Bernhard Aichner - Woman of the Dead - A Thriller

‘Please stop. Dunya, please. I only want to talk to you.’

‘Why? What do you want? How do you know my name?’

‘From Mark.’

‘Get lost.’

‘I’m his wife.’

‘You’d better get lost.’

‘Wait! Talk to me, just for a minute. Please.’

‘I’ve talked enough.’

‘I know.’

‘You don’t know anything.’

‘I know all about it. I’ve heard the recordings.’

‘That bastard.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Did the two of you enjoy it? Listening in on me? Did you sit back and eat popcorn? Was it a good show?’

‘No.’

‘He told me no one would ever hear what I said.’

‘He never played it to anyone.’

‘But you’re here, right?’

‘I was going to delete everything on his mobile. And then I stumbled on his conversations with you.’

‘I’d like you to go away and never come near me again.’

‘I’m Blum.’

‘And I’m Dunya, so now get lost.’

‘Mark took everything you said very seriously.’

‘I don’t want you knowing my story.’

‘It’s too late for that now.’

‘I want you to go away.’

‘He believed you. And he liked you.’

‘Well, that didn’t do me any good. First he squeezes the story out of me, then he leaves me high and dry. He’s no different from the others.’

‘No, he was different.’

‘Then why hasn’t he come back?’

‘He would have come back, you really can believe me.’

‘He told me he’d take care of everything. He said he’d help me. So why didn’t he? Go on, tell me. Why not?’

‘Because he’s dead.’

‘What? What did you say?’

‘He died four weeks ago.’

‘How?’

‘In an accident.’

‘Please, no.’

‘I think of it every minute of every day. But he’s dead and he won’t be coming back. We’re on our own. Do you understand?’

‘How did it happen? How did he die?’

‘He was run over.’

‘What happened to the driver?’

‘It was a hit and run. The driver hasn’t been traced. He disappeared.’

‘Oh no. Please no.’

‘Mark died instantly.’

‘You’d better keep away from me.’

‘Why?’

‘I really did think it would be all right. Believe me, I didn’t want that to happen.’

‘Didn’t want what to happen?’

‘Didn’t want him to die.’

‘It was an accident.’

‘That was no accident.’

They sit at the kitchen table. Blum has cooked, for Reza, Karl, the children and Dunya. She brought the woman home with her, led her back to the car park and got her into her car. Blum ignored Dunya’s protests and dismissed her objections; she wasn’t going to let the woman out of her sight. Blum wanted to know what Dunya meant when she said it was no accident. She shouted at Dunya, begging her to tell her what she knew. But Dunya merely shook her head, apologising over and over again. She tried to escape but Blum restrained her. Wordlessly, anxiously, they sat in the car as Blum drove to the villa. Dunya didn’t want anyone else to get hurt. I’m so sorry , she said.

Dunya seemed surprised to find that the villa and garden belonged to an undertakers’ business. Hesitantly, she shook hands with Reza and Karl, and did not move from Blum’s side. She was shaken, overwhelmed by so much hospitality, by the fact these people she didn’t know were smiling at her. As Karl opened the wine he didn’t hear Dunya asking in a whisper why Blum had done it, why she had brought her home, why she hadn’t simply looked away like all the others.

Blum was burning inside, but she tried to smile and said nothing. All she wanted was the truth. She wanted to know exactly what had happened to Mark, and she wanted to persuade Dunya to stay. In silence, she tipped spaghetti into boiling water. Dunya couldn’t hear any of what was going on inside Blum. Doubt, fury, hatred. Soundlessly, Blum was screaming for the truth. If you’re lying, then stop. If you’re telling the truth then get out, leave us in peace, don’t put us in harm’s way. I wish you’d just say something, Dunya. Say something? I want to see what’s there. After that I’ll throw you back into the sea, I just want to know if what you say can be true. Or if you’re out of your mind. Because surely it can’t be true. No one would ever do such things to you. Dunya, tell me you were just using Mark because you were lonely, because you needed someone to listen to you and take you in his arms. Tell me that. Anything else is madness. No human being could endure it. Tell me it isn’t all true. Please .

Blum was staring at Dunya with a forced smile. She wore that smile while the pasta cooked, minutes passing without words, only the meeting of glances and the chopping of onions. She wanted to weep, scream, fly off the handle; she wanted to switch everything off – Dunya, this day, life. Simply turn off a switch as she was dicing the tomatoes. But for the moment she needed to act as if everything were all right, as if none of it had happened. Smile, lift the corners of your mouth, and press your lips together. How she was burning, how her ideas were tumbling over one another. Because the mere idea of what the woman had been through was so inhuman.

And now they sit eating the pasta and it feels almost as though Dunya has always been there, at the large kitchen table. They don’t talk about Mark, although there is nothing Blum would have liked more, nor do they talk about the undertakers’ business. There is no talk of their dead. They just talk about the weather, the approaching autumn, about the garden that Karl and Reza will be preparing for winter. And about the children. Uma and Nela are curious, and want to know more about this stranger in their home. They have shown her everything, and willingly let her have their bedroom. Taking her hands in theirs, they have shown Dunya round the house; she is their mother’s new friend and an old acquaintance of their father. It doesn’t seem to bother them, or anyone else round the table, that she says so little. They eat and drink, an extended family at the dining table with spaghetti, salad and wine. Plenty of wine. After Blum has put the little rascals to bed, they open another bottle, and it is almost an enjoyable evening, the first time since Mark’s death that they have all come together. Wine washes the darkness away for a little while, and Karl even tells jokes. Then his eyes begin to close, and he falls asleep in his chair. Reza says goodnight and takes the old man upstairs.

Blum and Dunya are at the kitchen table, their glasses freshly filled. In another life this is where the day would be ending. But for these two it goes on, for hours if required. Blum has so many questions. Everything that Dunya said this afternoon fills the room. Now that they are alone again Blum is afraid of what Dunya was suggesting. That Mark’s death wasn’t an accident, but murder.

At the kitchen table, in the middle of the night, Dunya says so again. She believes that someone was lying in wait for Mark. Waiting for him to come out of the gates. One of those five men stepped on the accelerator and drove straight into Mark. Dunya knows it, senses it, does not believe in coincidences. It was murder, she says. Blum contemplates the possibility. There is so much that is hidden.

‘Please, Dunya. How can you be so sure?’

‘Because I got to know those men. They’d do anything to avoid being caught. They’d spend the rest of their lives in prison for what they did.’

‘You’re talking about murder.’

‘Yes.’

‘Mark never harmed anyone.’

‘He stirred up a hornets’ nest. The last time we met, he told me that he might have found one of the men. The photographer.’