The Stranger Upstairs

by Melanie Raabe

  ‘You see?’ I say. ‘That’s the kind of man Philip was.’

  I swallow again and glance apprehensively at the stranger. He’s staring straight ahead, and it’s impossible to interpret his expression.

  ‘But I insisted,’ I say. ‘On a third and last attempt.’

  The stranger is silent.

  ‘You knew my husband, didn’t you?’

  Still the stranger is silent.

  ‘If you know Philip, then you know what a good man he is.’

  Something stirs in the stranger’s face. Something is working in him—a new thought, perhaps, or a half-forgotten memory that has been washed to the surface. Then I see his Adam’s apple jump. He turns to face me, looks me in the eye. I have trouble holding his gaze, but I don’t look away.

  ‘I am Philip Petersen,’ he says. He doesn’t bat an eyelid. ‘I was born on a rainy day in Hamburg. My father was called Philip, like me. My mother’s name is Constanze. I am married. I have a son called Leo.’

  He reels it off like a dull poem.

  I jump up. I can’t listen to any more of this con man’s parroted lines.

  ‘Everyone thinks we named our son after Leonard Cohen,’ the stranger says. ‘But in fact he’s named after my wife’s great-grandfather.’

  I pause, mid-step.

  ‘We got married in Las Vegas,’ he says. ‘You wanted tattoos instead of wedding rings, but I talked you out of it.’

  I turn round.

  ‘You like Radiohead because it makes you sad, and the Beatles because they make you happy.’

  I stare at him.

  ‘Once we were out jogging in the woods and had to climb a tree to escape a herd of wild boar.’

  I crouch down in front of him.

  ‘We once raised a young swift that had fallen out of its nest.’

  I stretch out my arms.

  ‘We promised each other we’d go to the woods at the next eclipse of the sun to find out whether the birds stop singing.’

  I take his face in my hands.

  ‘I’m sorry I wasn’t there, Sarah,’ he says. ‘Forgive me.’

  I put my face very close to his. I feel my throat seize up. I swallow.

  ‘Please,’ I say. ‘Please tell me where my husband is.’

  There is a long pause. The stranger looks straight at me, and only at me.

  ‘Are you even sure you want him back?’ he asks.

  ‘Of course I am!’ I swallow the gall that has risen in my throat. ‘I loved my husband,’ I say. ‘More than anything else.’

  ‘Sarah, please,’ says the stranger, his eyes cold and dark. ‘We both know that’s not true.’

  ‘Please,’ I repeat. ‘Stop it. I can’t take any more.’

  Again something stirs in his face, and for a brief, irrational moment, I think he’s going to burst into tears. Instead he gives a short, bitter laugh, shakes off my hands and gets up.

  ‘You want to know where your husband is?’ he asks.

  I nod. Idiot that I am, I’m still hoping there’s some way of softening this man.

  ‘He’s standing right in front of you,’ he says, with an ugly smile that sends shivers down my spine. Then he turns and walks off.

  I jump up, livid with rage, and set off after him, into the house. I catch up with him in the kitchen.

  ‘I was right,’ I say, when he turns to face me.

  He looks as if he’s on the point of losing his patience.

  ‘You did know Philip. How else could you know such a lot about us?’

  He sighs as if he were as fed up with all this carry-on as I am.

  I walk round the kitchen table and come to stand in front of him. I think to myself that if I laid my hand on his chest, my cheek wouldn’t fit exactly into the hollow of his neck—that it wouldn’t feel right.

  ‘You’re shorter than Philip,’ I say. ‘Not a lot—only a few centimetres. But still, noticeably shorter.’

  I look him in the face. Something flashes in his eyes—something hard and dangerous.

  ‘Your eyes are quite different from Philip’s,’ I continue. ‘You’re doing a pretty good job, I must say—you’ve fooled a lot of people. But how long do you think you can keep this up? How long before it all comes out?’

  He says nothing. There is no stirring of emotion.

  Surprise him, I think. ‘Let’s assume I’m prepared to believe you,’ I say.

  He gives a snort.

  ‘No, really,’ I say. ‘I’m prepared to believe you. I only ask one thing of you first.’ Soon I’ll have him.

  He looks at me quizzically.

  ‘Only one thing,’ I repeat.

  ‘What?’

  ‘I’d like to see you stripped to the waist.’

  ‘Stripped to the waist?’

  I nod.

  ‘What for?’

  ‘I want to see your chest,’ I say, ignoring his question.

  ‘What for?’ he repeats. ‘What are you playing at?’

  ‘All I want is to see the little birthmark on your chest,’ I say teasingly. ‘That’s not a lot to ask—is it, Philip?’ I raise my eyebrows expectantly. ‘Well?’

  ‘No,’ says the stranger.

  ‘No?’ I echo scornfully. ‘I ask this one little favour of you, and you say no?’

  The stranger doesn’t reply.

  ‘I thought as much,’ I say, angry now. I move quickly, surprising him. I give his T-shirt a yank, pull it up a little. He shrinks back, but I have already seen the scar tissue covering his skin.

  This throws me for a moment. The stranger’s glare is savage, like a wounded animal’s. He looks more dangerous than ever.

  I glare back at him, then turn on my heel to leave the kitchen. In the doorway I pause.

  ‘I’m going to ring your good friend Barbara Petry now,’ I say. ‘It’s time you took that DNA test.’

  ‘There won’t be a DNA test,’ the stranger says.

  The stranger

  She’s wearing me down. She’s been talking at me ever since she got back. She doesn’t let up—follows me all over the place, pesters me. It’s too much. I don’t know when I last slept. My headache is now so intense that little flashes of light keep flickering across my field of vision. My nerves are in shreds. I can feel myself cracking up.

  I look at her—she’s exhausted, but her tired face is contorted with anger, with hate, and for a moment I think she’s going to set on me. I feel something that scares me: joy. No, not joy. That’s not the word, even if it feels similar. What do you call it?

  That’s right: glee. I feel malicious, sweet-tasting glee.

  Gradually it dawns on me: I’m enjoying this.

  I didn’t come here to torture her. That wasn’t the plan.

  I’m here to do what has to be done. I need to put an end to all this as soon as I can.

  But it pleases me to see her so desperate.

  It frightens me, too.

  Next time I lose control, it won’t just be a little table that gets broken.

  Sarah

  I don’t know why I’m so shocked. I should have been expecting it—and yet a single sentence from the stranger has thrown me completely off balance. I feel myself sway and have to steady myself against the doorframe to stop myself keeling over.

  ‘Say that again,’ I manage to get out.

  ‘There won’t be a DNA test,’ the stranger says.

  Then he turns away as if the matter were settled, opens the fridge door and takes out a strawberry yoghurt. Philip hates strawberry yoghurt. The stranger fetches a clean spoon from the dishwasher, opens the yoghurt pot, sits down at the kitchen table and begins to eat.

  ‘Oh yes, Mirko rang,’ he says, in between spoons. ‘Kiss kiss!’

  Then he resumes eating. Cool as a cucumber, as if I weren’t there.

  Furious, I storm out of the kitchen and up the stairs to my bedroom, lock the door behind me and throw myself on the bed. I’d like to cry, but I can’t—I’m too tired or too angry or both. Then my anger pre
vails and I’m on my feet again, unlocking the door and flinging it open so that it slams into the wall. I hurry back down to the kitchen and find the stranger with two empty yoghurt pots in front of him, about to start on a third.

  ‘Tell me what you’ve done to my husband,’ I demand.

  ‘I am your—’

  ‘Then show me the birthmark on your chest!’

  He shakes his head.

  ‘I’ll answer any question you like,’ he says. It sounds almost conciliatory, but his eyes flash scornfully.

  ‘Okay, tell me your name,’ I demand.

  ‘Philip Petersen,’ he says.

  I grab a coffee cup from the dresser and dash it against the wall. It shatters noisily and the pieces fall to the floor. ‘For Christ’s sake!’ I shout. ‘Tell me what you’ve done to my husband! Is he dead? Is he? Is my husband dead? Have you killed him? Talk to me, you bastard!’

  He can see it in my face, I can tell. He can see that I’m about to lose all control, wild with rage. He can see it and he smiles.

  ‘But Sarah, darling,’ he says, relishing each word. ‘I am your husband!’

  ‘You are not!’ I shout. ‘You’re nothing like Philip. You’re the complete opposite of Philip!’

  The stranger gets up, throws away the empty yoghurt pots and puts his spoon in the sink. He crouches down and gathers up the pieces of broken cup and throws them in the bin too. When he’s done, he leaves the kitchen without a word.

  I stand there for a few seconds, then storm upstairs, throw myself on the bed again and press the pillow down over my head. But I find no peace—even the silence is loud. If he’s trying to drive me mad, he’s succeeding.

  I take the pillow off my head, roll over and stare up at the ceiling. A big fly keeps bumping against it with a strange, soft thump, and as I watch it I wonder how many people before me have lain in this room staring at the ceiling.

  Directly above my head I notice fine cracks I’ve never seen before. I’ve made those cracks with my thoughts, I think, averting my gaze. I see Philip and Leo and me together in this bed and close my eyes.

  I hesitated for a long time about whether or not to have children. Philip didn’t have any doubts—he told me very early on in our relationship how much he was looking forward to being a father. I wasn’t lying to the stranger on that count. Any scepticism was on my side. Philip thought I was afraid of forfeiting my independence, but it wasn’t that. And it wasn’t—or at any rate, not only—that I was worried I wouldn’t be able to protect my child from the world. I wasn’t afraid I’d be a bad mother—I was afraid he’d be a bad father. Philip hated his father. Petersen Senior was a cold tyrant. In his eyes, Philip could do no right, and he ended up shunting him off to boarding school. Philip never forgave his father for sending him away, unable or unwilling to suffer his presence for more than five minutes at a time. And don’t we all turn into our parents in the end?

  It was a long time before I was able to talk to Philip about it.

  How do you tell your husband you don’t think he’s fit to be a father? It was unfair of me—I know that now. But it was the way I thought at the time.

  I’ll never forget that conversation—it’s branded on my mind.

  ‘What if you turn out like your father without meaning to?’ I’d asked, fearful of how he might react. Philip laughed, but not at me—he just laughed his typical optimistic laugh.

  ‘I’ve wondered that too,’ he said. ‘It’s what they say, isn’t it? That women turn into their mothers and men into their fathers.’

  To this day I don’t know what he found so funny about that, but after a while he grew serious.

  ‘I promise you, I’d rather die than turn into my father.’

  I try to read his expression.

  ‘You’ll be patient with our children?’

  ‘As patient as a saint.’

  ‘You’ll like having them around? You won’t ever send them away?’

  Philip took my face in his hands and looked me in the eyes.

  ‘I swear that I will never send any child of ours away. Hell will freeze over before that happens. I promise you.’

  He promised and I believed him. My husband may have had his faults, but one thing you could rely on: he always kept his promises.

  I think of Mirko and my hard-heartedness towards him.

  I think of Leo.

  I can’t work out how it all hangs together. But I’m going to find out. All roads lead to Philip. Maybe I’ve been trying to approach things from the wrong angle. In a few hours, when it’s morning, I’ll get in touch with the police and the Foreign Ministry and try to find out as much as possible about Philip’s kidnapping. I still know far too little. The file I’ve started hardly tells me anything that might get me anywhere, but I grab it all the same and put it on my desk. Then I boot up my laptop, open a Word document and begin to type up what few relatively uncontroversial facts I know.

  In 2008, Philip went to South America on a business trip.

  The trip was to last five days.

  Philip was often in Colombia on business.

  The trips were routine.

  I said goodbye to Philip at the front door.

  He promised to be in touch every day as usual.

  A bare twenty-four hours later, Philip sent me a text telling me he’d landed safely and all was well.

  That was the last time I heard from him.

  A colleague who had accompanied him to Colombia said that Philip had set off alone for a meeting with a potential investor.

  He never turned up at the luxury hotel in Bogotá where he was expected.

  Somewhere between his hotel and his business partner’s hotel he went missing.

  There was nothing to point to kidnap, although apparently with a rich man like Philip that can never be ruled out.

  There was no letter claiming responsibility.

  There was no ransom note.

  There was no evidence of any kind. Nothing.

  And then, seven years later, almost to the day, a man turns up claiming to be Philip, and I am fed a story which is, rationally speaking, utterly implausible. I am told that Philip was kidnapped by guerrillas in Colombia and taken to a camp in the jungle. It is assumed that the first ransom note somehow went astray, and that the kidnappers didn’t make a second attempt. Nobody knows exactly why, but it’s sure to come out—internecine conflicts, perhaps, something of that sort. Whatever happened, the kidnappers didn’t kill their hostage. They simply waited—for years. And I’m supposed to believe that, after seven years, nearly a dozen hostages were suddenly released and the German entrepreneur Philip Petersen happened to be among them?

  I scan the room for my handbag, find it, open it, rummage around in it for my phone. Johann, I think. I need to get hold of Johann. It can’t wait any longer. Johann has influence—he can help me unmask the impostor and get rid of him. No one will dare call him mad. When I find my phone, I stare in alarm at the display: thirty-eight missed calls. One from Miriam and thirty-seven from a withheld number. I frown. Just as I’m about to check my voicemail, the phone starts to ring in my hand. I stare at it: another withheld number. It’s late. Hardly anyone has this number. Who could it be?

  ‘Hello?’ I say.

  I hear someone breathing, feel them waiting. Then whoever it is hangs up.

  I drop the phone on my bed as if it might bite me. What’s going on? I close my eyes for a second. Then I force myself to pick up the phone again and dial Johann’s number. I let it ring for a long time, my heart thudding hopefully against my ribcage, but again I have no luck. I hang up and check my voicemail—nothing. While I’m at it, I check my emails too, something I’ve done my best to avoid so far. In my inbox are a newsletter, an advertisement, a message from my boss with information about the new school year—and an email from Mirko, sitting there with no subject line and staring at me reproachfully. I log out. Then I check my texts and find three unread messages from Miriam.

  My pulse immediat
ely shoots up. Please let Leo be all right, please let Leo be all right. I open the first text, from 8.30 pm.

  All well, sweetie, but give me a ring when you get this. Miri.

  I click it away and open the next one.

  Sarah, I can’t get hold of you. I’d hoped to speak to you before I started putting Emily to bed, but there’s something you ought to see. Link to follow. Read the comments. They’re all over the net—under all the articles about Philip. This is just an example. Miri.

  I don’t understand a thing, click this text away too and open the last. In it is only a link and the words: I’m so sorry. Hope you’re OK. Let’s talk tomorrow. I’m sure something can be done. Miri.

  My first impulse is to put the phone down and ignore the whole thing. Whatever Miriam may have come across, I’m sure I have worse problems. But my curiosity gets the better of me and I follow the link. I jump when I see where it leads. A photo appears on the small screen of my phone: the stranger—a smile on his face, Leo in his arms—and me beside him, looking vacant. That was at the airport yesterday. No, the day before yesterday.

  ‘Hamburg Man Home at Last’, it says above the photo. I feel sick to my stomach and decide to spare myself the ordeal of reading the article. Following Miriam’s instructions, I scroll down to the comments and read a few. I can’t at first find anything out of the ordinary, but then I see it. I blink. I am, apparently, an opportunistic whore who married Philip Petersen for his money, trapped him with a child and slept with half the town in his absence.

  I’m flabbergasted. Aren’t online comments supposed to be moderated? Who would leave such vile slander, such foul abuse, up there for the world to see?

  If Miriam’s right—and why would she lie?—there are comments like these posted everywhere, under every article about Philip Petersen’s homecoming. This isn’t just some troll making a random attack—this is a targeted campaign. Someone is trying to drag me through the mud—to destroy my credibility.

  What if Leo finds out? Or the neighbours? My colleagues? My pupils?

  Is this what the stranger meant when he said I’d lose everything if I didn’t keep quiet? Is this the first step of his plan?