Alina Bronsky - Just Call Me Superhero

She hung up and I felt like a pantry moth on flypaper.

She was standing in the doorway again, waiting for me. She was very slender, that’s what I noticed first. In her slim-cut dark blue pants and white blouse with round collar, she could have passed for a girl, from the back at least, a girl from a previous era, maybe the thirties or the fifties, I couldn’t have told you the difference.

It seemed to me that her smile was a bit less tense than it was the first time. That was normal. People got used to me.

“Marek.” Again as a greeting she held my hand in her ice-cold fingers. “We’ve been expecting you.”

And I thought, why in the hell didn’t you bring flowers, you idiot? If not for corrosive Janne then at least for her mother.

As I went down the cool hallway I wondered whose voices I was hearing floating toward me from the slightly open door. One was clearly Janne’s, but the second one? Of course I recognized it instantly and just pretended I didn’t, because the knowledge of whose voice it was gave me a pain in my stomach that transformed into nausea. I knocked a little too loudly on the door. On Janne’s bed sat a smiling Marlon, and Janne was laughing so much that I was tempted to take her for a cheerful twin sister. When I’d been there recently she hadn’t laughed like that. Actually she hadn’t laughed at all.

They greeted me with a bland cheerfulness, like a married couple who patiently accept being interrupted by the mailman in the middle of the most fascinating conversation. I leaned against the door and tried to control my breathing. What I really wanted to do was run away, hurt and insulted. But I didn’t want Janne to laugh at me. I would like to have killed the last woman who laughed at me. But the only one who was killed, other than me, was the Rottweiler.

I noticed a red rattan chair in the corner and sat down in it. My behind sank deep into the seat cushion. Janne smiled. To what no-doubt-important rationale did I owe the honor of my invitation, I asked her loudly.

“Mama wanted it,” said Janne casually. “She’s all worried about the trip.”

I would have done exactly the same thing if I were her mother. I just didn’t know what her worries had to do with me. I asked Janne, in the hopes that she’d be embarrassed that her mother had dragged me into it despite the fact that she, Janne, was busily devoting her time to another guy.

“Mama just wanted to meet the other people going on the trip,” said Janne as if it went without saying. She certainly didn’t look embarrassed. “That way she’ll be a little more comfortable with it. I’ve never gone away on my own before. Without Mama.”

“And why are you now?”

“Because I want to.”

Then she forgot me for a while and began chattering away again about some meaningless claptrap. It had been a long time since I’d been so thoroughly ignored. I couldn’t remember if I ever had been. When she got around to talking about breeds of dogs, I got up and left the room without a word. That is, I wanted to leave the room but ran into Janne’s mother in the doorway. She invited us all to the dining room for tea.

We sat at an oval table. The tablecloth was hanging way down on one side. I was next to Janne’s mama, Janne next to Marlon. Behind us a piano, on it some open sheet music.

Her mother poured fruit tea and pushed the milk and sugar around the table like they were action figures. I had the impression that she was putting real effort into making sure she divided her attention evenly between me and Marlon. You couldn’t say the same about Janne. She just kept talking about dogs.

I turned to Janne’s mother and asked her what she did. She was a translator from Swedish and French. I reported that I had a Slavic name; I completely forgot that we’d already talked about that during my first visit. I said I also had a Ukrainian stepmother who wasn’t much older than me. She’d been our au pair.

Not much older than me wasn’t entirely accurate. Tamara had been eighteen then, and that was already seven years ago.

Janne’s mother fell sheepishly silent. I’d always thought that the mothers of disabled children wouldn’t be easily shocked. But maybe her husband had run off with an au pair girl as well. In any event, she didn’t want to delve any deeper into the subject of my stepmother, so I asked as politely as possible what she was working on at the moment. She was translating a book on suicide, she said, and the writing was very intense. I praised the topic and revealed to her that my mother was a divorce attorney.

“Right,” she said distractedly, “I’ve heard about her.” I discovered time and time again that a lot of people had heard of Claudia. Clearly the institution of marriage wasn’t in great shape.

I finished my tea and got up. Janne and her mother both came to the door to say goodbye. Janne’s mother said she was happy that Janne would be accompanied on the trip by such wonderful young men, that it would be almost like family. She sounded suspiciously like the guru but I generously ignored that fact. I told her I’d like to read one of her translations, if the one about suicide wasn’t finished then another one about a comparable topic. Janne shook my hand and forced me to bend down so she could give me a kiss on each cheek. Little devils danced in her eyes. I suddenly understood why someone might want to strangle a girl he was in love with.

I desperately tried to convince Claudia not to drive me to the train station. I said my bag wasn’t heavy at all and that I could find the correct platform on my own. If any complications came up I could always ask somebody (at that point I pushed my sunglasses up on top of my head for a moment and Dirk flinched). Claudia said in an annoyed tone that she didn’t have to go all the way to the platform, but that she at least wanted to drive me to the station, she owed that to me, to herself, and to our, she paused briefly, group leader. He’s the last person she owed anything, I said. He’s an asshole and a liar, but on the plus side there’s a pretty girl going. Claudia started to cough and I rapped on her back.

Dirk piped up that he could do it, too. Take me to the station. I wondered what made him think he would be any more palatable to me as a chaperone than Claudia was. Then it became clear that he suspected I didn’t like feeling controlled by Claudia.

“Sure, you drive me to the station,” I generously permitted him. “My mother is always busy at the office at that time of day anyway.”

It was more complicated than I expected.

The night before, I’d already thrown everything into my suitcase, including six pairs of sunglasses in identical leather cases, when the phone rang. I figured it was Janne again or at least her mother wanting to reassure herself that I really would keep an eye out for Janne. But I was disappointed. It was Kevin on the phone, and he asked me in a friendly tone how I was planning to get to the station.

Like an idiot I told him the truth. He asked whether it would be too much trouble for us to pick him up. He lived practically around the corner and his boyfriend had to go to work. He gave me a street name I’d never heard of before. I didn’t really have any choice.

Claudia said goodbye with a kiss on the cheek and a slap on the back — like I had dust on my back. I promised to send her a text as soon as I arrived. Then she was off, and I stared at the spot where she had just been standing.

Dirk drove a two-seater convertible. There was a backseat, but it wouldn’t have held anyone bigger than a munchkin and our gang of cripples didn’t include one of those. I squeezed my suitcase into the tiny trunk. Kevin would have to tie his to the back, I thought, and it would roll along behind us.