Berlin Syndrome

by Melanie Joosten

  But he cannot be. This is Andi — he is so ordinary. His way of taking her hand, his easy stride. He is like any other man. If it wasn’t for the door … It’s there at the end of the hallway. Like a third person in the relationship: the one who watches, the only one who knows what’s going on. With Andi at work, she finds herself drawn to the door. She lays her hand against it as though to discern a pulse, but it gives nothing away. Everything in this apartment is so resolute.

  She thinks back to the days, so recently, before she met Andi. Everything seemed normal. She was tiring of travelling — she didn’t like the way it made her feel as though real life was always happening elsewhere. But this is so much worse. When he leaves the apartment for work, she has to stop herself from calling out to him. Take me with you, she wants to cry. After the sounds of him have gone, she lifts herself from her bed on the couch and makes her routine tour of the apartment. She tries the door and each of the windows. She opens drawers and cupboards, stands in the centre of the living room turning slow circles and contemplating every object that she can see. There must be a way, something he has not thought of.

  She switches on the television, waiting to see a news report on her mysterious disappearance accompanied by a grainy photograph supplied by her mother. But the newsreaders carry on speaking in their low, sensible voices as if nobody has gone missing. As if she is nobody. She listens to the radio, wonders if there is any way of making it send out signals rather than just receive them. She wishes she knew more about how things worked. Locks and combinations and radios. The German voices seem to be taunting her — they drone on and on, refusing to be understood — and it is a relief when she finds a station that plays nonstop pop songs. It is the kind of music she would never have listened to before, but its familiarity soothes her. It is music from cafes and clothes stores, and she knows that out there other people are listening to it, too.

  She bangs on the front door, creating a monotonous rhythm, interrupting it only to jolt the potential listener into action. She puts on her boots and kicks the door, again and again and again, resting her head against her arms, her foot swinging like a toy woodpecker. When this brings no results, she hits out the same beat with a spoon on the radiator. She thinks perhaps the sound will carry along the pipes, leak into someone else’s apartment, and they will come upstairs to complain. But Andi says the building is empty, the other apartments uninhabited. If only the apartment faced onto the street: she could break a window, call out, wave until someone saw her. But the apartment is set well back in the block, far from the street and passing traffic. No one ever appears in the communal courtyard, and Andi’s are the only footsteps ever heard in the stairwell.

  She recalls a famous photograph from 1961 of an elderly woman hanging out of the window of an apartment building on Bernauer Strasse. On one side of the street, the buildings sat in the East, but stepping out of their front doors meant entering the French sector of the West. Weeks after the barbed wire went up, marking the path of the future Berlin Wall, people were still trying to escape to the West from these buildings. The doors of the Bernauer Strasse apartments were blocked first; eventually the windows would be bricked over. In the photograph, a crowd waits on the cobbled street, a bedsheet stretched taut amongst them, ready to catch the desperate woman, while East German police try to haul her back in through the window. Clare does not know whether the woman survived.

  Throughout the day, she tries to open the door, but it is always locked. It just keeps being locked, and nothing will make it change. She paces in the living room, or stares out the window, or sits crumpled in the corner of the couch. She pretends the door is not locked. That she is just sitting in her boyfriend’s apartment, waiting for him to come home. The longer he is away, the more surely her disbelief in the situation dissipates in the apartment’s close air; as Andi is reduced to vague memories, the good clouding the bad, she begins to wonder whether she has made the whole thing up. Yet when she fingers the bandage on her hand, her thoughts come to a teetering stop.

  He thinks that Clare might be fading. She is becoming less herself, more like a stranger. He notices it when she lies on the couch, with only the top of her head visible to him above the armrest. Her hair looks like a neglected toy that has been dragged out, limp and matted, from behind a cupboard somewhere. He feels guilty; he is not looking after her properly. He has told her that she can use anything she likes in the apartment — what’s his is hers — but she does not seem to touch anything. She eats when he is not there, at least he thinks she does, but she must take only tiny bites from everything, leaving little trace. She does not answer him when he talks to her. She has started to sleep on the couch, blankets and clothes woven around her like a nest.

  He thinks about what to give her and what to take away. Are knives dangerous? Surely to confiscate those would be going too far. He wonders about keeping his laptop at school but instead guards it with a password. And pens? Should he get rid of those? He fears what she might write down, what kind of memories she will create for herself if she keeps a record. He tiptoes around the apartment one night, gathering them together into a rubber-banded bouquet that he dumps in a bin on the way to school in the morning. Better safe than sorry.

  He removes the sleeping pills from the cutlery drawer in the kitchen, but knows he may need them again, so he takes them to school to store in his locker. When he had given them to her after their night at the fun park, he’d had no particular plan: he just knew that he did not want her exploring the city on her own. He had crushed up the pills, four of them, and stirred them into her cup of tea. When her head had begun to nod, he had undressed her and helped her to bed. She had slept through most of the next day, was still in bed when he arrived home. That was when it first began to seem possible: he could make sure she would always be there.

  She has not spoken to him in almost a week when one evening he finds her cross-legged on the couch, the safe in her lap. With her bandaged hand she holds the metal box steady and with the other she punches in numbers.

  ‘Why are you doing that?’ She does not look up. ‘Do you know how many possible combinations there are?’

  She does not answer him; he does not expect her to. He walks over to her and takes the safe. She does not hand it to him, but she offers no resistance; it is as though the safe glides from her clasp to his.

  ‘Don’t touch it again.’ Worrying that he sounds too gruff, he strokes her hair. He almost expects it to come away in his hands.

  She shudders at his touch. He feels the movement race through her and he gently presses down on her skull, tries to stop it from leaving her body and entering his own.

  ‘Clare, please. Come on. Talk to me, sweetie. We can talk about this.’

  He has taken to delivering monologues in her direction, trying to make her understand. ‘It’s not that I want to keep you here,’ he explains. ‘It’s just that I’m so worried that you will leave. It’s not a punishment — you have not done anything wrong. It just removes the possibility of you leaving. It means we can concentrate on what we have together right now. And I’m just as much tied to you as you to me. I must return to the apartment every day to care for you, to bring you what you need.’

  He wishes things would go back to the way they were, but they do not. You cannot always have what you wish for. He goes to bed alone and lies awake, desperate for sounds of Clare moving about the apartment. But there are none; the nights trade in the very same silence as the days.

  When he talks to her, a chorus starts up in her head. Don’t listen to him, Clare. Don’t talk to him. She can hear the voice of her mother, and that of her sister. The voices of the architects she used to work with, the student she took on as an assistant. They talk over one another, raising their voices; some become louder and more adamant, others talk quietly but steadily. They all tell her to keep calm, to not get upset. She tries to isolate any one of them, but as soon as she identifi
es a voice, somebody else speaks up, drowns the first voice out. Once they start, she cannot hear a word that Andi says, and for this she is thankful.

  ‘It’s for the best,’ he is saying now, and the voices begin, telling her she will be okay, she just has to think. There must be a way out. She watches him speak at her, and she has no idea who he is.

  At night, after Andi has gone to bed, the voices turn on her. What have you done? they ask. How did you end up here? What were you thinking? How could you be so stupid? She tries to apologise, to explain that Andi seemed so normal — she was not to know. You went home with him, they scorn her. You didn’t have any idea who he was. How could you?

  She is unable to sleep; it is as though her body has no need for it. She wraps herself in blankets, burrows her head into the corner of the couch, a pillow jammed on top, hoping the heat will lull her. Instead she sweats, her skin crawls, and she throws the blankets onto the floor until the chill sets in. Her body will not let her sleep; it keeps dragging her back, forcing her to continue with her thoughts.

  She is not used to being so sedentary. During the day she walks the apartment, up and down the hallway, a circuit of the living room. She wants to climb atop the furniture, throw herself at the walls. She feels as though her skin is too small for her. Her limbs have forgotten how to swing in time; her feet knock against each other. She flicks the fingertips of her unbandaged hand repeatedly. She cannot be still, and yet she is sure she is not moving. When she sits, she finds herself rocking back and forth, her eyes refusing to focus on anything. It doesn’t matter how deeply she breathes, she feels she is not getting enough oxygen. Her lungs seem to have shrunk to nothing, like they know they will never inhale fresh air again. She sits by the pot plant and concentrates on her breathing, willing her lungs not to give up. All she wants is to give up.

  On Saturday morning, he makes her breakfast, setting out the cheese and fruit, slicing things onto her plate. But she won’t join him at the table, and his lone chewing is the only sound in the room. When he puts the stereo on, he notices that she waits until he goes to the bathroom then switches it off. He is reminded of breakfast with his father, both of them with their heads bowed to the newspaper, their eyes tracking across the page as their hands ferried food and drink to their mouths. When his mother had been there, breakfast was different — she would take slices of cheese from his father’s board when he wasn’t paying attention, slap his wrist in jest when he tried to do the same to her. She would pour herself the powdered orange drink that stood in for juice but never drink it, reaching only for the coffee and complaining about the taste. And she could peel the eggs faster than Andi or his father ever could, even when they had just been lifted from boiling water.

  But Clare does not touch her breakfast, and soon his anticipation for the weekend is curtailed — he had been looking forward to them spending time together. Still, he is sure she will start to speak to him soon. Hemmed in by her indifference, he busies himself around the apartment. He plays records and changes them after a single track. When he scrubs the kitchen and the bathroom, revelling in the sharp smell of the bleach that makes his eyes water and his head spin, she turns off the stereo, leaving him to hum his own tunes.

  After the apartment is clean, he sits on the arm of the couch and tries to reason with her, but she leans away from him, her eyes closed, nursing her hand in its grubby bandage. It is as though he is not even there. He has a sudden urge to form his hand into a fist, to punch it into the door that has caused all of this trouble and to feel its unmoving response reverberate up his arm and assure him of his being.

  ‘Maybe we should take that off?’ He reaches for the bandage, and she shrinks back, their hands performing an orderly tease, all the yearning leached away. The dressing is stained and it smells like wet dog, a pungency that makes him think of the U-Bahn in winter.

  ‘How about I put a new bandage on for you?’ He is ashamed of his pleading voice and overcomes it by defiantly reaching for her hand. This time she does not resist but nor does she help. He is touching her. As her fingertips brush the palm of his hand, he is reminded of the way she would hold his face when they kissed. It feels like so long ago. Watching her face for signs of pain, he slowly unwraps the bandage. It has frayed at the end: the outer lengths of it are grey and tie-dyed with water marks as though she has been measuring rising tides in his absence. Her fingers are wrinkled, and shadows of yellow and indigo bloom from her palm.

  ‘Oh, Clare!’ He strokes her fingers; he can feel the bone through her skin where it gathers at her knuckles. He rests her hand in her lap and goes to the bathroom where he soaks a washcloth and rubs it with soap. Bringing it back, along with a towel and a length of bandage, he cleans her hand, dabbing between each finger. He wraps her hand in the clean bandage, binding her fingers back together for safekeeping.

  ‘All done.’

  At this, she takes possession of her hand and places it in her lap. He breathes the ripe, unwashed smell of her and wants to strip her of her clothes, take her in his arms. But he knows she does not want this; he is afraid that she will let him.

  Her silence eventually drives him to action. He opens the safe, takes his jacket from the hook and slips out the door, ashamed of his relief as he locks it behind him. On the street, people are gaily partaking in their Saturday afternoons. Long lunches, bicycles balanced with groceries. He thinks of paying a visit to his father; they could drink beer in the weak afternoon sun and talk about … They have nothing to talk about. Except his mother, and she’s not there to correct them when they get it wrong. He imagines his mother joining them at the bar near his father’s house. Would she laugh at their jokes, try to impress them with tales of her travels? He cannot remember her voice, has no idea whether she speaks through her mouth or her nose. In his mind, she has become like the mother of a Wessi girlfriend he once had: her skin taut, her hair shining and not moving, her jewellery banging on the table as she reaches for her drink.

  He is looking for a free table at his favourite cafe when he sees Ulrike. How long has it been? A year? Longer? As he debates walking on to a different cafe, she notices him then looks away. She stares at the newspaper propped against the napkin canister in front of her, and he waits for her to look up again. When she does not, he walks over.

  ‘Ulrike.’

  ‘Oh. Hi, Andi.’ She picks up her knife and a piece of bread then puts them both back down.

  ‘How are you?’

  ‘Good, thanks. And you?’

  ‘Good, thanks.’ He waits patiently for her to ask him another question. Eventually she does.

  ‘How’s work?’

  ‘Not bad.’ Surely there is more to talk about? In the past, he had spent hours in his apartment waiting for Ulrike to return from nights out with friends, dinners with her sisters. Hours of just waiting and wondering what she was doing every minute that she was away from him. And now he cannot think of a single thing that he wants to know about her.

  ‘Um.’ She looks at the empty chair that sits opposite her. ‘I’m expecting someone.’

  ‘Oh.’ He moves aside, and the sunlight reaches Ulrike’s face, causing her to squint. ‘Anyone I know?’

  ‘No.’ She looks back at her breakfast board, takes a bite of bread. ‘It was nice seeing you though.’

  He notices how the sun picks out grey hairs amongst the brown; she is looking more like her mother than ever, and he wonders whether he should tell her this. He should not. He decides to eat somewhere else.

  After lunch he walks until he finds himself in the busy anonymity of Alexanderplatz, as people rush around him. Now that he is away from Clare he misses her; he wants to be back in the apartment, things as they were. He thinks about returning home and opening the door, leaving it open and letting her walk away. But then he would not see her again, and he cannot bear the thought of that. What would she do, if she left now? She would repo
rt him to the police; he would end up in jail. He imagines his father coming to bail him out, the way they would not embrace, his father would ask no questions. But he doesn’t plan on keeping her trapped forever; it’s just until she understands. And then she can come and go as she pleases. She will want to return. It just takes time. Time and effort and things will come right.

  He will buy her a book. This thought cheers him. But what? The Klimt monograph sits unopened on the coffee table, though he suspects she looks at it when he is not there. In the first bookstore that he encounters, he loiters by the art section, continually looking over his shoulder as if to find her there, waiting for him to take her home. He moves to the photography section, flips through a book on the Bauhaus school. But he cannot tell if the photographs are good or not, and he does not want to get it wrong.

  He overhears a customer ask for the English book section. Perfect. He will buy her a novel, something she has not read before. He follows the man to the back of the store, and they stand side-by-side, their heads craned, reading the titles on the spines. But he has the same problem: he does not know what she likes or what she has already read. They do not know enough about each other yet; there is so much to learn.

  He has almost scanned all the titles when he comes across it on the bottom shelf. Anna Karenina. Something about it seems just right. Has she mentioned it? But of course. That’s how he found her, knew that she was not quite ready to walk away. He went to the train station because she had told him how she loved the directness of train travel, the way the journeys have a distinct beginning and end, the tracks leading the way and the train dutifully following. And that day she had not been ready to leave — she is still not ready to leave — so he had trailed behind, a lonely caboose, and brought her back.

  At the time, her easy assurance rankled him. Her impudence. As he dashed across the streets trying not to roll his ankle on the cobblestones, he was furious at her for leaving without saying goodbye. Yet as soon as he saw her on the platform he realised: she did not say goodbye because she knew that he would follow, that they were not done yet. She stood there so composed and in charge while he was jerked about, a marionette without a stage, embarrassed at his heaving chest, yesterday’s rumpled clothes. She just knew.