Alina Bronsky - Just Call Me Superhero

Suddenly she let go of me and rolled herself back a few feet. My knees were weak. I tensed them so they wouldn’t buckle, suddenly consumed with the irrational fear that Janne had robbed me of the use of my legs and that from now on I was doubly cursed — no face, no legs. I braced myself against the wall and turned automatically toward the webcam. It seemed to be turned off, the red light wasn’t on, so I didn’t bother with a smile for the public. My legs were still there and they held me up. Janne watched me from a little distance with gleaming eyes and a very broad grin.

I pushed Janne’s wheelchair across the sidewalk. Her mother stood in the doorway and watched us go. I turned and waved. She waved back, awkward and stiff. When I said goodbye she had kissed me on both cheeks and I breathed in her sweet perfume and blinked at the little wrinkles beneath the layers of makeup around her eyes.

I could no longer see Janne’s face, only the part in her black hair. We didn’t talk to each other. From up above I could see a bit of her lap, the depression in the folds of her dress, her small hands, her fingers interlaced.

“Should I get you a lapdog?” I asked while we were waiting at a traffic light.

“What for?”

“It would suit you. A yapping little pooch with a hair clip sitting in your lap.”

“Great idea,” said Janne.

It took us barely an hour to get to the family services center and that was only because I was so slow. I didn’t go into the meditation room. This time we’d arranged to meet in the little garden behind the building. “So Janne doesn’t have to go up any stairs,” the guru had said. But there was a ramp at the main entrance or else Janne wouldn’t have been able to get in the other times — I began to notice such things for the first time.

Everyone else was there, spread out on two wooden benches on either side of an old table which had a giant bottle of apple juice and a stack of plastic cups on it. They all looked at us, all of them, even Marlon with his sunglasses looked as if he was glaring at us. Now that we’d left the pavement it was much tougher to push the wheelchair. I started to sweat. The guru quickly hoisted the camera and pointed it at us like a weapon.

“Janne?” asked Marlon in a voice as taut as a guitar string.

“… and Marek,” added Friedrich, beaming.

“Is that really the way to do it?” asked Richard after the guru had greeted us all. “Are you the team leader and cameraman all in one?”

“I’m everything, all in one.” The guru walked around us with his device and I wanted to swat him away like a fly. “I always have been, my whole life. I’m the director, screenwriter, cameraman, speaker, cook, his girl Friday. A creator par excellence.”

“Maybe we should fire you and get somebody else,” said Janne. “Someone who understands what’s up with us.”

“Go right ahead,” said the guru. “Why did you two show up together by the way? You’re not starting something between you, are you? I’m warning you. Think of your children.”

I choked on my apple juice. Everyone looked at me. Especially Marlon. I was sure that he did. Janne gazed into the distance with her hands folded in her lap as if she had nothing to do with any of this and least of all with me.

“Relationships,” said the guru as if in a reverie, “are tough enough for us normal people. They could really drive you guys crazy. Does anyone here have a girlfriend? Does anyone want to tell us about it?”

Richard said nothing and without thinking began to fidget with the ring he wore on his pinkie. Marlon turned his face toward Janne and whistled a melody. Janne sat there like a bystander. And the poof named Kevin raised his hand and said, “I have a very sweet boyfriend.”

But nobody wanted to know any more about that, so silence descended over the group again.

“People, this isn’t going to work,” said the guru after a pause.

“Exactly,” said Janne. “We’re wasting our time. You need to do your work or there’s no point to all of this.”

The guru closed his eyes. Then he opened them again and exhaled slowly, like a boy who has just accidentally climbed up to the ten-meter diving platform. “There’s no way to avoid it,” said the guru. “We have to take a trip. All of us, together.”

What’s this?” asked Claudia when I put the note on the table.

“You have to sign it,” I said. “Right here.” I pointed with my finger.

She straightened her glasses and leaned over the piece of paper. “You’re going on a trip with your group?”

That sentence was like a punch to the gut. Total self-destruction. Yes, I’m going on a trip with my group.

“You?” asked Claudia skeptically. “ You are going on a trip with your self-help group? Why am I just learning about this now?”

“Everything is explained there,” I said. “It’s a spur-of-the-moment group decision. You said yourself that I should socialize more.”

“I said that?” Claudia read the sheet of paper through for the fifth time. “I’m not signing this until I’ve spoken to him.”

“Please don’t. I’ve already been humiliated enough.”

Claudia shook her head. Then with a flourish she signed her name on the space that was separated from the informational letter by a dotted line and a tiny scissor symbol.

“But a thousand euros for one week,” she said, “that’s a heck of a lot, my dear. Weeklong camps run by the school cost a fifth of that. How do you like the guy who runs it anyway?”

I ignored her question. “It’s because the accommodations are handicapped accessible.”

We ate the three of us again that evening. Dirk had given up trying to engage me in conversation. He twisted his spaghetti onto his fork and chatted with Claudia about scuba diving. I liked him a lot better this way. I twisted my spaghetti on my fork and looked through a travel book on Mecklenburg-Vorpommern.

Until Claudia took it from me, shut it, and tossed it onto the chair next to her.

“Pull yourself together,” she said.

“I’m going away for a week with my self-help group,” I said to Dirk as if in confidence. He was wearing an unbelievably pink shirt. I’d heard that even men wore pink these days, but it bothered me on him.

“Really?” he asked politely. “Where are you going?”

“Marenitz,” I said.

“And where is that again?”

I didn’t know myself. The guru said something about a three-story villa. A room for him, a room for Janne, three double rooms for “you guys,” kitchen, and a common room with a woodstove. I knew it was going to be a disaster and I knew I would definitely go anyway.

“Will you look after Claudia and feed my fish during my absence?”

“Certainly.”

“That eases my mind,” I lied.

I was lying in bed and looking at the catfish in the aquarium when Claudia knocked at my door.

“Phone for you,” she said and was already in my room before I said “come in.” She handed me the phone. “You’re very much in demand lately. It’s almost like the old days.”

I took the warm phone out of her hand. An anxious, frail female voice vibrated in my ear canal. I quickly scratched my ear because it tickled. And that’s how long it took me to recognize the voice of Janne’s mother.

“I just really wanted to know if you were also going on this trip, Marek,” she said. “It makes me nervous to agree to this scheme since I don’t know anyone. Except for… ” Her voice trailed off again.

I was so surprised that all I could do was cough. And then I said yes to everything. Yes, I will look out for Janne. Yes, I’ll hover around her. Yes, I realize she has limited mobility. Yes, I’m prepared to come by so she can tell me all of this in person and shake my hand one more time.