The Stranger Upstairs

by Melanie Raabe

  Petry raises astonished eyebrows.

  ‘This house has belonged to my family for generations,’ says the phoney Philip. ‘I returned home today after seven years. I am not sleeping in a hotel.’

  Barbara Petry lets this sink in, then she nods.

  ‘Mrs Petersen,’ she says, with an apologetic undertone, ‘would you sleep somewhere else tonight?’

  I stare at her in disbelief. Has she gone crazy? Does she really think I’d be prepared to leave my house to this stranger?

  ‘No,’ I say.

  Again she suppresses a sigh. ‘The way things are, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to stay here together.’

  ‘Then take this man with you,’ I say.

  ‘Please be sensible—’ Barbara Petry begins, but I interrupt her.

  ‘I want to see his birthmark,’ I say.

  Petry’s head swings round. ‘What birthmark?’

  ‘My husband has a very prominent birthmark on his chest,’ I say. Now I’ve got him.

  Barbara Petry seems uneasy. I see her exchange a glance with the stranger.

  ‘I can’t,’ he whispers.

  ‘Of course not,’ Petry replies softly.

  ‘Have you gone crazy?’ I shout. I see anger flash in Petry’s eyes.

  ‘You have no idea what this man has been through! This madness ends right now. This has gone on for far too long, anyway.’

  I am shocked by this outburst. For a while, nobody says anything.

  ‘I’ll see you to the door,’ the stranger says finally, getting up.

  Barbara Petry gets up too.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she tells him.

  As she turns to leave, I jump up, almost knocking over a chair. ‘I request a DNA test,’ I say. I see with triumph that the impostor is staring at me open-mouthed.

  ‘DNA tests can only be undergone voluntarily,’ Barbara Petry replies.

  I look at the stranger. He looks back—for an eternity, for two eternities, three.

  ‘All right,’ he says.

  The stranger

  Philip Petersen was born in Hamburg on 27 January 1976.

  Sarah Petersen, née Wagner, first saw the light in Cologne on 4 April 1978.

  Leo Petersen, the couple’s only child, came into the world on 28 August 2006.

  Philip’s mother, Constanze, has her birthday on 18 May. His father, also Philip, was born on 11 November and died on Christmas Eve 2002.

  Sarah Wagner and Philip Petersen met on 2 August.

  Philip’s birthday is not only Mozart’s birthday; it is also the day of the liberation of Auschwitz.

  On 4 April 1968—ten years to the day, that is, before Sarah Petersen was born—Martin Luther King was shot in Memphis.

  Leo Petersen shares a birthday with Goethe.

  I have always had a good head for dates. Of course I know the date of the wedding—it was 11 April.

  I’m just a bit tired. That’s all.

  Sarah

  The light coming in at the window has changed—it is warmer and less glaring, a reminder that it will soon be evening.

  I can’t possibly spend the night under the same roof as that man.

  I sit curled up in the reading chair, trying to calm down. I was completely thrown when the stranger agreed to a DNA test—had no idea how to react, lost all control of my face, must have looked horrified. The stranger gave me a superior grin. Barbara Petry raised her eyebrows and looked at me with undisguised mistrust. If, to begin with, she had at least entertained the possibility that I might be right, the stranger’s consent to this request changed everything. I could have knocked over the kitchen table out of sheer frustration, but I got a grip on myself, of course, and somehow managed to say something—I don’t know what. My brain kept circling back to the same question: how could he possibly agree to that?

  As if they had come to some arrangement, Barbara Petry and the stranger set off for the front door together. I wasn’t quick enough; for a moment my body refused to obey me, and then I had no choice but to hurry after the two of them—in my own house. It was then that I heard him say it, his voice sunk to a confidential whisper.

  ‘I’m sorry, Barbara, my wife really isn’t in a good way. Can I trust you not to…’

  And Petry, her voice suddenly full of warmth, as if I wasn’t there at all: ‘Don’t you worry, Mr Petersen, I won’t mention it to anyone, if you don’t want me to.’

  He’s done it, I thought. He’s got her now.

  And very calmly, very sincerely, very softly, he replied, ‘Thank you.’

  I was stunned. And I thought, God, he’s good.

  When Barbara Petry had gone, I told the stranger one last time to get out of my house, but he simply said, ‘No,’ and left the room.

  He is like one of those animals that invade an alien ecosystem and destroy it from within.

  I look down at my lap, at the book I have pulled down from one of my shelves without really looking. It’s a game I used to like playing—taking down a book with my eyes closed and then opening them to see what chance had placed in my hands, and puzzling over the message sent to me from the universe or my subconscious. My literary horoscope. If I took down Jack Kerouac’s On the Road, it meant I would be going on a journey. Goethe’s Faust heralded an important decision, and Chuck Palahniuk’s Fight Club, of course, a fight. Some books—The Catcher in the Rye, for example, or The Master and Margarita—carried a more equivocal message, while others, such as Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being, seemed perennially apt. My bookshelves take up an entire wall of the living room. I love books. I need them, those self-contained little worlds between two covers where I can travel whenever I have the feeling I’m living in the wrong world—or when my own world is hemming me in or eluding me or hurting me.

  In my lap is Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. I give a snort, get up and put the book back. Then I reach up to one of the higher shelves, run my finger along the spines without looking at the titles and eventually grab one and pull it out: Kafka’s Trial. I reach up again, take down the book next to it and look at the cover: Kafka’s Judgment.

  I put the books back where they belong. I have to stop playing games and face up to reality.

  My eyes fall on the grand piano. When we first moved in, Philip used to play a lot. But the more he worked, the less time he had to play and his favourite bands on vinyl began to replace the organic sound of the piano. I remember the first time he played to me, something pretty and light—Mozart, I think. It was lovely, listening to him. After a while, he had moved over on the piano stool and patted the empty space beside him. I sat down and Philip began to explain the instrument to me, and I was happy because he was happy—and because of his dimples, which appeared whenever he was having fun. His dimples and that contented little laugh of his. He taught me a piece, a very easy one that we could play together and that only required me to play a single key at a specified time. We giggled. I got it wrong a few times—it was great fun. I had, of course, had piano lessons in my childhood for a few years and was quite capable of playing the Flea Waltz, but I didn’t tell Philip—he was enjoying teaching me far too much. Philip liked being the expert. I often pretended I couldn’t do something or didn’t know something because it gave him such pleasure to show me things and explain them to me. How to change a tyre. How to use a drill. Classical music, modern art. I would sometimes make myself a little smaller, because I liked it when he was big. Looking back, that was stupid of me.

  A sudden thought spurs me to my feet. The piano! It annoys me that I didn’t think of it when Barbara Petry was here. The piano will blow his cover! What are the chances he can play as well as Philip?

  At present all my hopes are pinned on the DNA test. But it will take time. Barbara Petry is going to ‘see to it’—her words as she was leaving—and I shall have to ‘be patient for a few days’. It is, I think, probably wise to keep out of the stranger’s way until then, but remembering him sitting in my kitchen with his feet up, dr
inking beer, I am flooded with energy. I don’t want him thinking he can park himself here as easily as that.

  I gallop up to the first floor, taking the stairs two at a time.

  At the top I pause. Where is he? Instinctively I head for the spare room. I always feel a little uneasy coming in here to air it or do the dusting—unused rooms with their strange smell freak me out, like anything absolved of its function. If there are ghosts anywhere in the house, then it’s here. The spare room is small, with a window overlooking the garden. A bed, a bedside cupboard, a little wardrobe and a tiny occasional table are the only furniture. I never have guests anyway.

  I fling open the door. I had expected the stranger to be here, but all the same I get a fright when I find myself face to face with him.

  His leather holdall is on the bed. I’m just in time to see him slip something in and pull the zip shut with a jerk.

  ‘What have you got there?’ I ask, instantly on the alert.

  ‘What?’

  ‘What did you put in your bag just now?’

  ‘Nothing,’ says the stranger, without looking at me.

  ‘A weapon?’ I ask.

  He snorts.

  ‘Of course not! Sarah, please!’

  ‘May I see?’ I ask, making a grab for the bag. But the stranger intervenes.

  ‘Is that what you’ve come for?’ he asks. ‘To search my bag?’

  ‘No,’ I say. ‘I came to ask if you wouldn’t like to play me something on the piano.’ I find it hard to conceal the note of triumph in my voice.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ the stranger says.

  ‘What don’t you understand?’ I ask. ‘Philip always loved playing the piano for me. And since you’re claiming to be Philip, I thought it would be nice if you played me something.’

  The stranger turns pale. There is a pause. The silence swells and throbs between us.

  ‘Well?’ I ask. ‘How about it?’

  The stranger stands there like a monolith. The way that everything I say bounces off him drives me mad. The way he thinks he can make himself at home in my spare room drives me mad. I step past him, make another grab for his bag and yank at the zip.

  What happens next goes very fast. Only split seconds.

  The stranger lunges at me. He tears the bag out of my hands and it slides to the floor.

  ‘Stay away from my things!’ he shouts—so near that I feel his hot breath on my face. ‘Stay away from my things!’ He swoops into the middle of the room, grabs hold of the little solid wood table and hurls it at the wall. It falls to the floor with a crash, lies there like a wounded animal, wood splintered like bones.

  I stare at the stranger. He is breathing heavily. There is something primeval in his gaze, his pupils so large that his eyes look completely black. Never have I seen such fury.

  ‘You’d better go now,’ he says into the silence.

  ‘If you think you can drive me away, you’re wrong,’ I spit at him. ‘You have no idea who you’re dealing with.’

  ‘You’re hysterical,’ says the stranger with relish. ‘If you could see yourself! Carry on like this and you’ll end up in the psychiatric ward! Do you realise that?’

  I steady myself and stick out my chin. Inside, I may be shaken, but I’m not going to let anyone terrorise me in my own house.

  ‘Don’t you threaten me,’ I say. ‘I know exactly what you’re thinking. You look at me and you see a small, delicate woman. The perfect victim. But you have no idea who you’re dealing with. You’re talking to a woman who went six months without sleeping for even an hour at a stretch when her husband disappeared, but still didn’t miss a single day of work. You’re talking to a woman who has done five triathlons over the last year. You’re talking to a woman who intervenes when there’s a fight on the underground while everyone else just looks on. You’re talking to a woman who would give her right arm for her child—and I don’t mean that as a figure of speech. That’s the woman you’re dealing with. That’s me. And let me tell you one thing: I’m not afraid of you. I’ve been through worse than this.’

  The stranger looks at me and says nothing.

  ‘I don’t know who’s sent you,’ I say. ‘I don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing. But believe me, you’re going to regret that you ever came. And now,’ I say, sarcastic, ‘what about that damn piano?’

  The stranger doesn’t reply. He doesn’t move a muscle. I’m not going anywhere, he seems to say.

  I storm out of the room, run down the stairs, sit at the piano, lift the lid and bash the keys as hard as I can. The noise is awful and dissonant and beautiful—it sounds like my anger, like my despair, and I bash and bash the piano until I’m out of breath, until my ears are buzzing, until my arms are numb, until I can’t anymore.

  Then I get up. The piano strings reverberate for a while longer. That’s it. I’ve had enough. I don’t care what happens. I don’t want to have to see this man anymore.

  ‘Either you leave my house this second,’ I call up the stairs, ‘or I’m ringing the police.’

  Without waiting for a reply, I return to the living room and take the phone from the charging station. The stranger appears. I almost expect him to attack me, to wrest the phone from me, but he just stands in the doorway, an impenetrable look on his face.

  ‘Go on,’ he says, ‘go ahead!’

  He looks at me challengingly.

  ‘But if you ring the police now, you’ll lose everything—your house, your job, your son, your whole beautiful life.’

  For a second I’m thrown.

  What does he know? What does he think he knows?

  I stare at his face. For an eternity, for two eternities. He withstands my gaze.

  No.

  He’s bluffing.

  I begin to dial.

  ‘Perhaps you weren’t responsible after all,’ the stranger says. ‘You should tell that to the police—they might even believe you.’

  I stare at him. Something inside me shifts; something is released and floats slowly to the surface—something bad. I am standing outside a door. Behind it there is a rumbling sound. For a split second everything goes black and I see nothing. Only darkness, blackness, night, the door, the rumbling, Philip. And blood. Blood on my hands.

  I tear open my eyes.

  What was that?

  A noise leaves my throat such as I have never heard before.

  I swallow.

  The stranger looks at me.

  What does he want?

  I notice that I am holding the phone in my hand.

  I notice that I am lowering it.

  Slowly.

  Putting it down.

  Carefully.

  The stranger looks at me a moment longer, then disappears.

  The stranger

  I am alone. That’s good. I breathe. Get my bearings. Remind myself I have every reason to be here.

  I simply walked out and left her, and she didn’t follow me. I take the necessary equipment out of my bag. Without making a sound I open the door, go to the bathroom at the end of the passage and lock myself in. I look at my face in the mirror above the basin.

  ‘Philip Petersen,’ I say and have to laugh. I almost scare myself—I never laugh, or only for a particular purpose: to reassure someone, express agreement, signal social belonging, dispel tension. Things like that.

  I set everything out and shake the can of shaving cream. I prepare to shave off the beard I have grown, but then I think better of it, and put the razor down on the side of the basin.

  Back in the room, I take the mobile phone out of my bag. I switch it on, dial, let it ring for a long time, hang up. I dial again—nothing. I fight back my disappointment. Keep going. I switch the phone off and put it back in my bag. I sit down and look about me. A spare room. Bright. Bare.

  I don’t really need the information I’m waiting for. She has guilt written all over her face, and her fear of the police leaves me in no doubt.

  But before I act, I need to know the
details.

  Sarah

  I feel like the main character in Leo’s favourite fairytale. It’s as if I’m living in the Snow Queen’s palace, where everything is made of ice: the walls, the furniture, the rugs, the pictures—even the people. I crawl under the quilt to warm myself, shaking with cold although it’s the middle of summer. I think of Leo, wonder how he’s feeling, what he must make of this situation. He’s safe with Miriam and Martin, and I’m glad, but I’ve never felt so alone.

  I hadn’t realised how desperately I needed to sleep until I almost passed out.

  Night has fallen—and whatever tomorrow may bring, I must face it halfway rested, at least. I feel uneasy letting the stranger out of my sight, but I can’t watch him 24/7—that’s something I’ve had to face up to. He can’t get in my bedroom—I’ve barricaded myself in, locking the door and wedging a chair under the doorhandle so that nothing can happen to me—or at least that’s the idea.

  Who knows what he’s doing. Is he asleep? Plotting? Making phone calls? Thinking? Laughing at the clueless Barbara Petry and the helpless Sarah Petersen? What does he know? How deep down into our past has he dug? Does he know things I don’t know? How well did I know my husband? How well do I know myself? And always the nagging question: why is he doing this? Why is he pretending to be my husband?

  The whole thing is absurd. There must be some way of unmasking him—here, now, not in a few days or weeks. The birthmark, I think. I’m too upset to stay in bed. I get up, grab my phone and open the camera app. No, that’s idiotic—but it makes me think of my conversation with Hansen, who implied when I first spoke to him that the man they found in the jungle camp had suffered some form of abuse. Is that why Barbara Petry protected him so fiercely?

  I have another idea and activate the dictation app instead. At first the stranger seemed in complete control, but since he freaked out earlier today, I know there are cracks in the facade. Maybe I can get him to say something rash if I provoke him again. I take the chair from under the doorhandle and turn the key in the lock, carefully, without making a sound. Still, I hesitate before opening the door. What if he’s lying in wait for me?