The Last Thing She Remembers

by J. S. Monroe

  “How long are you planning to stay in Germany?” he asks, glancing again at Tony, whose eyes have closed.

  “A week? Then back to India.”

  “And him?” He nods at Tony.

  “I hope he’ll come with me.” I contemplate how much more to elaborate. “He still needs persuading,” I add with a smile.

  He stamps my Indian passport and returns them both to me without any comment.

  We walk on, the man still pushing Tony. I texted Luke when we landed, telling him I’ll give instructions soon where to meet, and then I turned my phone off as the batteries are low. Two officials in the far corner of the passport hall scrutinize us as we head out toward the baggage reclaim area. I try not to panic.

  The carousels are full of luggage, passengers swarming toward them like sales shoppers in search of a bargain. The man pushing Tony gestures toward the nearest carousel, but I shake my head. Neither of us has any hold luggage, just my handbag and Tony’s small suitcase, which is on his lap.

  I’m worried that Tony might have built up a tolerance to Xanax over the years. He also just about managed to drink both black coffees on the plane. The caffeine can heighten Xanax’s toxicity, but it can also nullify the benzo’s sedative effects. He knew what he was doing, which suggests he might be a user—or maybe just proficient at administering it to others.

  We find a taxi and the airport assistant helps me ease Tony into a back seat. I tip him twenty euros, hoping it will prevent him from saying anything unhelpful to our taxi driver. He’s been eyeing me suspiciously ever since he met us off the plane.

  “Revaler Strasse, bitte,” I say to the driver, once we’re all in. “Via Potsdamer Platz, Kreuzberg?”

  “Stadtring?” he asks, looking at me in his mirror. Tony and I are in the back together. Tony is lapsing in and out of consciousness, still unaware of where we are.

  “Nein,” I say. I want to go through the parts of town where Fleur and I once hung out rather than take the ring road. I need to stay focused, remember why I’m here. I also need to text Luke.

  Twenty minutes later, we are at the Bundestag and its glass-domed roof, and then we are crossing the green expanse of Tiergarten, the Brandenburg Gate to our left. Fleur and I came here once in the early days, soon after we’d first met. It was important to see the historical sights, I insisted, and walked around like a wide-eyed tourist until Fleur showed me a better life out East.

  I checked out of my hostel by the Hauptbahnof and moved into Fleur’s flat in Friedrichshain, where she had been living on a tight budget. I was on my gap year, and Fleur was studying for an art degree. At least that’s what she said. I don’t remember seeing her doing any work but I might not have noticed. I was in awe, wanted to be just like her. Within days I had got the same hairstyle—a short pixie cut with tiny bangs—and we both wore black from head to toe. We even had matching bumbags and chokers. She took me clubbing at Tresor and Club Der Visionaere in Kreuzberg and showed me different historical sights: the Stasi Museum in Lichtenberg and the mural of Honecker and Brezhnev’s full-on kiss at the East Side Gallery.

  It took me six attempts to get past the bouncers at the legendary Berghain, a club that left me wide-eyed for different reasons. I was eighteen and had never seen naked men making out on a dance floor or met anyone as wild as Fleur, who smiled at me when strangers in studded leather masks came up and licked her ears. Looking back, I realize we were both rebelling against our upbringings. She had fallen out with her parents and I had just witnessed the messy end of my own parents’ unhappy marriage. My mother had moved back to India, and my father was drowning his sorrows in too much Irish whiskey.

  And then of course there was our fatal trip to GrünesTal, the club where we are heading now. It was on the way there that we must have got our matching Lotus tattoos, a sign that our relationship was becoming more serious. If only I can remember the details, but my amnesia that night leached into the before as well as the after. Did we make promises to each other as the lotuses blossomed into life on our wrists? Did I vow to love and look after her forever? If I did, I failed on the very first night.

  I stare out the taxi window, not wanting Tony to see my tears. Pulling up my sleeve, I look at the lotus again, tracing the edges of the delicate flower with my finger, drawing strength from its purple petals.

  Nine of them.

  Tony is unconscious again. We drive on through Kreuzberg and north over the River Spree past Warschauer Strasse station. To our right, a lattice of train lines heading out east toward Ostkreuz and beyond. The first time I got off at that station, there was a beggar on Warschauer Bridge with four plastic cups spread out in front of him on the pavement, each one labeled with the drug he was collecting for: “Speed,” “LSD,” “Weed” and “GHB.” A far cry from my sheltered life back in north London, where I had worked hard at school and steered clear of the cool set.

  “Turn just up here, please,” I say to the driver, as we proceed down Revaler Strasse, past RAW, a sprawling industrial site of former railway workshops, now a mix of nightclubs, steampunk art galleries and skate parks. I signal with my hand too. Where we are heading is a vast abandoned workshop beyond RAW, set back from the road and away from the tourists. The site of GrünesTal, a dub techno nightclub that was closed down two years ago.

  “Finish,” the driver says in a heavy German accent as we drive along the potholed track to the front of the building. “Over.”

  “I know,” I say. “No problem. Thank you. My friend here, he wants to visit it one last time.”

  The driver can’t understand me, but it’s important that I convey a sense of purpose. It’s not the sort of place people ask to be driven to by taxi.

  “Here?” the driver asks again, clearly feeling uneasy about our destination.

  “Perfect,” I say, glancing up at the old workshop that was once GrünesTal. The sight of it sends a shiver through me. I get out of the car and go around to open the door on Tony’s side.

  “We’ve arrived,” I say to Tony, whose eyes are now open.

  I help him out of his seat. He still looks punch-drunk and continues to be compliant, but I have no idea for how long. The effects of Xanax can last for twelve hours. If Tony’s built up a tolerance, it could be much less, particularly with all that caffeine in his system.

  The driver is a lot happier when I tip him generously. “Danke,” I tell him.

  Tony sways next to me as we watch the taxi turn around and drive back up to Revaler Strasse.

  “Remember here?” I ask, looking at the old workshop, its high walls covered in graffiti.

  He smiles helplessly, and I have to stop him from falling backward. Xanax is a muscle relaxant, and his movements are heavy.

  I lock my arm through his and march him around to the back of the building.

  He won’t be smiling for much longer.

  CHAPTER 99

  Luke stares at his phone, reading the message from Detective Constable Strover. His plane has just touched down. Strover has been going through Interpol’s Berlin missing persons list and come across someone called Freya who apparently matches Maddie’s age. Unfortunately, her surname is Schmidt, which is not Indian or Irish.

  His phone vibrates with another message. It’s from Maddie on her own phone, the Indian number.

  Are you coming to Berlin? Will text soon with details where to meet. x

  Luke replies immediately, worried by her tone.

  In Berlin already—just landed. Where are you? All OK?

  He waits for her response, glancing out the window at Tegel Airport’s terminal buildings. People have started to retrieve their bags from the overhead lockers. He delays until it’s time to leave the airplane, checking his phone constantly, but she doesn’t reply.

  Once he’s passed through Arrivals, Luke looks around. Should he head into the center of Berlin? Stay here? He still hasn’t
heard back from Maddie. And then his phone rings. It’s Strover.

  “Did you get my text?” she asks. Her tone is urgent.

  “I’ve only just landed.” Why does he feel he needs to make excuses?

  “Are you with Maddie?” she asks.

  “Not yet.”

  “But you know where she is.”

  Luke shifts from foot to foot, unsettled by her rapid-fire questions.

  “She just sent me a text, asking if I was coming to Berlin. Is everything okay?”

  “From her own phone?” Strover asks.

  “Her Indian one, why?”

  “Give me the number. We need to alert the German police of her whereabouts.”

  Luke is liking the conversation less and less. He hoped Strover might be calling with news about Freya Schmidt. He scribbles the number down and reads it out.

  “When did she last text you?” she asks.

  “When I was in the air. Could have been up to two hours ago.”

  “Have you replied?”

  “About fifteen minutes ago. I haven’t heard anything back.” Maddie’s silence is beginning to feel ominous. “She said she’d tell me soon where to meet.”

  “Keep me updated. The German police will try to trace the number.”

  “Thanks—you know, for the message about Freya Schmidt.”

  “I have to go.”

  “Can’t you tell me anything else? How old she is? When she went missing?”

  There’s a pause before she speaks, her voice quieter than usual, as if she doesn’t want to be overheard. “She was last seen in Berlin two months ago. German national, twenty-nine years old. Speaks English as well as German. And she looks...”

  “Looks what?”

  Strover is clearly unable to speak freely. Detective Inspector Hart’s probably on her case. “Looks Indian—quite like Maddie.”

  “Quite?”

  “I have to go.”

  Freya Schmidt. Luke decides to get a coffee, wait here until he hears more from Maddie. Twenty-nine years old. Speaks English as well as German. And she looks...quite like Maddie. It was good of Strover to tell him. Could Freya Schmidt have come to England under a different name? Using someone else’s passport? Maddie Thurloe’s? Her age and looks, if Strover’s right, match Maddie’s. But what was she doing coming to his village? And what story does she now want to tell?

  CHAPTER 100

  Tony looks like a prisoner behind the metal bars, slumped on the concrete floor, his back against a brick wall.

  “Remember here?” I ask.

  “Here?” he says, confused. His voice is sluggish and seems to have dropped an octave. I walk over to the bars and grip them, looking at him. His drunken smile of earlier has been replaced by a vacant look in his eyes. Emotionless.

  “We’re going on a trip together,” I say.

  “A trip?” he asks after a long pause, but he doesn’t sound engaged or interested.

  “Back to the past. Ten years ago, GrünesTal. You, me and my best friend, Fleur.”

  Tony stares ahead. I’m not sure he’s heard me, taken in what I’ve just said.

  After the taxi left us, I had marched him around to the rear entrance of the building, away from prying eyes, not that anyone comes past this patch of industrial wasteland very often. I chose it well when I was in Berlin a week ago, before leaving for England.

  We are in the basement of the oldest railway workshop, separate from the others that have become increasingly popular with tourists and clubbers. I looked up Revaler Strasse, after I had come out here to check the place out. The area was originally known as the Royal Prussian Railroad Workshop and was only renamed Reichsbahnausbesserungswerk—RAW for short—after World War I. I wasn’t interested in its history when Fleur and I used to come here. We just knew it as GrünesTal, part of the city’s subversive underground scene, although even then there was talk of private investors hiking up rents, a nostalgia for the area’s more edgy past.

  The metal caging in the basement was originally installed to protect mechanics from the workshop’s power units. When it became a nightclub, the old equipment was ripped out and the DJs moved in, setting up their decks behind bars, safe from the mayhem of the dance floor. It was the same when we visited Tresor, down the road in the basement vaults of a former department store. The iron grilles that had once protected the safe boxes were now DJ cages.

  It seems almost unnecessary to lock the cage door. Tony doesn’t look like he’s going anywhere in a hurry. But the Xanax will wear off, and he will try to escape. I have also planned for this moment, like I planned everything else. Last week I came down here with a heavy-duty padlock, and hid it behind some old car tires in one of the building’s many alcoves. I glance at Tony and walk over to retrieve it. I know at once that the padlock has gone. The tires have been moved around. I glance back at Tony. He is still staring into space. I search again. Nothing.

  I try to remain calm as I embark on a wider search, walking around the vast industrial space, the bare brick walls and steel girders that had once echoed to the unforgiving sounds of techno. Relax. I had a plan, bought a padlock, but the best laid plans of mice and men... I mustn’t panic. The padlock will be somewhere. I have come this far, overcome other problems, like being mistaken for Jemma Huish. I will find it. And if I can’t, I will wedge some heavy objects against the cage door. Tony has been physically weakened by the Xanax. Emasculated. There is plenty of time to sort this.

  I stand on what was once the main dance floor, where Fleur’s lithe body had swayed to the heavy beats. I am certain now that it was here where we met Tony. GrünesTal was our favorite club. Fleur knew her music, liked her techno. I try to work out where the main drinking area was. The bar itself used to be supported by a kitsch marble sculpture of naked men with gargantuan erections. It’s where Fleur had first kissed me.

  “I reckon this is where you bought our cocktails,” I call across to Tony. “One for me, one for Fleur.”

  Can Tony hear me? His eyes are still open. I will deal with the padlock in a minute.

  “We were naive, didn’t suspect a thing. Broke too, happy to be bought Long Island Ice Teas by a nice American man who thought we were twins, and said we should be models and did we want our photos taken? At least I’m guessing that’s what you said. You see, I’ve struggled for years to remember anything about how we met.”

  I walk back over to Tony and squat down next to him, our faces separated by the iron bars. His pale temple is beading with sweat.

  “We woke up in Fleur’s flat eighteen hours later,” I continue. “Splitting headaches, sore between our legs. Neither of us could remember anything about the previous night, where we had been, who we had met. Do you have any idea how terrifying that feels? What had we done to each other? But it wasn’t Fleur, was it? I know that now. She was always so gentle with me. Did you bathe us both afterward? Wash away your sins? I keep seeing a bathroom, you see, flashes of Fleur shivering on a cold tiled floor, knees clutched to her chest, dead-eyed, begging me for help. That’s now, though. For ten years there was only darkness. An episode erased from our lives by whatever it was you slipped into our drinks.”

  I walk away from Tony toward the entrance and step outside for some fresh air, surprised by my strength, the bright sunshine. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to confront him, thrown by the missing padlock, but I feel empowered, able to cope with anything. Beyond the grafitti-covered wall, trains rattle past on their noisy way to Ostkreuz. Somewhere in the distance a police siren wails. Tony won’t remember what I’ve told him, being brought here, but I’ve been preparing to say it for a long time. I go back inside, feeling more sorted, and spot a pile of cement sacks in the far corner of the building, beyond the old bar area. I saw some building works where we turned off the main road. Maybe a contractor is keeping their materials in here. There’s a lot of rubble
around.

  “Fleur disappeared the next day, in the afternoon,” I continue, gripping the bars tightly now. I’m suddenly struggling to control my emotions. “We’d had a salad together in a café across the road, and then I returned to her flat, desperate to sleep. That was the last time I ever saw her.” I turn away. I have no desire for Tony to see my tears. After a few seconds, I am strong enough to face him and hold on to the bars again. “I went to the police, of course. They investigated, added her to the long list of young missing persons in Berlin, but she was never found.” I bow my head and take a deep breath, an anger inside me rising like nausea. “No one knew then that you came into the café that day, sat at a corner table and watched us, looking for tiny flickers of recognition, traces of the night before.”

  I can’t restrain myself any longer. I open the cage door and walk over to him. “Where did you take her?” I ask. “What did you fucking do with her?” I’m shouting now and kick out uncontrollably at him, swinging my leg into his midriff. “Take her to your sleazy studio? Where is it, Tony?”

  He groans, clutching his stomach. I promised myself I wouldn’t do this. Promised the monks. I would leave his punishment to the police. Tony turns his head to face me. His eyes are still glazed, but for the first time he seems to have heard what I said.

  “You have a studio, here in Berlin,” I say, my voice more measured now. “I keep seeing images of it—us, you, seahorses. I need to know where it is.”

  I will recognize the studio when I see it. My memory of the early part of the evening, coming here, is still an inky blackness, but isolated images of where he took us later that night have slowly started to rise to the surface in recent months, like etiolated monsters from the deep. A large stenciled seahorse on a whitewashed brick wall. A bath. Tiled floor. Maybe a bed. A white coat. Medical instruments.

  I squat down next to Tony again.

  “Where the fuck is it?” I whisper, close to his ear. After much searching, I had eventually found his old website, but there was no contact address, just galleries of photos: nightclubs, DJs, a few women.