Then they show a cell phone video; someone just happened to catch the moment of the explosion by chance, from outside.
An orange glimmer, then windows bursting, flying rubble, walls crashing down.
They repeat it in slow motion, and I imagine Erik in the station, holding his hands over his face for protection, being hurled across the station by the explosion until he crashes against a wall or into a train. Then, part of the ceiling falling in and burying him underneath.
The images aren’t real, but like daggers they pierce the protective layer I’ve built up around my insides. The pain has me doubled over; I hear myself sobbing, want to pull myself together but I can’t.
There’s no point pretending any longer. If Erik was OK, if he hadn’t been at the station, then I would have heard something from him by now. The explosion happened over six hours ago. The six most torturous hours I can ever remember having. But he hasn’t given me any sign of life. Because he can’t. Because he …
Still, I forbid myself from thinking the word. Like thinking it would make everything true. Like it hadn’t already been decided long since.
Around eight o’clock I call Ela again, but just get her mailbox. I leave a message made up of desperate stammering.
I have no idea how I’ll be able to get through the night. Call my mother again? No, that’s a bad idea. I’ll end up needing to comfort her, reassure her, convince her that nothing will happen to me.
And then she calls anyway; she heard about the attack in the morning news. Wasn’t it close to where I am, she asks.
Yes, it was. But I’m OK. I’m fine, yes, don’t worry.
At nine o’clock there is still no word about anyone claiming responsibility for the attack; there have been no messages, no videos. That’s unusual, the experts are in agreement. Especially given such a violent act of terrorism. The number of victims is being constantly updated, right now the count is at seventy.
Politicians announce that action will be taken, without knowing against whom; a national state of mourning is announced.
At around nine thirty, I finally struggle to my feet. I have to drink something, but I can’t even get two gulps of water down; my stomach protests, bringing everything back up. I only manage on the second attempt.
I prop myself up against the sink with both hands. With some luck, I should be able to stomach a little vodka, too. One glass should be enough to give me four or five hours of merciful unconsciousness.
I am just opening the fridge when a key turns in the lock of the front door.
My body moves before my brain has a chance to think. Out of the kitchen, into the hall.
He is standing there. Motionless, as the door falls shut behind him. His suit is torn, there’s a cut across his left cheekbone, the dust and dirt on his face has been wiped away haphazardly.
I can’t get a single word out. My legs only hesitantly obey me; slowly carry me toward him, much too slowly, but then I’m standing in front of him, I put my arms around his neck, press him against me, much too tightly. I want to feel, want to know, that it’s really him, that he’s alive. I want to hear his heartbeat, but instead all I can hear is the sound of me bursting into tears, sobbing, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. Instead of hugging Erik I grip onto him, burying my face in his chest, which smells of smoke and metal. It takes me a while to realize that he’s not hugging me back.
I try to pull myself together. Take a few deep breaths until the sobbing subsides. Then I pull back from Erik a little, not much, just enough so I can see his face.
His expression is hard, and at the same time so hurt that my heart almost breaks.
When he speaks, it’s only to say two words.
“Go away.”
30
Very slowly, Joanna lets go of me. She finally takes a step backward, moving in slow motion, creating a distance between us which feels both relieving and painful. Then she just stands there, looking at me. Her forehead and nose are streaked with gray, dust her skin picked up from my jacket.
“I’m so glad you’re alive,” she says, her first words since I entered the house. I watch her carefully, search her face for signs of deceit. But in vain.
“Oh really?” My voice sounds cold and sharp, even to me. “Are you sure about that?”
“Erik…” She pauses, then begins speaking again, her voice firmer this time. “You think I don’t know what happened in Munich? It’s all over the news. I was expecting the worst, picturing all sorts of horror scenarios. And then all of a sudden you’re here, and you’re alive. Yes, for God’s sake, of course I’m sure!”
For a brief moment, my entire being is pushing me toward her, with the burning desire to pull her close to me and forget everything around me. Then, the terrible images flood back. A knife, plunging down toward me. The train station. People screaming. Dead bodies, no longer recognizable as human beings.
“I’d like to believe you, Jo, I really would. But I can’t. Not anymore.”
She lowers her gaze, looks down at the floor tiles, and fixates on a spot for a few seconds. Then she shakes her head and walks away.
I wait until she’s reached the top of the stairs, then I sink down to the floor. I don’t want to go into the living room, nor the kitchen, I don’t want to be here and don’t want to be elsewhere either. I don’t want … anything at all. Is that possible? To not want anything? Is it possible to think of nothing at all? To just … be?
What’s the use of this nonsense? Am I losing my mind once and for all? But … is someone who’s genuinely losing their mind aware of the process, do they think about whether it’s happening?
I feel the last of my energy seeping out of my body, lean back against the dresser, slump down like a soulless rag-doll imitation of myself.
My eyes drift through the hall. I know the things I’m seeing, and yet they all seem strangely foreign to me. The small watercolor painting on the wall next to the entrance to the kitchen, the tall blue glass vase on the floor containing fronds of pampas grass, the curved sheet-metal umbrella stand on the other side … Things I’m familiar with, but which I suddenly don’t want to be part of me anymore.
What actually remains of everything that, until a few days ago, made up my life, that was my life? What does that woman who just went upstairs still have in common with my Joanna? What’s this house still got to do with me? And even my employer …
I close my eyes, opening them wide again when the image of the screaming man, and of his leg several feet beside him in the dirt, immediately comes rushing back. I shake my head to make sure the scene dissipates. It’ll come back again though, I know. It hasn’t let go of me since I left the train station.
And yet, despite the clarity of that memory, I can no longer remember how I got back home. I know I just started walking, it didn’t matter in which direction, as long as it was away from the terrible chaos. I left the car because … yes, why did I leave the car? Because I wouldn’t have been able to get it around all the ambulances and fire trucks? Yes, probably. And because there was a voice inside me telling me it was better to leave it.
People were coming toward me. A lot of people. They’d all been going to the train station, while all I’d wanted to do was to get away from there. Far away. Again and again I’d had to stop and hold on to something when things around me started to sway. Or when some loud noise would shake me to my core and make me jump in fright. And I kept on seeing these images in front of me. These awful scenes from the station. I’d tried to find a cab, but no luck. That was when the idea of using my phone had first come to my mind.
It’s crazy. You get so used to the device that you don’t go anywhere without it. And when you get a chance to really make use of it, you forget it exists.
It had still been in my inside pocket, but the screen was completely smashed. I’d put it back in my pocket. That’s all I can remember, that and suddenly finding myself in some courtyard. The old, rotten wooden bench in the corner, almost impossible to mak
e out in the darkness. I’d collapsed onto it and closed my eyes. The explosion, the screaming … I’d reexperienced all of it, again and again.
When the old man had asked me if he could help me at all, it was already late evening. He’d called a cab for me.
I close my eyes, know there’s something sitting in a dark corner of my mind, just waiting to be formulated into conscious thoughts.
Gabor.
Was it really possible that he sent me to Munich so I’d die in the explosion? Right now, here on this wooden floor, the thought seems completely absurd. Looking back, the entire day seems completely unreal. The explosion and the debris, fire, people screaming and blood everywhere … and yet, all I have to do is look at my hands and clothes to know I really was there.
But Gabor? The only reason he sent me to Munich was because I kept insisting he include me in the project. He even put a limousine at my disposal, paid for by the company no less. Although now I’m wondering why the car was leased under my name if G.E.E. are bearing the expenses. That’s unusual. And then there are all those other strange things that have happened over the past few days.
It can’t be a coincidence, not anymore. There isn’t that much coincidence to go around. I don’t understand the meaning of it all, but whatever the reasons may be—Joanna’s involved. And if both Joanna and Gabor have something to do with these incidents, then they’re in cahoots.
My stomach rebels at the thought, and it turns out I have enough energy left to struggle to my feet and reach the guest bathroom.
Once the retching finally stops, I wash my face with cold water and collapse onto the couch in the living room. I can’t think anymore; I don’t want to think anymore. I want to run away from all of this, although I probably wouldn’t even if it was possible. I’m so dreadfully tired; I close my eyes, getting ready to open them again once the horrible images come flooding back. But apart from the merciful darkness, all I make out is a tiny glimmer of light coming through my closed eyelids.
I push aside the thought that all the doors are open and that Joanna might come into the living room, knife in hand.
All of a sudden, a memory of my mother comes into my mind. It’s as though she’s standing there in front of me and looking at me with her soft smile. I can’t recall having ever seen her angry, not even when she had all reason to get angry. She never lost that smile.
The image touches me with such an intensity that even the strange coldness inside me shrinks away from it. It’s nice, seeing my mother this close to me. Recently I’ve been finding it more and more difficult to picture her face. Her image has become more blurry, more abstract over the years. Like she was drifting away from me, just a little bit further every time.
This time it’s different. Her fan-like laugh lines, the green of her eyes, even the tiny scar on her forehead from her childhood, it’s all clearly in front of me. I feel the urge to take her in my arms, no, to let her take me in her arms. To let her comfort me, the way she always comforted me as a child whenever I needed it.
More images appear, and I willingly seek refuge in them. Scenes from my childhood, beautiful things I experienced together with my parents. Weekend trips away, going skiing in the wintertime; they even took me camping because I was so hell-bent on going. Although the two of them weren’t in the least bit enthused about spending the night inside an uncomfortable tent.
Of course, it wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows. We did have our problems here and there, but we were never angry at each other for long, not even in difficult situations.
I open my eyes and stare at the ceiling.
My parents aren’t around anymore. Joanna’s my family. Was my family. And now? A stranger. Work, Gabor, Bernhard … my social circle. All strangers.
I push myself up, realizing as I do that there’s almost no part of my body that isn’t hurting. I prop my elbows on my thighs, drop my head, and bury my fingers in my hair. What on earth am I going to do?
“I have to talk to you.”
I jump, and notice Joanna in front of me; she’s standing in the middle of the room. I hadn’t noticed her come in.
“What do you want?”
“I just said: to talk to you.”
Something about her has changed. Her voice sounds different than before. More assertive. All traces of constraint or remorse have disappeared.
“I don’t know what I’d possibly have to talk to you about,” I say, with emphasized abruptness.
She comes closer. “Really? One catastrophe after the other happens to us, and you don’t know what we’d talk about?”
“No. I said don’t know what I’d possibly talk about to you.”
Joanna sinks into the armchair next to me, but without breaking eye contact. “I’ve been sitting upstairs racking my brain about all this. Your brain usually seems to work quite well, so use it, would you? Then you’ll see it’s not someone who wants to kill you, but someone who wants to kill us both.”
I let out a quick laugh. “The only thing that’s sure here is that you wanted to kill me.”
Joanna leans forward and props her hands on the table. Her gaze is very intense now; there’s not even a glimmer of uncertainty, fear, or despair.
“That’s what I mean when I say you should use your head. If I really wanted to kill you, Erik, you’d be dead by now.”
31
Dead. The word hangs in the air between us. Erik’s eyes narrow, like the word was causing him pain, and I think I know why. He was surrounded by death today; in fact he’s probably very close to a breakdown. His view of the world can never be the same again as it was this morning. To be precise, nothing can ever be the same again for him.
“If I really wanted to kill you, I would have had so many opportunities, Erik.” I feel the urge to stroke his hand, but I know that’s not a good idea. “You slept next to me for a whole night, we were…”
“The fact that you didn’t succeed doesn’t mean that you wouldn’t have tried,” he interrupts me. “And you almost did succeed, as we both very well know.”
I sit down next to him on the couch, but at the other end. “So you think I’m so hell-bent on killing you that I’m prepared to off myself in the process? Because if your theory is right, then the thing with the boiler must have been me too. Right?”
He closes his eyes for a moment. “I didn’t say that what you’re doing is logical, so don’t try to win the argument with logic. After all, you’re hurting yourself as well, did you forget?” The fingers of his right hand are clutching one of the couch cushions. I don’t think he even notices.
“For me, the worst thing,” he says, so softly that I can barely hear him, “is the thought that you’re probably involved with what happened today. My boss sent me to the exact spot where the bomb went off, at the time of the explosion. But I was late, unfortunately. For him. For both of you. And before that … the car accident, your knife attack, the scarves in the boiler.” He swallows, shakes his head. “I don’t understand how he managed to talk you into this madness. Certainly not with money, because I imagine you have a lot more of it than he does.”
I had resolved not to interrupt him, but now I can’t stop myself. “I don’t even know your boss. My God, I don’t even really know you. You can rest assured though, I could never…”
I could never be involved in such terrible crime, I wanted to say.
But the truth is, I can only hope that I’m right. My hand instinctively moves up to my right temple—it doesn’t hurt so much now when I press it, just enough to remind me how little I can trust in what I think I know about myself.
Nonetheless. Some things are inconceivable, no matter what the circumstances.
I look Erik straight in the eyes. “I had nothing to do with the attack in Munich. I swear, on anything you want.”
He returns my gaze. Silently. Searchingly. Until his eyes moisten, then he looks away.
“If you had any idea … of what it was like. Of the things I saw. A man bled to death righ
t in front of me, and a little farther away, by the tracks—”
He stops, takes a shaky breath. “I couldn’t see clearly, the air was full of dust, but between all the rubble, I … they didn’t even look like dead bodies, just like … chunks. Chunks of flesh. That had been living, breathing people not a minute before, picking up their friends from the train, or their parents, or…”
Tears are running down his face now, trailing clear lines on the thin layer of dust which still covers his skin.
He doesn’t seem to feel the tears; his eyes are fixed on the wall, but I’m sure he’s not seeing it, that he’s back in the station again, back in the middle of this hell of screams and death and destruction. Back in the place where he will continue to spend a lot of time.
The trembling starts in his hand, which is still clutching the cushion. From there, it spreads, taking hold of his entire body. He tries to say something but doesn’t manage; he tries to stand up, but I don’t let him; instead I wrap my arms around him, prepared for the fact that he’ll resist. He does, but only halfheartedly. He tries to pull away from my embrace, shakes his head, but I hold him tightly.
After a few seconds he gives up and rests his forehead against my shoulder. I hold him, feel the trembling grow stronger, then slowly subside, ebbing away until it’s barely noticeable.
I stroke his hair, his wet face; I want to say something but I can’t find any words.
He does, after a while, even though it’s just one, whispered.
“No.”
This time, when he pushes me away, I let him.
“Don’t come near me again, Jo. I can’t bear the thought that someone who helped these murderers is touching me. Even if it’s you. Especially if it’s you.”
“But I didn’t, I—”
Strangers Page 20
