryway.

“Where are all the empty bottles?” I ask.

“In the garbage,” says Angela in an irritated tone. “What would possess you to ask that? Do you expect me to leave them sitting around? You sure are curious. It’s not like your place was always dry.”

“It was, actually,” I say blankly. “Even Vadim. At least compared to everyone else around here. How long will your father keep doing this?” I ask. “When does it stop?”

Angela doesn’t look at me. She looks at herself in the mirror. She’s pretty plump—about twice as wide as me. She’s wearing hot pants that cut into her light skin and a leopard-print bikini top.

I notice for the first time that she has a piercing in her belly button. Steel-colored with a blue stone in it. When she’s sitting down there are folds on her stomach and you can’t see her belly button.

It also occurs to me that it would look better on me.

“When he dies, I guess,” says Angela, and turns away from the mirror.

“What do you mean?”

“You just asked when my father would stop. And I’m saying he’ll stop when he drinks himself to death. Are you leaving now? I have to meet someone.”

I walk out with my books under my arms. I find myself wondering why a feeling of shame is once again washing over me.

Then suddenly I’m all pissed off.

Maybe I’ve looked in the mailbox one too many times. There’s still nothing for me in it. All of a sudden I can’t take it anymore.

I never wanted to wait around for anything like that—a postcard, a text message, a call. I’m not one of those stupid girls. It’s not the end of the world for me if some asshole doesn’t stay in touch. Nobody to blame but himself. Or the post office. The mail can take weeks. And he’s not going to write the first day of his vacation, the jerk.

Sascha doesn’t wait around.

But she is waiting right now.

I’m starting to hate myself for it. As well as the person who hasn’t written. I’m not sure which one I mean. Volker and Felix have merged into one single person who is enjoying himself on an island somewhere, looking out at the ocean, letting white sand trickle between his fingers, cracking open coconuts or whatever, and all the while not thinking about me at all.

I decide to stop running to the mailbox all the time. And not to get on the phone when they’re back and call me. If they call. They can kiss my ass.

I ride my bike downtown to return some books to the library. I check out a couple new ones and sit down outside on a warm stone wall. Behind me a briar of dark-pink dog roses are in bloom and it annoys me that they are thriving so prettily when I feel so miserable.

I don’t notice at first when someone addresses me. I often don’t get it when someone tries to chat me up.

“Did you leave your hearing aids at home?” says the person. I look up and can’t help but smile.

What I see: blond, blue eyes, sunburn on the face and upper arms. Male.

I stop smiling and my eyes return to my book.

“Hello? I guess I’ll have to talk a little bit louder.”

I have to smile again.

All of a sudden he sits down beside me, so close that I shift away a little.

“Hot,” he says.

“Uh-huh.”

“The wall, I mean. Doesn’t it burn your legs in those shorts?”

I look at my legs. So does he, intently.

I look back at my book.

“I keep asking myself whether we know each other,” he says, his gaze still lowered.

I close the book.

“I’ve been asking myself the same thing,” I say.

“So,” he says cheerily, “have we met somewhere before?”

“I’m not sure if it was you,” I say. “But one time when I was downtown on my bike, my chain came off. I squatted down to put it back on and suddenly there was someone standing next to me offering to help me. I thanked him without looking up, then I did look up—and you know what?”

“What?”

“Turns out he was—how should I put it?—he was an exhibitionist.”

“Huh?” His jaw drops. “He . . . his pants . . . ?”

“Yep.” I lift my face up toward the sun. It’s fun to make somebody uncomfortable right off the bat. “To put it in the most genteel way, he exposed himself.”

“And he looked like me?” he asks.

“No idea,” I say. The best part is that it’s all true—the bike chain, being downtown, everything. And all I can remember is the person had blond hair not entirely unlike this guy here. “I wasn’t really looking at his face.”

“What were you looking at?” he says flatly.

I shrug my shoulders. If I were in his place, I could think of a thousand funny retorts in the time he just sits there staring at me. But that’s all he does—sit there thinking about my words. Or maybe about something completely different.

“Well, it wasn’t me,” he finally says.

“Too bad,” I say. He looks at me blankly, not getting the joke.

How should he know what I’m thinking. How should he know that the fog I had managed to banish for a little while is back again, filling me from the tips of my toes to the ends of my hair. It’s probably about to waft out of my mouth. I shut my lips tight.

I’ll make a last desperate attempt to cast it off. I’ll go out with anyone who talks to me right now, and do anything—the dirtier the better. If I piss myself off, it’ll make me feel better.

That’s what I’m thinking as I look the guy over. He’s not unattractive. The best thing about him is his gleaming white T-shirt that’s clearly just been ironed. I’d love to know whether it smells good like fresh laundry. He could almost be nice if he wasn’t so slow on the uptake.

Still, nobody else has chatted me up, so I’ll take what I can get.

“What did you want anyway?” I ask.

“What do you mean?”

“What did you want from me? Did you want to ask me something?”

“Huh? Oh, yeah. Ask something, right. Do you want to come to the city fair tonight?” He says it quickly, looking past me. It’s not a very effective approach. I look right at him and he seems to get a bit uncomfortable as I hold his gaze.

“Why?” I ask. “Why did you want to ask that?”

“Just because,” he says, glancing at me briefly and then looking away again.

City fair, right, of course, I think. Rollercoasters, cotton candy, haunted house. What else. A merry-go-round where they spray you with water. Upside down, spun around like in a washing machine. Betting who will puke first.