Woman of the Dead (6 page)

‘Who? You? Can I come and live with you? Will you get me a residence permit? Do you really want to look after me? If so then leave me in peace, that’s the only way you can genuinely help me.’

‘It will be all right.’

‘It won’t be all right until those men are dead.’

‘Please, let’s talk about it.’

‘If I talk to you I’ll die. You’ll stir up a wasps’ nest, and the wasps will get angry. You don’t know what that means, but I know the wasps will find me and silence me.’

‘It won’t come to that.’

‘Not so long as I stay here. No one will look for me here. My life is good now, a thousand times better than it was. I want to forget all that, don’t you understand? All of it.’

‘You mustn’t do that. You must remember every detail, and you must tell me all about it. Then I’ll find those men and make sure they’re taken to court and put behind bars, punished for what they did to you. I promise that nothing will happen to you.’

‘Why are you doing this?’

‘Because I want to help you.’

‘You should have done that earlier.’

‘I had the whole city searched after you disappeared from the hospital.’

‘I was sober when you talked to me the second time.’

‘You weren’t giving me anything to go on. You just stared at the wall. What were we to do? In cases like this we’re bound to proceed in a certain way. There was nothing we could do but wait for you to be discharged from the hospital.’

‘It was a psychiatric hospital. You kept me there, I couldn’t get away. It was a secure ward. That doctor spent two weeks trying to persuade me that it didn’t happen. He wanted to hear me say I was making it up. So in the end I said OK, he was right, and I left. I took the first opportunity to disappear. I’m only a drug-addicted illegal trying not to be thrown out of your country, that’s all.’

‘No, there’s much more to it than that. I’ll listen until you’ve finished your story.’

‘You wanted to be rid of your little problem as quickly as possible.’

‘I asked you about it in the hospital, and you could have talked to me then, but you kept quiet.’

‘Sometimes it’s best to keep quiet.’

‘Listen, I want those men arrested. I am absolutely convinced that you are telling the truth.’

‘Why?’

‘I’ve seen it in your eyes.’

‘Seen what?’

‘Fear and horror. That was genuine.’

‘Just go away.’

‘Tell me your name.’

‘I don’t know my name, or my age. That’s the only way I can stay. That’s what they told us when they smuggled us in.’

‘My name is Mark.’

‘I don’t want to know.’

‘I have a wife and two children. I live in Elisabethstrasse, and I’m going to stay here until you talk to me.’

‘Mark, then?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Switch that thing off, Mark.’

‘It’s only for me. No one else will hear it.’

Through the handset, Blum hears his voice and the voice of Dunya. A homeless woman telling her story. Mark telling her about his private life to make her trust him. Hesitantly, Dunya began to remember, opening up more and more. He didn’t talk to Blum about her, didn’t tell her anything, not a word, although the case was clearly occupying his mind. Mark was trying to put a mistake right, talking to her in his own time. There are over twenty files on his phone, always with her voice. Twenty conversations with a woman whose experiences are unimaginable. Conversations that Blum should never have heard, detailed accounts of a crime, recorded around the city: under the motorway, in his car, in underground car parks, in secret, hidden places. Dunya was afraid, terribly afraid, and Mark took her fear seriously.

Blum checks the dates; she wants to know if there is more, she wants to know it all now, at once. They met over a period of two weeks. Their last meeting was on the day before the accident. Sometimes Dunya broke off the conversation because her memories hurt her, because she was afraid it would all happen again. The horror: the five men down in the cellar, the groans, the pain, the screaming. As the story of the crime comes over the little loudspeaker Blum knows she is listening to something extraordinary. She sits in Mark’s study for hours on end, listening to those two voices. Again and again she wants to stop the recording and delete those files. She doesn’t want to hear his voice comforting Dunya; she doesn’t want to hear her weeping in his arms during their fourth conversation. She would rather not imagine it. Wordless minutes, the closeness that she can sense between them. His closeness to another woman. Blum sits alone at his desk. Never mind what Dunya went through, never mind if it was purely pity on his part, Blum doesn’t want to know. Dunya was in his arms, and Mark was drying her tears.

Dunya. Blum thinks of her as she finishes her wine, gulping the last of it down. Why did she suddenly have to intrude, why couldn’t Blum just be content with the wine and Mark’s desk, why did she have to be curious? Why couldn’t she just return the phone to its default settings and sell it on the internet? Without wondering what it could tell her? Why now? Why did she now have to think of something so awful it was beyond belief? Why is his voice so beautiful? Why can’t she stop listening?

All night long she listens to Dunya and Mark. Until the sun rises, the wheel of time turns again and wrenches her out of his life. Until, dazed, she opens his study door and lies down in her bed. She waits until the children come and get into bed with her, snuggling up against her. They crawl under the covers, as they do every morning, and she takes time to soothe them, as she does every morning, too. She loves Uma and Nela, but her heart is pounding in her chest.

A Ducati Monster 900. The motorbike Mark doted on, his second great love after Blum, a magnificent machine. He could enthuse for hours about the purring of the engine, an incomparable sound, music to his ears. Mark had loved to ride fast, even where it was forbidden, speeding along the autobahn and the country roads. Never mind how much Blum worried, he had to do it. He wanted to feel the slipstream of air as the road passed by.
I can’t help it. I’ll be back, darling, don’t worry. It’s not that bad, you’re exaggerating, my flower.
He found it hard to explain just what it was that fascinated him so much about his Monster 900, his baby. A beauty of a motorbike. Two chatty men are now unloading it from the trailer.

It gleams in the sun, exactly as it was before. In fact it’s new, courtesy of the insurance company. Two weeks ago, Massimo asked her what she wanted to do: did she want the money or a replacement? Blum simply said yes, lost in thought, and asked Massimo to fix everything. Then, after a while, the phone call came saying it was about to be delivered. And here is his motorbike now. As if it were his voice. It is standing outside the villa; she almost thinks that Mark will come through the door and out into the garden any minute now and mount it. Almost. Blum gives the men a tip and sits down on the bench. You can see everything from the bench, the children, the gate leading from the garden out into the street, the motorbike. Blum just sits there, thinking about what happened last night. About Mark, and about Dunya, and what seems to have happened to her. What Dunya said, what she had experienced, what Mark believed. He saw it in her eyes. Even if the psychiatrist diagnosed her as delusional. But Mark saw it in her eyes.

It’s quiet on the bench. She wants to be taken in comforting arms, she would like to be back in his study, she would like to understand what happened. She wants to listen to it all again sober. It’s like a dream that she can only vaguely remember, a nightmare that she has rejected, pushing it out of her life. Blum doesn’t want to believe that the woman was telling the truth, she wants Mark to have been wrong, she wants confirmation that Dunya really was delusional. So it was nothing more than the fantasies of a drug addict. None of it is true. It mustn’t be true. Because her life can’t get worse than it already is. Because the sun is shining. Because the children are playing on the swing. Because this is the first time for weeks that Karl has come into the garden.

Karl has hardly said a word since Mark died. He withdrew to the second floor, sat in his armchair for days, shedding tears. Even the children couldn’t comfort him. He asked to be left in peace, said he wanted to be alone. It was only at Reza’s insistence that Karl opened his door and let them fill his fridge. Karl has lost his son. Karl tries to smile. Karl sits down beside her on the bench.

‘How are you doing, Blum?’

‘It still hurts all the time.’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s good to see you here with us.’

‘How about the children?’

‘They’ll live.’

‘And the motorbike?’

‘It’s back – over there.’

‘Why?’

‘Mark loved it.’

‘So he did.’

‘I’m going to ride it.’

‘Are you?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you’re afraid of it.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you still want to ride it?’

‘Fear is crippling.’

‘I was always afraid for him.’

‘He did as he wanted.’

‘He was a good boy.’

‘More than that, Karl.’

‘We’ll get through this, Blum.’

‘Yes.’

They sit in silence. Karl takes Blum’s hand and holds it firmly. Nothing exists but their hands, the children and the motorbike. A summer’s day in the garden. They have said all they need to say, Karl and Blum. There is understanding and affection between them. Blum likes him; she has never regretted asking Karl to come and live with them. He is like a benevolent household spirit. A household spirit resuming his duties. Karl is back, he won’t creep away again; he says he has missed the children and wants to go on living, even if it hurts. Wants to go on living, like Blum, go on pushing the swing back and forth.

Blum doesn’t wear a helmet. She puts the key in the ignition and presses the button. The Monster purrs. She waves to the children and accelerates out through the gateway and into the road, without glancing in the direction the Rover came from. She accelerates. Blum with the wind in her face, with flies in her face. She simply turns the handlebars and feels what happens. How fast she is going. Down the road of houses and on to the autobahn, eyes narrowed, seeing only a slice of the world flying past. She shifts gear, she steps on the gas. Never mind what happens, never mind where she is going. There’s only Blum and the road.

She hasn’t ridden a motorbike since she passed her test. A girl she knew at school died in a crash soon after taking the test herself. Dead, just like that, exactly how Mark died. That fear has accompanied her until now. Whenever Mark wanted her to ride with him she said no; she was afraid of dying. But now she is tearing down the autobahn without leathers, without a helmet, with nothing to protect her except her exuberance, her thoughtlessness, her closeness to death itself, her longing to be with him. She is riding at one hundred and ninety kilometres per hour, with tiny creatures sticking to her skin, her face pricked by needles. Ride on faster, two hundred and twenty kilometres per hour. Overtake, hear the sound of the engine, go on and on. Breathe. Die.

Blum wanted to understand him. Why he liked and needed that sense of speed. She wondered why he was prepared to die. Every time he accelerated, every time he broke the speed limit, he must have felt he was flying. But he had a family, children, love. A moment would have been enough, a brief moment of inattention.
I love it
, he said.
It’s like a song, like dancing, like champagne. You must try it, Blum, just once. I’ll look after you.
He’d been trying to persuade her for years to get on the bike and share that sensation with him. She’d said no for so long. Now she has felt what he felt. It was like falling, like nothing else mattered, nothing existed but herself.

She has been riding for an hour. No one has stopped her; no police, no speed camera. She has been gambling with her life for an hour, has imagined her head striking the central reservation, crashing into the windscreen of an oncoming vehicle. She pictured her death as she rode. She died in full colour, and came home uninjured. The world is in order. Karl is putting the girls to bed, Reza is unloading a body from the van.

‘Thank you, Reza.’

‘You don’t have to say that.’

‘Yes, I do, Reza. Nothing here would work without you.’

‘It’s all right.’

‘Who do you have there?’

‘A woman from the care home. We had to carry her out through the kitchen.’

‘Why through the kitchen?’

‘They didn’t want the other inmates to see that someone had died.’

‘Inmates?’

‘Residents.’

‘Why through the kitchen, for God’s sake?’

‘Because they didn’t want to remind the inmates that their days are numbered too.’

‘We agreed on
residents
, right?’

‘That’s fine by me.’

‘Her family?’

‘Coming tomorrow. They want to see her one last time. The grave’s booked, the funeral’s organised.’

‘Reza, you’re the best. If you need more help, just say so.’

‘Everything’s fine.’

‘Is it really?’

‘Well, no.’

‘You don’t talk about how you’re feeling.’

‘Mark was my friend. It’s like a cake without candles.’

‘A cake?’

‘Mark was the candle on the cake.’

‘I know.’

‘He was just blown out.’

‘I know. It’s dark without him. But today Karl said that we’ll get through this.’

‘Did he? That’s good. Very good.’

‘We will, Reza. We’ll get through it together, you, Karl, the girls and me.’

‘Yes.’

‘It will get better.’

‘When?’

‘Soon, Reza, soon.’

Blum goes upstairs. She almost believes it herself; for a moment something positive flares in her, something like hope. Riding the motorbike was an intoxicating sensation. She has survived, she has felt what he felt, she has challenged her fate. She knows she is meant to live not die. The decision has come down in favour of life, of the children, of everything that hasn’t happened yet. And in favour of Dunya. She is going to find out what happened, find out about that woman and what terrifies her so much. Blum wants to know; something tells her that it is important, that it is not delusion but truth. Mark believed that, so she believes it too. He wanted to help the woman, and so does she. She has no alternative, she has heard what happened to Dunya, and she can’t pretend that it didn’t. She pressed Play. There’s nothing else she can do; she will listen to everything again. She looks in on the children, lies down with them for a little while, kisses them and disappears into his study.