“He found me because you told him that you’d seen me head out. That’s what he said anyway.”

Gitta had nodded. “Take care of yourself, Anna. And don’t believe everything you hear …”

There wasn’t literature class that day, but she’d passed Knaake in the corridor. “I’m on it,” he said walking by her, winking. “But I don’t know what I think yet. One shouldn’t believe everything one hears …”

Had they all gotten together to confuse her? Whom and what shouldn’t she believe?

“Now,” Micha said, closing the last plastic clasp. “With these skates, I’ll be so fast I’ll arrive at the mainland before the thirteenth of March. In the fairy tale, you know.” She held onto Anna’s arm, stood up, and started marching over the ice. Then she took bigger steps, and then she started to glide. Anna watched her glide away. She hadn’t known that Micha could skate; she’d figured she’d have to teach her. But the pink down jacket was all but flying now. Micha threw her arms up into the air and gave a scream of joy and made a pirouette without losing balance, like a true little queen.

“We don’t give children enough credit,” Anna murmured. “They can take perfect care of themselves. But what … what will happen on the thirteenth of March?”

She slowly walked over to Abel, and he looked surprised, too. “I didn’t know Micha knew how to skate.”

“What about you?” Anna asked. “Can you skate?” She bent down and got her own skates out of the backpack. And another pair that belonged to Magnus.

Abel shook his head. “I’ve never tried. I’m just gonna stand here and watch you two.”

“Oh no,” Anna said. “We’re not doing this without you.”

A little later Abel stood next to her on the ice, unsteady on his legs, helpless like a newborn foal, and she laughed. Neither of you seems happy, Gitta had said. But on that day, happiness came creeping back, it was an in-spite-of-everything-happiness, a childish, stubborn happiness, and Anna welcomed it with open arms. She took Abel’s hands and skated backward, pulling him along through the snow, far, far out onto the ice. “You just have to move along!” she shouted. “Your knees! You’ve gotta bend your knees! You’ve got joints there, haven’t you? It’s easy!”

“No!” he shouted back. “I don’t have knee joints … I’m sure I don’t! I …” And they ended up in a heap on the ice, and Micha came flying and landed on top, because she couldn’t resist, and, somehow, they sorted out their arms and legs and got up again. They each took one of Abel’s hands; they tried to push him, tried to pull him, tried to leave him alone and tell him from a distance what he had to do—it was impossible to teach Abel to skate. It was a disaster … It was the most wonderful thing in the world.

Anna’s stomach hurt from laughing so hard. She had snow in her hair, snow in her mouth, snow in her shoes … what did it matter? In her head, the sun was shining so brightly she could barely see. Later, she would think that these days—this one and the next—had been their best. She would always remember the light playing in Abel’s and Micha’s pale blond hair. She’d always hear their laughter. It was such happy and unburdened laughter, laughter from a world without dead bodies or social services, a world in which no one ever disappeared.

And then they were lying on the ice next to each other, flat on their backs, the three of them, and Abel said, “In summer, you know … in summer, I want to swim with you, right here. We’ll lie in the water just like this, only the sky will be a different color then. And the water will be warm and blue, and the sailors will pass us on their way out to the island of Rügen.”

“And we’ll eat loads of ice cream,” Micha added.

“Definitely.” Abel rolled onto his stomach. “And then we’ll lounge around on the beach all lazy, and we’ll build sandcastles …”

“With sea grass for decoration and pinecones for inhabitants,” Anna said.

Abel nodded. “When summer comes, there’ll be no more black ship. And no problems. When summer comes, I’ll be eighteen.”

“The thirteenth of March …” Anna began.

“That’s the day we’re going to reach the mainland,” Abel said, smiling.

“And we’re gonna celebrate,” Micha said. “We’re gonna celebrate Abel’s birthday. On that day, he’ll be a grown-up. Just like that, bang … and then he can be my father for real. It won’t be long now, Anna. Next Wednesday.”

Anna wanted to say that she wasn’t at all sure about the laws and that it was probably a lot more complicated than Abel and Micha imagined. But she didn’t say so. She said instead, “There’s hot chocolate in the thermos in my backpack.”

“Oh yeah, and we brought cookies!” Micha jumped up, and they started pushing and pulling and shoving Abel back toward the beach. And then they got rid of their skates and had a picnic between the piled-up ice-floe puzzles.

“Be a bit careful with that hot chocolate,” Abel said to Micha. “Better close that jacket again. We don’t want to wash another sweater. Remember, the washing machine is broken …”

“You said we can still wash things by hand,” Micha said.

“Yeah, we can.” He sighed. “Tomorrow is washing day, like in the olden days, in the days of real fairy tales. But washing takes time, Micha. It takes time. And we’ve already got enough washing.”

“Can’t you get someone by to … repair your machine?” Anna asked.

Abel shook his head. “The thing is old enough for a museum. We’ll have to buy a new one. And I will, some day … but for that, I’d have to use our savings for school, and it’ll take me a while to bring myself to do that.”

Anna thought about the house full of blue air and the washing machine in the basement, which would just be replaced if it broke. When you were ironing shirts on the big old wooden table down there, you could hear the robins at the window.

“While you’re waiting to buy a new machine,” she said, “you could just do your laundry at my house. It won’t take long. We’ve got a dryer, too. You could come by tomorrow afternoon and bring your clothes; we’ll put them in the machine; and in the evening, you can take everything home with you, clean and folded. It would save a lot of time … time that you could use to get some studying done.”

“Oh, please, let’s do that!” Micha exclaimed. “I can look at Anna’s books again and blow into her flute and watch the fire in the fireplace and …”

“And your parents?” Abel asked.

“They might be home,” Anna answered. “And will bite no one.”

She looked at him, and he avoided her eyes. Finally, he covered his face with his hands, breathed in heavily, and then lowered his hands again. “Okay,” he said. “Okay, we’ll come.” He stood up and shook the snow off of his jeans. “I’m doing a thousand new things in spite of myself,” he said. “It’s not easy, you know, to jump over your own shadow.”

“As long as you’re better at it than skating …,” Anna said and stood up too. She wanted to say more, but that wasn’t possible because he was kissing her. Reasonable Anna wanted to draw back: the danger of touch. But unreasonable Anna welcomed the kiss like happiness. Maybe, she thought, it’s better to take these moments when you get them—there might not be too many in life.

• • •

The most wonderful days. There were only two of them. The day on which Abel didn’t learn to ice-skate and the day on which the laundry didn’t dry.

They went to pick up Micha from school together that Friday. The teacher Anna had talked to before was standing in the yard with Micha when Abel and Anna came skidding through the snow on their bikes. It was still snowing, and the streets were as bad as they’d been the day before. “Abel Tannatek,” the teacher said to Abel. “My name is Milowicz. I’m Micha’s teacher. And you’re her brother, aren’t you?”

“Yes, that’s me,” Abel answered, “and we’ve got something we’ve got to do.”

“Wait.” She reached out for him but didn’t dare detain him physically. “I’d really like to talk to your mother. I’ve been trying to reach her for a long time …”