The Shadow

by Melanie Raabe

  She stopped, wondering how to proceed. If she didn’t get anywhere with the homeless people, she could always ask the people who worked in the local shops; maybe one of them knew the woman or had spoken to her at some point.

  ‘Excuse me,’ said a hoarse voice behind her.

  She turned round and saw a man in jeans, worn shoes and a stained black anorak. Dark, intelligent eyes gleamed in a large-pored skin shot through with red veins. Nora looked at him, wondering whether he was going to ask for change or a cigarette.

  ‘You look for woman.’

  She raised her eyebrows.

  ‘Yes, that’s right,’ she said cautiously.

  Had talking to the girl paid off after all?

  ‘I can show where woman live,’ he said, grabbing Norah’s arm as if he wanted to take her to the woman then and there.

  ‘Hang on,’ Norah said, pulling free and taking a step back. ‘First of all, I’d like to know if we’re talking about the same woman.’

  The man smiled a practised, obsequious little smile that didn’t reach his eyes and made him look suddenly dangerous.

  ‘Tall woman. Dark hair. Not young.’

  He puckered his forehead dramatically and pointed at his face, as if to say: wrinkles.

  Yes, Norah thought. But you could have got all that from the girl with the Alsatian. The man registered her suspicion.

  ‘Woman stand there,’ he said, pointing to the spot where Norah had seen the woman—a monolith in the flood of people. ‘Gold bowl in hand.’

  Norah nodded and the man’s smile deepened.

  ‘Dorotea,’ he said.

  ‘Is that her name?’

  ‘Come,’ he urged.

  ‘First I’d like to know what the information costs.’

  ‘Only hundred euro.’

  Norah shook her head. She almost laughed out loud at the man’s cheek.

  ‘That’s too expensive,’ she said. ‘I’ll give you twenty euros, if you take me to her.’

  The man’s eyes twinkled.

  ‘Not enough,’ he said. ‘Is long way.’

  Norah thought for a moment. All she needed was the address; she had no desire to tramp the streets with a man who looked like a small-time crook, even if he wasn’t planning to lure her into a quiet alleyway and steal her wallet. But how did she know that he wouldn’t give her any old address, pocket the twenty euros and do a runner? The answer was: she didn’t. But it was worth a try.

  ‘Fifty euro,’ the man said.

  ‘Twenty.’

  ‘Forty euro.’

  ‘Twenty.’

  The man clicked his tongue and gave Norah a disparaging look.

  ‘You change your mind, you find me in Walcher’s Bar,’ he said. His smile had seeped away into his pores.

  He walked off, without looking back. Probably for the best, Norah thought. And then: Dorotea. Interesting. If it was true.

  16

  The weekend was an empty canvas and Norah had neither paints nor brushes. Coming home from a leisurely visit to the Albertina, she was alarmed at how much of the day was left. What was she going to do with so much time? Although she’d been gone for hours, it was only early afternoon. For a desperate moment, she thought of going in search of the man who’d told her about Dorotea and throwing fifty euros of her hard-earned money at him.

  How had she filled her weekends in Berlin? She and Alex had lingered over breakfast or had brunch with friends, and in the evenings they’d gone to the cinema or theatre or had dinner out. Or they’d stayed in and ordered pizza and watched a Netflix series, sprawled on the sofa. But what on earth had they done in those hours in between—that wilderness between breakfast and afternoon, that bleak steppe between afternoon and evening? She had no idea. Couldn’t begin to remember. It was as if such empty moments hadn’t existed in her old life.

  She wondered whether to go and look up Theresa, but decided to ring Sandra instead. No answer. Norah hung up and tried again—still no answer. She rang Max; he didn’t pick up either. But Tanja did.

  ‘Hello, sweetheart!’ Her cheerful voice rang out across the ether almost before the dialling tone had sounded. Tanja was so infectiously bubbly that just hearing her speak made Norah feel better.

  ‘Hey,’ Norah said. ‘Lovely to hear your voice. How are you?’

  ‘I’m great,’ said Tanja. ‘I’m so sorry I haven’t been in touch since you moved. We must catch up when I get back. I’m in Hamburg until Monday, then I’ll take you out to dinner, yeah?’

  Norah grinned. She didn’t know anyone who spoke as fast as Tanja.

  ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Cool. Have fun in Hamburg.’

  ‘Thanks, sweetie. Let’s be in touch on Monday, shall we?’

  ‘Sounds good.’

  ‘Great! Speak to you then. Bye.’

  Norah fought back her disappointment. That was Monday evening taken care of, but what about today? She put her phone down and switched on the TV. Red Breaking News banner, people running from an invisible threat—a terrorist attack in the UK. For a few minutes, Norah sat and watched the horror, zapping back and forth between news channels and occasionally checking Twitter. Then she turned off the TV and put her phone aside.

  There was a gentle roaring in her ears. Out on the street, somebody slammed a car door; otherwise all was silent. But Norah could feel something swelling. She took a deep breath and tried Sandra again, then Max, then Paul. No answer. Norah went over to the window and looked out at the people hurrying across the square, then turned away again. The silence was buzzing.

  She had to get out. It was no good sitting around in her flat, breathing spores of loneliness. They were clogging her lungs, making every breath heavier.

  In the newsagent’s a few streets away, there was a strong smell of lily of the valley which Norah soon traced to the young woman at the till. She was sitting hunched over a book, but greeted Norah quietly when she entered the shop, and Norah recognised the woman the three old ladies had been discussing in the bistro the other day. What was her name again? Marie? Norah turned to the magazines and newspapers—it wouldn’t be a bad idea to have something to distract her when she got back to the empty flat. Just the thought of it made her heart sink. She let her gaze wander over the covers and front pages, and Trump’s face stared out at her from almost every one—he’d been sworn in only a few days before. A mixture of anger, despair and helplessness rose in her throat; she turned away and asked for a packet of Gauloises at the counter. From close up, Norah saw that the young woman’s face was slightly puffy as if she’d been crying, but she surprised Norah by giving her a big dimply smile as she handed her the cigarettes. Norah was about to leave, when the woman called out after her.

  ‘Wait!’

  Norah turned and saw her get down off her stool and come round the counter.

  ‘Like one?’

  She was holding out a bag of caramels. Norah looked at her in surprise.

  ‘No, thanks,’ she said, without thinking.

  ‘Sure? You look as if you could do with something sweet.’

  She had a point. Norah smiled and reached into the bag, then popped a caramel out of its crackly gold wrapper and put it in her mouth. It tasted of childhood. ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  The young woman flashed her dimples again and Norah went out into the cold, feeling properly warm for the first time in ages.

  17

  The tattoo needle buzzed. The tattooist was a tall woman of few words with big hands and a strangely fierce look that was at odds with her round, pale-blue eyes. Something about her had inspired immediate trust in Norah who now lay stretched on the couch, her blouse and bra on a stool beside her. She was glad the woman didn’t feel the need to speak, but most of the tattooists she’d come across worked in silence. Maybe it was hard work talking over the constant whirr of the needle, or maybe they understood that they were performing a ritual too sacred to be disturbed by small talk.

  Norah felt the inky needle prick the soft skin under her l
eft shoulder blade. Sometimes the tattooist paused and she felt her wipe away a couple of drops of blood with the thumb of her gloved hand and then reinsert the needle. Norah had come into the studio on a whim, but although she hadn’t made an appointment, she’d known exactly what tattoo she wanted. The room was tiny and clean-looking, divided from the rest of the studio by a curtain. Norah closed her eyes.

  Only a few days before, she’d been speeding through the night in her battered Volvo, leaving her old life behind her. It already seemed so far away.

  ‘Okay,’ said the tattooist, ‘you’re done.’

  Norah let out a deep breath and realised she’d been clenching her jaw. She sat up carefully and looked over her shoulder to examine the tattoo in the mirror.

  ‘What do you think?’ the woman asked.

  Norah stared at the black lines sticking up out of her swollen skin and said nothing.

  Then she said, ‘It’s wonderful,’ and saw how pretty—almost childlike—the tattooist looked when she smiled.

  Norah was glad when Monday morning came. She leant back in her office chair and felt a twinge of pain in her new tattoo.

  She’d started having tattoos done when she was twenty—whenever she felt she’d reached the end of a chapter in her life. Her beautiful scars. One on her left hipbone for the carefree student years, a time of letting go and skin-shedding, hanging out in the laundrette, skiving lectures and drinking plonk in communal kitchens. One on the inside of her upper right arm for the dismal years in Frankfurt and London, when the dark thoughts had returned, nastier and more insistent than before, and she’d tried to keep them at bay with drugs. One on her right ankle for the tough years spent getting clean—dropping her druggy friends, escaping to Hamburg, plunging into work with sudden ambition—her job at the magazine like a new addiction. Late nights at the office, endless coffees and cigarettes, a perpetual sour taste in her mouth. And now this last tattoo on her shoulder for the Berlin years with Alex—but she was still too close to them to know what they meant to her.

  Max’s words popped into Norah’s mind. I always thought Alex was the one. Then she thought of the conversation she’d had with Sandra after leaving Alex. Sandra had been appalled at the news.

  ‘We just don’t have the same values,’ Norah had said. ‘Sometimes it feels as if he doesn’t give a fuck about the things that really matter to me.’

  ‘He spends hours every day saving people’s lives,’ Sandra replied. ‘Maybe he’s just too tired.’

  ‘He should have stood by me.’

  ‘You’re always so severe,’ Sandra said. ‘Okay, so he didn’t react the way you wanted him to, but that’s no reason to get up on your high horse. You can’t leave a man like Alex for something as petty as that.’

  ‘Petty?’

  ‘Yes, petty.’

  For a moment neither of them spoke. Then Sandra said, ‘I’m on your side, Norah. You know I am. But I don’t always understand you. I thought Alex was good for you. I thought he was Mr Right.’

  Should she have listened to her friends? Had she made a mistake?

  Whatever, she thought, trying to concentrate on her work. It made no difference now anyway; that door was closed.

  It was good to be back at the office. While her colleagues moaned about having to start work again and were probably secretly longing for Friday, Norah was glad not to be left alone with herself any more.

  She rang Tanja to arrange something for the evening, but Tanja hung up on her. Maybe she was in a meeting.

  Just before leaving the office Norah glanced at her phone for the hundredth time that day. There was a text from Tanja. She smiled and opened it.

  Dear Norah, things are pretty hectic at work just now, as you know. I don’t have the energy for anything else at the moment. T.

  Norah read the message twice and her smile faded. It didn’t sound anything like Tanja, whose texts were always full of endearments and superlatives and typos. Norah wrote back.

  Are you OK? Has anything happened? You’ll let me know if there’s something I can do, won’t you?

  No answer. Oh well. Looked as if someone was having a bad week—she knew all about that.

  18

  In the past, Norah had often longed to be alone. In her teenage years, when her mother bombarded her with annoying questions. At work, when stress levels soared and she thought how wonderful it would be to have a remote control that put the world on mute. Or when Alex had wanted more intimacy than she could give and she’d caught herself thinking wistfully how nice and quiet it had been when she’d had a flat to herself.

  Be careful what you wish for.

  Norah stood at the window, smoking, and the silence clenched into a fist behind her.

  She’d asked for leave to work from home because she was having furniture delivered.

  The evening before, she’d sent Max an email when she hadn’t got through on the phone: Feel like doing something tomorrow evening? All work and no play makes Norah a dull girl.

  Max had replied: Don’t know yet. Got a lot on. If we go out, we’ll let you know. xx

  Then Norah had rung Tanja, but Tanja had hung up on her again. Norah thought maybe it was a mistake and redialled. This time Tanja did pick up, but the conversation—if you could call it that—didn’t go at all well. Tanja briskly informed Norah that she’d rather spend what little time she had with people who really appreciated her, asked her not to call again and hung up.

  What was going on? It was weird; Norah had never known her like that. She stifled the impulse to call back and heard a ring at the door. A few moments later, two delivery men were outside her flat with six enormous cardboard boxes on their backs.

  Now, as well as a bed, a sofa and a desk, Norah had a wardrobe, a table and four chairs. It was a start. She slit open the ridiculously large boxes with the little Swiss Army knife on her key ring—a present from Werner—and pulled out vast quantities of corrugated cardboard, polystyrene and bubble wrap. She screwed legs onto seats and stacked the still-unpacked removal boxes against one of the living-room walls to make space for the table and chairs. Then she began to assemble the wardrobe. This turned out to be quite a challenge—at least for someone tackling the job alone—but it was something to do and kept her mind off Tanja’s atrocious behaviour. Eventually the last shelf was in place and the hundredth tack hammered into the back panel.

  That evening, when everything was finished, Norah sat down on one of her new chairs. As soon as she’d unpacked them, she decided she didn’t like them anymore. She liked the chairs in Berlin, fuck it—in the flat that was no longer fucking hers.

  And now the noise was back. An electric buzz—a painful, drawn-out sound, like a double bass being bowed agonisingly slowly; a dark, sonorous note that swelled into an ancient-sounding tune. If icebergs had voices, Norah thought, they’d sing like that when they calved and floated out to sea.

  Her gaze fell on the tarot card from the Imperial that was lying on the table. Norah turned it over so that she didn’t have to look at the scythe-wielding skeleton beneath a Roman thirteen.

  She would have liked to drop in on Max and Paul, but Max had sent an email to say that Paul had a filthy cold and a high temperature, so he was staying in to look after him. No escape—she was on her own.

  Loneliness was creeping up on Norah like the incoming tide.

  PREMONITION

  My grandmother lived to be a hundred and two. She outlived two husbands, two of her four children and countless friends, and whenever anyone in her village died, she knew in advance. (Or so she said.) I thought of her the other day when I was reading about Soviet military research into paranormal events such as telekinesis and extrasensory perception. One experiment in particular stuck in my mind.

  The scientists took a mother rabbit and her litter. The mother had electrodes inserted in her brain to measure the brainwaves. The young rabbits, meanwhile, were placed in a submarine and put to sea, presumably to keep them as far from their mother as possibl
e. Then the scientists killed the young, one by one, and each time a clear reaction could be observed in the doe’s brain.

  A fascinating experiment, not only because the thought of those bunnies on a Soviet submarine is so bizarre, but also because it proves something that many people have been claiming for centuries—that some living beings can sense the presence of death. I find it a beautiful and poetic notion, and since I have started observing her, I wonder whether she too possesses this gift.

  Can she sense the presence of death? Can she feel it growing closer? Does she know how close it already is?

  19

  Being alone in the cinema was nothing like what she’d expected. Norah had decided to watch a French comedy, but sitting there, surrounded by couples and groups of friends, she realised that jokes were funnier if you had someone to laugh with, and when she heard that dull, menacing sound again, over the actors’ chatter and the film music, she understood that the noise hadn’t been coming from her empty, lonely flat, but from her.

  Leaving the cinema between clusters of happy people, she looked about her. The men and women around her—holding hands, discussing their favourite scenes, imitating the lead actor’s accent—all seemed to glow with a warm light, as if their shared laughter had charged them with energy.

  Norah felt like a black hole. She was glad to leave the cinema and the glowing people behind her and plunge into the darkness of a dismal, rain-scented night. On her way to catch a tram, she saw a beggar kneeling on the ground in a pose of humility, head lowered, hands raised. Like a statue, Norah thought, rifling through her bag for coins for him. The man mumbled something without looking up. A handful of people were waiting at the tram stop, dark and mute and cold. Across the road, a bright-pink poster was printed with large black letters.