Alina Bronsky - Just Call Me Superhero

She nodded and sat down. Dirk looked even younger sitting next to Claudia. His head was covered in light-colored fluff and as we ate I couldn’t stop looking at his Adam’s apple, which looked huge against his thin neck. With every mouthful it went up and down like a mouse struggling in a snake’s throat. Since I had my sunglasses on I could stare at Dirk as much as I wanted.

“What is it you do again?” I asked.

He put his fork down on the edge of the plate and folded his hands. He was a lawyer like Claudia, he said.

“Where’s your office? Do you have any chronic diseases? Are you married?” I asked.

To his credit, Dirk didn’t turn to Claudia to look for help. He picked up his fork again and slowly sawed a piece of meat from the lamb chop as if there was nothing more important in the world.

“As a child I had eczema,” he informed the bones on his plate. “I’ve heard you are interested in medicine?”

“I’m not the slightest bit interested in medicine,” I said. “I’m interested in defects.”

Just at that moment the phone rang.

I sat there like I was nailed down. It had been a family rule since I was little: never leave the table to answer the phone. Nobody rang these days anyway. Not for me at least. The answering machine clicked on. And then I heard Janne’s voice asking me to call her back.

Excuse me, please,” I said to Claudia the next morning. I had set my alarm just to be able to apologize to her. Usually I didn’t fall asleep until dawn, when I would gulp down a tablet, and then I didn’t wake up until around noon. Dirk was already gone. The kitchen smelled like coffee and croissants that had been crisped in the oven. “I’m sorry about yesterday,” I said.

“It’s fine.” Claudia kept reading the paper.

“I didn’t mean to ruin it for you,” I said. “Word of honor.”

“If you could ruin something so quickly then it wouldn’t have been worth anything to begin with,” Claudia said as she continued to flip through the paper. She had on a gray skirt and a bright white top with a banded collar. The red polished toes of her bare feet felt around on the floor as if they were searching for fallen crumbs.

I sat down across from her, took a croissant from the bread basket, and broke off one of the ends. It was still warm. I dribbled a little lemon jelly from the knife into the open end of the croissant and shoved the entire thing into my mouth.

“Can I ask you something?” Claudia had put the paper to the side and glanced at me over the rims of her glasses.

“Yeah?” I asked with my mouth full.

“What’s your plan?”

“For today?”

“Today, tomorrow. In general. Are things just going to go on like this?”

I didn’t say anything.

“You had friends. You had interests. You did theater for god’s sake. Was all of that so ephemeral that it just completely disappeared into thin air? Or can I assume that you’re just taking a break and will get back to it all again at some point?”

I sighed, took a glass from the counter, made sure it was empty, and threw it onto the floor. Stupidly enough, it didn’t break. Claudia didn’t even glance at it.

“If you are so inclined to be destructive, then become a contract killer. At least it pays well.”

I closed my eyes. I tried to picture it for a moment. How I would go to his house and knock at the door. How he’d open the door, looking just like an attack dog himself, an attack dog in human form, with his deformed hairless head, little murderous eyes, bared teeth. How I would kick in the door holding my weapon. How I’d give him time to recognize me before I pulled the trigger. How I’d smash the muzzle into the face of his girlfriend, who had laughed back then but was screaming in panic now. How I would let her live but she, like me, would never look the same again.

And then how I’d hear a baby crying in the next room and understand that I wouldn’t feel any better and that I never would.

I opened my eyes. Claudia was reading the paper.

“I have no desire to live,” I said.

“Oh, my god.” She flipped the page.

“Look at me,” I said. “Look at me right now for god’s sake.”

“I don’t feel like it,” said Claudia. “It’s a horrid sight, men in their underpants at the breakfast table.”

Only after I saw the taillights of Claudia’s car out the window and was sure she wasn’t coming back to get some files or her reading glasses did I call Janne back.

“Hello, this is Janne,” she said, her voice warm and sunny, sounding every bit like a nice, carefree girl next door.

“It’s Marek,” I said. “Thanks for your call.”

No idea why I said that. She had said basically nothing on the answering machine, and even if she had said something it was unlikely to have been something to be thankful for. I had an idea of what she wanted. She was worried that I was going to bail out. I had what it took to be the face of the project.

Together with her, of course.

Well, well, Marlon, I thought. You’re blind and handsome. But I can use my face as a weapon. That counts for a bit more. Janne knows to appreciate it.

“What can I do for you, Janne?” I asked as dryly as possible. It was fun to say her name.

“Come over,” said Janne.

“What for?”

“Pick me up. We can go to the meeting together.”

Out of the question, I wanted to answer. Fifteen minutes later I was running out the door, combing my hair with my fingers, and noticing that it was unusually short despite the fact that I’d asked Johanna to go easy.

She lived in a white concrete box, the kind Claudia called a “townhouse.” At the front gate was a sign forbidding dogs to shit there. Behind the fence colorful flowers with jagged petals bloomed. There was a fashion catalogue in the mailbox.

It was already too late when it occurred to me that I hadn’t brought her anything. I was already here. I rang the bell.

It took a while before the door to the house opened and her mother waved to me from the doorway. The gate buzzed open. I walked along the artfully winding slate walkway past the flowers and across to the house. Janne’s mother stared at me, a smile glued somewhat lopsidedly to her face. Her gaze skittered down me and landed on my hand, which I immediately stuck in my pocket.

“Janne,” she whispered. “ The boy . For you.” And she quickly stepped to the side to let me in.

Janne’s room was on the ground floor, naturally. She came toward me in her wheelchair. Close your mouth, I ordered myself. Now. I’d just told her mother my name and shaken her hand.

“Is Marek a Czech name?” she asked. She was still holding my hand, as if she wanted to show me that she wasn’t the slightest bit disgusted by me.

“Slovak,” I said. Janne rolled up to me and smiled. She had on one of her long dresses, this one in blue. She’d pulled her hair back in a ponytail. Her cheeks were flushed, like she’d just been exercising or was incredibly excited.

She reached out her hand. I let go of her mother’s hand and touched Janne’s fingers. They were cold, just like I had thought. I held them in my hand. I couldn’t take my hand back because Janne was holding me tight.

“Come on.”

I threw a smile at her mother that was meant to apologize and at the same time assure her that I didn’t want to devour her daughter behind closed doors. The fact that Janne was still holding my hand was driving me crazy. Unlike her mother she seemed to be taking a perverse pleasure in it. Instead of enjoying it, I would rather have yelled at her: “What right do you have? What kind of game are you playing with me?”

Finally she let go and wheeled herself into her room ahead of me. It was exactly the way I’d imagined a girl’s room would be. A pretty big bed, big enough for two people to sleep in, bookshelves, a big table with a gigantic monitor. I looked around for webcams. I spotted two right away. There was a white wooden wardrobe and its door was open, allowing a view of quite a few long dresses. On the dresser, which was also white, was a brush. Girls with no legs apparently arranged things no differently from the way girls with legs did. Janne closed the door and turned to me.