Hansen hesitated, then nodded and got out of the car. I watched him catch up with Leo.
‘I don’t know what you were planning at the airport,’ the stranger said, his voice low. ‘But if you think you can get rid of me that easily, you’re mistaken.’
What was I supposed to say?
‘What did you tell Leo?’ he asked.
I watched my son vanish into Miriam’s house. Hansen was speaking to Miriam, explaining, gesturing back towards the car.
‘Nothing,’ I said.
And then Wilhelm Hansen was back, and the driver took us home.
In the bright light from the window, the stark white of the bathroom suddenly reminds me of an operating theatre. I sit down shakily on the side of the bath, knocking a slim phial of bubble bath, which falls into the tub with a clatter. The noise strikes me as unnaturally high and loud. I watch the little bottle roll to and fro until it comes to rest. Bright spots swell in my field of vision and for a moment nothing makes any sense. Everything is smooth and white: cold, white tiles; the smooth, white surface of the bathtub; a white basin, a white orchid, white towels, white soap dispenser, white shower curtain. Only a few dabs of colour: the narrow bottle in the bath, filled with liquid—sapphire blue; a small diving mask with a snorkel—fluorescent green; a tiny plastic Darth Vader figure—black; a squeaky duck—shocking pink. And me. I look down at myself—at my tanned legs, sticking out from under my white dress—at my cherry-red toenails. I blink. I feel the cool, smooth surface beneath me. I feel my arms breaking out in goosebumps and stare at the tiles in front of me. The white flickers before my eyes. A tap drips—plink, plink, plink—getting louder and louder—plink, plink, plink, plink—but I can’t get up and turn it off; I have to sit here and wait for the numbness to pass—the trembling, the dizziness. The faint smell of a scented candle on the edge of the bath rises to my nose. I’ve forgotten what it is that smells like that—vanilla? lemon? amber?
My heartbeat is only slowly steadying.
I am so angry at myself. How could I have failed to make myself heard at the airport? Why didn’t I insist on speaking to Philip on the phone before he arrived? Since when have you been such a pathetic little mouse, eh, Sarah? Pull yourself together, I think. Get up! Do something!
I get up and go over to the basin. I rinse my mouth and splash cold water over my face.
Good. Now think!
I think, although the gears in my brain are grinding slowly and my teeth are chattering. Today my husband, my darling Philip, should have come home, and instead there was a stranger on the plane. I was in shock, and allowed myself to be bundled into a car with him and driven home. But now I’m here, in my own home. I’ve got a grip on myself. I have a moment to think before I go back outside.
I have no idea what the stranger’s plans are.
What could he possibly want from me?
I have to ring the police.
Immediately.
I turn round. My hand is on the doorhandle when I hear it. Footsteps.
I feel my heart grow small and hard with fear.
When I left the stranger and Wilhelm Hansen sitting in the car and burst into the house, fighting back the vomit, my hand to my mouth—did I make sure the door clicked shut behind me?
I swallow heavily.
The stranger is in the house.
The twittering of birds comes in at the bathroom window; my gaze shifts to the garden. The rich green of the horse chestnuts gleams in the sun, against the dark blue of the sky. Soon the trees will throw down their conkers onto the heads of passers-by like tiny bombs. Mothers like me, who still make things with their children, will fashion little people out of them, with matchsticks for arms and legs, before sending their sons and daughters off to football practice or the games console. It is almost as if the idyllic summer’s day were mocking me.
The stranger and I are alone in the house. Instinctively I feel for my phone, which I always keep in my pocket—but my white dress doesn’t have pockets, so my phone must be in my handbag, which I dropped somewhere in the hall. I curse under my breath. If I want to ring anyone—if I want to call for help—I’ll have to leave the bathroom. I’ll have to go out into the house. I sit down on the toilet lid and bury my face in my hands. I wish I hadn’t gone to the airport alone; I wish I’d had somebody at my side. Why does Johann have to be away just when I need him, for Christ’s sake? A few minutes pass. Outside the bathroom door it’s quiet, but I know the stranger is there. I run my hand through my hair, my fingers trembling. I can’t stay in here for ever.
Get up! I think—and I get up. I count to three under my breath.
Open the door, I think.
I open the bathroom door—and the stranger is standing right in front of me.
He smiles.
My anger gets the better of my fear and I take a step towards him. ‘This is my house,’ I say.
He bows his head and turns away. His short beard is uneven—beneath it I can see his jaw muscles working—and he’s taken off the jacket he had on at the airport, revealing tanned arms. There is something peculiar about the way he holds himself.
‘Who are you?’ I ask.
‘Who are you?’ the stranger says.
I stare at him, perplexed.
‘What do you want from me?’ I ask.
‘What do you want from me?’ the stranger says.
For a moment I’m thrown.
‘What are you doing in my house?’
‘What are you doing in my house?’ he says.
Shaken, I take a step backwards. He’s crazy!
‘Who the hell are you?’ I ask, almost whispering the question.
The stranger raises his eyebrows. ‘I’m Philip,’ he says. ‘Your husband.’ The corners of his mouth twitch. He seems to find this amusing.
My body feels utterly numb. Is this a dream?
‘You’re not my Philip. I’ve never seen you before in my life.’
He laughs openly at me, making no effort to hide his derision. ‘You’re right,’ he says. ‘I’m not your Philip.’
Almost without knowing what I’m doing, I raise my right arm and give the stranger a resounding slap on the face.
‘Where’s my husband?’ I hear myself scream. ‘Where’s Philip? What have you done to him?’
Quick as a flash, he grabs my arm. I try to pull back, but I don’t have a chance. He draws me up close to him and stares into my face. ‘I’m your husband,’ he hisses. ‘You love me—remember?’
‘Get out of my house!’ I yell, pushing him away with a shove to the chest that momentarily throws him off balance. ‘Get out!’
I grab him by the arm and try with all my strength to drag him towards the door, gasping for breath, tears of hatred in my eyes. He resists and pulls himself free.
‘Get out of here!’ I shout. ‘You can’t seriously think you’ll get away with this.’
He just stares at me, all calmness and composure. Suddenly he no longer seems crazy at all; he looks as if he knows exactly what he’s doing. He spreads out his arms in silence, as if to say: I already have done.
I think of the airport—all the people, the photographers. I think of tomorrow’s papers. There will be a photo of the stranger holding my son—and beneath the photo, Philip’s name. I think of myself, surrounded by journalists, letting the stranger hug me, speaking that fateful sentence: ‘It’s so good to have you back.’
‘I’m calling the police,’ I say.
‘You need to calm down,’ he says.
I push past him towards the living room, the phone. I expect him to block my way, try to stop me, attack me physically. He does nothing of the sort, but as I pick up the phone, I realise he’s followed me.
‘You’re being ridiculous,’ he says calmly.
I press the receiver so tightly to my ear that it hurts, but I hear nothing—no dialling tone. I look up. The stranger is holding the telephone cable in his hand. He has unplugged the phone.
Panic seizes me when t
he stranger suddenly takes a step towards me; we are alone in this big empty house and I know nothing about this man, nothing. My eyes flit around the sitting room in search of something I could use in self-defence and come to rest on the big windows looking out onto the garden. One of the windows is ajar; I can hear lawnmowers and laughing children. It all seems so surreal: I’m in here with a strange man and outside it’s a beautiful summer’s day.
‘I warn you,’ I say, ‘if you come any closer, I’ll scream the house down. The neighbours will call the police.’
My voice shakes; I don’t know whether from anger or fear or both. That was a lie; there’s no one out there except perhaps old Mrs Theis and a few children. The neighbours on the left are away. And Mrs Theis’s lawnmower is roaring.
‘Is that really what you want?’ he asks, coming a step closer. ‘You want to talk to the police?’
‘I warn you,’ I repeat, more to bolster myself up than because I have any real hope of rescue.
The man stares at me. He shakes his head for a long time, over and over, reminding me a little of the depressed elephant at the zoo—except that the elephant looked sad, not dangerous. I look around for an escape route; I have to get out of here, that much is clear.
He takes another step towards me. I retreat, and he steps forward again.
‘If you were my husband,’ I say, desperately, ‘you’d have no reason to be afraid of the police.’
He laughs. Our eyes meet; again there is an amused glint in his.
‘I’m not the one who should be afraid of the police,’ he says.
Slowly, very slowly, as if in pain, he crouches down. Then there is a soft click and I realise that he has plugged the phone in again. The stranger pulls himself up to his full height and looks at me, quiet, self-confident, almost as if he’s challenging me.
‘Would you like to call the police?’ he asks.
A second passes, two seconds, an eternity.
‘I didn’t think so,’ he says.
The stranger
Keep going.
Do what has to be done.
I clench myself like a fist, keeping everything I can’t use right now on the inside.
That way, no one stands a chance against me.
Keep going, just keep going.
Don’t stop.
Sarah
It is now late afternoon. I have been frantically making phone calls, deciding to ignore the stranger’s threat, and my horror at the situation has only grown.
When I picked up the phone again, the stranger shot me a mocking glance.
‘I’m not calling the police. I’m calling your good friend Wilhelm Hansen,’ I retorted, realising I wasn’t making any sense, that this would not make any difference to him whatsoever. But to my surprise he just smiled, and I’m beginning to realise why.
It won’t be so easy to get rid of the phoney Philip, especially now that I’ve as good as acknowledged him as my husband in front of rolling cameras. Mr Bernardy of the crisis management team, to whom I’d spoken briefly yesterday, simply shook me off—of course Philip’s identity had been thoroughly vetted—although I could, of course, make an appointment to see a member of the team in the coming week if I still had reservations.
‘Reservations’—he actually said ‘reservations’, as if this were a completely innocuous concern rather than a matter of life or death.
Hansen had his secretary tell me he wasn’t around—or else he really wasn’t.
The stranger looked on calmly, as if amused.
And now we are standing here, facing each other in silence, while I wonder what to do next. It is another hot summer’s afternoon, but I have goosebumps. I clench my teeth to stop them chattering. A sunbeam falls lazily through the window onto the parquet. I see little motes of dust dancing in the light like elves in a fairy ring and prefer to look at them than at the stranger. His face with its cold, hard eyes is strangely beautiful. Who knows what is going on in his head? I am so glad Leo isn’t in the house.
‘I have to sit down,’ says the man.
I watch in anger as he makes his way slowly and cautiously across the living room towards the sofa. He looks at me as if I were a terrified child he doesn’t want to scare any worse. Then he lowers himself onto the sofa. I don’t like that; the sofa is where I lie with Leo to watch cartoons, or documentaries about meteorites and dinosaurs. Next to it is the stranger’s luggage: a medium-sized dark brown leather holdall, not big enough for anything but the bare essentials.
I had made up my mind not to talk to him again, but I can’t help myself.
‘What is it you want from me? Come on, tell me,’ I blurt out. ‘Is this some kind of sick joke?’
He blinks.
‘Oh, it’s no joke, Sarah, believe me,’ he replies.
It infuriates me, the way he says my name—as if he could somehow bring us closer by persistently calling me by my first name. It’s sickening. Besides, Philip almost never called me by my actual name, but of course the stranger can’t know that. We stare at each other. I don’t know why he’s keeping up this charade; it must be clear to him that he can’t fool me. Perhaps he’s afraid I might somehow unmask him if he steps out of his role for even a second. Maybe he’s scared that I’m secretly recording him, or that someone might overhear him.
Silence sets in again while I try to come up with a plan. The stranger’s gaze weighs heavy on me.
Before long he gets up again.
‘All right then,’ he says. ‘Enjoy your telephone pranks.’
He takes his bag and disappears towards the kitchen.
I stand quite still, listening out. I hear his footsteps recede, a door click shut. I ought to follow him, but my body won’t obey me. I am simply glad not to be in the same room as him anymore. I stand there in the living room, blinking, looking around me. There is the cream sofa where I often sit with Leo in the evening, its cream cushion covering a cocoa stain. There is the armchair I read in and beside it the little orange tree, which has just started to blossom and gives off a heady scent. There is the television, the stereo, Philip’s shelves of records and next to them my bookshelves. There is the windowsill, the framed family photos: Leo, Philip, me. I pinch myself, which makes me feel stupid, but I feel the pain in my arm—as if through an anaesthetic, it’s true, but I feel it, just as I feel the floor beneath my feet. All this is real—it’s really happening. It’s not one of my nightmares—there’s no door with horrors lurking on the other side, no rumbling sound, no incubus sitting on my chest, sucking the breath from my lungs. I’m not about to wake up sweaty and crusty-eyed but relieved. No one is going to wake me.
I can think now, though, without the stranger watching my every move. I can’t expect any help from Bernardy and Hansen—I know that now—but what about the tall blond woman who gave me her card at the airport? I dig the card out of my handbag. It has nothing on it but her name, Barbara Petry, and a telephone number—both in straight black writing.
I dial the number and hold my breath. She picks up after the second ring.
‘Barbara Petry?’
‘Hello, this is Sarah Petersen.’
‘Mrs Petersen—what can I do for you?’ she asks.
I have to swallow. ‘I urgently need your help,’ I say. ‘Could you come round briefly?’
‘Has anything happened?’
How can I put it to make her take me seriously?
‘I know it sounds crazy,’ I say, ‘but the man you and everyone else think is Philip Petersen is not Philip Petersen. I don’t know who he is, but he’s not my husband.’
There’s a pause before she replies. I expect her to ask what’s going on.
‘I’ll set off right away,’ she says instead.
I thank her, tears of relief pricking my eyes. I blink them away.
‘But of course,’ Petry says. ‘That’s what I’m here for.’
I sit down on the sofa and stare at the framed sailing ship on the wall. Constanze gave it to Philip and me years
ago and I’ve never liked it, but it’s a consolation to me now in an utterly unreal situation. I almost have the feeling that the ship is moving on the waves. Out of the window I can see the neighbour’s lawn, where four ravens are hopping about on the grass. I remember my grandmother telling me she couldn’t stand ravens; they were birds of death. Nonsense, my mother had replied, but she didn’t like them either because they frightened off the songbirds. Soon, she said, there would be no blue tits or robins left, no nut hatches or sparrows—only ravens and crows. I was as old as Leo is now and I loved robins and blue tits; in the winter I was allowed to feed them. After that, I threw stones at the ravens to scare them away—until my mother put a stop to it.
The ravens outside make throaty noises. Where have they come from all of a sudden? Disturbed, I avert my eyes. Close them for a moment.
Immediately, the photographers’ shouts sound in my ears: ‘Mr Petersen! Mrs Petersen!’ And then Hansen’s voice: ‘Mrs Petersen? Everything all right?’
My thoughts wander and I remember that Philip used to call me ‘Mrs Petersen’ whenever I annoyed him, whenever he thought me too severe or too serious. It used to make me wild. I didn’t like my surname—could never really get used to having Philip’s parents’ name instead of my parents’. It hadn’t been an easy decision, and we’d argued for nights on end, weighing up the pros and cons over red wine and takeaway pizza. In the end Philip suggested playing rock, paper, scissors, which was what we always did when we couldn’t come to an agreement—we were going to do it too, we had decided, when choosing names for our children, because Philip was adamant on Arthur for a boy and Linda for a girl, while I preferred Leo and Amélie. At any rate, we played for my maiden name and I lost. I was never a good loser.
I recall one of our trips to the North Sea. I was heavily pregnant. We were sitting on a towel on the sand, breathing in the smell of suncream and the sea and arguing about some nonsense or other. In the end, Philip raised his hand and said, ‘Okay, you’re right, Mrs Petersen. Let’s stop arguing.’
The Stranger Upstairs Page 6
