Alina Bronsky - Just Call Me Superhero

“Go home,” I said to Tammy, who was standing on the platform in her short dress shivering.

She nodded and didn’t budge. It would have been better if she had left. As it was I couldn’t really sit down, I had to look at her and wonder whether she was waiting out of a sense of obligation and was actually thinking about how much each extra minute of parking was costing her. But she persevered until the train pulled away and then waved and I waved back. Then I couldn’t see her anymore.

The puppy had managed to climb out of the basket. He discovered my shoe and wagged his little tail so eagerly you’d think he had been missing that shoe his entire life. I caught him again and put him back in the basket.

Air was being sucked out the window. I closed it and threw my suitcase up on the luggage rack. I was looking forward to Claudia. I had a few things to say to her. But I had a feeling that by the time I got to Berlin my big speech would have dwindled to just a few words.

And I wouldn’t say them anyway.

I turned toward the mirror and took off my glasses.

The Daily Beast calls Alina Bronsky “an exciting new voice in the literary world.” She has been hailed as a literary wunderkind whose writing style the Financial Times describes as “potent and vital.” Bronsky is the author of Broken Glass Park —“the most astonishing debut in years”—and The Hottest Dishes of the Tartar Cuisine , which was named a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year. Just Call Me Superhero is her third novel. She lives in Berlin.