Bernhard Aichner - Woman of the Dead - A Thriller

‘It was a psychiatric hospital. You kept me there, I couldn’t get away. It was a secure ward. That doctor spent two weeks trying to persuade me that it didn’t happen. He wanted to hear me say I was making it up. So in the end I said OK, he was right, and I left. I took the first opportunity to disappear. I’m only a drug-addicted illegal trying not to be thrown out of your country, that’s all.’

‘No, there’s much more to it than that. I’ll listen until you’ve finished your story.’

‘You wanted to be rid of your little problem as quickly as possible.’

‘I asked you about it in the hospital, and you could have talked to me then, but you kept quiet.’

‘Sometimes it’s best to keep quiet.’

‘Listen, I want those men arrested. I am absolutely convinced that you are telling the truth.’

‘Why?’

‘I’ve seen it in your eyes.’

‘Seen what?’

‘Fear and horror. That was genuine.’

‘Just go away.’

‘Tell me your name.’

‘I don’t know my name, or my age. That’s the only way I can stay. That’s what they told us when they smuggled us in.’

‘My name is Mark.’

‘I don’t want to know.’

‘I have a wife and two children. I live in Elisabethstrasse, and I’m going to stay here until you talk to me.’

‘Mark, then?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Switch that thing off, Mark.’

‘It’s only for me. No one else will hear it.’

Through the handset, Blum hears his voice and the voice of Dunya. A homeless woman telling her story. Mark telling her about his private life to make her trust him. Hesitantly, Dunya began to remember, opening up more and more. He didn’t talk to Blum about her, didn’t tell her anything, not a word, although the case was clearly occupying his mind. Mark was trying to put a mistake right, talking to her in his own time. There are over twenty files on his phone, always with her voice. Twenty conversations with a woman whose experiences are unimaginable. Conversations that Blum should never have heard, detailed accounts of a crime, recorded around the city: under the motorway, in his car, in underground car parks, in secret, hidden places. Dunya was afraid, terribly afraid, and Mark took her fear seriously.

Blum checks the dates; she wants to know if there is more, she wants to know it all now, at once. They met over a period of two weeks. Their last meeting was on the day before the accident. Sometimes Dunya broke off the conversation because her memories hurt her, because she was afraid it would all happen again. The horror: the five men down in the cellar, the groans, the pain, the screaming. As the story of the crime comes over the little loudspeaker Blum knows she is listening to something extraordinary. She sits in Mark’s study for hours on end, listening to those two voices. Again and again she wants to stop the recording and delete those files. She doesn’t want to hear his voice comforting Dunya; she doesn’t want to hear her weeping in his arms during their fourth conversation. She would rather not imagine it. Wordless minutes, the closeness that she can sense between them. His closeness to another woman. Blum sits alone at his desk. Never mind what Dunya went through, never mind if it was purely pity on his part, Blum doesn’t want to know. Dunya was in his arms, and Mark was drying her tears.

Dunya. Blum thinks of her as she finishes her wine, gulping the last of it down. Why did she suddenly have to intrude, why couldn’t Blum just be content with the wine and Mark’s desk, why did she have to be curious? Why couldn’t she just return the phone to its default settings and sell it on the internet? Without wondering what it could tell her? Why now? Why did she now have to think of something so awful it was beyond belief? Why is his voice so beautiful? Why can’t she stop listening?

All night long she listens to Dunya and Mark. Until the sun rises, the wheel of time turns again and wrenches her out of his life. Until, dazed, she opens his study door and lies down in her bed. She waits until the children come and get into bed with her, snuggling up against her. They crawl under the covers, as they do every morning, and she takes time to soothe them, as she does every morning, too. She loves Uma and Nela, but her heart is pounding in her chest.

A Ducati Monster 900. The motorbike Mark doted on, his second great love after Blum, a magnificent machine. He could enthuse for hours about the purring of the engine, an incomparable sound, music to his ears. Mark had loved to ride fast, even where it was forbidden, speeding along the autobahn and the country roads. Never mind how much Blum worried, he had to do it. He wanted to feel the slipstream of air as the road passed by. I can’t help it. I’ll be back, darling, don’t worry. It’s not that bad, you’re exaggerating, my flower. He found it hard to explain just what it was that fascinated him so much about his Monster 900, his baby. A beauty of a motorbike. Two chatty men are now unloading it from the trailer.

It gleams in the sun, exactly as it was before. In fact it’s new, courtesy of the insurance company. Two weeks ago, Massimo asked her what she wanted to do: did she want the money or a replacement? Blum simply said yes, lost in thought, and asked Massimo to fix everything. Then, after a while, the phone call came saying it was about to be delivered. And here is his motorbike now. As if it were his voice. It is standing outside the villa; she almost thinks that Mark will come through the door and out into the garden any minute now and mount it. Almost. Blum gives the men a tip and sits down on the bench. You can see everything from the bench, the children, the gate leading from the garden out into the street, the motorbike. Blum just sits there, thinking about what happened last night. About Mark, and about Dunya, and what seems to have happened to her. What Dunya said, what she had experienced, what Mark believed. He saw it in her eyes. Even if the psychiatrist diagnosed her as delusional. But Mark saw it in her eyes.

It’s quiet on the bench. She wants to be taken in comforting arms, she would like to be back in his study, she would like to understand what happened. She wants to listen to it all again sober. It’s like a dream that she can only vaguely remember, a nightmare that she has rejected, pushing it out of her life. Blum doesn’t want to believe that the woman was telling the truth, she wants Mark to have been wrong, she wants confirmation that Dunya really was delusional. So it was nothing more than the fantasies of a drug addict. None of it is true. It mustn’t be true. Because her life can’t get worse than it already is. Because the sun is shining. Because the children are playing on the swing. Because this is the first time for weeks that Karl has come into the garden.

Karl has hardly said a word since Mark died. He withdrew to the second floor, sat in his armchair for days, shedding tears. Even the children couldn’t comfort him. He asked to be left in peace, said he wanted to be alone. It was only at Reza’s insistence that Karl opened his door and let them fill his fridge. Karl has lost his son. Karl tries to smile. Karl sits down beside her on the bench.

‘How are you doing, Blum?’

‘It still hurts all the time.’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s good to see you here with us.’

‘How about the children?’

‘They’ll live.’

‘And the motorbike?’

‘It’s back – over there.’

‘Why?’

‘Mark loved it.’

‘So he did.’

‘I’m going to ride it.’

‘Are you?’

‘Yes.’

‘But you’re afraid of it.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you still want to ride it?’

‘Fear is crippling.’