Without looking at his assistant, who is standing opposite him at the operating table, the surgeon makes these remarks to him in an undertone. He asks for a scalpel. Extends the wound by about two centimetres up and two centimetres down. The young doctor opposite him watches every move closely, nodding vigorously.
The sharp scalpel moves lightly over the skin, but an incision immediately appears. Light red blood comes out in three or four places, sometimes in a thin jet. It is quickly staunched with compresses, and the sites of the bleeding are cauterized with an electric burner. Little clouds of smoke rise, and there’s a smell of burning in the nostrils of the team standing around the patient. The bleeding stops.
‘There’s food on the table. Your clothes are at the end of the bed. They’re still wet, I washed them as best I could.’
He’s bandaged my hands again, washed my clothes, prepared a meal and laid the table. What does he want me for? He’s attacked me, beaten me up, brought me here and kept me prisoner in this place. Is he a normal criminal? It makes no sense. It wasn’t coincidence. He’s carrying out a plan. He must have planned to abduct me. Is he some kind of pervert? A pervert who kidnaps women, tortures them and keeps them prisoner? How did he get hold of that photo? He must have been in my apartment. But why? Obviously he’s been spying on me. It all fits Hans. Hans wanting to get his revenge. He was after me, not the money. The attack was just for show, the real idea, the point of the whole thing, was abducting me! The photo backs that up, why else the photo? The photo. That’s the key to the whole thing. I must get it out of him. But how?
By talking to him, building up a link with him. The stronger the link between us, the harder it will be for him to kill me, just get me out of the way. Sort of like the Stockholm syndrome in reverse. There was an article about that in the newspaper. But does he simply want to do away with me? He’s tended my hands, washed my things, cooked for me. Maybe he wants both revenge and the money?
For now I’m dependent on him. I can’t even dress or feed myself, I can’t go to the loo by myself. I hate this. I can’t do anything on my own, anything at all, I even have to ask him to put my knickers on me. I’m absolutely dependent on this guy. Does he like that, does it turn him on? I could have got away more than once. Not now, though, I can’t even get down that steep staircase without his help. I can’t hold on to anything with my hands in this state. I’ve got myself into one hell of a mess. I ought to be terribly afraid. But I’m not. I’m perfectly calm, it’s as if it is nothing to do with me. As if I am sitting inside a bubble or a glass ball. I can see and hear everything, but nothing gets through to me. I’m composed, which is really odd. I ought to be screaming, raging, crying, defending myself. But I’m just calmly observing things. Sitting behind the glass wall inside me, separated from myself. Absolutely crazy. Well, it makes no difference if he’s Hans or some other weirdo, I have to get him on my side. I don’t stand a chance unless I get him on my side. My only chance. Oh God, help me!
The first thing I must do is get dressed, and then we’ll see. I’ll have to ask him to help. ‘Can you help me get dressed, please?’
He nods. This is terribly embarrassing for me. He helps me into my clothes. He doesn’t seem to mind doing that – if anything the opposite.
‘Thank you.’
He goes over to the table and sits down. I stand where I am in the room, undecided.
‘Hungry? Come and have something to eat.’
With an inviting wave of his hand he beckons me over. I go towards him, sit down. He smiles at me. I try a smile myself, stretching the corners of my mouth rather awkwardly.
I have to be fed like a toddler. Forkful after forkful, now and then a sip of water to wash it down.
‘Have some more?’
‘No, I’ve had enough.’
‘Right, then I’ll take the dishes down to the sink.’
He stands up and begins clearing the table. I don’t want to be left alone again, I just don’t want it. All at once I’m scared of that, scared of being alone, afraid of my dreams.
‘Can you stay here?’
He doesn’t say anything, but he sits down again. So there we sit in silence. Each of us looking at the table top. After a while I hear myself speaking to him, very quietly. ‘I don’t want to be alone.’
He doesn’t say a word. Sits there in silence. I just go on talking, talking about anything. Talking so he’ll stay and I won’t be alone.
‘Is this house yours?’
‘Why do you want to know?’
‘Only wondering.’
A pause. Shit, that was the wrong question.
‘What’s your name?’
‘You can call me whatever you like.’
‘But you must have a name! How about Hans? I’ll call you Hans.’
‘It’s as good as any other name.’
‘Do you like Hans? Is it all right if I call you that?’
‘Go ahead, if you want to.’
He sits there and doesn’t say any more. Just stares at his hands. I sit there and don’t say any more either. Damn it, this isn’t working, I can’t think of anything to say to him, can’t have a reasonable conversation with him. There’s a wall between us. Joachim, dead Joachim? All I know is that if I’m left alone again I’ll go crazy. I don’t want to be alone, can’t be alone. Everything revolves around that one idea: I don’t want to be alone.
He stands up. Takes the tray. I stand up too, get in his way.
‘I know where the key is. I can help you get the money, Hans.’
He stops in surprise, looks at me. For the first time he looks me straight in the eye. It tumbles out of me. I just go on talking.
‘I can help you, and then you’ll let me go, OK?’
He looks at me suspiciously, tries to get past me with the tray. I step the wrong way, collide with the tray. Everything falls to the floor with a clatter.
‘Sorry.’
He looks at me, pushes a strand of hair out of my face with his hand. Almost tenderly. Holds my head between his big hands. I close my eyes. He kisses me right on the mouth. Then he picks the broken china up from the floor, takes the tray and goes. I’m just left standing there in the middle of the room.
I wake up, and my hands are throbbing like crazy. Going wild. I’m beginning to go wild myself, I’m screaming. Turning this way and that in the bed.
‘Hans, help me. I can’t stand this! Give me another injection! Help me! Oh, please help me!’
A loud crashing and rumbling. He runs up the stairs, gets the plastic bag and shakes out the contents on the bed beside me. What’s he doing? Making a mixture of powder of some kind, water, lemon juice. Heats it all up in a spoon over his cigarette lighter. Draws it up into the syringe.
‘Here we go. This won’t hurt.’
He knows how to give an injection, I have to admit that. He sits on the bed beside me. Takes me in his arms, holds me tight.
My toes and fingertips go hot, gradually my arms and feet warm up too. The heat races through my body, up to my breast, gathers in my head. I’m burning! I’m surprised, it doesn’t hurt, I’m not in pain, on the contrary, it’s a pleasant feeling. Like a wave building up in the water and then running in to shore faster and faster until it breaks. The warmth turns to a soft sensation, everything feels lighter, inside and outside.
I feel as if I could take off from the ground, rise and hover in the air, overcome gravity. I’ve closed my eyes tightly, but everything is still bright, almost glaringly bright. All the same, it’s nice. Everything is incredibly bright and colourful. Red light around the rim, then brighter and darker colours alternating, converging on the middle of the picture in a semi-circle. In the middle there’s a deep blue.
The blue gets lighter, washes itself out, I see a stage.
A tree in the middle of the big stage, a willow tree made of papier mâché, with coloured leaves. Mist slowly rises. There are two people on the stage. One, the smaller one, is lying down. The other, an adult, is standing besi
de the first.
What is this, a play, an opera? The actor who is standing purses his lips, opens his mouth wide, shows his teeth. It’s all done very slowly. I wait for a sound, but no sound comes out. I can see that the actor is singing. But there’s not a note to be heard. No, that’s not quite right, I do hear a sound. Very quiet at first, then rising, growing stronger and stronger, like whimpering from the orchestra pit. The sound swells, grows louder, dies away, only to rise again. I’m sitting in the front row of the stalls, right behind the orchestra pit. I lean forward, peer over the bar in front of the seats. All the chairs in the pit are empty. There’s only one musician there in his tailcoat, sitting to one side of the conductor’s rostrum. He’s moving the bow of a violin over the blunt edge of a huge handsaw. The saw is jammed between his knees, his free hand holds the top of it, he is pressing it down hard so that the blade curves slightly. His expression is grave, almost rapt.
I lean back again, looking expectantly at the stage. The smaller character, the one lying down, is clothed in a sheet, stomach sprayed with bright red paint. One ear is bright red as well. Now this other actor also begins to sing, but without a sound. I can tell from the movement of the lips, the singer’s gestures show what an effort he is making. Lying there, he keeps pointing to his stomach with one hand, and with the other to the standing actor.
The standing actor raises both arms, fending everything off with exaggerated gestures and wide open eyes. Those faces remind me of the actors’ pottery masks of classical antiquity that were once painted in bright colours. I saw some in the showcases of the Municipal Museum. The lighting changes; now the larger actor looks like an American Indian in warpaint. Marks like stripes run down both sides of his skull.
The curtain falls. In the pit, the musician puts down his bow and the saw, takes a red banana out of his jacket pocket, starts thoughtfully peeling it. And as he looks up at me he slowly eats the banana. He glances at the time, quickly puts the banana peel down, picks up his instrument and the bow, and begins playing that dreadful, monotonous melody again.
The curtain rises. The same set as before, but this time the musical accompaniment breaks off in the middle of the scene. The musician has gone to sleep; only the falling curtain wakes him. He comes to with a start and jumps up. He inspects his musical instrument closely, then sits down again. The actors come on stage and bow deeply.
My loud clapping re-echoes, all by itself. I look around. I am the only spectator. I lean over the bar in front of me and look down into the orchestra pit. The musician bows very low to me. He is holding the violin bow in one hand and the saw in the other. He takes both saw and bow in his left hand and begins waving his other hand.
Mist gathers on the floor of the stage, flows slowly over the edge of the platform and down into the orchestra pit. Envelops the musician, swallows him up. Everything turns blue, but with a reddish tinge at the edges, and slowly changes to a bright red.
I feel sick.
I open my eyes, see the wooden ceiling above the bed.
I’m lying in the Fiesta in a sleeping bag. The side window is open and I breathe in the forest smells. I waited until she’d gone to sleep. Only then did I leave the mill and go down the path beside the pond to my car. I slept here the last two nights, and there was no one to notice. No one’s waiting for me. I like to sleep with a window open. That was the worst part of jail. Having to share a cell with four others. The air in the cells was stale and musty. The neon lighting had red dimmers fitted to turn down the glaring tubes. You get woken up at six in the morning. The clatter of the drop-down hatch for your food. Noise everywhere all of a sudden. If you make out you’re still asleep the prison officers come in, clash their keys against the metal bedstead and pull the covers off. Then you get up and wait for breakfast. Half a litre of dishwater, you can’t call that thin brew coffee, rye bread, jam. Honey and nut spread only once every two weeks. If one of the officers didn’t like you he’d spill the hot coffee over your fingers or pour it out beside the mug instead of in it. You couldn’t defend yourself or complain. If you did complain all the same, there’d be a beating after eight when you were locked into the cells and ‘proper penal correction’ began. You want to keep out of that, keep your mouth shut, look for ways of working your way up the hierarchy. So that you’re the one who spills coffee over other people’s fingers, the one who hands out physical punishment or extra work. The one who keeps his mouth shut and plays it by the book. Working your way up.
The ones who fucked little kids never work their way up, they stay at the bottom of the heap. There always has to be someone you can kick. I’d learnt how to keep my mouth shut from Father. Knew it was best to be like the three monkeys: see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.
I could sleep down in the bunker, but I don’t want to; I’m not at ease there. I’d rather sleep here in the car. The bunker was Father’s place. I always feel as if he’s watching me when I’m down there. I can’t get to sleep in the bunker, it’s like sleeping in jail – the air is stale and it’s dark. Feeling you’re not free to move is the worst of it. That’s why I put her up in Mother’s room. It’s healthier there and more comfortable.
She’s like Mother; she reminds me of Mother. She can’t bear to be on her own either. Like Mother, she begged me not to leave her alone. Just like Mother.
Mother used to cling to Father too. Begged him not to leave her alone. Not to lock her up in the mill again. He beat her and pushed her away from him. Sitting down in my hiding place, I heard her screams.
I heard them quarrelling again, I heard him hitting her again. I heard her pleading. But Father went away and left her alone.
And then Mother went away herself. Later, I found out that she’d hanged herself in the mill because she couldn’t bear it any longer. After three days of being locked in, she hanged herself.
I’m not such a bastard as he was. I don’t want to be that kind of an arsehole. I’ll stay here, I won’t leave her alone. She needs me, like Mother needed me when Father beat her, and like she needed me when Father had locked her into the mill.
The scalpel slides into tissue again. Places where new bleeding appears are cauterized at once. Fatty tissue spills out, the surgeon goes on and on, working his way into the depths. Carefully feeling about with his gloved hands, going far into the abdominal cavity.
‘Right, everyone. Now we make an incision in the musculature, then after the peritoneum we get to work on the intestine.’ The surgeon smiles. Raises his head, looks briefly at his young colleague. The operating mask hides his face, which still shows no expression.
Broad silvery metal retractors are set in place. The assistant grasps their handles and hold the abdominal wall open.
Shiny grey intestine fills the stomach cavity. The surgeon’s whitish, gleaming, rubber-gloved hands go in among the slippery, elastic intestinal loops. Feel the internal organs, explore the abdominal cavity. The intestinal loops are held aside with a metal clamp to give a better view of all the structures supplying the stomach with blood. There is fresh blood in the abdominal cavity, a sign of a major internal injury.
‘Dammit, this blood must be coming from somewhere,’ mutters the surgeon.
After a careful search, he discovers a tear at the root of the intestine.
A curved needle fixed to a long holder is handed to him. A ligature is applied to the bleeding vessels. The operation is over. Now it is the assistant’s job to close the abdominal cavity.
I lie there, covered up, staring at the bandages on my hands.
I feel so lonely. Has anyone noticed I’m missing? Probably not. It’s just too silly. He has to abduct me on the last day at work just before my holiday. I needn’t worry about the cat, my neighbour will look after her. What a stupid coincidence that I met her on the stairs on Friday morning! I told her then about my week off, and said I’d have to leave in a hurry after work if I wanted to catch my flight to the south. She’s often looked after the cat before. She’ll be a little surprised th
at I didn’t look in to say goodbye, but she won’t think much of it. So no one will realize I’m missing until next week, if at all. And suppose I’m still not back the week after next? Who knows, the boss may think I’ve carried out my threat to look for a new job. I’ve said I’m going to give notice often enough. Whenever I was infuriated about something I’d say, ‘If I can find something else I’ll be out of here tomorrow!’ They probably won’t even ask where I am at the office.
They still have Lilli to do all the work and save the boss my salary. Not that he’ll save much that way, it’s not exactly lavish. Lilli and I run the whole show. We do everything; we’re secretaries, car salesmen, gardeners, cleaning ladies rolled into one. We even change spark plugs and do oil changes when there’s a shortage of mechanics. The boss certainly can’t complain about us, and a little more money a month would be only fair. At the moment business isn’t so good, but not really bad either. I know the figures. And if he doesn’t like to do it officially, I’d be happy for him to slip us a little of the money he’s made under the counter himself. At least I wouldn’t have to pay tax on it.
He really exploits Lilli, she does literally everything for him. She even sleeps with him. What good is that going to do her? The boss is never going to leave his wife and children, however often he promises her he will. I don’t know what Lilli sees in him. He’s fat, he has a bald patch, he’s married and his kids are a couple of spoilt brats.
Bunker Page 8
