The Shadow

by Melanie Raabe

  Norah laughed.

  ‘We ought to die in the Imperial,’ she said.

  ‘What, now?’

  ‘When we’re very, very old. We’ll take a room and die there. Then we’ll stay on and haunt the hotel.’

  ‘Great plan!’ said Alex. ‘I like it.’

  It had been Alex’s idea to stay here, although it was way beyond their budget. He knew Norah loved places like the Imperial, not so much for their beauty or lavishness, but for the stories they held. He’d even managed to arrange a guided tour of the hotel, just for the two of them. A charming old man had shown them the grand reception rooms, then led them down a warren of stairs and passages to the underbelly of the hotel, where rooms opened off a spotless red-and-yellow tiled corridor. It was a mysterious in-between realm where the linen was stored, the staff fed, the famous Imperial gateaux baked. Down there, a kind of magic was worked to ensure that, a few floors up, the guests could lean back and forget their worries.

  Norah returned to the present to see a woman standing in front of her, and a few seconds later she was following her along a corridor to the suite where the interviews were being held. A television crew passed them, laden with cameras and sound equipment, and Norah said good morning, feeling like an outsider. In Berlin she’d have known who was having an affair with whom, which of them would be up for a drink after work and which had to hurry home to their children. Now she’d left that small, cosy world behind her and was in a new world, full of strangers. Norah thought they looked stressed, but couldn’t have said why. Had the interview gone badly, or was there some other reason?

  The door to the suite was closed, but Bernadette Schill, the press officer who had organised the interview for Norah, was waiting outside for her.

  ‘Good morning, Norah. It’s lovely that you could come.’

  ‘Thank you for arranging it.’

  Bernadette was very conservatively dressed in a black suit and pearl necklace, but she had a naughty smile that made Norah like her at once. Here was someone she could talk to.

  They shook hands, while the assistant hurried back to the lobby to welcome the next journalist. Interviews with Hollywood stars were always tightly packed, but Norah was glad to have a slot at all.

  ‘The ORF people are on their way,’ Bernadette said. ‘You’re next. It shouldn’t be long.’

  ‘Where am I on the list?’ Norah asked.

  ‘The seventh this morning, and the second-to-last before the break.’ ‘Is he on his own?’ Norah asked.

  Bernadette nodded. She glanced at her watch and seemed to hold back a sigh. The Hollywood star was evidently ruining her carefully planned schedule.

  ‘What’s he like?’ Norah asked, lowering her voice to a conspiratorial whisper.

  ‘Oh, he’s just wonderful,’ Bernadette replied sarcastically. ‘Absolutely wonderful.’

  ‘Great,’ said Norah. The two women exchanged a knowing smile. Somewhere in the hotel, a piano was being tuned.

  Then the door opened.

  There was something almost surreal about seeing the actor in person. Norah often got to meet famous people, but the strange familiarity she felt when first confronted with them in person never failed to unnerve her. Film stars always seemed less real to her than other people; it was as if she had to see them in the flesh to understand that they existed—that they walked around and ate and drank and had showers and scratched their heads. Most of the stars she met were slightly shorter than she’d expected. Alarmingly, they were also better looking. So she was forearmed when her interviewee switched on his roguish smile.

  ‘Michael,’ said Bernadette, ‘may I introduce you to Norah Richter?’

  Norah felt strangely light when she headed out of the Imperial half an hour or so later. The piano had gone quiet, but a whiff of pipe tobacco hung in the air, sickly sweet. She quickened her pace, impatient to get to her desk and type up the interview—it had been a good one, maybe even really good. She’d know as soon as—

  Norah stopped. She’d almost trodden on something lying on the floor. A playing card—no, a tarot card.

  She picked it up and turned it over. Death stared out at her from empty eye sockets.

  THE MYSTERY OF FASCINATION

  When I was little, I was fascinated by freak shows. They had, of course, long since died a death by then, but my grandmother sometimes talked of them, and I would listen, rapt, as she told me about bearded ladies and giants and dwarves and two-headed girls. One of my earliest memories is of sitting with my grandmother as she told me stories—plenty of fairytales, of course, but more macabre things, too. For a time I collected old photos of freak shows. Later I fell in love with Freaks, an American horror movie from the thirties, which is (except, perhaps, for Vertigo) still my favourite film today.

  But it is, even now, a mystery to me what I found so intriguing. I was repelled by the freaks, but at the same time, I was fascinated. There’s no explanation—that kind of thing isn’t meant to be explained. We can’t choose who we are. We can’t choose what we are repelled or attracted by.

  Circus freaks were my first obsession. After that came natural disasters, Medieval witch burnings, the occult, Aleister Crowley and, eventually, serial killers. I see beauty in horror and horror in beauty; it is a gift. It probably explains why I am drawn to her: something in her appeals to me and yet at the same time I find her strangely unappealing.

  But it is not my job to interpret my obsessions. My job is to pursue them. I begin by finding out all there is to know. Luckily she has made this easy for me.

  She grew up in a small town in northern Germany. After leaving school, she studied journalism and art history, then began to work as a journalist. She has lived in various German cities and was also in London for a time. (Source: biography on her blog www.norahrichter.de)

  She loves meat and hates fish. She likes red wine, especially Malbec. (Source: Instagram)

  She supports Médecins Sans Frontières and Reporters Without Borders. (Source: Twitter)

  Her most traumatic experience was the suicide of a sixteen-year-old friend in 2000. (Source: blog post about depression and suicide, 30.05.2014)

  She is single, having recently split up with her partner Alexander Bauer, a 39-year-old surgeon who lives in Berlin, the son of a German mother and an African-American father. (Source: Facebook)

  In the last six months, she has been to the cinema seven times and attended five concerts—Arcade Fire, Nick Cave, Sigur Rós, Soap&Skin and Amanda Palmer. (Sources: Instagram and Twitter)

  Her best female friend is called Sandra, her best male friend is Max. In spite of these social ties, she calls herself an ‘introvert’ and a ‘part-time social outsider’. (Source: blog post on the difference between shyness and introversion, 17.11.2015)

  Her greatest fear is to be responsible for someone’s death. (Source: feature on gun freaks in Germany, 04.08.2014)

  She describes herself as a feminist. Her favourite holiday destination is Florence; she loves Renaissance art—Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo, Raphael, Botticelli. She likes wearing black. (Source: Instagram)

  She almost died of a drug overdose in London, but got clean with the help of her friends and extreme sports. She speaks openly of her addiction. (Source: Facebook post, 31.12.2015)

  She almost studied law, but soon realised that ‘law and justice [didn’t] have much to do with each other’ and switched to journalism. Injustice drives her ‘wild’. (Source: her blog, passim)

  I’m getting there, moving closer. I’m enjoying myself. I have a feeling it might turn out to be easier than I thought.

  12

  Norah surveyed her hosts’ dining room, a glass of champagne in her hand. Some flats were so perfectly fitted out that they gave you the impression you were in a museum, but although Max and Paul’s apartment looked like something out of Architectural Digest, they’d managed to give it a warm, homely feel. Paul was preparing food in the kitchen; Max was frowning at the shelves of records, trying to dec
ide on an album, and Lolita, the British bulldog, was snoring on the rug in front of the sofa.

  A lot of white, a lot of grey, a lot of brown leather. The high moulded ceilings were newly painted, the parquet recently sanded, the walls hung with modern art. Lush yucca palms and monsteras grew in big pots, and in the middle of the spacious living-cum-dining room stood an enormous mangowood table that Paul had designed and built himself. Norah examined one of the pictures, a painting so rich with gold that it seemed to give off heat. She reached for her phone to take a photo, then remembered, not for the first time that day, that she’d lost it. She’d spent a good half hour searching, but with no luck. Norah turned to a drawing of Max asleep. It was a fine piece of work that had something almost fairytale-like. Max’s flat cap had been thrown down next to the bed, his glasses were on the bedside table, his light-brown hair slightly tousled. He looked as if he were dreaming.

  ‘Who did this?’ Norah asked.

  Max smiled and pointed at Paul, who was coming into the room carrying two steaming bowls.

  The Thai food, beautifully served on elegant white china, smelt so deliciously of chilli and coriander and beef and coconut and lemongrass that Norah felt properly hungry for the first time in weeks. Max and Paul had rung her to apologise for not having been in touch earlier and then asked her to dinner that evening.

  Norah fell on her food. ‘I thought the papaya salad was good,’ she said, ‘but this beef is out of this world. How did you make it?’

  Paul grinned.

  ‘Nine two four nine, three eight zero eight,’ he said.

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘That’s the delivery service number.’

  Norah laughed.

  ‘How are things going at the magazine?’ Max asked.

  ‘Good.’

  ‘Good. Is that all? You must have something to tell us. No psychopathic boss, no scheming rival, no good-looking colleague, no hot gossip?’

  ‘Nope, sorry.’

  ‘Ah well,’ said Paul. ‘Here’s to your new job.’

  He raised his beer.

  ‘Cheers,’ said Max.

  ‘Cheers.’

  They clinked bottles.

  When they’d finished eating—Norah had put away more than Max and Paul together—Max opened one of the big living-room windows and lit a cigarette.

  Norah breathed in the cold air with relish.

  ‘You don’t smoke anymore,’ Max said—a regretful observation, rather than a question.

  ‘Yes, I do. I’ve started again.’

  Max raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Well, in that case…’ he said, handing her a cigarette.

  When Norah looked up from lighting it, she saw Max and Paul exchange glances.

  ‘It’s getting too big,’ said Max.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The elephant in the room.’

  Norah sighed.

  ‘We only want to know if you’re okay,’ said Paul. ‘You and Alex were together for such a long time. It was so sudden.’

  ‘I’m okay,’ said Norah.

  ‘Did anything happen? Did Alex do something?’ Paul asked. ‘We don’t want to be nosey—we just want to know if we ought to hate Alex.’

  He scratched his dark beard thoughtfully.

  ‘You know we like Alex; we liked him right from the start. But we like you more.’

  ‘No,’ Norah said. ‘Alex didn’t do anything bad.’

  ‘Okay,’ Paul began, ‘but—’

  Norah interrupted him. ‘He proposed to me,’ she said. ‘Or rather, he was planning to.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I found the ring.’

  Max and Paul looked blankly at Norah.

  ‘He did what?’ Paul asked, eventually, with feigned indignation. ‘He bought you a ring? That’s unbelievable. How dare he? No wonder you cleared out at the first opportunity.’

  ‘Too right,’ said Max. ‘Any woman with a smidgen of self-respect would have done the same.’

  ‘Are you taking the piss?’ Norah asked, but she grinned in spite of herself.

  Max looked at her thoughtfully.

  ‘I’m sure you had your reasons,’ he said in the end, and Norah nodded, grateful that the interrogation was over.

  ‘I’m going to powder my nose,’ said Paul, vanishing into the hall.

  For a while, Norah and Max drank together in comfortable silence.

  ‘Oh, shit,’ Norah suddenly said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I completely forgot—I meant to call a friend.’

  ‘Sandra?’

  ‘No, nobody you know. I met her recently when I was researching for a feature. You’d like her, but she does have a few…issues.’

  ‘What kind of issues?’

  All kinds, Norah thought.

  ‘She’s quite lonely,’ she said. ‘Somebody knocked her about a bit and—oh, it doesn’t matter. But I used to meet up with her at least once a week in Berlin, and we never missed a Thursday evening.’

  ‘I see,’ said Max. ‘How old is she?’

  ‘A year or two older than me?’

  Max frowned.

  ‘What?’ Norah asked.

  ‘Nothing. I just imagined her older for some reason.’

  ‘She’d be disappointed,’ Norah said.

  ‘Who’d be disappointed?’ asked Paul, reappearing.

  ‘Just another of Norah’s social projects,’ Max said. Norah elbowed him in the ribs.

  ‘I see,’ said Paul. ‘More beer?’

  ‘Yes, please,’ Norah and Max said in one voice, and Paul disappeared again.

  ‘Give her a quick ring,’ Max said. ‘It’s all right.’

  ‘I can’t. I’ve gone and left my phone somewhere.’

  ‘Landline?’

  ‘I don’t know her number. Doesn’t matter. I’ll ring her when I get home.’

  They drank in silence again.

  ‘I always thought Alex was the one,’ Max said at length. ‘Mr Right.’ Norah shrugged helplessly.

  ‘You loved him, didn’t you?’

  ‘I—’ she said and felt her throat seize up. ‘I don’t want to—’

  ‘You don’t want to talk about it,’ said Max. ‘I know.’

  More silence. Then Max got up. He went over to Norah, bent down and gave her a hug. It wasn’t a long hug; he knew Norah couldn’t deal with mawkishness any more than he could.

  ‘Maybe you should talk to Dr Snitsch about your commitment phobia,’ he said, sitting down again.

  ‘Oh, shut up,’ said Norah, ‘I don’t have commitment phobia. And who the fuck is Dr Snitsch?’

  ‘Dr Snitsch is Max’s lady therapist,’ Paul said, appearing in the door with more beer. ‘I never thought a woman would come between us, but I’ve been proved wrong.’

  ‘Dr Snitsch is wonderful,’ said Max. ‘I won’t let anyone say a word against her. Everyone should have a Dr Snitsch.’

  ‘What I love is the fact that she’s called Dr Snitsch,’ said Paul. ‘It’s such a great name.’

  ‘I can’t believe you go to a therapist,’ Nora said. ‘I thought you were an atheist.’

  ‘What’s that got to do with it?’

  ‘Aren’t therapists a bit like gods who answer?’

  ‘There’s something in that.’

  ‘Here’s to gods who answer,’ said Paul, raising his beer.

  ‘To Dr Snitsch,’ said Norah. ‘And to the two of you.’

  ‘And to our newly Viennese friend!’

  They clinked bottles. Then they drank another beer. And another.

  Then the beer was all gone and one of them suggested calling a cab and going to a bar, and the night opened at their feet like a trapdoor, and they tumbled down into lights and neon and smoke and vodka and tequila and strangers’ faces and rock music, and stayed until the sun went up.

  13

  When Norah got home and switched on the light and the TV, she tripped over a small white cuddly rabbit. For a moment, she stood
there, waiting for the ceiling to stop spinning. It was time she got round to unpacking the boxes and stopped chucking everything on the floor. She sighed. The bunny must be Alex’s. He was always buying presents for his niece; she’d probably packed it by mistake in her mad rush to leave. At this rate, she’d never get over him.

  ‘Hello,’ she said to the rabbit, ‘you all right?’

  It didn’t reply.

  ‘How rude!’ Norah said, laughing when she realised how drunk she was. She had no hope of getting to sleep in the next hour. She put the bunny aside and wrote a text. Her phone had turned up at last, which was something; the stupid thing had been in the side pocket of her bag all along.

  Are you awake?

  The answer came straight back.

  I’m always awake, sweetie.

  Norah touched Coco’s name on her screen; her friend picked up immediately.

  ‘Can’t you sleep either?’ Coco asked.

  ‘No.’

  ‘What’s keeping you awake?’

  Norah shrugged.

  ‘Nothing. Everything. The human condition. And you?’

  ‘The usual.’

  Norah bit her lip.

  ‘I went out today,’ Coco said. ‘Some kids stared at me.’

  ‘Kids stare at everyone,’ Norah replied. ‘The other day I was on the underground and this little boy started staring at me—he was about three? So I stared back. And then suddenly he turns to his mum and says, all serious, Mum, is that a man or a lady?’

  Coco laughed, as Norah had been hoping she would, but she was soon serious again.

  ‘I saw him today,’ she said, ‘in the paper. He’s got a new girlfriend.’ Norah froze. No matter what she said, Coco always came back to the same topic.

  ‘Poor woman,’ said Norah drily.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Coco, ‘I should warn her.’

  ‘No, sweetheart, you must keep away. Promise me?’

  There was silence at the other end of the line.

  ‘Promise?’ Norah repeated.

  ‘Promise.’

  Neither of them spoke. Then Norah heard a soft sniffing sound.

  ‘Coco, are you crying?’

  ‘No,’ said Coco with a sob.