Alina Bronsky - Broken Glass Park

“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.”

“Today,” she says.

“Where’s the test? Let me have a look at it. Maybe you didn’t read it correctly.”

“I didn’t do a test.”

“How do you know then?”

“I threw up. I felt really ill.”

“Doesn’t that always happen when you drink a lot the night before?”

“Yes,” Angela says with a smile. “But it was different today.”

“How?”

“It was a different kind of sick. Somehow a nice sick. I just couldn’t stop puking. And afterwards I still felt nauseated. And by the way, we do use condoms. Most of the time. Until three nights ago, actually. The condom dispenser was empty. So fucked up.”

“Three days ago?” I say, incredulous.

“Yes.”

“And you think you’re pregnant from. . ”

“Obviously. The night before that there were still condoms in the dispenser.”

“Oh, man,” I say. “You belong in the zoo, Angela. You can’t be pregnant yet.”

“Why not?” she says, confused. “Of course I could be.”

«But you wouldn’t know it yet. Your supposed child would still be a cell making its way down the fallopian tube. It wouldn’t be implanted yet. There would be no way to tell. What did you eat yesterday?»

“I don’t know,” says Angela. “All kinds of stuff. Jam. Something in tomato sauce.”

I get ready to go. I’m afraid to ask whether she’s heard anything about Vadim.

I wish I had her problems, I think. Actually, no, I don’t.

“How do you know that?” asks Angela suspiciously, watching as I move toward the door. “That it’s not attached yet. That I can’t be pregnant. Yet.”

“If you’re worried, you can take a morning after pill,” I say. “You should try to take it today. So it doesn’t imbed. Just in case Murat did slip one past the goalie.”