Alina Bronsky - Just Call Me Superhero

Hello, people,” said the guru into the lens, smiling feebly. The camera seemed to wobble in his hands, the picture was awful, and his facial expression was strained. He pulled his hat frantically off his head. The camera shook even worse. Instead of turning it off I stared with wide eyes at the display.

“Hello, children,” said the guru and something happened to his eyes. They glazed over strangely. I felt a sense of embarrassment well up in me. I didn’t think men should cry.

“Hello, dear children,” said the guru. “You know by now that you aren’t my only ones. You’re just my… the most interesting. I love you all. You don’t have to believe me. You have no reason to trust me. But I can sleep a little easier knowing that you at least have each other.”

The camera slipped out of my hands and I grabbed it back. There wasn’t much to see. The guru looked at me from the display and cried. I shifted impatiently in my seat.

“Don’t think too poorly of me,” he finally managed to say.

At that moment my thumb pushed the fast-forward button. I didn’t want to hear him anymore.

The guru’s face grimaced in fast-motion. It was impossible to tell whether he was talking or just silently stewing over his thoughts. His hand flew up to his forehead, the hat landed back on his head at some point and then was taken off again.

I had no patience. I slowed the playback to normal speed again when Janne’s face appeared. Janne in the garden next to Marlon, who was running his finger along the wheel of her wheelchair, a gesture that made me turn red. One of the first recordings we did together. They looked good, both of them. But it didn’t help them. If the guru had his way they would be each other’s half-siblings.

And mine as well.

I leaned my head back and laughed myself sick.

They were nice recordings, blurry but atmospheric, they looked as if they’d been shot decades ago rather than last week. The kind of movies you showed your grandchildren. That’s me as a child. Right there I’m traveling with my… uh… never mind. That’s your great-aunt Janne. She was so pretty then. And Marlon would have surely broken my nose that day if he wasn’t as blind as a mole. I got lucky. What happened to your great-uncle Friedrich, you’ll have to ask him yourselves, I never understood it. Here he still looks like a cheap teddy bear won at the funfair. For some reason he’d planned to off himself back then but then he’d reconsidered. Maybe he’d found out he couldn’t have had the inherited diseases he’d embraced up to then.

My finger swept along the camera bag. It had a few side pockets, something was crackling inside, I pulled it out because I thought at first it felt like money. But it was just a piece of paper, folded up several times to make it very small. I unfolded it and smoothed it out.

It was a list of names. Quite a lot of names, with numbers next to them, and next to those, in parentheses, women’s names. Birth dates: they started three years before mine and ended two years later. Mothers and their children. It was easy to find our six. They were all marked with stars.

I didn’t want anyone to think I had friends. Certainly not friends like them. We would never be friends. In reality it was far worse. In reality everything was far worse. And weirder.

I couldn’t find a doorbell so I knocked with my fist and pushed it open. I still remembered how I always walked by this place on the way to kindergarten. The smell of horses and straw crept under the door and out onto the street and had intoxicated me. Sometimes I’d stopped and waited for the door to finally open and a horse that I was sure lived there to come out. But it never happened, not a single time.

“Come in!” called a woman’s voice but I was already inside.

She was small and round and had a smile that reminded me of Lucy. She was about fifty, maybe older. She looked at me a little surprised; I held up my fist which was clutching the flyer I’d taken off the wall in front of the grocery store.

“Are they still here?”

“Of course. All of them.” She smiled again and led me to the stall. There stood a workbench, and next to it were stacks of wood. A huge wagon wheel entwined with ivy hung on the wall.

“Here.” The woman grabbed me carefully by the sleeve when I started in the wrong direction. She put a few crumbling foul-smelling lumps in my hand. “Give it to the mother.”

The mother licked my hand after I held out the lumps. Her tickly warm tongue sought out any remaining crumbs between my fingers. She had a pointy nose and bright eyes. Three fat babies ran toward me howling and bustled about my feet.

“All three?” The woman looked at me for a moment and then turned her face to the sun again. I squatted down to pet the mother.

“No,” I said. “Only two, unfortunately.”

She handed me a beat-up wicker basket, lined it with a tattered wool blanket, and together we trapped two of the puppies, a reddish one and another with black spots, and set them in the basket. They nudged each other and whimpered. The woman said something about chips and vaccinations but I didn’t listen. I petted the puppies. Then I handed the woman a hundred euros.

She took the money and put it in the pocket on the front of her apron.

“I can’t just give them away. Things that don’t cost anything don’t have any value.” She sounded as if she was trying to apologize.

“I know,” I said. “You’re totally right.”

The mother wagged her tail as if she couldn’t think of anything nicer than being freed of two of her children. I petted her one last time. The woman took me to the door.

“I’m sorry about your father,” she said when I was back out on the street. “Peace to his soul.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“I would have recognized you anyway, though,” she said. “You used to come past here all the time on the way to kindergarten.”

She seemed to be waiting for an answer, but I stood there mute with the basket of puppies pressed to my chest. Then she smiled one last time and closed the door, and I hadn’t asked her if she’d ever really had a horse in the stalls.

Are you crazy?” shouted Tammy. “How do you see it working?”

“I promised him,” I said.

“You’re a regular superhero — you promise things and then I’m the bad guy. How dare you? What am I supposed to feed it?”

“I’ll pay for the food,” I said. “And I’ll take him whenever you go on vacation.”

“That’s easy to say!”

We both turned at the same time to the window. Ferdi was running through the garden. The puppies waddled after him and yelped excitedly. When I saw Ferdi’s face I had to look away to avoid having something burst inside me. I threw a glance at Tammy. Tears were running down her face, but she was smiling.

“Come with me to Berlin,” I said. “You don’t have to stay here. I’ll take care of you. As best I can.”

She shook her head.

“What’s keeping you here?”

“You wouldn’t understand. And who is the second one for?” she asked huffily. “For you?”

I shrugged. For some reason I didn’t want to tell her. Maybe she’d get jealous. Maybe that was just a bunch of nonsense.

“It’s going be an awesome trip,” said Tammy impishly on the train platform. “I hope the doggy pisses all over you and you get into trouble with the other passengers.”

“No doubt about it,” I consoled her.

She didn’t ask if I could stay any longer. It raised her in my esteem. I hugged her and inhaled deeply and then heard her whisper hoarsely in my ear.

“I’ll always love him.”

“I know.”

I jostled with the door to the regional train that had rattled into the station. A mere six hours and two transfers later I’d be home. I found an empty compartment and put the basket with the puppy down on the seat. Above the headrest was a scratched mirror. The basket began to rock precariously so I put it down on the ground. Then I opened the window and leaned out.