Alina Bronsky - Broken Glass Park

But Felix is lying in the hospital right now. Or sitting up, staring out the window, upset, shoving aside his breakfast tray.

My mobile is under my pillow. I hold it up in front of my face and see exactly what I feared I would. Eleven missed calls since last night. I didn’t have it with me at the cinema, and I was distracted afterwards.

I know something else has happened. As if the terrible night is not yet over.

All the calls are from home.

I dial the number. My hand is shaking. It rings once. Then Maria answers.

“Hello?” she says in a scared tone. Wide awake.

“Maria,” I whisper loudly, as if Felix is sleeping next to me and I’m afraid I’ll wake him. “Maria, has something happened?”

“Sascha,” she says, and starts to cry.

I start to shiver. “Maria,” I say woodenly, remaining oddly calm. “What’s going on?”

She sobs and gulps.

“Maria,” I scream, “what is it? Something with Anton? Alissa? What happened to them? An accident? Appendicitis? Is one of them in the hospital? Was Vadim released? Maria, say something, or. . or I’ll come home.”

“Sascha,” she says, choke up, “please come back, my dear.”

“Tell me what’s going on. Have you forgotten how to talk?”

“Please come home.”

“Maria, you are driving me nuts.” I try to think of all the words I’ve seen written on derelict walls in Moscow or scrawled in the halls of the Emerald. Words that would have me thrown out of the Alfred Delp School for uttering. “Listen, you aborted fetus,” I begin, “you need to tell me what the hell happened!”

The longer Maria listens to me, the calmer she gets.

“Alexandra,” she finally says severely, sniffling one last time, “you need to tell me when you are coming home.”

“Where are Anton and Alissa?” I scream. I jump up and want to run somewhere and do something.

“In their beds,” Maria says grandly. “Where else would they be?”

“What are they doing?” I ask like an idiot.

“Sleeping,” she says. “What did you think?”

“Are they sick?”

“What?” she says. “No, they are healthy to the core. Anton did all his homework by himself. He got a hundred percent on his math homework. I couldn’t understand the others. Alissa wrote her name with only one ‘S.’”

“She’s got it tough with that name,” I say.

“Grigorij doesn’t come over anymore,” Maria says softly.

“Oh,” I say. “Why not?”

“When will you be home?” asks Maria. “I tried to reach you all night — I was so worried.”

My worries instantly melt away.

“You only called,” I say out of the blue, “because Anton brought a letter home from school and wouldn’t translate it and you want to know what it says.”

Maria sighs. “That, too.”

“I’ll come home,” I say. “Maybe even today.”

Then she starts to cry again — this time from happiness. It’s very quiet, but I hear it and hang up quickly.

“Families are so difficult,” I say later to Volker as he’s packing up Felix’s notebook computer and a few DVDs.

“Yes,” Volker says. “Families are walking natural disasters. In my next life I want to come back as a Buddhist monk. No attachments, no possessions, no hair. What about you?”

“President of the United States. I thought Felix was coming home today?”

“My experience tells me otherwise,” Volker says. “They probably didn’t want to tell him the truth yesterday for fear that he’d get upset and smash their expensive equipment. From your bed straight to the hospital — that’s a tough transition. He’ll have settled down by this morning, I hope. Do you really want to go home already?”

“What I’d really like to do,” I say, “is go someplace far away. An island, surrounded by nothing but ocean. Palm trees stretching up to the sky. Seagulls crying, white sand, mosquitoes, sunburn.”

“And Bacardi,” Volker says.

“Why Bacardi?” I ask.

“Because they have a commercial just like the scene you’re describing. Dancing girls in grass skirts. You’d look good in one.”

“I can’t dance,” I say.

“Even so,” says Volker. He turns the “Cider House Rules” DVD around in his hands. “Felix used to love this movie,” he says. “He had a crush on the blonde in it — Charlize Theron. Do you know if he still likes it?”

“He’s fallen for the other girl in it — the brunette,” I say. “But I can’t answer the question. Things change so fast, and people’s tastes even faster.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Volker says, sighing like an old man.

“Felix is going to be disappointed you’re gone,” he says without looking at me. “At least, I assume.”

“Say hello from me,” I suggest.

“I will,” Volker says. “And I’ll tell him you cried when you left and kissed his photo. That you stole one of his sweaty T-shirts out of the laundry as a memento. No, better yet, that I sold you the T-shirt for a bunch of money. That you’ll be sitting at home by the phone. He’s going to hate me for letting you leave.”

“Volker,” I say, “you’re just buttering me up.”

He stretches out his hand and runs it through my hair.

“I see a lot of your mother in you,” he says.

I open the apartment door and put down my backpack. The place smells like home fries and onions. I love potatoes and onions. The water is running in the bathroom. I can hear Anton and Alissa arguing in their room. “That was my card, you buttfucker,” says Alissa. “Scum,” retorts Anton.

I can’t stop grinning.

Suddenly they quiet down.

“I heard something,” says Anton. “Did you hear anything?”

“Yeah,” Alissa says. “Maybe.”

I don’t move. I can’t see them but I can picture the look they have on their faces right now. How they are now standing on their tiptoes, holding each other’s hands, and creeping toward the hallway with big eyes.

The door opens.

And then I hear it — deafening. Like a drum roll and a standing ovation at a major premiere. Like the roar of the crowd at a soccer match after a particularly spectacular goal.

“Sascha!” they scream and throw themselves at me.

I have the best grade point average in my entire class. “What odd grades,” says Maria. “This funny point system. Always fifteen points. It’s hard to keep them straight on the page. Why can’t it be as easy as it is back home: one through five. You’d have all fives. People would call you a well-rounded five-star student.”

“You’re well-rounded,” I say.

Alissa jumps on my back and hangs from my shoulders.

“When I grow up I want to have three babies,” she says loudly in my ear.

“Don’t shout,” I say. “Three — that’s a lot.”

“I want a lot,” Alissa says. “Do I have to couple three times?”

“Oh boy,” says Maria, suddenly getting very uncomfortable.

“No, you don’t have to,” I say in a strong tone. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“I can have babies without a partner?”

“Yes, of course,” I say. “What does the one thing have to do with the other?”

“I knew it!” says Alissa. “See Maria, I knew you didn’t need a partner. Do I have to kiss someone?”

“Well, you don’t have to,” I say, “but it doesn’t hurt.”

“We’ll see,” she says. “I’ll kiss you, okay? Or Anton.”

“Fine,” I say.

The phone rings that night.

“Sascha,” Maria calls. “Phone!”

“Answer it,” I say. “Push the green button.”

“It’s better if you do, dear.”

“Maria, I’m downloading something.”

“What?”

“Green button! You can do it! You’re annoying, Maria.”