My God – they’re scars! An accident! No, no, this can’t be true, this mustn’t be true, I don’t believe it!
The injuries left on Hans’s head by the hay grab! Two bleeding wounds made by its gripping arms! Hans the village idiot who fancied little boys.
Hans, the last person to see Joachim alive. Presumed to have murdered him, not that anyone saw it. All I told the police was that Hans was the last person with him, nothing else. No, no, I never called him the murderer, at least not to the police. Of course everyone was sure he was guilty, who else would it have been? Me, his own sister? They took Hans straight away, everyone knew how aggressive he could be. He was the only possible suspect capable of such a cruel murder.
What became of him? They said he was crazy. Life in a mental hospital. He was a danger to the community. That’s all I know. It was obvious, why talk about it? Dead is dead, and no one really liked Joachim. Even our stepmother was soon happy again, he’d just been a nuisance all round.
Can Hans have been released? A life sentence doesn’t mean life any more. So he found me, well, that wasn’t difficult. I haven’t moved far, only to the next town. And then I cross his path in the local hire-car and used-car dealership. No, finding me wasn’t difficult. He only had to keep his ears open in the village, most of my friends and relations still live there.
But why is he after me? Because of my evidence, obviously: I said Hans was the last person with him. And now I’m in trouble. He wants revenge. He’s crazy.
I walk up and down the room. I don’t want to have to think about what happened back then. I keep pressing my fists to my forehead. I was still a little kid, you don’t think so much of what you’re saying, what you’re doing. There’s a lot of things you do, and later you wish you hadn’t. I’m sorry if he wasn’t with Joachim that particular day after all. Hans was the one who’d be thought responsible. I only said out loud what everyone was thinking. Everyone in the village! Everyone!
Oh, bloody shit! How am I going to get out of this?
Years and years in the loony-bin, and who was responsible? Little Monika! She gave evidence to the court! At the time he kept on and on telling the court he was innocent, he hadn’t done anything. He sat there and said it over and over again. They couldn’t get anything else out of him. Just: ‘It wasn’t me’. No one believed him. And there was my evidence. The dead boy’s sister wouldn’t be telling lies.
If he was innocent, that would eat into him corrosively year after year. Deeper and deeper, and then he’d get around to hating the person who put an innocent boy behind bars. That’s only logical. His hatred grows and grows, he discharges it the first time he sees that person again. All of a sudden, like that! He’s making me writhe on the hook. Who knows what else he’s planning to do to me? More than likely the beating I took was only the start.
I have to get out of here.
Maybe I can break the lock on the trapdoor? With the broken knife.
Where I felt metal resisting it last time, the knife meets a void. I can’t believe it. The trapdoor isn’t locked. Am I lucky! Now I mustn’t make any mistakes. Go very carefully, make no noise. I pull at the door and it opens a crack. Pulling it up is easier than pushing it from below.
I wait for a moment. The stairs are empty, no one in sight on the ground floor. I keep perfectly still, hold my breath, listen. Nothing to be heard apart from a cricket chirping. A cool draught. That’s all.
I pull the trapdoor further up with all my might, open it fully, lean it slowly and carefully against the wall without a sound. First my left foot on the first step, toes first, then slowly let the rest of the foot down until I’m standing on the entire sole. Step by step. A mouldy smell rises to my nostrils. After a few steps I bend down and peer at the large room beneath me under the open door. The door beyond the low brick partition is wide open. Hanging on the open door is a small body with its arms stretched. Like a baby’s. The outline stands out clearly, the body itself is in shadow. I’ve opened my eyes wide, I stare at the body, go down the last few steps without taking my eyes off it. I start making my way towards the low brick wall and then along it, hardly daring to breathe. I’m taking smaller steps now. As I come closer, the body takes shape more clearly. No skin, just pale red, muscular flesh. Head and feet cut off. I notice how my throat is constricting more and more, I feel sick, just a step to the wall, propping myself on it with my hands, I vomit in a great gush against the wall. I let myself drop to the ground. A metre away from me there’s a shallow tin pan. In it lie the rabbit’s bloodstained skin and severed head.
It’s all so disgusting. I have to get out of here, quick.
I scramble up, take another look at the skinned rabbit, turn and go over to the door opposite. I don’t look left or right, just straight ahead. Over the threshold. The sun dazzles me for a moment, just disappearing behind the treetops. I cross the old wooden door. First cautiously, slowly, taking care to make no sound, then I move faster. Past the pond, through the undergrowth. I’m running. I ignore the thorny shoots catching in my blouse, tearing it. The path – left or right? Right or left? Which way did I get out of the car, was it to the right or the left of it? Damn it, my stupid sense of direction! Go on, think!
I can’t concentrate, I don’t know. Hell! Well, any direction, then. Right or left – heads or tails. Left! I run for a little way, but then my breath gives out. I get a stitch in my side, go down on my knees, gasping, I’m out of strength. All the same, I struggle on and on. It gets darker and darker. When I look at my shoes I see that I’m having difficulty lifting my feet from the ground. The path grows narrower, just a cart-track with two deep ruts. Grass in the middle. I switch to one of the ruts. It’s full of broken tiles and stones, my steps sound louder and clearer than on firm ground. There are hardly any clouds in the sky, pale moonlight, black bushes beside the path.
The night is never entirely black. In the light of the moon, all the bushes look as if there were an animal or some other living creature hiding in them, or concealed behind them. I know that’s nonsense. No one’s out and about here at this time of night, and the only dangerous animals are in the zoo, not here. All the same, I’m frightened.
The cart-track gets even narrower, the central strip disappears, the road is nothing but a path leading into the forest now, winding its way up to a rise.
And now I realize that I turned the wrong way right at the start. The town is in the opposite direction. So silly of me – how could I be so stupid? Half-witted!
Frustrated and exhausted, I sit down on the path. My legs ache, my back hurts, and I’m cold. My mouth is dry. I’m thirsty. I sit there looking up at the moon. I feel like crying. Was that splashing I heard? If I keep quite still and concentrate on the bushes on the other side of the path, I seem to hear something splashing. A little stream? A spring of water? My exhaustion disappears. I jump up and force my way through the bushes, feeling the dusty ground. Nothing. I’ll have to stay thirsty.
I go back through the bushes to the path. My eyes are used to the darkness now, so that’s no trouble. Disappointed and tired, I sit down on the path again. I’m finished. I can’t go on. I sit there with my legs drawn up and my arms around them, looking at the moon. The sky is clear and full of stars. Hundreds of sparkling points of light in the heavens. I don’t know how long I look up, I just sit there. My eyes fill with tears, and I begin crying helplessly. I scream and sob, I keep hammering my fists on the ground like a lunatic. I’m weeping with fear and rage. As time goes on my tears dry up and I just sit there, powerless, looking up and thinking of nothing. I have to get up, I have to go on – OK, I mean go back – before I actually give up the ghost. I have to go back to the house and try to find the right way from there. There’s no other option. Either I die of thirst or I go back to my point of departure and try again, but in the other direction. With difficulty, I get to my feet. There are a few berries on a bush right beside me. They look like little black globules in the moonlight. I pick a handful, not many. Qui
ckly put four or five in my mouth at once. The flavour is slightly sweet, fruity. The berries are full of seeds. I swallow. They have a bitter aftertaste. I spit. Now my mouth feels even drier and my tongue more coated than before. I throw the rest of the berries away.
If the bushes looked rather like dangerous animals earlier, now they seem to be human beings. I feel as if they’re eyeing me, sitting up above me as if they were in the front of the circle at the theatre. They’re staring at me. They sit there in old-fashioned garments. Some are staring at me, holding opera glasses up to their eyes, others are standing, nodding their heads, with glasses of champagne in their hands. I’m starting to have hallucinations, what with my thirst and my exhaustion. But I can see quite clearly how one of the theatre-goers leans far out over the front of the circle as I pass. I’m afraid. He’s leaning too far over, he’ll fall head first. He touches me, I can feel the breath of some of the spectators. They’re spurring me on. Their calls grow louder, most of them are calling out encouraging remarks, they sound cheerful and emotional. The rows fill up more and more, there’s pushing and shoving. The background sound grows louder. Glasses clink. First the restless spectators start whispering and murmuring, then they’re calling out, the sound rises to shouting. I put my hands over my ears, the noise is almost unbearable. My heart is racing.
Go on. I’m gasping for breath. On and on, through the dense undergrowth. I see lights to my right, soon I’ll reach the place where the path branches and leads to the mill.
Now they’re lining my way, I have to push through the crowd. I see their heated faces, red cheeks, gleaming eyes, I see them laughing with their mouths wide open. They crowd towards me. Their hands reach out for me, touch my arms, my shoulders. I can feel the warmth of their bodies standing close, side by side. The air smells used, acrid. I see the house. The audience is crowded together in a semi-circle now. They give way before me and leave the path free. Now I’m standing on the edge of the stage, the spectators have closed in around me again. I look around; the stage shows a ruinous old mill, light coming through little windows. The door is slightly open. I look back at the audience. Not a sound now, the crowd stands still. The human wall moves slowly, soundlessly towards me. I run to the door of the mill. The metal door sticks, won’t open any wider, I have to force myself through it.
I go through the door, the stage swivels and now I’m in a different set of scenery. Lamps hang from the wall on long nails near the low brick wall. They cast beams of light on the stone floor. My glance wanders from one beam of light to another. Beyond the last one, someone is standing in front of a closed door in the dim light. I go up to him. Now he seems to notice me and turns around. He has a knife with a curved blade in one hand, a tubular reddish-grey shape in the other. He lets it go, it lands on the floor with a squelch. Dark, mushy stuff comes out, forms a little lake that spreads, fills the cracks in the stones. Runs on, slowly making its way to the next stone.
I look up. There’s a gutted body dangling there, with a thin trickle of blood running down. The hand holding the knife hangs limp and powerless.
He’s a murderer, he murdered him. Slaughtered and gutted him like an animal. I was right, he did it, he murdered him.
My God, what’s the matter with her? Hair in a mess, face bright red, swollen and scratched. Everything about her filthy. She must have run through the forest. I’ve been searching it for her, she wasn’t there. I drove the Fiesta back to the road, very slowly. Stopped again and again, searched the forest to right and left. No sign of her. I’d started reconciling myself to the idea that she’d got away. How else was I to look for her? Just running around the forest is no use, at least not on your own. She could have been anywhere. I’d never expected to see her again so soon. It was plain stupid of me to carry the crockery downstairs and then forget to go back and bolt the trapdoor. Seems to run in the family. Father once forgot to bolt it too. Looks like we always make the same mistake in our family. Mother came back as well. I’ve been lucky.
But there’s something not quite right about her. Is she drunk? Standing there with her legs apart, but all the same she’s staggering around, can hardly stay upright. Looks like she’d lose her balance and fall over. Good heavens, girl, pull yourself together!
Her eyes are wide, black and gleaming, her glance is crazy. She stretches her whole arm out and points her forefinger at me. Instinctively I look at the finger, it wavers back and forth. Now she opens her mouth – but she can’t get a word out. I stand there too, gaping at her. The way she stands with her mouth open reminds me of a toad. Girl, if you just keep on breathing in the whole time like that you’ll burst. Like a toad with a burning cigarette in its mouth. Bang, there it goes, blown to a thousand fragments.
She starts muttering something to herself. First quietly, I can’t understand what she’s saying, I can only hear the murmuring and I see her moving her lips. Then it gets louder. My God, what’s she up to? Stupid as shit, first running off, then coming back again. And now she stands there talking utter nonsense. She’s lost her marbles. All I can make out is, ‘You bastard!’ and ‘You murdered my brother!’ Her voice gets louder and louder until she shouts, ‘By rights I ought to give your name to the police.’ The way she says that! ‘I doubted myself, I thought it was my own fault.’ She might be playing a part on stage in a theatre. ‘But it was you who did it, you, you!’ It sounds so artificial, all put on. ‘And me with a guilty conscience for years, all because of you, you useless creature.’
Then she collapses entirely. Crying, screaming, sobbing. She’s gone right off her head.
‘Shut up, will you, or you’ll be sorry!’
She doesn’t stop, goes on shouting at me, screeching the same thing over and over again like crazy. ‘You bastard!’ She takes off, runs towards me. Her body is shaking, she swings her arm back. What’s her idea? Is she out of her mind? She’s beside herself.
She’s closed her eyes.
She runs straight into my fist.
I lie there on my stomach, the cold cement floor under me. A musty cellar smell. I feel awful. My arms and legs are scratched. My grazes are burning. My head aches. He dragged me down to the cellar by my hair. Every root of it hurts. My mouth is dry, my tongue feels thick and swollen, glutinous saliva sticking my mouth up. I need something to drink. With difficulty, I haul myself up, look around. A paraffin lamp hangs from the hook beside the iron door, bringing a little light into the dark room.
I shake the door handle, but the door won’t open. Maybe there’s another way out? I take the lamp off the hook and look around. I’m in a long cellar – this room and two others, each opening off the one before it. In the last room there’s an old iron bedstead. That’s all. No other way out, no window. I sit on the bed and stare ahead of me. This time he didn’t undress me, put me to bed and cover me up. He’s leaving you here to die, I think. That bastard is leaving you here to die! The thought makes me so furious that I jump up, take the lamp and go over to the iron door.
I hammer on the door with my fist. Until the knuckles hurt. Then I go on hitting it with the palm of my hand. ‘You bastard, let me out of here! I want to get out of here! Do you hear me? Open this door!’
I start crying, snot and tears running over my face. I let myself drop to the floor by the door, sit on the cement and go on crying. I’m crying with rage, I’m crying with pain. These last few days I have tried to pull myself together, tried not to lose control, and now it all comes spilling out of me. I can’t stop crying.
But only a few minutes later I calm down. Suddenly my mind is curiously clear. How can I get out of here? He wanted the key. That’s how it all began. He wanted money, the key to the safe. That’s it, I must use that as bait. With money he’ll forget the past, forget that he wants his revenge on me. With his sparrow-sized brain, I’m surprised he can even remember that far back.
Right, then, try your luck. There must still be a chance for me. Maybe my last chance.
How to go about it? So far I’ve just b
een acting – or rather reacting – out of my gut feelings. And every time I land deeper in the shit. I need a plan, a strategy. Sounds good, only how do I do it?
Point One: he mustn’t know that I know who he is. So no talking about the past, nothing about Joachim.
Point Two: this guy is aggressive, whatever I do I must avoid provoking any more violence from him.
Point Three: he always had problems with women. He’s totally inhibited, and then all that time in jail or the loonybin, you’re bound to get inhibited in there. So what to do? Make up to him, exploit his insecurity with women!
I wipe the tears from my face with the back of my hand and stand up.
‘Hello!’ I hesitantly tap my finger against the door. Be nice to him, be friendly. I wait, put my ear to the door – nothing happens. Must have said it too quietly, he could be upstairs, who knows where? I knock on the door with my fist. ‘Hello there! Open the door, please!’
Nothing stirs. I was probably too quiet again, he’s sure to be out there. Now I hammer on the door with both fists. ‘Hello! Open up! You arsehole, if you don’t open up right now I’ll…!’ I kick it. Oh, don’t go on like that. You stupid girl, you mustn’t provoke him. You’ll do just the opposite of what you’re planning.
So try something new. Knock on that door in a more restrained way, wait, listen. I’m not sure, but I think I hear footsteps.
I knock on the door again. ‘Hello, Hans, I’d like to get out of here. I know you want the key to the safe where I work. I know how we can get hold of it. I can help you, but only if you let me out. I’m no use at all to you in here, none at all. There’s money in my boss’s safe, a lot of money. I know how we can get the key. You won’t get your hands on it without me, you need me! We can work together.’
Bunker Page 6
