LITMIR.BIZ

      CONTENTS

Part One: MAIKO

       Part Two: MISCHA

       Part Three: DOPPELMANN

       Part Four: ADAM

       Part Five: MICHAEL

       Acknowledgements

Part One:

       MAIKO

      1

      AT MIDNIGHT THE LAST MOTORBUS PULLED INTO THE STATION. While the driver busied himself in the rearview mirror with an inspection of his teeth, a single passenger boarded. He was a young man wearing a gray suit with a butterscotch tie and felt hat; his jacket sleeves hid his hands that carried a cardboard valise and an accounting ledger. Had the driver paid more attention, he would have noticed something peculiar about the passenger. But it was dark, and the driver, who suffered from unevenly spaced teeth and had just finished a packet of sunflower seeds, was preoccupied with checking his smile. In the mirror’s reflection he only saw the back of the young man, who chose a window seat halfway down the aisle and immediately pulled the curtains shut.

      As the bus’s engine roared and they departed along the single-lane highway, the young man’s apprehensions grew. The dry inland wind blew through a cracked window near the front and flung his hat to the floor. He closed his eyes. It should have been a relief to be on his way, but his mouth was parched and the shredded-paper soup he had eaten earlier churned inside him.

      The young man, named Michael, had lived his entire life inland, the dry center of a large peninsula. He had never been on the bus and had never passed the mountain range that cut off the inland from the rest of the peninsula. If it had been daytime, he would have watched the change in geography, yet it was crucial he left at night—he needed the darkness to keep himself from standing out.

      For two hours, the motorbus continued along the highway. At the next station, two women boarded, reeking of lemons and laurel. They sat behind Michael, and as they settled, their citrus odor made him feel worse. He pressed his jacket sleeve to his painted lips until a wave of nausea passed. The other passengers whispered while the wind whistled through the cracked window. From his valise, he removed a knitted scarf and left his accounting ledger in its place. The scarf he bunched up and tried to use as a cushion, leaning his head against the window. It wasn’t particularly comfortable, but he was extremely tired and the rhythm of the road eventually rocked him to sleep.

      The bus stopped five times throughout the night, where other passengers boarded. In a half-dream state, Michael observed liquid shadows that quickly spread in empty seats like sprouting fungi. At one stop, the shadow of a man chose the seat next to him, but within a few minutes he was snoring and his shaggy head was propped on Michael’s shoulder. Michael didn’t want to bring any attention to himself, and so he stuffed the knitted scarf between his shoulder and the man’s head and accepted his new role as a pillow.