The first glance ought to have sufficed. But the significance needs to sink in; it takes time, it sinks heavily, it sinks without ever stopping. All of a sudden I slap my hand over my mouth and stagger away from the bed.
‘That isn’t Lena,’ I gasp into the palm of my hand. ‘That isn’t my daughter.’
The doctor takes my elbow; he keeps me on my feet or pushes me out of the room, perhaps both at the same time.
‘It’s not her,’ I say, over and over again.
‘I’m sorry,’ the doctor says. I’m sorry, as if that were sufficient.
Hannah
If I had the choice I’d love to be beside the sea now. With my mama – just the two of us because I’m her favourite child – in the most beautiful place on earth. She actually owes me a trip to the seaside because the last one didn’t go to plan. You always have to be in a good mood when you go on a trip. I caught every wave, throwing myself on my tummy with gusto, as if I’d already guessed that this might be the last time we’d be able to go away together. Mama had changed. She lay in the sand on her back and stared at the sky. I thought it was because of Papa. Every time he was away she was scared he might not come back. Although she didn’t say this, I could tell. She was nervous and agitated, counting the cereal bars, and she kept asking me whether everything was okay with the recirculation device. I’ve got an excellent sense of hearing, the best of us all.
I really wanted to cheer her up so I struggled my way back through the waves to the beach. I turned around to look at the water again, in case we had to leave right away because of Jonathan – his sleeping pills never work quite as long as we’d like. I saw the sun glistening on the sea as if a huge load of diamonds had been tipped on to it. The sky and the water were one, everything was blue, nothing but blue from top to bottom, remember this, Hannah, don’t ever forget this beautiful, infinite blue. I closed my eyes and breathed in the salty air which sat stickily on my lungs. Don’t forget this, Hannah, just don’t ever forget it. Das Meer, the sea, la mer covers almost three-quarters of the earth’s surface. Marine flora produces around sixty per cent of the oxygen present in the earth’s atmosphere. When I was sure I’d stored it all in my mind I trudged through the hot sand to where Mama was lying.
‘Mama?’
She said nothing. I shook my hair over her like a dog would its wet coat, and I really wanted her to leap up and chase me across the beach. Like she usually did. But that day she just lay there, totally stiff, staring up at the sky as if she weren’t really there.
‘You wanted to go in the sea too,’ I moaned, flopping down in the sand beside her.
‘Oh, Hannah,’ she said, rolling on to her side so she could look at me. ‘I’m really sorry about everything.’
‘What do you mean, Mama?’
‘You all have such a difficult time, just because of me.’
She meant the black eye. ‘That was just a silly accident,’ I said. ‘It’s not that bad.’
‘You’re smart, Hannah. And you’re getting bigger. One day you will think it’s bad.’ She felt for my hand and squeezed it too hard. ‘If someone asks about me, you’re going to tell them the truth, okay?’
‘You know I don’t lie. Papa always says that lying—’
‘I know,’ she interrupted me. You should never interrupt anybody. It’s impolite. She made a laughing sound. ‘Oh, just forget what I said, Hannah. I bet it’s just my hormones.’ Hormones are biochemical messengers that trigger certain biological processes. Like the fact that she was crying now and little high-pitched sounds were coming out of her mouth. I’d never heard her make any sound when crying before, even though the sound she was making was very soft. I’ve got excellent hearing.
Mama pulled my arms until I was sitting in the right position for a cuddle.
‘I love you, Hannah.’
‘For ever?’
‘For ever and ever and ever . . .’
*
I hear the door open and look up. This time it’s Sister Ruth. Finally she’s back.
‘Well, Hannah? How are you?’ she asks with half a smile. It’s the stupid smile she does when she’s a bit embarrassed. Probably because she left me alone and sent those two strangers instead.
‘I’m happy you’re back,’ I say.
‘Me too,’ Sister Ruth says with a real smile this time.
I dart around the table even though I didn’t ask permission to get up, and give her a hug. Sister Ruth strokes my head. Her hand is over my ear again and I can hear the sea. Das Meer, the sea, la mer, the most beautiful place on earth.
‘I’ve got some good news for you,’ Sister Ruth says through the roar of the sea. ‘We can go and see your mama now, if you like. She’s not awake yet, but the doctors are done with her for the moment.’
I nod into her soft belly. I want to go to my mama, but I also want Sister Ruth to cuddle me for a bit longer.
‘Can you hear that?’ Sister Ruth asks. Only now do I pull my head back. She means a sound. A strange fluttering, somewhere in the distance, but clearly audible. Sister Ruth points at the window. I can make out white and red flashing lights in the grey night. Whiteredwhitered, flashflashflashflash.
‘What’s that?’
‘A helicopter. The police are now flying above the area where your mama had the accident.’ Sister Ruth squats before me and takes my face in her warm hands. ‘They’re going to find the cabin, Hannah. They’ll get your brother out of there.’ Now Sister Ruth is smiling a proper smile, and because I can’t think of anything better to do, I smile too.
‘What do you think? Shall we go and see your mama now?’
I nod. Sister Ruth takes my hand and we leave the staffroom.
Matthias
Sympathy. Words of solace. For over thirteen years now I know how little any of this means. That people say things simply out of politeness. Karin still makes the effort to nod through her tears, while the inspector wastes his hollow phrases on us. ‘I’m really very sorry, Herr and Frau Beck.’
Gerd has arrived now too, and he’s standing with us in this ill-fated semicircle on the casualty corridor. I stare at the shirt he’s wearing beneath his well-worn, open leather jacket, which he hasn’t buttoned up correctly in his rush tonight.
‘This is why I wanted to come here on my own,’ he has the nerve to say.
I swallow some ugly words.
‘Your disappointment is now even greater, of course.’
I swallow again.
‘So, who is this woman?’ Karin asks, sobbing. She took one look at me as I came out of the casualty ward and knew immediately. ‘It’s not her, is it?’ she asked. I tried to shake my head, but couldn’t even manage that.
‘Frau Beck,’ Gerd’s colleague says. ‘This is an ongoing investigation. I hope you understand that we can’t give you any information.’
‘Because suddenly it’s got nothing to do with us anymore, Karin,’ I translate for her. ‘It’s not our daughter, so they can’t tell us anything.’
‘What my colleague Inspector Giesner means . . .’ Gerd chimes in. He’s trying his best to remain calm, but in my ears his voice hits all the wrong frequencies.
‘You dragged us out of bed in the middle of the night, saying you’ve found our daughter!’ I hiss.
‘I said there were similarities that we had to check,’ Gerd hisses back. The other inspector retreats a few steps, evidently uncomfortable with this situation.
‘I said from the outset that there was no certainty the woman was Lena.’ Gerd rubs his forehead and sighs, then he turns to Karin. ‘I’m terribly sorry, Karin. I shouldn’t have given you any false hopes. That was unprofessional of me. You know that for me this is a personal matter . . .’
‘You’ve been behaving unprofessionally for over thirteen years,’ I fire off, but I’m ignored.
‘So what does this mean for us
, now?’ Karin howls.
Gerd sighs again. ‘It means that . . .’
‘That we can wait another thirteen years for her, Karin,’ I interrupt gruffly. I no longer want to hear any of the clichés, the niceties, those dumb phrases to boost morale. ‘She’s not coming home.’ I feel the anger starting to burn behind my face; my cheeks are glowing as if gripped by fever.
‘Matthias . . .’ Karin grabs for my arm, but I’m not going to calm down. I want Gerd to realise the harm he’s caused.
‘It means we no longer have a daughter, that’s what it means! She’s dead! She’s probably been dead for over thirteen years! Only the brilliant Herr Brühling can’t even bring her body home so we can give her a decent burial!’
‘Matthias . . .’ Karin’s fingernails dig through the material of my jacket. All of a sudden her face is paler, while her eyes are wide open and fixed on something. ‘There,’ she whispers.
I don’t understand.
‘There she is.’
I follow Karin’s gaze across the corridor. I stop breathing, my heart.
‘Tha— that’s Lena . . .’
Karin’s right. That’s her. She’s coming towards us across the corridor, holding a nurse’s hand. Our child, our little Lena, my Lenchen.
Lena
I vaguely recall the screeching sound of the brakes, my own voice screaming, then abruptly dying away, the impact and how surprised I was not to feel any pain, at least not initially. Then it arrived, the pain, and it swept through me with such violence that I passed out. I don’t know how long for – ten minutes? An hour? – but then I suddenly came to again. As if I’d been sitting in a pitch-black room and someone had switched on the light. I was awake and totally clear-headed.
I knew instantly that I’d had an accident. I knew instantly that I was in an ambulance. I heard a beeping, which was translating my heartbeat for the outside world. I heard the sirens. I knew we were driving fast; I could feel the bumps in the road and the vehicle taking the corners. The pain I felt in my body was beyond words. I tried nonetheless to move, to check I had feeling in my limbs. Where there’s feeling – even if it’s pain – there’s life that can be recovered, I thought. If I strained I was able to wiggle my toes and bend my fingers: a good sign. Only my head wouldn’t move; my neck was stretched and fixed. They’d put me in a brace. I couldn’t see what was going on beside me. There was no right, no left, only a rigid up, the yellowed ceiling of the ambulance. Directly above me a piece of silver-grey insulating tape was stuck to the roof, possibly covering a small crack or a hole or even a discouraging bloodstain that wouldn’t wash off. I felt a slight pressure on my chest and behind my knees, but I expect that was just tight straps. I mustn’t fall from the stretcher during the journey and do myself even more harm. So absurd.
‘I think she’s coming round,’ a man’s voice said.
Seconds later a paramedic leaned into my restricted field of vision and shone a light in my eyes. I was supposed to follow the light. I tried as best I could, but my vision went blurred and the light spot just became a bright, frayed surface. The pain was fluid, oozing its way out.
The paramedic put the light aside and said, ‘Don’t worry. We’re taking you to hospital.’ I felt his thumb, in a latex glove, wipe a tear from my cheek. The beeping translating my heartbeat became quicker and more irregular.
‘Nice and calm, now.’ The paramedic tried to maintain professional distance and said he was sorry.
I began writhing under the straps that suddenly felt too tight.
‘Calm down. Listen, everything’s all right. You were knocked down by a car, but we’ll be at the hospital very soon. You’ve almost made it.’ The paramedic held on tight to my legs. I wanted to scream, but I just kept wriggling beneath the straps. ‘I’m going to give you something to calm you.’
The beeping of my heart immediately became slow and regular again, which I found completely wrong.
‘Could you tell me your name?’ the paramedic asked. ‘Do you remember your name?’
My eyelids began to flutter.
‘I don’t think we’re going to get anywhere,’ I heard him say, now as if from far away. ‘She must be in shock.’
‘Lena,’ a second voice said. One that wasn’t real, which came from the sedative, from the shock.
‘Her name’s Lena,’ the voice said again, as if to substantiate the truth of it.
I tried moving my head, but it was fixed, facing upwards towards the yellowed roof. And it was tired, this stupid head. So tired. My eyelids snapped shut. Hannah, said the last thoughts in the fug of my mind before it went black. It was Hannah’s voice I’d just heard. Hannah was with me, in the ambulance . . .
*
I stifle a gasp. I don’t want them to notice that I’ve woken up. Time has passed. A segment of film that’s missing from between my last thoughts in the ambulance and now. I’m in the hospital, lying in a bed. I’m feeling really light-headed now; I expect I’ve been pumped up to the eyeballs with drugs. The crook of my right arm is twitching. They’ve put me on a drip. I can smell disinfectant and hear the familiar beeping of an ECG machine. All around are voices and activity.
‘Can you hear me? Can you give me a sign, move a finger?’
I do nothing. I focus on my breathing and keep my eyes closed like a stubborn child. I don’t even blink when your crazy father stands by my bed and completely flips out.
‘It’s not her! That isn’t my daughter!’
I think he needs to be supported as he leaves my room.
Whereas I just lie there like a hunk of dead meat, just as all those nights I lay there while your husband sexually abused me. My eyes are screwed up tightly. I know that all hell will be let loose the moment I open them. I’m scared, Lena, terribly scared.
Matthias
Karin’s expression. Her pale face and her wide, staring eyes.
Lena, coming down the corridor towards us, holding a nurse’s hand.
Our child, our little Lena, my Lenchen, maybe six or seven years old. Far too small for that enormous cone of sweets, my addled brain elaborates when the images from the past wash up again and mingle with reality. Those blonde locks, that pointed chin, those eyes, my God, those eyes.
I thrust my hand out for some support and end up holding on to Gerd’s arm.
‘Lena . . .’
‘Oh God,’ I hear Karin say before Gerd snatches his arm away from me. My eyes follow this harsh gesture and I see that he’s grabbed Karin under the arms because her knees have given way.
‘What . . .’ he exclaims, before he too turns his head to the left, towards the girl. ‘How . . . is that possible?’
His colleague from Cham, who’s kept his distance up till now, also hurries over to us.
‘Lena!’ Karin calls out.
The nurse holding Lena’s hand stops in her tracks. Lenchen nervily steps behind her. She seems to be scared by the commotion.
‘Shh! Be quiet! Quiet, for goodness’ sake!’ I cry, but Karin is totally beside herself.
‘What on earth’s going on?’ she gasps, and then shrieks, ‘Lena!’
The nurse nudges the girl back down the corridor.
‘No, no, no! Wait!’ I bellow, and start after her before I’m suddenly yanked back. Unfamiliar arms clasp me from behind.
‘Lenchen!’ I croak, then Giesner wrestles me to the floor like a raging animal. While I thrash around pitifully beneath him in the last throes of our struggle, Lenchen disappears again and the corridor is empty apart from us. Silence.
‘Please come with me, Herr Beck,’ Giesner says after a few seconds, helping me to my feet.
With an orderly leading the way, he and Gerd take us to the nearest empty room. Gerd helps Karin over to the bed, on to which she sinks as if she’s just had the plug pulled out. The orderly asks whether we need a doctor to give her a
sedative.
‘No, thanks,’ I decide without really considering the state she’s in. ‘She’s fine.’
Once the orderly has left the room, Giesner says, ‘You owe me an explanation.’
‘Lena,’ Karin and I say in unison. ‘The girl back there in the corridor looks just like our daughter,’ I tell him. ‘When she was a child,’ I add quickly when I realise how crazy we probably sound. Parents in severe psychological distress harassing a small child they’ve never met before – that’s how we must come across to Giesner. Although, if the girl is a carbon copy of our daughter, she can’t be a stranger. Can she?
‘It’s true,’ Gerd says, unexpectedly coming to our help. ‘Like a clone.’
Giesner now gives him a sceptical look too.
‘I’m a friend of the family. I’ve known Lena since she was born.’
Friend of the family, I ruminate quietly, but then pull myself together. This isn’t about Gerd and me, it’s about Lena. No, it’s about the girl.
‘Wait a moment.’ I remember, and feel for my wallet inside my coat. Behind transparent plastic, the colours slightly faded, is my Lenchen, smiling with a gap in her teeth and her enormous cone of sweets. I pluck out the photograph and offer it to Giesner.
‘Here, take a look for yourself.’
Giesner takes the photograph and gives it a thorough examination.
‘Hmm,’ he says several times in succession. Just ‘Hmm’.
‘Who is the girl?’ Karin asks with a brittle voice from the background.
Giesner looks up from the photo.
‘According to her statement, the girl is the daughter of the accident victim.’
I shake my head.
‘But that doesn’t make any sense. The woman there,’ I say, nodding vaguely behind me in the direction of the door, ‘isn’t Lena.’
Dear Child: The twisty thriller that starts where others end Page 5
